"Bess You"

We've had several fun conversations with Eleanor lately. It is hilarious to hear her "stories" now that she's talking more and conveying ideas more... she still doesn't use connective words like "is" and "and," but she packs in the nouns and verbs!

Here is some of the fun:
Sneeze (hers or someone else's)
"Bess you!"

Cough (hers or someone else's)
"Bess you! Bess you!"


Ella: "Sa-ta! Sa-ta! Sa-ta!" while pointing out the window.
Mom: "Santa? Where?"
Ella: " 'Side. Car. Bye-bye."
Mom: "Santa was driving a car outside?"
Ella: "Yeah. Vruuum, vruuum. Sa-ta home."
Mom: "Oh! Santa was driving to his house?"
Ella: "Yes. Sa-ta!"


"Ooof. Heaby!" - said of anything heavy or awkward to carry.


"Mommy?"
"Yes, Ella."
"Puppy. Bite. Sock!"


"Daddy! Daddy! SETH!!!"


"Ahh! Puppy!"
"What about the puppy, Ella?"
"Gobber!" then wiggles her index finger, "ahh - purple! Bite!"
Mommy and Daddy look at the puppy and sure enough, the purple finger puppet Grandma sent Ella was in London's mouth.


After waking up from many naps...
"Monkey!"
"Where is the monkey?"
"Fish. Water."
"Um, okay..."
"Monkey, fish, water!"
"I'm not sure what you're talking about Eleanor."
"Mommy. Monkey! Fish, water!"
... we still haven't figured it out.


"Mommy. Drink. Coffee... Hot," then Ella points to her tongue. "Try!?"
"No, you can't drink coffee!"
"Okay... peas?"
"Nope. Coffee is for adults."
"Okay... cocoa Ella?"

Community

I don't suppose this will be a very entertaining post for anyone else, but I need to record for future reference my current feelings about friends, our home and Sheridan...

For many moments over the last couple of years, we've desperately missed our families and our George Fox/North Valley/Newberg/Dundee/Piano Studio community. Now, I can't say I don't miss y'all still, or will ever stop, but I can say I'm starting to see and feel a community here in Sheridan that I appreciate, am grateful for, and would miss if we left. I am also acutely aware of my readiness to be even more involved here.

So, I guess it takes a year and 3 months to really start to feel settled in a place... just 3 months longer than we were in SLC.

Anyway, I was impressed by my feelings of being a part of community and having some good friends here when a friend called me up because she needed to head out of town to be with her father while he was in the hospital. Not only did she need the emotional/spiritual support of friends and family, but a tangible help with childcare. Thus, we had a busy, but wonderful weekend with extra girls here at our house. Eleanor loved the company and we all enjoyed so much exuberance, creativity and joy. I was deeply grateful that I was once again in a place where I have friends who know I am here to help and support in whatever ways I can - and who trust our family enough to ask.



P.S. Eleanor is sick again, so please be in prayer for her and for Seth and I to miss this one!

Our Quickly Growing Puppy

So, it was mentioned to me that I have rarely talked about our "new" puppy... and the truth is, the only reason I haven't previously posted about her much is that she is terribly, terribly hard to take pictures of! She's worse than Ella because she is CONSTANTLY moving. Over the course of the last 4 weeks or so, we have gotten these few pics, however. Enjoy.
London is truly a fantastic addition to our family. She is full of energy, but she also listens fairly well - you know, as well as you'd expect of a smart, energetic puppy. Eleanor loves her and asks to see and hug the puppy as soon as she wakes up in the morning. The two of them chase each other around the house nearly ceaselessly.

London is now 4 months old and continuing to grow quickly. Her tail is long enough and strong enough to knock everything over that gets in its way - thus chaos abounds! She is somewhere around 30 lbs and definitely now outweighs Eleanor. She is also now "taller" than Ella, so things are not quite so equal in their playing. This means there is a lot of hollering, "off!" "down!" and "Lon-DON!" :)

London's favorite part of each day is our walk - just like Eleanor. This works out well and is great fun for us all except for 2 important details: I'm rarely getting to run and this week the temperature is ranging from -5 to 5 degrees F. Neither child nor puppy are very happy about being stuck indoors. Ella is happy, however, to exercise London by playing "Ffutch!" down the hallway.

We're Back!

Happy December to you all! I apologize for our long absence, but we were all VERY sick for a LONG time and then it took quite a while to get our feet back under us. I think, although I must say this loosely, that things are back to "normal" and thus I will begin once again to actually take pictures and tell y'all about what is happening in our lives.

I was hoping I would have a collection of photos to send your way that encompassed the tail end of November, but as I looked over the few we have - they are all just blurs. Both Eleanor and London tend to move in two speeds these days: sleeping and running. It makes for lots of laughter and not many good pictures. :)

We had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving on which I baked an incredibly delicious turkey (totally use the brining method if you haven't before!) along with all the fixings for the 3 of us. We were still potentially quite contagious over Thanksgiving, so although we were feeling MUCH better, we didn't want to bring any nasty germs into anyone else's house. It was nice to celebrate together, to spend time playing and laughing and eating together.

The one great thing about us being so sick (if there really was anything great about it at all) was that Seth stayed home from work with us for a week. That meant 8 days straight of having him around and we really enjoyed it. Eleanor still asks me about 15 times a day, "Daddy home?" She then shakes her head and says, "work!" It always makes me smile.

3 weeks or so ago now we had a good little snow storm that brought feathery light snow, but the temperature hovered right around 32 degrees. This made for some really fun snow play with Ella and London. Since then we've had more snow, but the temp has ranged from -5 degrees (plus wind chill!) to 20 degrees and I haven't encouraged Ella to get out and play quite like before! So, here are a couple of pictures from the previous November storm and play:And here is London loving up the snow.

Ick!

So, yesterday was beautiful, sunny with fresh snow. Ella, London and I enjoyed being outside a lot. I even took pictures! And I was prepared to write all about it today and post those pictures for you, but...

Ella came down with the flu. So we've had a really long night. And today we look forward to sterilizing our home. It has been a few hours now since Eleanor's thrown up, so hopefully the worst is past. Your prayers would be appreciated, however, in helping Ella heal, keeping Seth and I from getting sick and for all of us to have a lot of extra patience seeing as we didn't sleep last night.

Bye-Bye Daddy

"See ya after work!"

Eleanor still loves shoes... I don't know where she gets it. And, she especially loves other people's shoes!

Where November's Gone

Our blogging absence is due to 3 main things: an always moving and shaking little girl, an adjustment to a new "normal" schedule and a mommy who is struggling once again with headaches.

I think we're finally getting to a point of adjustment with new sleeping patterns, the puppy and the change of season. I also think I'm finally getting to a point where my headaches are re-controlled. After 10 straight days of headaches, I bit the bullet and re-eliminated wheat, yeast, dairy and refined sugar from my diet. And just like every time I finally commit and do that, I suddenly feel GREAT. No more headaches, a return of energy and a much greater frustration tolerance. Hopefully it will continue to keep me happy. :)

Here are a few of the things you've missed about our Eleanor over the last couple of weeks:

She loves to go "fas!" (fast)

Her first toenail painting experience (and yes, those are Seth's feet).
Her first cupcake experience.
How she loves her puppy. And Puppy is London's name to Ella... The two of them get into a lot of trouble together, but they are also very sweet. Eleanor loves to kiss London's head and "pet!" her (sort of gently). Ella is actually being quite naughty in the picture by being in the puppy's box, but they were cuddling so sweetly that I had to snap the pic before I pulled her out. :)

Eleanor loves to wear "skurs" and "dess"es. When I get her up in the morning and ask what she'd like to wear, I never hear "pants." In fact, I often have to compromise my worries about her being too cold because she refuses to let me put pants on her many days. Her favorite dress is "bugs!" that Grandma bought her (see the first "fas!" picture). We open her closet to pick out a dress and she shouts, "bugs, bugs, bugs!" I have to work very hard to keep it washed!