Family Portrait

Be the Baby

Matt must have looked hungry.

Dancing

Happy Easter!

This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago when the daffodils were blooming and the temperatures were about 40 degrees higher than they are right now. The dress Eleanor is wearing was to be her Easter dress this year. It's not new. She wore it several times last year and even to a wedding last spring. It is sized 6-9 months, but it still fits and is lovely. I think she will still be wearing it tomorrow, despite the cold cold weather (my"garden" is inside due to a freeze alert issued for tonight). Unfortunately, it will be worn with tights and a sweater (and probably a jacket too). Thank goodness Easter isn't about pretty dresses.

A Walk With Baby

Eleanor has shown quite a bit of interest in her baby doll lately. "Baby," as she's called, has experienced many new things lately. She's eaten everything from fruit leather to crackers. She's been dressed in all kinds of clothes. She dances and sings. One day I walked into the bathroom only to find Baby sitting, more reclining, on Eleanor's little potty. Today Baby went for a tricycle ride.

Zoo

This is for all of you baby fiends. Matt has posted several pictures of Eleanor and a few non-baby pictures (if you can imagine that). I think I'm going to add the link on the sidebar, so in the future look for it there.

We took Eleanor to the zoo on Friday. This was her "happy using the potty" zoo trip. As we were watching the monkeys, Eleanor kept getting distracted by the sidewalk. She liked the texture.

In other news, we went to eat at a Tex-Mex resturant with my (Melody's) parents this evening. Eleanor really likes salsa, so I was feeding her some with big chunks of tomato on little pieces of chips. Eventually, I just let her have the little bowl to fish out the tomato chunks on her own, which she did with minimal mess. Then she turned the dish up and drank the rest of the salsa. What a funny kid.

Burger and Fries

Matt was asked to preach at a small church in Northwest Arkansas this past weekend. We decided to drive up Saturday and spend the night at his parents. Since Eleanor no longer sleeps in the car, we stopped halfway for lunch and a car break. At Whataburger in Russiville, Eleanor enjoyed her first burger and fries. Well, more accurately, her first fries and ketchup, she didn't eat much of the burger.

Cold War, Warm Light

Photo of the Day
Tonight I saw the Cold War Kids with Matt Cleveland at Juanitas. What I once described as "stripped-down", sounded tight and well rehearsed sung by neatly cut, greasy haired young men at high volumes. This is a shot post-show of the Yamaha touring piano two out of three bands used tonight. Good time.

Here's what I wrote about the Cold War Kids after listening to their album Robbers and Cowards for a week over at a little thing we call "The Program."
***
The Kids have me with their stripped-down simple rock and story-telling: “She’s laughin’ like a choir-girl… when she doubles over I hear ‘halleluiah!’” Particularly on ‘Saint John’ and ‘Hospital Beds,’ he gets at narratives that feels archetypal yet unfamiliar enough I’ve got to keep listening to find out what happens.

Shack

(A brief return to) Photo of the Day
Spotted this in Malvern yesterday across the tracks from the old sawmill. There's just something about it. Very Arkansas.

Ice Falls

A Winter hike to some waterfalls adjacent to the Williams Family's homestead.  B&W Kodak T-Max: hand processed, negatives scanned.
... See my Tabblo>

***
This is a fun new way to share photos on the web while utilizing that eye for composition, balance, chiaroscuro and above all: control in how your images are displayed.

Spoiler warning: there are no pics of Eleanor at the above link.
-Matt

Chicken Music

Eleanor shares Matt's love of music, although sometimes she finds his selections a bit shocking.


Eleanor likes to eat. One night she couldn't seem to get enough chicken, so we just gave her the whole bird.

New Camera = More Pictures

Our new camera came on Friday. I'm really excited about all the possibilities. I'm still learning how to actually use all the settings, in which setting it's best to use shutter speed priority and which is best to use aperture priority. I've already learned how to change the ISO and the white balance. This camera thing can't be that complicated. Anyway, I'm sure none of you care about the camera stuff. Here's some pictures of Eleanor:

About 50 times a day, Eleanor will come to me with a concerned look on her face and point her fingers together. Finally I figured out this is how she lets me know she wants to sing The Itsy, Bitsy Spider.

 

She always gets excited when we sing it.


Last night during bath time, Eleanor was being modest, and very proud of her modesty.


Bed time has become a bit more interesting lately. It all started with a monkey that Eleanor got for Valentine's Day. Now she has to have eight to ten stuffed animals or dolls with her when she goes to bed. Today it was three babies, a Star-bellied Sneetch, a red monkey, a small teddy bear ("Bubba"), and Totoro (a character from a Japanese animated film).

***edit***

Daddy really likes the new camera too.

"Turkey babies!"

The adventures of the orange hooded adventure-girl continue. Thanks to Mimaw and Papaw Wyers (Matt's parents) for the borrowed camera and the turkey-house tour for Eleanor. More stellar photos to come when our own new Canon Digital Rebel XT arrives on Friday.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Eleanor and I spent a long time this morning getting ready to go out and play in the snow. The total time we spent playing in the snow was less than five minutes. It had started melting by the time we went out and it was wet and mushy. The first thing she did was pick up a handful of snow (she has mittens, but hates wearing them).

Then she showed me the snow she found.

Then she was distressed that it didn't all get off of her. I think I should have called it ice, since that's a word she knows and loves.


In warmer news, Eleanor's Grandfather made this little desk for her. He had made little desks similar to this for my brother and me when we were little. I asked if those were still around. He found my old desk, but it was not good enough for Eleanor. She loves her little desk and will sit in it to read, eat, play with Play-Doh, play with other toys, or just to sit. She seems to have a system of "tables" now with her desk, the ottoman, the toilet lid, and a cabinet that used to hold our tv. All of the "tables" are about the same height. Various objects are constantly rotated through the system of "tables." The other day I walked into the bathroom and found waiting for me on the toilet lid a toy frog, a baby bottle, some lotion, a hair clip, and a tube of diaper rash cream.



Sometimes she even shares her desk with me.

Elephant Pancakes

Wow. I just realized how seldom I've been posting Eleanor updates. I didn't even do a Christmas post. Oh dear. I'll try to make up some of that now.

Eleanor is a lot of fun to be around these days. She's constantly interpreting the world in a new and interesting way. The way she categorizes things is great fun too. For example, anything on or above your head is a hat, anything round is a ball, and any bodily excretions are poo-poo. Her vocabulary is growing every day. Today her new word was "more." She learned "bear" this week as well, but it comes out "bu-bu." One day she found the bag of oranges on the floor and brought several to me one by one saying over and over "ball...ball...ball".

Eleanor likes to climb these days, but usually only in the nude. She's found that she can scale the ottoman in very little time. I know this picture isn't the best, but you get the idea.


Eleanor also really likes feeding things. This morning she found a toy bottle and fed Jack Sparrow, a chicken, a frog, and a snake. Then she put the frog in a shoe. Then the frog got a ride on the merry-go-round.

Matt sometimes lets Eleanor play with his iPod. She loves listening to the ear buds, even when they are not on. She also likes to listen to crayons, Christmas lights, and various other slender objects.


This is one of Eleanor's favorite ways to look at the world these days. Once she accidentally did a somersault.


Eleanor is learning to use her potty more consistently and only once as a hat.

The Program: Week 2

Who is this contemplative, distant young man? Click on over to Matt's new music blog to find out. It's an ongoing experiment in music, discipline and community. Can you take up the challenge of listening to only two albums per week, learning each song like knuckles on the back of your hand?

Don't worry, no one gets slapped.

Go ahead, click "Matt's Mog" to the right and hear this young man sing and hear what the two Matt's are listening to this week. Who knows, you may have one of the albums already and can give us some pointers on what to listen for.

The Program: or How Make Listening to Music Fun Again

No this isn't installment 28 in the iPod Rehabillitation unit series. I'm happy to report that all my electronic friends are functioning within acceptable parameters. However, my organic friend Matt Cleveland
and I noticed that our iPods were making us susceptable to another sickness: we weren't really listening to our music anymore. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, given that the iPod is meant to make your whole music library as portable as a thin bar of soap (albeit fragile $300 soap). But what we noticed was that since our mp3 collections were in digital form now for easy uploading and sharing, we were acquiring so much music, so quickly (from friends, relatives and perhaps less... savory means) that we really weren't giving each album the time it deserved. What was worse, we weren't enjoying what we were listening to because there was so much else to get through.

Our solution? The Program: Together the two Matts have made a pact to choose two albums with which we are not yet familiar and give those albums as many listens-through in one week as we can (at least 3-5). Indeed, we choose to listen to these albums as if we had paid our hard earned allowance-money for them. Matt describes it in greater detail in the link above. We'll be posting the albums of the week on our respective Mog - Music Blog sites along with our comments and the cumulative effect on our listening enjoyment and hopefully a renewed appreciation for those albums that only start to really shine after a few spins. Feel free to play along.

Albums this week:
Cold War Kids: Robbers and Cowards - Raw garage-rock with high-pitched, multiple storylines.

Dntel: Life is Full of Possibilities - Postal Service minus Ben Gibbard. Trippy ambient textures and analogue syths for your enjoyment.

Tattoos and Skateboards

Matt's Top 5 Albums for 2006

5. The Flaming Lips: At War With the Mystics

Oklahoma weird-rock from Wayne Coyne and friends. Not as strong as "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" but sonically and lyrically more direct. I mean, who else is still using the 'talk-box' guitar effect? Good album, even if the "mystics" they're at war with are religioius folk. "What would you do with all your power?"




4.Josh Ritter: The Animal Years

Third album from perhaps the best folk songwriter of my generation. Putting into practice advice from Pete Seeger, he settles into his rural Idaho roots. Beautiful poetry grappling with the great questions. "The keys to the kingdom got locked inside the kingdom..."







3.Derek Webb: Mockingbird

Derek's most confrontational writing yet. Sparse guitar and piano behind words as hard as canon-balls aimed at breaking down the walls of Pharisaism and apathy growing up among us church folk. "Don't teach me about moderation and liberty, I prefer a shot of grape juice." "Peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication..."




2.Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko used to tour with the New Pornographers but has since taken her golden floodgate of a voice from their line-up to sing lovely, southern-gospel tinged, imagistic songs of love, loss and a madman with a dirty knife dug into his spine: "He sings nursery rhymes to paralyze the wolves that eddy 'round the corners of his eyes..."




1.Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere

Hip Hop producer DJ Dangermouse (of Gorillaz and the Beatles/JayZ mashup 'the grey album') and Rap/Soul vocalist Ceelo found a perfect match in one another for this collaboration. It's rare a pop album gets spun on my iPod but this is one of those rare pop albums that's sells becuase it's actually good music. Besides, this is also Eleanor's favorite album of 2006. If she even sees the album art on the screen she'll start smiling, bouncing and making the hi-hat sound from "Crazy": "Tsht tsh tsh tsh." Needless to say, we've heard it way too many times and I've yet to get tired of it; the true test of a great album. "Who do you, who do you, who do you whodyou think you are, ah hah hah, bless your soul, you really think you're in control?"



Honorable Mention The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers

After catching Jack White (the tall one) and Brandon Bensen (the skinny one) at Austic City Limits Music Fest, Jack is my guitar-hero. The man is a physical giant who seems to enjoy himself every time he picks up a guitar. This is a great disc to throw on, plug in the guitar, turn the amp to "ten" and jam along with Jack. The fun is contagious. "My baby's on the level, I try to read her mind, she's on the straight and narrow, I'm guessin' all the time..."