first birthday party

saturday was the birthday girl's big party. i made a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and eleanor really enjoyed it (video to come, i hope!). to go along with the pink and green theme, if colors can be a theme, i also made one of these for dessert (photo to come, again, i hope! my inspiration came from this blog entry).

the balloons took up the entire backseat of the civic, but they sure were festive. e had a great time shaking the boxes of plastic cutlery when i got home from the store.
rob grilled burgers, brats and hot dogs and we had delicious watermelon, corn casserole and strawberry pretzel salad provided by the grandmas.
eleanor got to spend quite a bit of time with her cousin clara this weekend. both girls wore pink to the party and they played nicely (that is, eleanor didn't step on clara) adjacent to each other in the port-a-crib. i'm excited to watch these two grow up together.
after lunch came presents. here's the lovely chenille quilt joyce made. she scouts antique sales for blankets and then works them into a new creation.
with some help from russell, eleanor got down from the couch to put baby doll into the new wooden cradle made by grandpa bill complete with doll-sized bedding sewed and crocheted by grandma kathie. bill also made the little step-stool in the foreground. the shopping cart is from my parents and goes with some cut-apart wooden food (my favorite!).

i think eleanor had a fun time at her first birthday party. she's a sociable little thing and doesn't really have any stranger anxiety (yet), so having lots of people around is her cup of tea. we've been playing with all of her new toys, but in typical baby/toddler fashion, her very favorites are a little green plastic water bottle from grammie jean and a dorothy parker finger puppet/ magnet from grandma sue (she's a companion for our frank lloyd wright finger puppet/magnet--long story).

after the party, rob and i realized how few photos we took. we were both pretty preoccupied, though rob did get a lot of video of the day. if we get some pictures from relatives who were using their cameras a bit more, we'll post them!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

At 8:11, weighing in at 8lbs11oz it's Eleanor Ruby! Yes, it's hard to believe but one year ago this morning our beautiful daughter was born. What's more cliche than saying how time flies but what could be more true? I can't believe a year has passed, she's walking (nearly running now) all over the place and nearly talking. We're planning a parents party with her tomorrow and the BIG shindig next weekend!

Goodbye George

Not to be a downer on the blog but George Carlin died on the 22nd. What a awesome comedian and human being. He's my all-time favorite and his death has made me pretty sad. Here's an NY Times article about it: LINK.



Goodbye George.

weekend in durham

last weekend, we traveled to durham, north carolina to visit our friends ernie, samantha and sofia. it's hard to believe that i've known samantha for almost ten years already. we started grad school together in the fall of 1998. way back when, ernie and samantha's relationship was relatively new and i wouldn't even meet rob for another three years, a few months after s & e's wedding. a lot of wonderful things have happened over the past decade--we've both labored over intellectual babies (our dissertations) and labored with real babies (with another little girl on the way for samantha and ernie).
after some pesky travel delays, we finally arrived in NC on friday night...
...and on saturday morning, sofia was ready for a busy day, complete with the new pi t-shirt we brought for her. note the sun hat, water bottle, and totebag with baby toys for eleanor. she's definitely gearing up for big sister-hood!
we ate lunch at a great spot called elmo's in carrboro. samantha described it by saying "it's like the hamburg inn, but healthier." on our way back to durham, we stopped for bargain yarn shopping and some gourmet popsicles at locopops. mine was mojito flavored, rob had creamy lime and samantha's was pear almond. i'm jealous that there are no locopops locations in iowa city, but if there were, i'd have to eat them everyday, so maybe it's better that you can only get them halfway across the country.

she isn't even four yet, and sofia already knows how to rock a tiara and dangly earrings when she goes out for a pizza dinner. love it.

on sunday morning we went to duke gardens and got to drive around campus a bit, as well. the gardens are gorgeous and the duck pond was definitely a highlight.

here are the girls with their dads near the end of our stroll through the flowers.
that afternoon, samantha made a delicious blueberry peach buckle ("it's in the cobbler/buckle/ slump/grunt family of desserts") with some help from sofia.



the little ones had some fun on the swingset. sofia did a good job pushing, but note my nervous mom comment. yikes!

we got a little silly on monday morning and decided to put sofia's little mermaid wig on eleanor. normally the wig is worn only by cuddles, a teddy bear, which as you can see, is wise.

our visit was over all too quickly and i promised that next time we would stay longer. though blog posts, e-mails and phonecalls are all well and good, nothing beats seeing old friends live and in person. i miss them already! thanks, you three (and a half) for a wonderful weekend...