june 30th already?

the june post-a-day challenge has come to a close. thank goodness samantha created this wrap-up quiz (take it! you could win a prize!) for us to cross-post because i had z-e-r-o- ideas for today.

more photos, recaps, stories and cute things said by eleanor comin' atcha' in july. probably not every day. okay, definitely not every day. but frequently, i hope...

thanks for reading this month!

birthday gifts

it was a special treat to have our friends and eleanor's godparents, jeff and amy, in town for eleanor's party this weekend. we also got to meet their adorable little girl, violet jane, for the first time. she just turned 4 months old. this was our first glimpse of her when they arrived.

a few of E's more tangible birthday presents:
we gave her an easel with a chalkboard on one side and space for paintings and drawings on the other.
fun bath toys!
grandpa bill made this lovely toy box, which rob painted and we are in the process of personalizing with her name and some decorations.
our friends the boelks gave eleanor their deluxe kiddie pool and my parents gave her the water table (thanks for the idea, brandy and mike!), which we set up on the deck yesterday. she had a good time splashing around and pouring water from the pool into the table and vice versa.

party chow

only a few days left in the post-a-day challenge and i might just stretch out the weekend/party photos to make it to the end. above is rob tending to the grill. we ate burgers and hot dogs, baked beans, green salad, strawberry/cream cheese/pretzel jello (courtesy of my mom), chips, fruit and, of course, birthday cake and ice cream.
rob also baked E's birthday cake from scratch--chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting, decorated with tweedle dee and tweedle dum. (why blogger flipped this photo, i have no idea)
here's the blow-out-the-candle moment (with the assist from mama). the cake was delicious and eleanor ate a sizable chunk...

birthday girl

this is what a 2 year old looks like!


(photos courtesy of unkie jeff)

more pics from the party to come!

alice-y

as you may already know, a certain little someone is turning two tomorrow and we're having a party! in honor of one of eleanor's favorite stories, we're going with an alice in wonderland theme. right now, the tea set that aunt joyce gave her last weekend is on the dining room table (complete with dormouse!), but we'll see if that lasts through the morning. usually, there are at least a few impromptu, informal tea parties before lunch.
when we first decided on an alice party, i looked online for some ideas. as it turns out, crafty moms who blog love alice in wonderland parties! there were tons of suggestions (some useful and fun, some outrageously time-consuming and/or expensive) for food, cakes, invitations, decorations, etc. i got the wonderland character garland above here from thelongthread (she also made little burlap and felt mushrooms for the tables and "drink me" hot chocolate mix in little glass canisters to send home with guests--this gave me craft envy).
here's one of E's presents, now wrapped and ready to go. it's the alice in wonderland pop-up book by robert sabuda. it is super-cool. eleanor is still a little young to read pop-ups gently, but i just couldn't resist.
before i go...i caught this sweet moment the other day. they're reading the rainbow goblins by ul de rico (whose first name is really ulderico. those wacky europeans!), one of rob's childhood favorites.

mystery date, or shakespeare in the park

tonight i took rob on a surprise date of sorts. he had it figured out by the time we went to dinner, but there was something fun about not disclosing our plans ahead of time. after some noodles at z'marik's and ice cream at whitey's, we went to the riverside shakespeare festival's performance of a midsummer night's dream.
this is what we were up to the last time we were at the festival stage at city park. somehow, we hadn't managed to see any plays here (flooding moved last year's shows to the city high auditorium--we saw a comedy of errors) until tonight.
it was a hot, humid and still evening, but the funny and skillful performances along with communal insect repellent and being able to bring cold beers to our seats made it a lovely night of outdoor theatre. rob also valiantly rescued a toad from certain death by trampling when he scooped up the little guy who was hopping down the aisle minutes before the cast came running off the stage and the audience filed out...

"...a sweet-face man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day."
-a midsummer night's dream, act 1, scene 2

artsy

(let's just pretend that this was posted last night, okay?)

here is the first photograph taken by eleanor. rob found her looking back through all of the photos on the camera (how do they learn to do this stuff?) and eventually, she switched it to photo-taking mode. i really like the use of light and her sense of composition. perhaps she just happened to take a picture of her lap (fish-patterned sun dress) or perhaps she's a budding photographic genius?

slaughter rule

i thought i'd have some softball action shots to post tonight, but no such luck. by the time we made it out to the field, there were only a few minutes left before the city sluggers were declared the winners by 10 runs. we didn't get to see rob play at all, either. he pulled a hamstring running bases and was sitting on the grass next to the dugout when we arrived. i don't think it's coincidental or insignificant that most every week before he leaves for a game i say "don't hurt yourself!" and...you guessed it...i didn't say it this week.

just sayin'.

A Great Weekend

This past weekend featured a lot of family and a lot of action. It was Jessica and Mike's Wedding on Saturday surrounded by lots of associated events and family fun. Like one usually experiences during times like this, the whole thing flew by with lots of good memories and lots of well wishes for the newly married couple.

Most of the pictures we got are of the afore-mentioned family activities.

Pete was the DJ for the wedding and rented a super awesome disco ball for it. We tried it out at home prior to putting it through the paces on Saturday. The kids seemed to think it was pretty cool, although I suspect Eleanor may have been slightly wary.


Anders loved our Radio Flyer walker wagon and used it for it's catalog-worthy intended purpose. The little guy walked it up and down the dining room without pause and would even get frustrated when he couldn't get it over an incline (i.e. the kitchen threshold.) Man that little dude is cute.


Auntie Joyce stayed with us and provided us much appreciated and much needed child care. She also gave Eleanor this awesome tea set which she immediately took to. She has busted it out a number of times already and had a tea service with Clara (and others.)


I just liked this picture of Will and Sandy at the reception yesterday.


Carrie was totally unfazed by my robotic glare!


So I gave up and decided to look normal.


I took this picture and am totally proud of myself - it's one of the best pics of Carrie's parents i've ever seen.


Another good pic of Will and Sandy.


Anders was not to be shut out of the tea festivities. He is sporting a sweet new outfit from Baby Gap that Sandy got him. Look how he manages that spoon!


And as Carrie stated earlier, today was Father's Day and it was perfect. I got to spend the entire thing with my wife and little girl - who was in a great mood despite her lingering cold. She loved running up and down the Iowa River Power Dam and finished the day with an "I love you pop." Man, that's good stuff.

Thanks to our wonderful family for making and sharing a great weekend. We had a blast seeing all of you.

pop's day

since eleanor started to talk, she's been calling rob her pop, which i hope she never outgrows. on this father's day morning, they had a little tea party with baby D (sitting in pop's lap) on the living room floor. i love that rob feels just as comfortable and happy having impromptu tea parties and grooming stuffed animals as he does digging out our rain garden or showing E around his old playmobil pirate ship.
later, we went to brunch (part father's day, part day-after jessica and mike's wedding celebration--pics from the wedding to come in a post by rob) at the iowa river power company restaurant, the site of a pedestrian bridge that rob inspected a few years back. here's eleanor checking out her old man's work.

happy father's day rob/pop! we love you!
xxx
ooo

126

rob's step-sister jessica is getting married this weekend and we all went to the rehearsal dinner at 126 (the venue of our rehearsal dinner, too!) this evening. here are pete and rob being themselves...
...and now acting respectable.

sandy and pete tell it like it is.
fancy ladies.
lit up betsy and drunky will...er...wholesome family fun!

hugs and kisses

we were at bill and kathie's for a grill-out tonight and there was lots of love to go around...

grandma and garden

my mom has been in chicago for the past few weeks and just came back to iowa city today after a trip to new orleans with my dad. she and E settled back into their groove right away.
rob started putting in the rain garden's limestone edging this evening, hauling and tamping despite the heat and humidity.
that's pretty much it for today!

the secret ingredient

more from the yard

here is the bellflower in first bloom. so much for that orange flower prediction. it's a lovely fuschia instead. those other two plants that may or may not be the same still show no signs of budding. maybe later this summer...?
the soon-to-be rain garden has been all dug up and rob is getting it ready to be edged by a whole bunch of cut limestone. rob borrowed our neighbor's roto-tiller and went to town. he compared it to walking an eager 200-pound dog. whatever gets planted here will be rain fed by two buried downspouts from our roof. the city is subsidizing the materials for the garden and our rainbarrel, too.
it's made from a repurposed olive barrel from greece. rob swears that when he opened it up, it smelled just like olives. i think it looks at home between the grapevine and the japanese maple. eleanor loves it when we fill up the watering cans from the barrel's tap.

zoo!

we spent the day in des moines with our friends the case haub gang and checked out the blank park zoo. those penguins hovered around the edge until we left and then we spotted them swimming around from the nearby sea lion exhibit.
flatty, eleanor and rob contemplate the bull in the petting zoo area. we also saw a tiny baby goat, some llamas, chickens, and...
...this crazy, teeming school of koi. they really, really want your bread.
i think there's something magical about this swan and her little island home.
somehow, the showy peacock blends into the background. he was just wandering around and the kids rushed right over.
jack and brandy, benjamin and mike on the train. if the twisty slide in the petting zoo's play area was E's favorite part of the zoo (it might have been), then the train was jack's favorite.
us on the train!