January wrap up

It's been a busy/slow month - it passed quickly (they all do now), but we felt like we were able to relax a bit and get some things done. We spent a lot of time at home, a lot of time at basketball games, and a lot of time at work. Otherwise, we tried to spend the rest of our time with family and friends.

As you know, we've had a lot of snow this January. Snow (outside of a dusting once or twice a year) is fairly atypical for this region, and we actually had two snowfalls in two weeks that accumulated over 3-4 inches each time. I actually had to have someone from the hospital pick me up and take me home for a shift one day because I couldn't drive there myself. It's been wonderful because I usually feel that the winter is dreary after the holidays pass and it's still cold, gray, and dark early, but if there is snow I'm actually a fan of winter :) Because we have friends within walking distance, we've still been able to get out with Eleanor.

On the days that happen to be nice enough to actually spend time outside, we've tried to take advantage of the outdoors (no she's not choking, she just wanted to lean forward).

It has been increasingly difficult to actually get things done now that we have a baby who constantly wants to be involved in what's going on. We try to incorporate her as much as we're able...like during laundry time.

When I say she likes to be involved, I really mean with everything. When we play games with friends, she fusses until we let her sit with us at the table. This means we have to be extra careful that small pieces aren't within her grasp when we play.

She also doesn't like us to eat without her involved, either. She has started sitting at the table with us for meals. I usually give her a piece of food to mess around with while we eat - a piece of broccoli, pasta, lettuce - whatever we've got handy. Sometimes it finds it's way to her mouth, other times she just flings it around and is perfectly content to have what we have. Her favorite meal past time right now is chewing on cups (because she's teething) - coffee cups and ice water glasses seem to be the best.

Eleanor is starting to like books a little more these days, particularly the type with pages she can chew on. We will read to her, or just give her a book so she can touch the pages or stare at the pictures. This picture is (obviously) posed. Chris occasionally poses Eleanor in funny ways and sends me pictures of her while I'm at work :)

Another posed picture while I was at work one day...hipster baby:

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of this month was spent at basketball games. I feel like I watch less and less of the games the older Eleanor gets, and spend more time running interference between her and the other kids/babies she plays with at the games. For example, one of her friends was "reading" her a Bible story from a Bible book she got for Christmas and I spent the entire time untangling Eleanor's fingers from her pigtails. Every time I looked up to watch a play, her hands were back in this poor girl's hair.

I baked another pie this month, probably the last one for awhile, sadly. It was so good while it lasted though.

Our friends got a new kitten and Eleanor and the kitten became fast friends. She's still trying to learn how to pet nicely though. This baby (like all babies) has pretty much only one hand function: grab.

This is a picture of Eleanor wearing an outfit that her great grandfather picked out and that her aunties wore when they were babies. Pretty darn cute, right?? She certainly fills it out at least...

Eleanor loves to sit with Chris and watch the fire in the evenings. Another wonderful thing about winter and snow: fires. While I love warm weather and t-shirts, I do miss having fires during summer. I could have a fire every single night and not get tired of them!

Now just a cute picture of Eleanor after a bath, because who can resist naked babies, especially those with ridiculous hair?

I know these monthly posts are so random, but they're an efficient way to post lots of pictures, which really is the end goal for me. Maybe at some point I'll come up with a better way...but for now, just relish in the randomness.