Over the river and through the woods...

...to Buela's house we go!

(Actually, I know we passed over quite a few rivers, but I'm not sure that we went through any woods.  At least, no official named forests or anything.)

Eleanor and I had a nice weekend visiting with my family.  I didn't really take any pictures, but my sister took these on Saturday when we met for a picnic at the Riverwalk in Columbia.

After the picnic we had a little shopping outing, but somebody was too worn out to shop!

Eleanor insisted on having her first taste of popcorn, so we broke it into VERY small pieces.  It was a hit!  (Of course!)

All dressed up!

Unfortunately, our ride home wasn't as uneventful as I would have liked.  We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-a and I locked my keys in the car!  Of course, I didn't realize this until we were all done eating and I came back out to the car with Eleanor, the diaper bag, my refilled drink, and a small cup of ice cream.  It was naptime for Eleanor and she was NOT happy when we had to wait outside for the locksmith and she wasn't allowed to wonder around the dangerous parking lot.  She's the one who ended up eating the ice cream though, so I think that made it slightly better for her.  ;)  Otherwise the trip was great, but that's an hour of my life that I don't care to repeat!

18 month stats

I forgot to post this from the checkup the other day:

Height:  33", 90th percentile

Weight:  25.5 lbs, 75th percentile

Head Circumference:  19.25", 95th percentile

Poor Eleanor, I guess two people with large heads shouldn't be allowed to have children!  She'll be doomed to a life of never being able to find hats that fit, just like both of her parents.

Everything went well and Eleanor is very healthy.  The pediatrician was really impressed by her vocabulary and kept trying to find out what tv programs we show her.  ("Does she like Dora?"  "No, she doesn't really watch tv."  "Oh, what about those Baby Einstein videos?"  "No really, she's never watched tv.")  She also kept asking me, "Now, does Eleanor eat okay?  Does she eat enough?"  I was thinking, "Look at her belly!  What do you think?"  :)  Eleanor did much better at this apt than the one last week, but she did cry - HARD - when the nurse measured her head and of course when she got her shots.  She has been obsessed with the visit ever since though, and keeps saying, "Doctor!  Doctor!  Doctor!"  Hopefully though, we won't be back for 6 whole months.  :)

18 Months!

Eleanor is one and a half years old now!  Wow!  I can't believe we have had 18 months with this amazing little girl in our lives.  We love her so much!

Eleanor is fascinated by anything that has to do with animals, and she loves her Animal Baby magazine subscription from her Aunt Sarah and Uncle Vic.  This is a page from one of her first magazines:

Eleanor has learned from the magazine and now likes to try stretching like the Arctic Fox!

Speaking of animals, Eleanor really loves the zoo.  We're lucky to live super close and we have a membership so we can go whenever we want.  This week I took her one morning and she loved the armadillos and goats in the petting zoo.  Then we went on and saw all kinds of cool animals (like a fox climbing a tree!), but all she wanted to do was watch the turtles bobbing in the water.  This is why I'm glad that we live close, so we can just watch the turtles for 30 minutes and then go home!

Eleanor is developing quite the silly side!  She's started hiding behind the curtains and playing other silly games.  She loves choosing what to wear - that's everything ranging from tights to hairbows to shoes to sunglasses to NO clothes at all!  She can be very opinionated.

The quality of this photo is pretty bad, but she was loving her sunglasses!

Her latest development has been learning to count!  She used to point to everything and say, "two, two, two" and then about a week ago that switched to, "one, two."  Just yesterday she counted to 3 with me a few times, and last night when Hunter read to her she counted up to 5!  I'm not sure that she totally gets the concept of what those numbers mean, but she's getting there!

Eleanor LOVES Fisher Price Little People, food, music, anything and everything that has to with animals, reading books, and playing with her friends.  She does NOT enjoy being left by her mama or going to the doctor.  

Speaking of the doctor, we had to go to the doctor this week because she had a bad cold that may have been pneumonia.  She went from happy and playing to screaming and crying the second the doctor walked in the room - I don't think I'd like to be a pediatrician!  The doctor didn't hear any pneumonia, but went ahead and gave us antibiotics since Eleanor's cough/cold has been going on for about a week and she had a slight fever.  Apparently there has been a lot of pneumonia going around lately.  Eleanor already seems to be feeling MUCH better and last night she slept for 13 hours straight and then took a 2+ hour nap today!!   This is after two weeks of pretty bad nighttime sleep and really bad (like, nonexistent) naps.

Like I said, this kid loves food.  Hunter made the comment the other day that if anybody ever kidnaps her, they'll probably return her quickly because they won't be able to afford to feed her!  The other night we had lasagna, and Eleanor seriously ate the same amount of food that Hunter and I did.  This kid can EAT!

Eleanor's got moves!

Blueberries

Eleanor is serious about eating her blueberries, even when she's super congested. Unfortunately my camera card got full at the very end, but she finished every last one and then wanted more...this happens daily!

Just another Saturday in Florida

Eleanor LOVES the water!  If we didn't stop her she would just walk straight out into the ocean.

Daddy/Daughter footprints

Just a cute little clip of Eleanor walking on the beach

Eleanor at play

This video is a little long and not super exciting, but this this does a pretty good job of capturing how Eleanor plays.

(By the way, her "Julie shoes" are hand me downs from her cousin Julie. I told her that once and now every time she sees them she goes, "Juwee! Juwee!")