snowed in

on monday we were all snowed in, so we spent a relaxing day alternating between playing in the snow and playing indoors with huge cups of hot tea and coffee.

ella and i went out around 10 am and didn't come back in until 2 hours later, at which point elenora stated "i want to stay outside until it is dark" because she was having so much fun.  i spent half of my time pulling her around in a sled and building snow towers with our beach bucket and shovels, and the other half of the time digging out our driveway.  j. said "what will the neighbors think when they see you out there shoveling instead of me?" and i said "i don't care! i want the exercise." 

well, it sure was a good workout.  my back and shoulders are killing me 2 days later.

when i got to the end of the driveway the plow helped me out with the last 3 feet of snow, leaving us with a 6 foot mountain by the side of our drive.  elenora and i had fun climbing up and sledding down over and over.

when we went in, i made a big pot of pea soup and then we headed back outside to sled as a family.  we have a great sledding hill at the front of our neighborhood, and elenora was having fun going down all by herself, now that she's a big girl.

yesterday i was back at work, but left early because there wasn't enough to keep me busy for the morning.  so i took ella to the library to get myself the 3rd wally lamb book and to return some books to the children's section.  we have found such great selections at the library.  i love going there with elenora, and i love that we can check stuff out and keep it and enjoy it for free.  the librarians have all gotten to know us and are so sweet to ella.  one lady always gives elenora a sticker on her way out.

here are some books we've enjoyed checking out for ella:

Joha Makes a Wish
Sleepover at Gramma's House
Read to Tiger
The Enchanted Sled
Spirit of the Snowpeople
Merry Christmas, Ernest and Celestine

i have randomly come back in contact with my cousin, m., and am so very glad to have done so.  it's so funny to think that this woman who i haven't seen for 20 years has had so much shared history with me.  nobody else besides her and me are our grandmother's grandaughters.  when i lost 2 uncles, she lost 2 uncles.  when my grandfather mort died, her grandfather mort died. 

i feel like there's so much to catch up on.  so much to find out about what each other knows about our family history. 

she has a daughter, who is elenora's cousin.  i would love to get the girls together sometime.

on a very personal note, a year ago i was very sure that i did not want to have another baby--perhaps ever.  i had told j. at the time that god would have to put the desire in my heart for another one, just as he had put the desire in our hearts for elenora.  well, god must be telling me it's time to get ready, because i'm starting to get the "itch."

we're still not trying for awhile, but it's just so interesting how god can move your heart.

Merry Christmas, Elenora!

momby and r. brought ella back just before 9 am and we all drank mimosas and coffee (except elenora, of course) and had some finnish bread and blueberries while my egg casserole baked.  elenora opened her stocking and a few presents before breakfast, and then momby and r. took off and we opened the rest of our gifts.

ella got some hanukah coins (for the jew in her) and a flashlight, a new boo-boo buddy, 2 nail polishes, some chocolate, toothbrushes, and a huge candy cane in her stocking.

ella's big presents were more legos (lots more, including pink ones) and some doll furniture for her little critters.

i also got her some water color paint and paper.  she wanted to paint right away.

j. made elenora a sweet book called "Elenora and the Animals" which has photos of elenora with various animals all throughout her life, with captions.

yes, he gets best dad award yet again.

here she is in her christmas dress from lorien.

i tried to capture a sweet photo of myself and elenora, and she was such a silly, making goofy faces, that we both ended up laughing really hard by the end.

in the afternoon we headed over to the b.'s.

ella got a tennis racket from uncle j. and aunty h.  i can't wait to go out and play tennis with her.  i hope it's a sport that she can really get into, since i think i could have been kind of good at it if i'd ever been introduced to it as a kid.

she received more watercolor paints and paper from momby, and was eager to paint with them right away.  she made a beautiful painting where she methodically went down the line of colors and used each one to create a sort of sunrise effect.

elenora had created cards for each one of us with her mamaw.  here she is giving uncle j. his card.

here are j. and h.  their christmas will be very different next year with a 10-month-old!

and here i am with j., my sweet husband.  he picked out this sweater for me for christmas, which is now my favorite sweater.

Christmas Eve 2010

elenora came running in at 6:50 am. luckily i'd thought to leave out some crayons and strips of colorful paper on her play table, so she happily went downstairs and played until i was ready to get up at a more reasonable 8 am.  after all, it was my holiday too!

she's been so good about being imaginative with her little critters and her dollhouse, so i could hear her downstairs making up all kinds of stories and using different voices for her different characters.

then j. and i got up and we all got dressed and went to the pancake house for a special breakfast.

in the early afternoon, ella and i got outside and took a nice long walk to shaws for some orange juice and blueberries.  then we watched winnie the pooh's christmas and got ready to head into boston for the service.

the service was really lovely.  we get front row seats because momby plays the piano and j. played his violin.

afterwards, j. and his parents stayed for the second service and ella and i headed back to the b.'s house for her dinner.  i started putting her food on her plate and she exclaimed "Mommy, these are snacks!"  and i said "yes, well, that's what we eat on christmas eve.  we eat snacky foods."  and she said "why are we eating snacky foods?!"  and i said "because we're b.'s and it's tradition!"

she thought it was so funny.

when i put her to bed she was so very tired.  we read one book and then i sang carols to her with the lights off, but could see her precious eyes blinking slowly as her head lay heavily on the pillow.  before i walked out of the room i whispered "merry christmas, elenora." and she whispered back "merry christmas, mommy." 

oh dee doh, we love each other so.

i made a cup of tea and read my book (wally lamb #2) until the family arrived, then we had our own late, snacky dinner (shrimp cocktail, veggies and dip, chips and salsa, asparagus soup, summer sausage with cheese and crackers, olives) and relaxed together before heading home.

j. of course wanted to open our stockings and exchange a couple gifts between the 2 of us when we got home, so i gave him his model boat and his celtics jersey and he gave me a beautiful, adjustable chain for my diamond necklace, 2 cds, and a season of smallville.  

first snow

we had our first real snowfall yesterday--about 3 inches at most, but it seemed so magical to ella that she couldn't wait to get outside. she went sledding in the morning with her mamaw when there was still a good blanket covering.  by the time i got her out it was all slushy on the roads and wet and sticky on the grass.  but it was perfect snowman-making snow, so we made 2 snowgirls and a snowmouse. 

it's really pretty awesome that i get to experience the joys of playing in the snow all over again in my 30s because of elenora... a benefit of motherhood.

elenora's most favorite toy is legos right now.  she was given legos for her birthday from mimi and poppy, and she plays with them every day.  we build all kinds of things and then take them apart and build some more.  legos are such a good toy--so much you create with them, and it takes a bit of mathematics, too, to figure out which pieces would be perfect for the spaces you have.  the other day she was covering the base with legos and she said "i have 7 more rows to go" and i counted and she really did have 7 more to go (7 rows of 2 across... i thought it was pretty smart of her to know that).

we also are enjoying playing uno.  elenora is good about being happy whether she wins or not.  yesterday we played and she won and graciously said "mommy, next time maybe you will win."

she's slept all night the last 3 nights (she's over her cold now).  she doesn't even seem to miss her binky.  she's even taken the initiative to say "i don't need to sleep with socks on now", so i think she's really on to a new phase of not being quite so particular.

(knock on wood.)

the presents are wrapped and under the tree.  ella got a kick out of the present "to j. and b., from j. and b."  she felt her stocking and exclaimed "Santa's been here already!"  but she knows that most of the presents are from her family, who love her.

i have the next 2 days off from work, so tomorrow morning we're going to bake christmas cookies with momby.

vocabulary

Ella, today, after I put a couple of Lego's together: "Oh, mommy! That's very operative!" 


(I have no idea where that word came from, but according to Merriam-Websters, she used it efficaciously.)

Oh Christmas Tree

we got our christmas tree this afternoon.  ella and i met j. at the garden store, but we got there early so here we are sitting in the sun, goofing off.

ella helped me decorate the tree when we got it home.  she kept wanting to put all the ornaments in the same place, but it turned out great.

i didn't catch her smile for this picture, but i just love her curls.

no binkies.

last night ella again slept with no binkies, and doesn't seem to miss them.  although she was a bit more clingy than usual with j. yesterday morning when he dropped her off at school and she cried a little when he left.  the teachers were so sweet with her and they said she was her normal self just a few minutes later.  but when i picked her up they also said that she was sneezing and blowing her nose a lot.  i've had a cold since last friday, so i'm not too surprised, although i really did try to not share any germs.  too many kisses i suppose.  last night she slept all the way until 5:40 am without any crying, but then she woke me up because she was coughing and wanted medicine.  poor girl.  at least she's sick a week and a half before christmas, so maybe she won't be sick on christmas, like last year.

a night without binky

j. was sweet enough to get up with ella for this, so this is his rendition of what happened:

11:50PM - waaa, i want my binky. (no binky, you don't need it. here are your critters.)


11:58PM - i lost my critters. (here you go, here are your critters.)

12:07PM - i lost my critters. (took her to the bathroom)

(talked about unrealisticness of holding critters all night. put them in their little beds right next to her bed, on top of the laundry basket)

she smiled.
 
(and slept the rest of the night without crying.)

the binky fairy arrives

okay, so elenora is sleeping her first night without a binky.  we've been telling her that the binky would need to go around Christmas time, and we were wondering whether to do it before or after Christmas, and then we decided that we'd do it tomorrow night because she doesn't have school the next day, but then tonight at dinner she said she was ready.  i kept asking if she really wanted to do it tonight or tomorrow night, but she said she was ready tonight.

it didn't hurt that the "binky fairy" had left a present in my safe-keeping to give to elenora when she was big enough to give her binkies to the babies.  we brought the present downstairs and gathered all the binkies (she only slept with one, but there were back-ups and rejects in a bin) and we put them in her pink music box and placed them out on the doorstep for the binky fairy to come collect.  ella was so excited about it.

then we opened her gift, which was a calico critters set with a baby mouse on a rocking horse, a big sister mouse, and a friend sitting on a toy car.  i told ella that the binky fairy gave her this gift because she's not like a little baby who would put small things like a binky in her mouth--she's a big girl now.  i told her she can sleep with the little critters.

we talked about what she could do if she wakes in the middle of the night and thinks "i need my binky" and she played out the scenario a couple of times.  when i shut off the light and said good night, she just went off to sleep sweetly.

now hopefully she won't wake up in the middle of the night saying "i need my little critters"!!!

now i'm going outside to remove the binkies from the box and leave a note and a small present (blue nail polish) from the binky fairy in their place.

on Santa's lap

santa came to the ipswich library on saturday, so we took ella over after ballet.  she'd been very excited about seeing santa all week, and kept telling people that she was going to see him, so when we arrived in the children's room and she saw santa she ran up to him with her arms outstretched and it wasn't until she was sitting on his lap that she realized that she was with a stranger.

you can see her awkwardness/stiffness in the photos.

notice in the video that when santa asks her her name she pauses to think about it with a glint in her eye. she has lately taken turns being frances again and has been known to inform strangers who ask her what her name is "Um, i'm pretending that i'm frances today."

she did eventually warm up to him a little bit.

we went to the post office today to mail some letters and there is a right jolly old fellow there with a real white beard and belly, and ella asked me why i thought he looked so much like santa claus.  it's too bad the library didn't choose the guy with the real goods.  it would have been much more fun to pretend that santa works incognito for the postal service.  but i can't figure out how to discount the guy at the library without giving away the whole thing.  

she's smart.  she'll figure it out quick enough.  she already asked me why the santa in one of our books doesn't look like the santa she saw.

questions

today in the car elenora asked "mommy, why do big girls not hold anybody's hand?"

and yesterday she said "mommy, how do you make a face?" and i said "well, if i were going to make a face i would start by drawing a circle or an oval..." and she interrupted me and said "no, but mommy, how would God make a face?" and i said "Oh!" and then launched in.

sometimes her questions just are really striking.