Ellie Bellie

Elinor had a really hard day today. She has been clingy lately and won't eat unless she is feeding herself so I wonder if she goes hungry a lot. She also sort of has an erratic nap schedule because she is a third child. I try to be home when she needs to sleep, and it helps that a lot of the time Caleb and I can be out at the playground while she sleeps inside, but I can tell she's tired a lot. She is also at the transition from two naps to one and it is taking a toll on her. Anyway, today she was lying on the floor crying so I changed her diaper. I took it into the bathroom and left the bowl of scrambled eggs I was about to feed her and Caleb on the floor. When I came back she had my fork and was gleefully shoveling forkfuls of egg into her mouth. I gave her a kid fork and she had an easier time, but I was very impressed by her dexterity. She is probably the youngest of my kids to get the hang of eating with utensils.

Every time she succeeded in spearing an egg chunk she would squeal with delight.
She probably ate two of the three eggs I scrambled. The girl has a good appetite.

Later on in the evening we went outside for a neighborhood party celebrating three baby birthdays - Elinor's, Sam's, and Charlotte's. It has been so much fun to have a baby around the same time as two of my friends and to be able to watch our kids grow together.

We set the three babies down with a cupcake each and let them have at it. A lot of the older kids gathered around to sing.

Elinor was exhausted and a little confused. I was standing behind her and then moved to the other side of the circle to take pictures. It took her a while to figure out where I had disappeared to.

The three birthday babies (plus Peter).

My poor sad and tired baby. She didn't touch the cupcake.
She's never been a huge fan of sweets, but we'll try it again tomorrow.

We were happy to have so many people show up. The crowd of kids played happily on the playground until long after the light was gone.

Caleb has been battling this tree all day. Lots of rock throwing, stick beating, and pretend gun shooting. I'm just glad it's aimed at a tree and not another kid!

I'm not sure whose wagon this is, but I couldn't resist pulling out the camera for this shot.
It's blurry, but they were gone before I could take another!

Thanks to Reianna for coming up with this and putting it together! We love a good neighborhood party!

Numbers

 We have been focusing so much on letters and sounds that I have completely neglected numbers. Emily's teacher recently told me that Emily could identify most letters in the alphabet but refused to even try with the numbers. I am working to change that. This was our project for today (up on the wall).

Hopefully having the numbers written out where she can see them will help.

Caleb and Elinor are starting to play together more. Here Elinor pulled all the diapers off the shelf and climbed in.

Older brother obviously should have precedence and own the fun things sister discovers.

Then Elinor noticed how spacious that shelf actually is and climbed in too.

And then I went to the fabric store and bought way too much fabric because I have been looking at sewing blogs and have decided I can do that too. It's dangerous.

I also left my planner behind and PANICKED and called the store and asked them to search all the shopping carts. Then I found it in the car. Woops. But it was a serious situation. Much panicking and many feelings of distress occurred during the 10 minutes I was missing my planner (brain).

Today I am sore because I have been reading a barefoot running book so I went out in my New Balance Trail Minimus and tried running on my toes for three miles. So sore.  Maybe I will take it easy tomorrow.

Child Labor

First of all, look how huge my baby has become! She's almost as big as Caleb! When did that ever happen? It must have been that time when she turned one.

I love the foot up in the air.
Emily thought it was pretty hilarious too:

She tried the pose for herself.

Today was a good day. I went out for a run, got the car registered, stayed out on the playground until lunch time, didn't turn the air conditioning on until noon, and then put the little kids down for a two-and-a-half hour nap.
Everyone was in good spirits when Emily came home. I let them free play for a while; then, after being inspired by my friend Reianna's blog, decided to let them "mop" the floor. I put out a bucket of warm soapy water and gave them each a different colored rag. Elinor only wanted to suck on her wet rag but Emily and Caleb definitely got into it.

I'll give Elinor some credit. She did a little work.

I don't know how many times I heard the exclamation, "Oh! I need more water!"
I could have dumped the water on the floor and gotten the same results.

 The pictures are super dark because they show all the water the best. We pretty much had a kitchen-sized slip 'n slide going on.


I had them go over it with dry towels afterward and we actually ended up with a very clean floor! Thanks, Reianna! I will be watching your blog for more fun ideas!

PS. Emily's newest favorite baby name: Sabella Nizza (rhymes with pizza) Cooper. This is for a girl.

One Year Old!

Our baby girl is one year old today! I can't believe she started out as this teeny little bundle and now she has been with us for a whole year! We love having our happy little girl in our family. Emily and Caleb have so much fun playing with her and making her laugh.

 

The hard thing about first birthdays is that the baby has no idea what is so special about the day and by the third child the parents are about out of energy. We tried our hardest to make it a fun day though.
Joseph made a special birthday breakfast of crepes with Nutella, whipped cream, and fruit for us while I was sleeping. That was pretty delicious. Then the older kids helped him make cupcakes from scratch because I forgot to buy a cake mix. We made a mini cake with the leftover batter for our mini little girl.

She didn't really know what to think of the candle.

"Is this for me?"

I blew it out really quick when she tried to grab the flame.

Then she was pretty confused by the swirls of smoke.

I do like the expression on her face in that one.

Emily was more excited than any one else for presents. What to get for a third child who is turning one? She already has more toys than she knows what to do with, and I know I bought more clothes for Emily than I needed to. We settled on a box of Kleenex (thanks to Reianna for that idea), her first toothbrush and toothpaste, and a piggy bank.

Yeah, babies don't really know what to do with presents. 

Good thing Emily was there to offer lots of advice.
And to help with the opening where necessary.

 As simple as her presents were, she loved the tissues and the piggy bank.

It was a good birthday. We love our little El-Bel and are excited to watch her grow.
And we hope she grows out of pulling this face... all the time.

Even if she doesn't, we'll keep her.
Happy birthday, Elinor!

Almost Old

I am 26 now! I had a birthday a couple of days ago and it was a fun, laid-back day. I spent a lot of money on myself during my trips to Utah and New York so I asked Joseph to not spend money on my birthday. Poor guy - he wanted to make me feel special but couldn't buy me anything! He did a great job though. He gave me time for a good run in the morning (plus time to shower, which is a huge bonus). He made a really pretty cake for me and presented me with tickets (purchased earlier) to a couple of shows going on throughout the upcoming year. He also made dinner and cleaned everything up afterward, which I really appreciated. He's a good guy. And I am 26 now!
Here's the cake. His mom's sponge cake filled with whipped cream and garnished with fruit. I thought it was very pretty. The kids loved the fruit.

Today Caleb broke my house key. I'm not sure how it happened, but I was at the car bringing in some groceries and he came to me upset that he had "ripped" my key.

 I've never had that happen before.

At least the pizza was good.

Emily's new favorite name for the next Cooper baby: Steady Neddy Cooper. It kind of has a nice ring to it, don't you think? (fyi, we are not currently expecting.)

Yesterday was sort of a hard day with Elinor. She threw up a couple of times and I really did not know how to deal with it. My kids really haven't thrown up much in the past.
The first time we were standing in front of the cheese at Randall's. Her formula and breakfast came up... and kept coming and coming. I was covered and couldn't really move for fear of making a bigger mess. Luckily a nice lady rescued me by bringing back help and paper towels. Caleb was on a mission to buy cheese. He had his little shopping cart ready and really wanted to put something in it. Since I couldn't touch anything, I told him we needed white cheese and he picked up every block of white cheese and said "this one?" until he came to the right one. Then he dropped it in his shopping cart, wheeled it to the front, put it up on the conveyer belt, and then carried the grocery bag out to the van once it was paid for. He did not seem to notice the vomiting incident at all.
The second time I was standing in the kitchen, about to open the refrigerator. Since Caleb was napping I decided to leave the puddle and bathe Elinor first and then mop it up once she was in bed. After stepping in it three times after that, I decided it was a bad plan and I will probably make mopping up the mess a higher priority next time it happens.
Then there was the doctor's appointment. Three small, restless children in a tiny little room is never a good situation. Yesterday was no exception. Enough said.
My pizza, which I had started the dough for around 1 pm, was not ready to eat until 7. It was a difficult day.
Good pizza though.

New York!

So this one time I went to New York City for a week with my sisters and zero children and I took no pictures at all. aside from this gem:

It was a great trip though. I will tell the story through internet-pilfered pictures.

Here are the pants Steph bought me at 10 pm my first day because I didn't pack pjs. That is my slim, post-baby bod.

 This is the show we saw. After listening to the CD for 7 years now, it's about time I saw it.

China town. Illegal street vendors, cheap merchandise, $5 sunglasses... what more could you want?

The MoMA. Lots of modern art that I did not understand. Also lots of great not-so-modern art. Starry Night, Picasso's Three Musicians, Persistence of Memory... lots of others.

Definitely utilized the public transportation system.

Wandered through Grand Central Station. Really pretty!

Discovered I didn't know a thing about makeup (and I'm almost 26!) so took advantage of my sisters' advice and expertise and bought a new supply

Took my time browsing in a used bookstore. It's been a while since I've done that!

Spent a lot of time walking the streets at my leisure. Simple pleasures.

Came back home to these guys (pretend that boy in the corner is Elinor. I couldn't find a pic with all four).

Alright, alright. Here she is. I do love her.

 But she has thrown up twice today and had a fever of 103 and I am going to be late for her doctor's appointment if I don't go now.

Weathering the Ups and Downs

Good news! The weather is finally cooling down here in Austin! Yesterday, Labor Day, was the perfect day to spend outside with the family and neighbors. Highs were probably in the low 90s, but after a summer of record breaking heat that felt great. We spent a lot of time outside.

Just a quick rundown for you guys outside of Austin:

•  August was the hottest month EVER recorded in Austin (breaking the record set in July of this year).
•  This summer is the hottest summer ever recorded in Austin - 2009 is the second hottest and 1925 is the third (we have been here for two of those years. Why??)
•  August 28th 2011 tied the record for all-time hottest day in Austin at 112 degrees!
•  We set a new record this year for most consecutive days over 100 degrees - 27 days from July 17th through August 12th.
•  As of August 31st we have had 76 days over 100 degrees. The previous record was set in 1925 at 69 days.
•  FYI: the average number of triple-digit days in a year is 13.5

Information found here.

Yeah, so we're pretty happy with this turn of events. Apparently, it's the coolest weather we've had since May. Now we just need some rain.

Anyway, on to other things...
Emily is enjoying school. I was hoping they would change the pre-k to half days this year because of budget cuts, but instead the school day was lengthened. Now Emily gets on the bus at 6:48 am with all the older school kids and doesn't return home until 3 pm! She comes home exhausted and slightly grumpy but she would be so sad if we pulled her out. She loves it.
The other day Emily was picking up her crayons and was searching everywhere for the last one. When I pointed out that it was in her hand she laughed at herself and said,
"That's like when I was at school looking for my backpack. I asked my teacher and she said to the class, 'boys and girls, can anyone see Emily's backpack?' and they told me it was on my back!"
I love that she can make these connections and laugh at herself when she does silly things.

Caleb is doing great. He is learning to talk and I am learning to understand him. He says Emily and Elinor exactly the same way so we sort of have to guess who he's talking about and that's pretty confusing.  A lot gets lost in translation.
examples:
Caleb: [something indecipherable]
Me: What? You want some chicken?
Caleb: NO!! Elinor's my sister!!

Caleb: [something else indecipherable]
Me: Can I comb your hair??
Caleb: NO!! Can you pick me up!!

And so many other confusing conversations. I wish I could think of more right now. He's a silly little boy who has a hard time using consonants.

Elinor is probably the cutest little baby ever. She is working on talking and will say hi and bye pretty reliably, along with a cute little wave. Her very first "word" was "I did it!" and she still uses this phrase a lot. She also said quesadilla repeatedly the other night. That was pretty sweet.


Here is a picture of my first diaper to arrive in the mail. On one of Joseph's textbooks.

And here is our rollerskating princess. She loves rollerskating. And she loves beautiful costumes! What a perfect day!