Okay! Okay! Eleanor it is. Here are a bunch of shots from the past two months that didn't make it into other posts. Mainly because I am slacking on the blogging front.
Here's our little E outside with a few of the neighbor boys. That's E, Zach, Miles and Grant. We love them all.
(Are you seeing her boots? I am.)
In the neighbor's little playhouse with Grant.
Some afternoons, playtime can get to be just too much.
She decided to chill on the lawn for a few. This is how I feel each and every day lately.
Enjoying the box that grandma sent some books in.
She likes the books too.
All dressed up waiting to go on an outing with daddy. She loves her white hat, but insists on wearing it with a sparkly pink headband on top. It's actually kind of cute. P.S. Can you see her adorable Pumas? Another sweet hand-me-down from her cousin Allie.
In one of daddy's law classroom. Any time he takes her there, people end up giving her stuff, like snacks. No one ever gives me snacks.
Did we mention the huge "mermaid" phase she is going through right now? This is a 6-12 month mermaid costume from Allie that neither girl actually wore at that age. Eleanor dug it out of a "too-small-box" and LOOOOVES it, even though it barely covers her bum.
Since then we have convinced her that half of her regular clothes are "mermaid clothes". Her old leggings and jeans are all now new-and-improved "mermaid pants", her shirts and dresses "mermaid shirts or dresses". At what age does it stop being a cute behavior-aid and turn into straight up lying?
Another too-small treasure she unearthed. A 12 month swimsuit. She KNOWS that anything swimmy is totally mermaid, and wants to wear swimsuits all the time. Now that it's so warm, it's pretty much her uniform. P.S. She is playing in the dresser drawers from the new-used dresser I got for the baby. I had tons of baking soda inside to kill the cologne smell, so she was sliding around making a fine old mess. Eh, she was happy and helping the baking soda do it's work. Win-win.
A new favorite pastime is finding/chasing/feeding ducks or geese. There is a nice (if awfully buggy) man-made lake nearby that has a bunch of them. Some of the geese are a little too forward. I was nipped by one when I was little and would not like her to get quite so close.
Oh, I should note that these are her new sunglasses that make her look like she's going skiing or something. Boy does she think they make her a cool cat though. It has a stretchy velcro strap so they actually stay on for a while. I found them at Target if anyone is interested.
These next pictures are from the day that Clayton had his massive 7 hour take home final. He needed an extra 2 hours or so to prepare so we tried to be gone all day long. It was one of the hardest days ever. We ran errands all over town, went to a movie (Remember her eating our spilled popcorn off the floor of the bathroom stall, sitting in the wrong theater for 20 minutes and later wetting my pants for me? Yeah, good-times.), we went to Lake Lansing, played on the toys there and then found a good duck locale.
Here she is at Lake Lansing. It was too windy for ducks that day.
But man did she love the water nonetheless.
On the swings there, she met a little friend and they spent a good half hour shouting "We funny mommy! We so funny!" They kind of were, especially since the other girl was about 5, I don't think her daddy thought it was as cute to have her shouting baby talk. What can I say? Eleanor is persuasive.
And here is E at the duck place. Eating disgusting 3 week old bread. Nice. Is this when we are thankful for preservatives? My picky eater who wont touch a sandwich with a 10 foot pole ate three whole pieces of stale white bread. Ugh. Um... why did I let her eat it in the first place? Remember the movie theater? I think I summed it up best with "Shudder, shudder, shrug."
I'd like to blame pregnancy, but I fear we have no one to answer to but ourselves. We have created a movie-monster. Once the weather was considerably nicer I thought E would be overjoyed to be outside playing with the neighbor kids. Sadly she was instead obsessed with her latest movie obsession. (This time it was Tarzan.) This was the only way to get her to stay outside for more than 45 seconds.
Eleanor is
always sometimes occasionally persuaded to share with Grant. He, however, is just the sweetest little angel. His mom may be laughing now, but he has to put up with a lot from Eleanor. I love that they are tiny enough to sit there together!
This is Eleanor's little friend Kinsley. We went over to their complex for a yard sale and K came running over, grabbed E's hand and they continued to walk around for a bit like little best friends. These two and also little Leah are hilarious at church together. So much so that we have to make an effort to get there early so we can sit far away from each other. Otherwise they have the most adorable little mini-reunions, hugging each other and holding hands and then being irreverent for the next hour-fifteen.
It's hard to reign it all in since they are so stinking cute!
Here is little Leah in between E and G. This was at Lake Lansing Park for a ward BBQ.
In which Eleanor was delighted to run amok.
That's what parks are for, right?
You probably can't see it in these tiny shots, but I love every little detail about this photo. Her tiny braided buns, her two dolls clutched possessively tight, her tiny socks and shoes, but most of all her little band-aid on her knee. She looks so much like a big-kid and little toddler all at once to me.
But the toddler side won out as we stopped for ice cream on the way home to appease her little temper.
One of the best parts of our duplex (next to another duplex, all filled with friends from the ward) is that we can communicate, watch each other and trade goodies from our kitchen windows. Eleanor has taken up the practice. She can't open the two glass sections, but if they are already open she can slide the screen section by herself. It's moderately safe/risky, but she is very good about not leaning out too far. I had to run something over to a neighbor while Clayton was with her at the table. She looked so cute there (in her swimsuit) that I had to grab my camera to take a picture.
But when I started to head out of her sight she was up-set! Silly little goose with her crocodile tears.
Getting her up from her nap-times (on the rare occasion that she actually sleeps) is still one of my favorite things. Her hair has always got this
Jane Birkin,
Bridget Bardot, perfectly messy thing going on that is so so cute to me. (P.S. I made their names into links so you wont 'google image' them. A few nakey pictures will come up. Yikes!)
And she is always in the funniest moods. Must be her dreams.
Sweet happy girl. We love her so much!
So many pies!
Kids playing in Eleanor & Winston's room.
A few days later I put Winston in the bouncer so I could run some laundry up and down the stairs without him being upset. On one of the trips down I found this.
Ohhhh, my poor baby! He fell asleep jumping. I was trying to get another angle and bumped the wall and he jerked awake by jumping. Like his legs got disrupted mid-signal. Such a cutie!
And a few days after that we had our ward Christmas party. I loved that they held it so early in the month before all the post-grad crowd take off. Here are three of my favorite girls.
And three more favorites.
The Primary kids sang two numbers. Cute Eleanor thought that she was supposed to be up there so she followed them all on stage. She's there in the red dress.
My three cuties.
Eliza got her face painted. Don't get me started on missing Eliza...
And Eleanor decorated a cookie.
While Winston smiled at everyone he saw.
Deaths all around! -That's for Megan, Tommy and family. We may use the phrase "You're killing me!" a bit too much when describing something cute. Thus, Winston is often "killing people" with his smile and dimple.
At home, Eleanor likes to amuse Winston as best she can.
Peekaboo! I wish I could have gotten his face, he just adores her.
As we got out our Christmas decor, Eleanor found some rather large socks. Ha ha.
All of our "real" Christmas stuff is in storage in Utah, but I keep finding things to make or buy at thrift stores here in Michigan. I only got to enjoy the decorations for a few days, but Clayton stayed for two weeks alone during finals, and we wanted it to be festive for him. So! We hung ornaments in the foyer...
(Ok, so these were a whole lot prettier in real life.)
...glittered some old bulbs from the thrift store...
... and decorated our honest-to-goodness Charlie Brown tree. I know, it's pathetic. I bought it our first year here as I couldn't stand not decorating even a little for the holidays, but I didn't want to spend too much. This tree was $2.50 and looking back, I think I should have splurged for the 4 foot one that was $6 at the thrift store. Oh well, a penny saved, right? (All of you who know me, stop laughing.) The 16 inch strand of green lights really makes it look spectacular, don't you think? I'm pretty sure Eleanor gets the magic of Christmas from all this splendor. 
Well, next up will be posts about our Utah trip!
