seven weeks old

at seven weeks, eleanor has become a cooing and gurgling machine--we love it when she "talks" to us, which is often accompanied by big smiles. we can tell that her vision is getting stronger because she's able to track objects better and is mezmerized by her mobiles--the whales above the changing table and cranes over her crib. she also seems to watch TV, which makes me a little uncomfortable. when they watch live with regis and kelly together, my mom calls it "the big magic color box." though i know more about 80s sitcoms than most any person should (sadly, another round of the world series of pop culture has passed me by--i 'd totally clean up!) and still managed to get a PhD, i'm wary of exposing eleanor's beautiful blank slate of a brain to television...here she is, with semi-"crazy eyes" (as henry calls them) chilling out, diaper-only, in her crib.

last weekend, we took eleanor on her first picnic in city park (no, that's not her sandwich) with the boelks. brian and amy have three kids--taylor is 4 and twins carver and kinnick are 2 and a half. they cavorted around the shelter, finding bugs, chansing each other and eating grapes like they were going out of style.

on sunday we headed to clarence, IA for the decker/frink/drake family reunion picnic. (you can see more photos at 'sup with bill and kathie ). senorita eleanorita wore her fancy, frilly dress picked out especially for her by henry. the food was delicious home cooking--three bean salad, scalloped corn and macaroni casserole, baked beans and even two pans of ham balls! rob made a frozen peanut butter chocolate pie (this month's cooking light cover recipe), which was a big hit. as bill mentions at his blog, it was cool to have the oldest member of the family (rob's great uncle ed) and the youngest member (our gal eleanor) together with all ages of relatives in between.