5 on Friday

1. At first I thought Eleanor wouldn't eat her breakfast for me because she was tired of the same old cereal. Then I realized that she just wanted her Daddy to feed it to her instead.

2. Friends of ours had an event happen in their lives that has made me think a lot about life and how I look at things. I quickly realize that all the 'little' things I complain about are nothing compared to what could happen. So the next time Ellie is fussy and I am getting a little frustrated, I will remind myself that having her fussy and in my life is better than not having her in my life.

3. We had a nice visit with our friends last weekend. I love watching Ellie interact with their little 2 1/2 year old and it will only continue to get better as Ellie gets older.

4. Any EASY and QUICK ideas for a 1 year old to give her day-care friends for Valentine's Day? I am thinking about using the clear bags and putting something in them, but don't know what would be original, cheaper and fun for 1 year old kids.

5. How crazy is it that January is almost over and we are 1/12 of the way through the year. We have a 14 month old, half way to 15 months. It almost means only 127 more days left of studying for the year (or only about 381 more hours of studying for the year).

Time to Read

And finally a picture of the new chair being used for its intended purpose! She really does enjoy reading in it, contrary to what previous posts may imply.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Megan!

Click here to view these pictures larger

Cuddles

Very rarely do I get a little girl who will cuddle with me, so of course we had to capture it. This was one of the days when she wasn't feeling the greatest. I ate it up!

5 on Friday

1. Nick and I are officially booked for our Scottsdale/Vegas vacation next month. Ellie has been booked at La Casa Grandma and Grandpa Greving's for a while now. We cannot wait.

2. When booking our hotel for Vegas we took a chance and did the Travelocity Secret Hotel Deal... we got the Venetian! Since you have to completely book the hotel without knowing which one it is I was very nervous.

3. Ellie's feet are extra wide... trying finding cute shoes in extra wide. But we found some. She thinks she looks awesome in her big girl shoes.

4. Ellie stayed in her 6-12 month clothes until a month before her 1st birthday. I have already started putting away 12-18 month clothes. Did she really grow that much in such a short period of time? (She is only 14 months old).

5. Ellie has had a bath the last three nights... Someone likes to put food in her hair.

The Great Unknown

Eleanor could look outside for hours!

The new chair has made it so Nick or I don't

have to hold her to look out the window. She loves it.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Jess!

Click here to view these pictures larger

All About Climbing

Eleanor loves to climb on anything she can! We knew this when my Mom went to visit her at day-care and before the teachers could put the tables away from snack-time Ellie had climbed on top of one of them.

The other morning I left her playing in the living room while I ran back to change clothes, I came back and sure enough she has climbed her way onto the couch. She was just sitting reading a book, so I allowed it. I left the room again to grab something, came back and she was jumping on the couch, that was not allowed.

I am glad she has found a use for her chair other than sitting in it. Good thing we expected this and purchased one that we hope will hold up to her wear and tear.
Oh the things we have to look forward to!

Treats for Santa

One final Christmas-related post (almost a month later).

While Daddy was out biking, Ellie and I made some cookies to leave for Santa when he came.

Look at how pretty they turned out.
I did go the easy way out- I bought the pre-made dough
and we didn't cut them into any fun holiday shapes.

But they still tasted wonderful,
or at least Ellie thought so as she wanted 'more' than
the one she was allowed to 'taste test'.

She was very upset that she couldn't have more before going to bed on 'Christmas Eve'.
Notice how she brought her own Kleenex box? She needed them to dry her tears.

Here is what she left for Santa (with a little help from her Mommy).

I am excited for her to get older and be more and more excited for Santa to arrive! But I am not ready for her to grow-up too fast.

Teacher Gifts

What do you do for your day-care provider during the holidays?

Our day-care does an Elf Box that families can donate to, then the Parent Advisor Council (yes, we have one of these at day-care!) goes and buys the teachers/aides /floats gift certificates so that not only the main teachers get recognized. I loved this idea and it made it so much easier than trying to figure out what to get each teacher.

But I wanted to still do a little something for Ellie's main teachers, nothing big- just a thank you for their extra hard work. I checked with the teacher gift expert, my sister Megan, and she gave me a super cute idea that I used. Here it is:

The gifts were based off of this quote-

Thanks for your commit-"mint"

Thanks for your encourage-"mint"

Thanks for your involve-"mint"

Thanks for your invest-"mint"

Thanks for making each day an enjoy-"mint"

Thanks for creating a nice environ-"mint"

Then I put together a variety of mints, package them up with the quote and I was good to go. How easy is that! I included Andes mints, peppermint patties, regular hard mints and those Christmas tree mints that are only out around the holidays.

For Ellie's 0-9 month teachers (she is no longer in the room with them, but they took care of her for the majority of the year) I put the mints in little boxes that I punched out using a die cut at our local scrapbooking store, http://www.heirloomsbydesign.com/. I love Heirlooms By Design and as long as you buy the paper there you can use the die cuts for free! I printed off the saying and matted it to the leftover paper.

For Ellie's current teachers I picked up some tins at Jo-Ann Fabrics for 70% off (it paid to be a little behind in finding something to put the mints in). Then I made cards and matted the saying to cardstock that matched the cards. The design for the cards came from a class I took at the scrapbook store above.

I think they turned out pretty cute. The teachers liked them a lot (one even said she would keep it forever!), so I will call it a success.

Only problem, what do I do next year???

5 on Friday

1. If you didn't catch it in one of the Christmas posts, Ellie is going to be a Big Cousin! She is super excited about the idea of having someone younger than her to teach things to. Baby J, otherwise known as Bunky, is due to arrive July 20th, 2011. Congrats Megan and Mike!

2. Eleanor has start a bad habit of hitting. She never hits Nick, but she hits me and laughs (so she is not hitting because she is mad). I asked day-care about it and they have noticed her hitting as well, they said she learned it from some of the boys in her class. Interesting thing, they noted that she mainly hits the girls in the room. What does she have against girls, and what can I do to eliminate this bad habit?

3. Ellie's feet had a growth spurt the past two weeks. Looks like we will be going shoe shopping this weekend.

4. It is becoming more and more apparent that Ellie is shy when she first meets someone, then become a complete ham after she is comfortable. She loves to be "funny" and has a little bit of a class clown in her.

5. I guess this week is all about Ellie. Nick and I must be boring.

Greving Christmas

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent in Ames with the Greving crew. Eleanor was an angel during the 2 hours she got to spend in church (during dinner time and with no real nap) and didn't start to fuss until the last couple of minutes. The 1.5 hours of mass is far longer than the 50 minute mass Father John does back home. She was especially excited to go up to communion with Grandpa, who I think was just as excited to have her go up with him.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

A quick picture of our family after church- you can see how tired Eleanor is!

Ellie posing for Grandma, while waiting for Aunt Megan to tell her it was time to eat again (she may in fact be signing 'more' in an effort to see if Grandma, too, will feed her during non-meal times).

Aunt Megan and Uncle Mike's gift to Grandma and Grandpa was that they were going to be Grandparents again! Ellie is very excited to be a Big Cousin, and even more excited that she got to eat with Aunt Megan every 1.5-2 hours (which Megan was doing in order to make Baby Bunky happy). Ellie had to get in as much quality time with Aunt Megan as she could since next year Aunt Megan will have a different little person to play with.
Eleanor tried out Grandma's rocking chair, and managed to get herself a little stuck. It was quite funny watching her try to get herself out of the chair.

We had a great weekend, although we missed the Iowa City Greving crew as they were unable to make it.

The only problem with the two days: when we got home Ellie thought she needed to eat cookies for her second breakfast (thanks Grandpa) and didn't understand that without Aunt Megan she could not eat every 1.5 hours at home. It only took four days to get her back on a normal eating schedule.

"Christmas Morning"

We celebrated Christmas morning a couple day's early at our house. Ellie is young enough she doesn't know the difference. And Mommy isn't very good at waiting, so for her opening gifts a couple days early is a good thing for her.

We gave Santa the heads up, and he dropped off his presents ahead of time. As you can see, Ellie was really excited about the gifts Santa left her. Or she was really excited about sitting on the gifts Santa left her...

Santa even remembered that when Nick was younger he would leave him a piece of fruit in his stocking, and continued that tradition with Eleanor! Eleanor was a big fan of the orange and tried to eat it just like she does an apple. She promptly gave the peel she had bitten off to her Daddy- an orange is not like an apple (she then found the apple Santa left Mommy and took a bite out of that instead).

She loved the chair Santa left her.

But her favorite toy was the one that played music (which she is dancing to in the picture) and popped balls out of itself. She LOVED this toy and all other gift opening had to wait while she played with it.
We spent the day as a family, starting our new tradition of Christmas breakfast consisting of turnovers and cinnamon rolls (based on Nick's family tradition). Christmas dinner was based off of Kara's family tradition with meat, cheese and cracker (and wine for Mommy & Daddy, but minus the shrimp). We spent all day in the PJ's Santa had left for us the night before- Santa is so smart! We had a wonderful, relaxing day!

Thorson-Larson Christmas

The weekend before Christmas we went to Ames for Christmas with the Thorson-Larson group. We had a full crew with 10 of us packed around the table- the more the merrier! The annual Christmas dinner of kumla and ham... yum.


Here are a few pictures from the day:

Ellie with Great-Uncle Dan! She was a fan, because he watched her as she climbed the stairs.

Garrett checking out which gifts belong to whom ahead of time. Of course we had to clean the dishes before we could open present (always key to getting the kiddos to help).

Taking a picture of Hunter taking a picture.

Ellie's favorite gift of the day: Cousin Garrett's lightsaber!

Lucky for her he is very good at sharing and was willing to let her play with it.

Because she REALLY LOVED the thing.

5 on Friday

1. Happy New Year! Eleanor decided to start hers by getting sick to her stomach, having many blow out diapers and peeing on the bathroom floor.

2. Since we had the day off on Monday for the New Year holiday, Nick, Ellie and I went to the Science Center to see the Da Vinci exhibit. It was pretty neat! Ellie enjoyed the little kid part of the Science Center as well. Nick commented that when she gets older we will have to get a membership- I agree.

3. The studying officially began again on Saturday. So far, so good- let's hope it continues that way.

4. Ellie has a bad diaper rash going on, so the Dr. said to let her run around 'free' each day. She had done pretty well, until last night when she managed to go number two on the carpet downstairs. I would like to note that she was under Nick's supervision at the time.

5. Eleanor has decided she is not a fan of any foods other than fruits. She loves her fruits! We tried feeding her the non-fruit food first, she barely eats it and we sit at the dinner table for 45 minutes. Any ideas on how to get over this?

Singing Snowmen

Ellie's favorite Christmas decoration: the Singing Snowmen! This was the one decoration she touched, which was OK since we put them out for her to play with.She quickly mastered how to make them sing all by herself.

She was not happy when they stopped singing (aka the batteries ran out). Mommy quickly had to use all of our spare batteries (and a few out of the remotes) to fix the problem. Those things take a lot of batteries. Which reminds me that we packed them away with our rechargeable batteries still in them (I am going to have to get those out tonight).

I Love Bath Time!

I just LOVE bath-time! It is right up there with eating.
Yum... a soapy wash cloth.

And of course, my stylish 'do' while washing my hair.
I know, I look awesome.

Do you enjoy bath-time as much as I do? Whenever I hear the water running I hurry to the bathroom. I am not very happy when I find out it was running for my Mommy or Daddy.

Happy New Years!

I wanted to get one entry done on the first day of the new year. Here is it! Happy 2011 everyone!

Before 8AM Ellie had accomplished getting sick to her stomach, having a diaper blow-out and going potty on the bathroom floor. I guess she was all about leaving her mark on the new year. Part of me wonders if Nick knew all of this was going to happen when he opted to let me get up with her today while he slept in...

At least Ellie was all about the cuddles with Mommy this morning, something that rarely happens.

Here are my first blog pictures of 2011 (even if they were taking in 2010).

Like Father,
like Daughter.

We know where Ellie gets her crazy hair from, and it is not her mother.