Escape Artist

So I think you can see what's happening in this picture.
Hint: What is in the lower left corner?

Naughty. And fast.

Yellow Slide, Happy Girl

We have some really nice parks here in East Lansing. One is a short 5 minute walk from our house so I try to take Eleanor there often. Ok, so I mean to take Eleanor there often. Luckily we have so many fun neighbor kids to play with and their backyards are like mini parks, so we are outside a lot. But back to the park, it's great. Eleanor loves it and is learning about slides. She still needs a little help on the set up, but she really enjoys the pay off.
Here are some pictures from a recent visit.

She is kind of a slide hog. Once she gets to the bottom she usually tries to climb back up, keeping the next child from going down. We are trying to teach her about turns and sharing. So far she isn't really getting it. She might hand you a cookie, but she expects it right back. She'll catch on soon enough, right?

You've Earned This

Here is a video of our sweet Eleanor a few days before her little accident. Just a cute shot of her eating mashed potatoes, giggling and showing us a little of her new tricks. Her latest tricks are shaking her head "no" and nodding "yes". You don't really get to see the tricks much, and she can't really nod yes, she mainly just lurches her whole body forward and backwards. But the giggling is adorable and sweet and a welcome change from the gore of the previous post. And in case you didn't get the update, she is healing incredibly fast and has been a happy camper all day today. Thanks for the sweet thoughts and prayers sent her way!

Eleanor's Eye of Sauron (Don't scroll down unless you have a strong constitution.)

*UPDATE!*
No stitches needed! Eleanor woke up today and the "eye" was totally shut. It hasn't opened or bled all day. I love the miraculous healing power of little kids. And yes, I know all this eye terminology is totally gross.

Gory story ahead, and gorier picture. Do not read if you are squeamish and definitely do not scroll down to see the picture unless you have a strong stomach.

I'm warning you!

Poor little Eleanor. She has been teething up a storm lately and as a result she walks around with her tongue sticking out. It's been kind of cute as she looks as if she is concentrating on something all the time. But sadly, today she took a tumble and bit into her tongue. Hard. I thought it wasn't anything much until I saw her mouth full of blood. Thankfully my neighbor Lexie was over and kept a cool head. Her extra pair of hands were heaven too, I don't know how I would've handled it all without her there. Once we got the majority of the bleeding down and a popsicle in her hand we could see that it was a serious gash. Seriously gross. Every time she used her tongue at all it would open the gash and bleed some more. It's about halfway though the depth of her tongue and it looks like an eye. I told you this was gross. If she holds still it stays "shut". But if she moves it a even a little it opens. Ugh. Lexie had heard that they rarely stitch up tongues in children as they would need to put them under or strap them to a board. And they usually heal up on their own in a day or two. Eleanor had calmed down, the bleeding had pretty much stopped and Instacare confirmed what we figured, so I decided to wait and see how she did. Aside from her trying to eat gravel (Seriously! The worst thing she could possibly choose. Heebie-jeebies, shudder, shudder, shudder.) she has been great. I think I will try to take her in tomorrow to see what the doc says and to make sure it's not infected, but otherwise it's just been a blip on the radar. Ok. Picture below, don't say I didn't warn you!
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I'm warning you! I'm warning you! I'm warning you!
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Danger Ahead!
Danger Ahead!
Danger Ahead!
Danger Ahead!
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You've been adequately warned!
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I warned you! Oh! I told you it was gross! Her tongue has it's own mouth/eye! Ullghhhrhhghrrgh! Seriously folks! Poor Clayton got a good look later this evening and nearly lost his dinner. I asked him if he hadn't seen it earlier, but he said he hadn't quite seen how deep it was. Luckily this picture doesn't quite show that. Blech! P.S. We tricked her with a popsicle stick to try and get a good picture. This wasn't hurting her at all, although she really wanted the popsicle stick. The neighbor kids got nice and grossed out too. Which is always kinda fun.

Sorry folks. And sorry mom and dad. I know seeing her with such an owie and not being able to hug her is truly painful. Again, she is doing great and has been sound asleep for a few hours now. Call me if you need updates.

Spring Happiness

We are behind on the blog, but we are finally a little more organized around the house. And I just got Eleanor's first year scrapbook done! I did a photobook using Snapfish and was thrilled with how easy it was. I can't wait until it gets here! This post is to catch up on a few weeks of candid pictures and odds and ends.

Have I mentioned that I love Spring? With the nicer weather we have been living outdoors, playing with all of our neighbors. Have I mentioned how much I love our neighborhood? We have the coolest neighbors and just love them all to death. Sadly we are losing the Oversons in less than a month, but I can't really address that or this will become a huge downer of a post. Seriously though, it's gonna suck. Moving on. Here are a bunch of shots from the past few outings and what not, in no particular order.

Eleanor enjoying the neighbor's sandbox turtle. She loves crawling on or in these things, we need to find one on Craigslist soon.

Eleanor riding the neighbor's little toy bikes...

Eleanor bathing in the neighbor's soda. Ok, so I provided the soda, but it was for the neighbor kids, not Eleanor. This one was leaking out the side and she was thrilled to soak it up. Mom, not so much.

Her cute, best friend Jasmine. We are going to miss her sweet face around here!

Miles is always such a sweetie to Eleanor.

And he is so photogenic.

Zach and Miles in a sweet albeit short moment.

Eleanor's new favorite snack is string cheese. Just thought you should know.

Making mom nervous with her balancing act. Today she was doing this and sneezed. It caused her to fall back on her head, but she was up and trying new, dangerous things in no time.

Zach and his girl Lauren. Two peas in a pod.

Eleanor adoring the Ruth's sweet new baby boy.

And next we have a few of E's latest deeds.

Back indoors, why can't I get the fridge to close?

Grilling (and growling) on our new (used) grill. Eleanor loves to watch Clayton cook. She knocks on the glass until he looks at her then giggles at whatever he does.

Growling back at dad.

See my vampire bites? Eleanor accidentally hit me with a bottle of lotion and it made two little blood blisters. Hurt like a mamma jamma. Sorry for the awkward closeup.

Eleanor has taken to hiding stuff around the house. I find things in the funniest and most frustrating spots. Keys, controllers, snacks, I-pods etc... Hair bow? In the water bottle case.

Cell phone? I can hear it ringing. Where the devil is it? Look closely. Yeah. It's in with the pans under the stove. That one only took half a day to find. Shoes are her latest favorite thing to carry around and misplace.

And finally her go-to expression when she is making mischief or having fun. A face this cute gets away with anything and everything.

I Mean, Come on!

I mean seriously people. What am I supposed to do?

Walking!

So little Miss Eleanor can finally walk! And actually chooses to do so. She was able to cruise furniture at 6 months, so we thought she would be an early walker, but nope. She's enjoyed crawling and is super fast at it, so I guess she never felt the need. She took her first step around 9 months but it wasn't until 2 days after her birthday that she decided to take three and four steps together. Now a month later she seems to actually like it. Here are a few short snippets of her drunkenly making her way around. She can now cross the entire room and even walk a bit outside on the uneven grass!

Easter Videos

Here are some short videos of us trying to get Eleanor to hunt for eggs. She would have been happy to just sit and shake her one egg for as long as we'd let her. She had a fun time and we loved watching her experience it all. In no particular order, and not a whole lot happens, but here is her second Easter!

Easter-y Good Times!

Today we gave Eleanor her Easter basket! We decided to do it today since she had a big egg hunt to attend. Might as well get all the excitement and candy done in one day so tomorrow we can be slugs and watch conference in our pajamas. She doesn't quite get the whole hidden bit, so we just set it in front of her.

She really liked her new sippy cups.Today our fun neighbor Lexie organized a great Easter egg hunt for our block. Everyone brought filled eggs for the kids and we then we had a potluck brunch. We had two egg hunts, one for the little crowd and one in the yard over for the older kids. It was perfect. Perfect weather (The forecasted rain held off til afternoon!), lots of friends and just enough activity for our wild bunch. (And then some seriously good brunch food, just saying.) As you can see, Eleanor had a great day. Here are a bunch of shots of her and her friends. I will post the video a little later.

Here is Eleanor showing her friend Leah her loot.

Lauren showing off her basket. She is so cute!

Jasmine, Lauren and Zach posing for the camera.Little Josh taking his eggs for a spin.

Miles! He is always so happy!Little Grant! Could he be sweeter?

The older kids seem to be ready for a nap after their grueling search. And then there are these guys.

Happy Easter everyone!