A Day at the Park!

We had a super fun afternoon at Pullen Park. Elle got to swing for the first time and she loved it. She squealed and giggled with joy! She also rode on the carousel and the train for the first time. She waved at all the people on the train as it passed by. We had a great time...so cool to go to a place that each of us remember from our childhood with our child! Fun times! We're sad that Pullen Park will be closed for 15 months but excited to see what changes they'll make.

11 Months Old!

Eleanor is 11 months old. 1 month away from the big day! We are all having so much fun with our almost toddler...this month has been particularly busy starting off with an awesome family trip to Seattle. We had such a great time visiting family and seeing the sights! After that it seems like Thanksgiving came out of no where but it was also a great time with great food and it was so nice to spend time with family and let Ellie have her first taste of the yummiest food ever.

Highlights of the past month:

-So far toddling has been at a minimum but she does pull herself up. We put up a pull-up bar/mirror in her play area and she seems to enjoy checking herself out. Usually she uses the bar to cruise over to her activity table which she loves! She still spends a lot of time beating on the piano and turning the page of the one-page book.

-Elle is a little monkey. She loves to climb and balance herself as close to the edge as possible, I'm afraid we may have our hands even fuller in a couple of months :)

-Talking it up! Eleanor is officially talking. Her first word was bye bye and she has since acquired a few more. Sometimes I think we imagine she is saying something but she seems to use hi and dog as well. It is really cool how she has gone from baby babbles to more grown up babbles that are mostly not words but sound a lot more like she is speaking. She "talks" to her favorite toys pretty regularly.

-Finger food has become the new excitement in our lives. Ellie loves feeding herself. So far her favorites: cheese and yogurt (or baby crack) covered cheerio things.

-Dog's Best Friend- Along with the new finger food obsession has come the discovery that the dogs like her food. Ellie feeds the dogs while she is in her highchair. Not only does she throw things on the floor when she is done eating but she actually reaches down and hands the dogs bites of food. When they come over she pats them on the head valiantly. It is pretty funny. She adores them and they are pretty fond of her as well (especially with all the treats they are now getting). We are happy that she seems to have learned the patting technique as we have been pushing that rather than the intense pinching and pulling of hair that she started with.

-Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbara Ann- Not sure how this one started but when Ellie is bored in the care we often sing Barbara Ann. She now helps us with the Ba Ba part. Very very very cute. I'm hoping she likes singing!

-Our newest method of communication-pointing! Ellie points for the things she wants. My mom even claims that when she had a very dirty diaper the other day she pointed at her changing table for a clean one. Pretty smart girl! She for sure points for more food or for people that she wants to go see.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for our family and friends, our home and jobs, and the many blessings that we have! Today on Eleanor's very first Thanksgiving we find ourselves reflecting on how thankful we are for our little family. We are so thankful that last Thanksgiving I was so pregnant that I had to eat my Thanksgiving dinner in shifts because it just wouldn't fit and now 1 year later we have a healthy, happy little girl.

Eleanor enjoyed her turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. Yummy!!!

Peas, Cheese, Sippy Cup, Pointing and Bah Bye!

Big things are happening in our house! Ellie's official first words.... Bah Baye. So cute. She waves excitedly babbling...bah bye bah bah bah bye. We think she maybe tries to say "hi" to but it isn't as clear as the bah bye. This isn't the best video and you may just think she is babbling ba ba...but she only does it when she waves so check her out:

Ellie is eating everything she can get her hands on (literally!) She is becoming quite the pro at finger foods. So far her favorites are shredded cheese and sweet potato puffs. She also likes scrambled eggs, peas, any kind of bread or muffin and is so-so on avacado. It is nice to be able to give her what we are eating! Ellie has really slowed down nursing a lot with her new found love of real food.

She has also started trying to drink from the sippy cup with a little more effort. So far we've given her diluted juice and I think she has gotten a few sips. She loves to try and it often gets all spit out onto her bib but we're hoping she gets it figured out by the time she starts cow milk at in a month.


And her latest trick...pointing! She points at all kinds of things. Mostly her sippy cup but we are working on "where's your nose?" She is starting to figure it out.

Fun times...fun times

Our Last Day in Seattle

We unfortunately woke up early....bad news on a day that you have to catch a flight home at 11 PM! Apparently we hadn't informed Ellie that is was very important that we sleep in. Since we were up and the breakfast room seemed to get pretty busy we went down for an early breakfast (waffles, yogurt, sausages...yum!) and then came back to the room and packed up. It is amazing how quickly you we can fill up a room. We loaded up our rental car and double checked the room for forgotten things and headed out around 9:00.

It was another rainy Seattle day. We had been warned by many that it would do nothing but rain so we were totally prepared with umbrellas (although we lost 2 on the 2nd day), rain coats, and a rain cover for Ellie's stroller. Luckily it didn't rain too much. We saw the blue sky a few times but used our gear plenty as well!

Our first stop was Glazer's Camera Shop which is a really big camera store that Jason had heard about and wanted to visit. Ellie was asleep so I stayed in the car with her while he checked it out. Then we went over to the big flagship REI store. It is pretty cool...has its own big parking deck and is giant! It has two stories, a big climbing wall, and a waterfall thingy outside.

After that we decided to go back to the Market and walk around a little bit more (always something to see there!) We found a parking spot in the deck behind the market and decided we'd stay for only 2 hours (8 bucks!)

We got a bag of mini-donuts and walked around seeing all the things we had missed on our first trip. We stopped by the original Starbucks...

I stopped in Beecher's Handmade Cheese for a bowl of the "world's best macaroni and cheese." It was pretty darn good but not as good as my mom's!

We left the market and went to find Jack near his work. He worked a half day so we picked him up (Thank you GPS) and got to drive by Swedish Hospital and see where he works. He led us on a nice drive around Lake Washington (where many rich people live/d....Kurt Cobain, Bill Gates) and up to Woodinville, Washington home of the Redhook Brewery. We had lunch in the restaurant there and then took a tour of the brewery.

It was a lot of fun. The tour guide was pretty funny and Jason got to enjoy many beers! The deal is you pay $1 for a glass and then they fill it up pretty much before and after every little part of the tour. You end up trying all the beers at least one time. Too bad I think beer is disguisting! After the tour we stopped by another camera shop for Jason called Kenmore Camera and then dropped Jack off at the house and got to say goodbye to both Jack and Paula and start heading back to the airport.

We stopped by the children's clothing store "Bootyland." Silly name...but very cool clothing. They are all handmade in Seattle and very cute. I controlled my urge to buy an adorable $25 Seattle baby hat for Ellie. After that we stopped by Northgate Mall to see the Target Store. We had driven by this enormous beast and Jason wanted to check it out. It was pretty crazy. The building is 7 stories. Target on the top 2, Ross and Best Buy and something else under there. We walked around for a little bit, bought some gum for the flight home and then went to the mall food court for dinner. Luckily we found Ivar's so Jason could have his last dose of Fish and Chips! We walked around the mall for a little bit, cleaned out the rental car and headed to the airport.

We got to the airport with plenty of time, returned our rental car and got to the gate. Ellie ended up sleeping for pretty much the entire flight to Detroit and so did we. Once we got to Detroit she was ready for some action and stayed awake for most of the flight home to Raleigh. She was a great traveler though. Elizabeth and Kathy picked us up at the airport and we were happy to get home and take a nap!

We had a really nice trip. It was so nice to have a few days that the three of us just got to hang out and do everything together...that is rare! Thanks so much to Jack and Paula for showing us around and hanging out with us. It was a lot of fun and Seattle is a really nice city!

Seattle Day 3

Ellie again woke up early but went back to bed so we ended up sleeping until about 8:30 Seattle time...it is going to be hard to switch back to Raleigh time! We had breakfast and then walked over to the Experience Music Project.

This is one of the major thing Jason has been looking forward to and it was pretty cool. He got to play drums on stage in a simulation of a real show and Ellie and I got to watch his band "Ella's Headphones" from the lobby. We also jammed in the Sound Lab. Ellie and I sang into the big microphone and she loved beating on the drums. They also had all sorts of memorabilia like Hendrix's guitars and Michael Jackson's sequin jacket and glove. Ellie even got to feature in her own album cover:

We also visited the Sci Fi Museum which is connected to the EMP. In the Sci Fi Museum we saw ET, Donatello the Ninja Turtle, and all kinds of dorky Star Trek stuff (we walked quickly through this!)

Around lunchtime we ventured up the Space Needle again this time during daylight. We sat inside for awhile and just enjoyed the view.

I liked this better than last night because it wasn't so chilly and we could kind of figure out what we were looking at better. Seattle is a big city! We enjoyed seeing the sound from up high and looking for our hotel.

We had lunch in the Seattle Center food court (Fish and Chips again for Jason...3 days in a row and a burger for me) and walked back to the hotel. At the hotel we picked up the car and drove over to meet Jack and Paula at the big Fremont Troll.

It is very strange....just an enormous troll under a bridge and he is grasping a VW Beetle. Tourists flock to this thing! After the troll we all drove over to the Chittenden Locks and got to watch 2 boats go through the locks.

We also walked through the Fish Ladder and saw 1 salmon! We were happy to see one as it isn't really the right time of the year to see the Salmon going

up the ladder. Very cool! Then Jack took us by a beach because Jason wanted to see what the beaches were like. It was neat to see how different they are from the NC beaches. Lots of rocks and they have fire pits right out on the sand. Pretty cool! The water was really clear and pretty.

On the way back to the hotel we spotted Theo's Chocolate which is a local chocolate factory that is pretty big. We stopped by and tried all the yummy samples! We bought some chocolate to take back to work and headed back to the hotel.

Unfotunately when we got to the hotel we discovered that we left our beloved ERGO baby carrier at the chocolate shop so Jason drove back over to pick it up. On the way home he picked up Phad Thai and Fried Rice from Bahn Thai which is just down the street from our hotel. It is super good Thai food! I think we'll have a little bit of Key Lime Pie for dessert and then head to bed. Tomorrow will be a busy day for us and then we fly home at 11 PM. We still haven't decided what we'll do in Seattle but we'll figure that out sometime :).

Seattle Day 2

Ellie woke up early...4:30...which is her normal 7:30 Raleigh time. Luckily she was tired enough to have some Cheerios and go back to bed for a couple more hours. We went down to breakfast around 7:30 and had waffles, sausage and really yummy Washington yogurt. It is so creamy. Ellie loves it too so luckily we have something to feed her for breakfast in the hotel!

After breakfast we walked out to Seattle center where the Space Needle and many ot

her attractions are. It was a little rainy but we came prepared with rain jackets and the stroller rain cover. We stopped by Starbucks for a drink and called Jack to figure out t

he plan. We took the Monorail to Westlake Mall...kinda funny they only have two stops but convenient for us! The Monorail zipped through downtown and dropped us off on the

third story of the mall and we looked around for a little while and then walked down to Pike Place Market. It is quite the place. Pretty different

from any thing I have ever been to. I don't know how many stores there are there but I'm pretty sure you could spend days looking at things. We hit the highlights...Daily Dozen Donuts (we got the mixed bag of mini donuts: hot plain, cinnamon, powdered and chocolate frosted, sprinkles!) So yummy! We got to see the fishing fly at the fish market and even made it to the wind-up toy shop. Then we met up with

Jack and Paula and had apple cider at a little shop where you could sit at the window and see the boats out on the sound. We walked around a little more and then found the elevator down to the street level.

We spent a few hours at the Seattle Aquarium which was lots of fun. They have a huge tank when you first walk in that has all local species so we got to see the different salmon that are common their in the Puget Sound.

There was a diver in the tank who played peek-a-boo with Ellie!

Ellie really like seeing all the fish. After the aquarium we headed over to Ivar's which is a local seafood place right on the waterfront.

Grandpa Lorin recommended we try the clam chowder so we ordered up our same fish/shrimp and chips and a cup of chowder. It was really good. Afterwards Jason and Jack fed the seagulls...I wasn't brave enough!!!

On the way back up to the Monorail we stopped by Beecher's Cheese Shop (where you can watch them making cheese in the window) and the original Starbucks...it was way to packed to buy anything but maybe we'll go back. We picked up a smoothie at the mall and fed Ellie her lunch and then hopped back on the monorail to the Seattle Center.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Pacific Science Center. It was pretty cool. Among our favorite exhibits were the Naked Mole Rats, the 1/2 of the toilet working mode

l, the dinosaurs (we bought "Ellie" a $3 wax mold dino in one of those cool machines), and the giant guitars. We also went to the Beatles laser show. It was fun and Ellie loved it. She laid back in my lap and tapped her hands to the beat. She was very content for the entire 30 min show...looking at the crazy lights and listening to good music.

After the science center we walked over to the Space Needle (which is also in Seattle Center) so we took the trip up 520 feet to the top. Luckily they have an elevator! The view was pretty awesome from the top. It was after dark so we got to see the lights of the city. At night the top is dim and quite the romantic attraction...

they have little bar tables and sell wine and beer. We were tired so we quickly stepped outside and took a few pictures and went back to the hotel. Our ticket allows for two visits up the Space Needle so we are going to go again tomorrow during the daylight.

We had leftover pizza for dinner which was great even the second time! Vacation is nice because we can actually go to bed at a decent hour without all the house stuff to worry about!

Seattle Day 1

We left Raleigh at the crack of dawn (thanks dad for the ride!) on our adventure to Seattle. We arrived in Seattle around 11:20 AM...the 3 hour time difference helps a lot! The flights were good although the second 4 1/2 hour flight was pretty long with a 10-month old playful baby. Ellie did really well though. She slept the entire first flight and then slept for a few minutes of the second flight and played the rest of the time. We were glad that we brought her some good snacks and toys. We were extra lucky because we had a seat in between us on both flights. We tried the trick of picking the window and aisle seats and hoping no one would pick the middle...and it worked!

When we arrived in Seattle we picked up our bag and rented a car. The coerced us into upgrading to a bigger car which left us a little bitter but it was probably good to have the extra room for all the baby equipment. We plugged in our GPS and headed out to Jack and Paula's house. The took us out to lunch at Anthony's where we tried our first clams, dipped in butter---yummy!

Jason had fish and chips and I had prawns and chips. They call shrimp prawns around here.... Lunch was very good--- thanks Jack and Paula!

After lunch we stopped by their house for a little bit and said hi to the cats. After that we decided to head out to the hotel to get ch

ecked in and unload. After a busy day of traveling we were tired so we ordered pizza delivery to the room (Pagliacci's...a local chain around here) and went right to bed.