5 dollars, Charlie Brown

we have a christmas tree! elenora and i went in search of one today. after three stops, we finally found the perfect tree. it was the last small tree on the lot, and they gave it to me for $5. this is probably due to two things: it's a week away from christmas, and the tree is fairly scraggly. we love it, though. i just finished decorating it and can't wait for elenora to see it in the morning.
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ella got her flu shot today. the nurse was so quick that ella and i were both left looking at her like "did you really already give the shot?" elenora didn't cry a bit. the nurse seemed just as surprised and kept telling the other nurses what a good baby ella was. elenora was walking around the office just minutes later--charming everyone she met.

it was so warm out today. maybe fifties. it's still warm out. i am sitting by the open window in my shortsleeves. elenora and i had some great play time outside running around the yard. she really walks great, and i can now kind of "chase" her and catch her up into the air. she was loving it.

j. and i got away this past weekend. it was so lovely and relaxing. just being able to be loud at night and relax in the morning by ourselves was amazing. we went out for thai food friday night and then spent time in the jacuzzi. in the morning we tried a new breakfast place where we had these gormet omlettes. mmm. we did stop by home to see elenora, and she was having such fun with "mam-aw" that she didn't really notice us. so it was easy to head out again in the early afternoon. we decided to head to a furniture store and see if we could find something to replace j.'s bachelor pad bowl chair with. we found a beautiful sage chair that will just work perfectly in our living room. we get to pick it up this saturday, and i can't wait to bring it home. we didn't head to newport after all, because we suddenly realized that we didn't really need to get far away to feel like we'd been on a vacation and "gotten away." so we did a little christmas shopping and were home in time to put elenora to bed. it felt so good to snuggle with her and read her stories. she'd had a fantastic day with her grandma.

we all want to do this again sometime.
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last night i was able to finally wrap all the christmas presents. it took me three hours this year. it feels really good to have that task out of the way. and now that the tree is up i can just relax and enjoy the holidays.

i made a slow-cooker ministrone soup today. thanks mom! it turned out really good except that i turned it to high instead of low because i wanted it to cook in time for dinner tonight, and the noodles all turned to mush. but the flavor was fantastic, and it's super healthy.

i finally have batteries in my camera again. i'll be going back to old blogs and adding the photos that correspond. so check back through if you're interested.