Recap

Christmas 2008 is in the books and we had a wonderful holiday. The best part is that Carrie and I still have a couple weeks off and lots of time coming up to spend with more extended family and friends. We are really looking forward to it. Just wanted to give a quick recap of the past few days' worth of events.



Carrie made a wonderful meal last night for her parents, my Mom, the two of us and Eleanor. It was a totally fantastic feast that she worked extremely hard on all afternoon. After it was over we were rewarded with Pork Roast with cider gravy, broccoli casserole, a Chevre/walnut salad, a Fennel dressing and rolls. It's making me hungry thinking about it right now. It was a great night with great company.



Eleanor sported her new shoes (from Auntie Sarah) and a new dress from Madison yesterday. As usual, she's carrying around "Sally" for the holiday season. I discovered yesterday that i've misinformed her and that this is Karen. I've only seen the cartoon 100 times, how did I mess that up??



She got a wooden counting clock that she really seems to like.



Her obligatory Paul's gift is a new saucer sled. I was tempted to get the sweet red steel American Flyer one but i distinctly remember from my childhood that metal saucer sleds pale in comparison to plastic ones for speed. We do want to get her a wooden toboggan however. We didn't use it today at Happy Hollow because it was like 50 degrees out and a slushy mess.



Eleanor got a really cool new kitchen to play with while at Grandma's house. She put dad's beer in the fridge for us. She really likes the kitchen and is VERY into "cooking" right now. She mainly makes toast.



This is her new dolly that she got from Grandma. She really likes it.



Another view of the gift opening at Grandma's house. You can see her new dish set in the foreground as well.



Here she is putting something in the frontloading washer.



Our annual Holiday shot.



This is my new favorite picture.




A video of Eleanor's new Christmas book reading.




Eleanor danced to Emmylou Harris (Light of the Stable) while I was next door delivering cookies to our neighbors. I'm glad Mom caught this on tape.

Hope you all had/have a wonderful, peaceful, happy and healthy holiday.

Playin' with Grammie

While we were in Madison this past weekend... Eleanor spent a weekend with Grammie. She got to do her first true snow romping and it appears that she even kept her new mittens on!

Christmas History

There are some really cool facts HERE about Christmas.
Pretty interesting reading.

Merry Christmas!

Holly-daze

There are some sweet ones in here.

LINK

Happy Holidays

We apologize for taking so long to get a post done. As it has been with most people, this time of year is very busy and hectic for us.

Over the past few weeks, the Holidays have taken hold and we've been quite busy. It's been really enjoyable this season as Eleanor is much more active and "into" the whole holiday scene.

This past Thanksgiving we traveled to the Chicago area to be with Carrie's family over the holiday. It was a very nice, laid-back and low stress number of days, with little to do and lots to eat. More than anything, it's just really fun spending a lot of time with Eleanor.

Grandma Sue got her this ultra-hip Cowboy outfit which she sported on the big day. She seemed to enjoy it and everyone else did too. It went really well with her cool new red leather booties that Carrie got her in New York.

Eleanor doesn't care about gender-stereotypes. Playing with firetrucks is fun no matter who you are.

She enjoyed playing with the Speranzas and Matt seems to think she's pretty cool.

In classic Eleanor fashion, she found it more fun to play with a metal pot with a set of plastic holiday flowers in it, than any of her toys or relatives.

Right away, after returning from Chicago, we headed to the Barnes Tree Farm on Dane Road to get this year's installment. The weather was really bad... windy, snowy and cold, but Eleanor did a really good job... even though she doesn't like to wear gloves.





Towards the end of the run, she was getting pretty upset and cold and was crying... you can't really tell that here because I was able, somehow, to get a laugh/smile out of her.




She likes to wear winter hats now and this one from Aunt Joyce is a particular favorite of hers and of ours.

Things have been going pretty well overall. Carrie is into a new term at school and is insanely busy as usual. Her nights and weekends are often spent preparing work for her classes. When we get a chance, we try to eat a meal together, watch some shows and enjoy each others' company. Work for me has also been very busy. Normally this time of year is a wind-down period (and the past few days that has actually begun) but things are really pushed back and out of whack this year with all of the flooding.

We are super excited to spend this Christmas in our new house and have things fully decorated! It's awesome to have stockings properly hung on a staircase (since we have no fireplace) and Eleanor has a super-sweet one that her mother made her. I am taking the entire week off between Christmas and New Year's for the first time in many years and am really looking forward to relaxing, watching football and getting some house projects done.

Eleanor is a whirlwind these days. She learns what seems like 5 new words a day and can just about repeat anything you say. She's saying lots of multi-syllabic words and is beginning to form her first crude sentences which is really fun to hear. She's all over the house, feeding her dolls, giving them drinks, climbing the stairs, "helping" in any way possible, brushing her teeth, and on and on. I have no doubt in my mind that by 2 she'll probably be taking care of us.

sick day/snow day

all three of us were home yesterday afternoon--I80 was a mess, so i skipped my lunch meeting on campus and rob stayed home sick. here's six minutes of eleanor being her smart, silly self.