Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Finally...


...enough hair for pig tails.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Visiting

We flew up to see Becca and Luke this weekend. They live outside of San Francisco in a magical forest, or Mill Valley.

Matt had fun entertaining Eleanor while we waited for Becca and Luke to find us. For some reason, we were at the international terminal. I guess LA really is another country.



They took us to this great Indian restaurant. You know it's good when you see mice. Really, the food was amazing and they assured us that it had only made them sick once.



Becca and Luke live in this great wooded area. I didn't hear a siren the whole time we were there. We saw ducks, deer and geese. It was soothing.



They have a great view of the bay from their apartment. We drove for about five minutes to this place called "the spit" where we had a picnic. In front of us was water, houseboats, the bay bridge, ducks, sea planes, and rocks. Behind us were gigantic mansions.



Eleanor has added Becca and Luke to people she adores and expects to listen to her. She had a great time with them. She learned about so many new things.



This is the hill right beside their parking lot...the magical forest I spoke of. They told us that every year Golden Gate Seminary hires 2,000 goats to mow for them. I wish we could have seen that.





Eleanor was VERY excited that Becca had shoes like hers. She kept wanting Becca to wear them with her, so Becca put them on to go get their mail. Eleanor thought it was great.


We went sightseeing one day. San Francisco has some fun things to see: a huge park (bigger than Central Park in NY), row houses on hills, dogs being treated as humans, Chinatown, eucalyptus groves, and water, to name a few.



We tried to pose for a family picture. Eleanor was more interested in playing on the stairs and not very cooperative.





Eleanor had a lot of fun running in the park. I introduced her to blowing the seeds off of dandelions. She was running here to get one.



Eleanor loves to "hide" in small spaces. She found this "hole" in Chinatown and delighted in being "found."



Chinatown merchant



One evening Luke burned his finger while cooking. The next day, Eleanor found a band aid and wanted to put it one Luke's "boo-boo." She was very concerned.



Eleanor dancing with her shadow



Last night we went to a park on top of a mountain where there was a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently, during the second World War, this area was used as a military base. You have a great view of the whole bay from up there, so it makes sense. I'll have to ask my grandpa about it. Here Eleanor is playing "Ring Around the Rosie" on a space that once held a giant gun.



Before we left for this lookout place, we warned Eleanor in words and role playing (poor Friend Joey fell off the table) about cliffs. Despite that, she wanted to be close to the edge, to stand on the rope (which was still about six feet from the drop off). I had a tight grasp on her.



And then there were five. We have about eighty million pictures from college (well, at least two) of the four of us. It's kind of strange to have another person in them.



Or as Eleanor sees it:

She drew this in the car one day. My favorite part is that she gave Luke arms so that she could include his "boo-boo" (the line that goes over Matt's head is his arm, the boo-boo is the dot).

Monday, April 07, 2008

Plants

 

Eleanor and I planted some daisy seeds in a kit that we found in the $1 bin at Target. She like checking on it. I hope it grows.

Today has been a difficult day. Eleanor's molars are causing her pain again and the results are less than pleasant. There were tantrums today about everything from tape to blocks. Tomorrow will be better.

We are still trying to figure out who "friend Joey" is. He has black hair and wears pants.

Eleanor absolutely favorite activity is playing on our bed. In the past two weeks, she has learned how to climb up there by herself. She loves to jump, fall flat on her face into the down comforter, run around singing "ring round rosie, paco, paco..", and pretend to look for "Friend Joey." Sometimes the comforter is an ocean, sometimes it's a store. One night Matt and I went to bed and our sheets jingled. Someone had left their money on our covers.

Another of Eleanor's favorite games to play is "birthday." She will sing "ha-pa-da-doh to you" and then give you pretend cake and presents.

She really is a fun kid. I just wish those teeth wouldn't torment her so.
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Thursday, April 03, 2008

Looking for Friend Joey


Looking for Friend Joey from m lumpkin on Vimeo.

Eleanor has been playing with some of Matt's G.I. Joe's (from his childhood). The guy she's playing with here (whose name is something I didn't quite catch) is looking for his "Friend Joey."

We've since had a discussion about throwing cameras.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

On Thursday

We went to Legoland. (Matt and Jason went skiing on Wednesday. I'll let Matt do that post if he so desires.)


Eleanor had a lot of fun riding the little rides.


Eleanor really liked the "giraffe car ride" where she got to ride around and look at almost life-sized animals built out of Legos. Matt was taking the pictures from his "zebra car." We didn't get any pictures from the fairy tale ride, but it was fun as well. They had various fairy tale characters (the three pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, the three billy goats gruff, etc) all built out of Legos and animated along a "river." We rode in a "green, green boat" to see it all.

The most amazing part of this park is Miniland, where there are replicas of various cities. We saw a trolley driving down the streets of San Francisco, a bull rider in the mid-west, taxis driving around NYC, a marching band in front of the White House and so much more...of course, all built out of Legos. Eleanor's favorite part of this was walking along the curb and pressing the various buttons that made things play music or move.


Best of all, we found a Chick-Fil-A to eat at on our way home! Mmmm...nuggety goodness. LA has 5,034 Starbucks, but no Chick-Fil-A's. What kind of city is this???