The power of a cookie

Me:  Eleanor, do you want to go to the store?

Eleanor:  No!  [continues playing with doll]

Me, knowing how much she loves shoes:  Let's go put on your shoes so we can go to the store!

Eleanor:  No!  [continues playing with doll]

Me:  Do you want to go to the store and get a cookie?

Eleanor:  [jumps out of chair, walking quickly towards the door]  Go to the store.  Get cookie.  Get cookie store. etc. etc.

It's amazing how much entertainment she gets out of the cookie.  First she stares at it for about 10 minutes, then licks it for a while, and finally eats it.  It almost keeps her from shrieking loudly and throwing stuff out of the cart.  Almost.  She finally finished it in the parking lot on the way out to the car.

Other recent funny sayings:

• While rubbing Hunter's nearly bald head, she said, "Daddy hair so pretty!"  That's the hardest I've laughed in a long time!  :)
• We've started giving her chewable vitamins, and Hunter has taught her that they're "special treats."  So now she'll come into a room and say, "Want special treat!"
• Yesterday we watched two lizards from our window.  She's seen lizards eat before and knows what insects are, so I asked her, "What does the lizard eat?"  She responded, "hay!"
• Yesterday I had her in a dress with a diaper but no bloomers.  (Meaning she can get her diaper off herself...)  We were sitting at her little table and she said something like "El-nor sit bottom on chair."  "Yes Eleanor, you are sitting on your bottom on the chair."  "Diaper off."   That made me go hmmmm and look around, and sure enough her diaper was lying on the floor on the other side of the room.  Thankfully we got it back on before there were any accidents!  (This is part of why I would choose snaps instead of velcro if I were getting new diapers...)

Happy Easter!

This first one just makes me laugh!  She was not happy about having her picture taken.

"Planting rice," like a picture of workers in Asia in one of her books.

Sugar Cookies!

Eleanor helped me make some Easter sugar cookies, and we had lots of fun!

My favorite part of the whole process was when she asked to "Hold cookie.  Hold cookie in mouth."

Step 1:  Make the dough

Step 2: Roll the dough

(after it chills, hence the outfit change)

Step 3:  Cut out cookies

Step 4:  "Squeeze the dough"

Step 5: Cook the cookies....of course Eleanor had no part in that.

Step 6:  Frost the cookies and cover with sprinkles

Step 7:  Eat the cookies!

Step 8:  Rub frosting into hair!

The final product

Oh yeah, and did you notice all the jewelry?  It was a gift from Eleanor's grandparents and she wants to wear it all the time!

And here are a few totally unrelated pictures:

Easter Egg Hunt

This morning we went to an Easter egg hunt and Eleanor thoroughly enjoyed herself!  Technically this wasn't her first egg hunt, but I think it's the first one that counts since she wasn't even mobile last year.

And they're off!

Finding an egg...

...and putting it in the bucket.

Where should I go next?

"All done!"

Checking out her loot

She loved her stickers

Ready to go home!

It's a boy!!! (we think...)

I had a regular check-up at the OB this morning and she used the Doppler to hear the heartbeat.  I'm only 13 1/2 weeks and the baby is still very low, so she had a hard time picking it up.  We did hear it for a couple of seconds (which calmed me down a bit!), but she still wanted to do an ultrasound just to be sure.  Everything looked great, and I got to see the baby move and I could even see the little fingers and the baby's profile!  I totally wasn't expecting an ultrasound, and I DEFINITELY didn't think that we would find out the gender today!  I asked my OB if it was too early to tell, and she said, "I was just going to check.  I'll make a guess."  Well, we both felt it was pretty obviously a boy and she said that was her educated guess, but I do feel like it's still so early that I just don't quite believe it yet!

Here's the healthy baby!

And here's the picture that I wasn't expecting today! 

13 weeks

It's been a while!

Singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"

This is a little old, but here is Eleanor's absolute favorite pastime

I love this picture for some reason

Every kid plays with a toy otter in the pool, right?

Florida girl

Check out the tiny doll shoes she has on

Checking out the stingrays at the zoo

Eleanor's first frozen yogurt!

Playing with her buddy Elijah at the zoo

It's never too early for a little geography

Beach!

I know I've posted very similar pictures before, but I had to share these anyway. Eleanor LOVES LOVES LOVES going to the beach, especially putting her toes in the water! She'll say things like this all the time: "E-nor [Eleanor] toes water. Ocean. Beach. Want toes water." One day last week we were driving over a bridge and she saw the water (actually the river, not the ocean) and practically started crying because she wanted to get in the water so badly. So, we decided to take the poor kid to the beach! As soon as we told her we were going she got SO excited, and when we got to the beach and she saw the waves she started squealing and stomping her feet in excitement. Poor kid, it's too bad she has parents who are content to only go to the beach once every few months even though we live 15 minutes away. I guess we'll have to do better.

You really have to hold on to her, because she has no fear and will run right out into the ocean!

Oh yeah, and this was from our early dinner before going to the beach.  I think she's a fan of spaghetti!  We were practicing our Spanish colors during dinner when she looked down, pointed at her belly, and said, "E-nor blanco."  Yup, the poor kid is as pale as her mama.