A few randoms

Reason # 357 that Eleanor is my daughter:

A calculator in one hand and cleaning tools in the other. Notice that she is happy about it.

Ellie is an artist. She loves to do any kind of art and comes home from day-care with tons of art work. Instead of buying pictures for her bedroom wall, we decided to frame her art work! Ellie is very proud of her 'art gallery.'

The other month Ellie had a cold and wanted her own box of tissues since she had been blowing her nose by herself. I wanted to encourage to keep up the good work, so I let her have a box by her bed. This is what I found the next morning... I learned that leaving a box by the bed is OK, but maybe not a brand new box.

Valentine's Day

I am a little behind on updating the blog with pictures. I finally transferred the memory card to the computer on Saturday morning- we went into the hospital Saturday evening (must have been my nesting that made me delete 301 pictures to make room for new ones of Genevieve).

These are from Valentine's Day: Ellie and I used Play-Doh for her day-care friend Valentines. We also made cookies for Daddy (and Mommy). Since Ellie was sick on Valentine's Day, Nick and I opted for take-out sushi (veggie and fruit sushi for me). Nick picked up some sparkling grape juice to substitute for wine. No worries, once I get through the old pictures there will be plenty of new ones with Ellie and Neve!

5 on Friday

1. Our first week of potty training has gone great! Yes, we had accidents. But overall Ellie is a champ and catching on very quickly. Yesterday she made it the whole day at day-care without any accidents! She had one #2 accident with Daddy at home that night. Going #2 in the potty is going to be our challenge.

2. Last night I joined my aunt at an A Muse Studio Open House (card-making supplies). Oh what great ideas! I think I am motivated to start my arts and crafts again (it has been 9 months!). Unfortunately....

3. ... the card-making will have to wait a little while longer. We have a house to pack-up since we have to be out of it in 2 weeks. I think we may start packing this weekend--- we just have to find boxes.

4. Once we get the house packed up we will be moving... to a hotel... we found out yesterday that our house will not be ready for our September 30th closing. Our builder has offered to put us up someplace until the house is done (2 weeks to a month). Instead of unpacking in an apartment for 2 weeks I think we are going to move into an extended stay suite hotel. Not ideal, but we will make do. I told Nick, "When we go to move into our new house Ellie is going to be used to sleeping in the same room as us, having a indoor pool to swim in each night, and a hot breakfast each morning. Do you think she will be disappointed?"

5. Ellie and I survived our 4 days alone (and it sounds like Nick had fun on his bike get-away). Thanks to Megan and Liam (and Mike and Baxter) for letting us hang out with them on Saturday. On the way home I asked Ellie who she played with that day. She responded, "Ba-ter." I guess the puppy is all that matters to her.

Baby Shower Decorations

Last month I had the wonderful opportunity to throw a baby shower for my sister and future nephew/Godson. It was one week after my big exam, so I tried to make it as simple as possible. This is what I came up with...

I found this super cute graphic from http://www.etsy.com/:

This little guy quickly became the theme for the shower, and I used him as much as possible.

I knew I wanted to make a diaper cake. What a great way to provide the new mommy with tons of necessary things, have a cute decoration, and be able to use it as a game. First, I made the diaper sections (followed by two additional layers not pictured):

Then I added some ribbon and the various goodies I had picked up:

Although it isn't the greatest picture, here is the finished product (see the very bottom for a better picture):

I think I had a total of 20 different items on the cake. Mainly items that came recommended by Ellie and her parents (excluding the ISU hat that is on the top- that was not recommended by us at all.)

I printed out the giraffe graphic and made circles to be used on various items.

As part of the party favors, I did mini water bottles with the giraffe head.
Then I made sugar cookies using baby blue sugar.
Which was then packed like this:
And set out at the party:
To make the expectant Mommy's life a little easier, I had people address their thank you card envelopes, and printed out thank you cards that went with the theme (super easy and very cost effective vs. buying thank you cards in the store).
I wanted something else for the guests to do while they waited for everyone to arrive. I had originally tossed around the idea of making a cloth ABC book and having each guest color a letter page... but then Megan's 4th grade class did an ABC quilt for her--- so that idea was scratched.

Instead we did "Words of Wisdom for the Mother" cards.

For games we played "Time to Eat". You taste/smell each food and try to guess what it is made up of. I also removed the diaper cake from the middle of the room when we were playing "Time to Eat". Then we played the "Memory" game, trying to remember what was on the cake.

We also played "Name the Baby"... can you guess the baby names for these animals?

Goose Goat Swan
Owl Whale Tiger
Monkey Eel Skunk
Giraffe Crocodile Kangaroo

Of course there were the prizes for winning the games. Every new Mommy and Daddy need a little "Energy." And since new parents tend to wash their hands like crazy, this Bath and Body Works hand soap is perfect. (A friend of mine gave us this as a baby give and we loved it!!)
No baby shower can be complete without food.
I took the easy way out and ordered these cake balls for the dessert. They came from here: http://www.abiteofcake.com/ I have only had the strawberry one, but it was yummy!
Using my little giraffe heads again, I topped a few of the cake balls with the decoration.
And here is the final spread:

Thank you Costco for making it easy on me (see pre-made fruit bowl and veggie tray!)

And of course, a picture of the Guest of Honor, our mom and myself before the guests arrived (and a better picture of the baby cake).

Can you believe that the baby cake has 156 newborn diapers in it?!?!

I loved throwing this shower, and coming up with various ideas. I know this post is REALLY long, but I wanted to share everything (and have a record of it for myself). I think Megan and Bunky had a great time, I know I did.

Crayons

I picked up crayons for Ellie. They are for 1 1/2 years plus---
pretty close to Ellie's age.

She loved them... eating them that is.

I guess we will go back to the markers that are for ages 2+, they seem to work better.

Finger Painting!

Ellie loves anything art related, she must get that from her mom.

A friend of hers had given her finger paints for her first birthday and we were feeling a little crafty so we got them out and gave them a try. She loved it.
She is very serious about her work of art. This one was yellow and red (ISU colors)- so it got sent to Aunt Megan and Uncle Mike who are big ISU fans.
Did you notice that in each picture her right hand finger is stuck in the yellow paint? That wasn't just because I took all the pictures in a row, she left her finger in there the entire time and painted with the other hand. It was very amusing. She was not happy when I decided we were all done and made her take her finger out of the yellow finger paint.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last year Ellie was too little to help making her Valentine's. This year she was quite the helper!

First we cut out the tags with the CriCut machine. Ellie was the supervisor/button pusher. She would squeal when the machine would start.

She wanted to write her own name on each of the tags. I let her do it, although I didn't tell her the cap was on the sharpie (or that the sharpie was upside down).

She also thought she should taste test the granola bars we were putting in the bags.

She quickly decided being a taste tester was top priority and left Mommy to finish up the bags.

Here is a picture of the end result.


Happy Valentine's Day!

What a project!

The picture isn't the greatest, but it tells the story: do not wait until 9 months after the baby is born to start the scrapbook. My goal is to get it up-to-date before her first birthday party. Wish me luck.

Happy Valentine's Day- from a 3 month old!

I figured I had a few more years until I was making Valentine's for Ellie's day-care friends, but I was a few years off on that assumption. I guess even infants need to exchange Valentine's, as Ellie's list of names for kids in her room came home with her last week!

With everything else going on, I was planning on skipping a year of making Valentine's cards so I didn't have any ideas in my head. Lucky for me, a quick trip to my favorite scrapbooking store, Hierlooms By Design, and a little help from the owner, Marge, and her wonderful card designers, I had all the materials I needed and an idea to work off of.

Yes, I do know that I could have gone to the local Target or Walmart and purchased a pack of little kid Valentine's, but where is the fun in that! So here are Ellie's first Valentine's cards that she handed out to her friends at day-care, and a few other important people in her life:

And here is a picture of Nick and my favorite Little Valentine (with her valentine books):