Door Holder

Caroline was back in school last week after a week off from Hurricane Ike.  SHe was very excited to go back. She goes Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. All week I kept asking her what she did at school that day and all she would tell me is that she had "a very important job as the Door Holder". She even told our friend Brittnee about it when she saw out. Apparently in preschool, "Door Holder" is a big deal. When she came home from school today, I asked her what she did at school and she replied, "I was NOT the door holder." 

Eleanor on the Move!

Eleanor took her first steps three weeks ago, but in the last week and a half she has really started taking off! She used to only walk if we sat in front of her and enticed her to walk towards us. Now, though, as long as she is already standing, she'll walk just about anywhere or towards anything. She'll take about 10 steps in a row now! She is very proud of herself when she gets to where she wants to be. Go Eleanor!

Sleeping Beauty "Coming Soon"

When Caroline woke up Sunday morning and came downstairs, Brett said to her, "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!".  Caroline replied back to Brett, "I'm not Sleeping Beauty. She's not out yet. She's coming soon though!" The power of advertising...

Hurricane Camp

Here is the little cabin at the conference center that we stayed at during the power outage after the hurricane. Caroline referred to it as "Hurricane Camp". I'm sure Daddy had nothing to do with that! 

Ike Update

Definitely not looking our best after VERY little sleep!

The street next to ours, across from the park, got hit the hardest.
One of our neighbors' homes.
Brett caught in an awkward moment. I think he referred to the hat as his "Texas umbrella"! And yes, those are running shorts and steel-toed boots!
More trees down
A crew out early in the pouring rain already cutting up a tree blocking the cul-de-sac at the end of our neighborhood.
Taken at about 6:45am when the wind and rain were still extremely strong.
Thank goodness we had the ipod to keep Caroline occupied at some points!
The laundry room were we slept for part of the night. Caroline had it decided before going to bed that we would be having a "Hurricane Party" in there in the middle of the night. If only it was that fun!
The park in our neighborhood had a lot of trees down.

We got our power back Tuesday night and returned home from the conference center on Wednesday afternoon! I had to go grocery shopping where the conference center was since there were very few essential groceries in stores by our house. People in our town are still waiting in line for 2 hours for gas and the meat, dairy, and frozen food sections of the open grocery stores are still empty. About half of our town still does not have power, so we are very lucky. Here are some more shots from during and after Ike.

Hurricane IKE!

Street alongside our neighborhood park. 
So many trees were down that you could barely recognize the park that Caroline plays at almost everyday.
Exiting our neighborhod. THe entrance had a big tree down, as well.

First of all, we are all ok! We had no damage to our house or ourselves! Hurricane Ike was definitely an adventure and still remains one now. 

Starting Friday night at about 2am the winds really picked up. It started getting pretty scary around 3:30am when we all went into the laundry room (which earlier in the day we warned Caroline that would happen & she referred to it as a "hurricane party"). We lost power at about 6:10am. We stayed in there until about 6:30am. WHen we came out it was still pouring rain and the winds were still pretty strong, but not like they were earlier. As far as we could tell there was no damage to our house. By about 11:30am, when it wasn't raining quite as hard, Brett went outside to see if there was any damage. We were very lucky not to have any trees down on our property. However, much of the neighborhood had many, many trees down. Our park was almost recognizable, there were so many trees that had fallen there. Some houses had trees leaning up against them or across their porches, but it didn't seem that any had caused major damage to any houses in our neighborhood. We did still have our land line though, thank goodness, but cell service was very bad and even trying to send a text to anyone was almost impossible. 

By Sunday, we were able to get in the car and see what the rest of our town looked like. THere were so many trees down, we couldn't believe it. We heard that two grocery stores were open, but none had ice, water, meat, milk or batteries. The lines were 100s of people long and they were letting people in in small groups and once in the customers only got 15 min. shopping time. People were driving up to an hour away to get get and still waiting in line for about 2 hours to fill up, while others never ended up getting any at all. The DJS on the radio were not playing music, it was just people calling in all over the Houston area letting other people know where they were finding supplies, food and fuel. We were ok on the foos side of things, but we definitely did not have any more ice. We had a bunch of friends over Sun. night and put all the meat we had in our freezer on the grill to share. 

Monday morning we woke up to find that our land line no longer worked! By Mon. late afternoon, we found out that Brett's company was going to be putting us up in a hotel about 45 min. away since it was estimated that our power could be out for up to 3 weeks! We were so grateful and excited to be able to go somewhere where there was power and where the surrounding stores and restaurants were open. So here we are until at least Fri. waiting for our power to return. We just found out that a friend of ours who lives a couple of neighborhoods down from us, just got power back on late this afternoon, so we are REALLY hoping it will be soon!!! 

Remembering Braddock

Not only are we remembering all those that perished during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but we are also remembering our five and a half month old nephew, Braddock, today, too. Braddock passed away one year ago today and although we can no longer see him or hold him, he is still very much in our hearts every day. We miss you Braddock and know that you are looking after us all from above.

  

Aunt Rita playing with Braddock one year ago today.

Big Week for Eleanor!

The Winner! We'll put this one on her invitation for her "Little Pumpkin" themed birthday party
Silly baby!
Happy baby!
Playtime with Daddy-except Eleanor played a little bit too hard and Daddy got injured!
Trying to crawl on top of Daddy

What a week for Eleanor! Not only did she take her first steps on Sun (but has refused to take any since!), but she also waved goodbye to the cashier woman at Target, while saying "Ba!". She has been saying "Da-day" (a.k.a Daddy) all week and has also started to point to different objects with her index finger. She is eleven months and couldn't be better! 

Here are some cute pictures of Eleanor and Daddy playing and her mini photo shot for her "Little Pumpkin" themed birthday party invitations.

Eleanor's First Steps!

Eleanor took her first steps today! It was only two steps, but hey a girl's gotta start somewhere! I'm sure she'll be walking across the room in no time!

First Day of School

Ringing the bell outside her school
Standing outside her new classroom
Putting her backpack in her cubby
Being welcomed by her teacher, Miss Jessie

Caroline had her first day of 3 year old preschool this morning! She was very excited, but also a little unsure. She had already met her teachers when they came to our house for a visit two weeks ago. Last week she went in to visit her classroom and see her teachers again, one on one before school started. Today though, was the first time she'd be in her classroom with all the other children, too. There are 15 children in her class, including her good friend, Amelia (or as Caroline still calls her, "Melia").  Even though she was acting a little shy, she did very well when we dropped her off.  When I picked her up though, she was really excited and said she had a great day. She did an apple craft with buttons, had animal crackers for snack and made a new friend named, Charlotte (she even named one of her baby dolls "Charlotte" this afternoon). After school, we went out for a pizza lunch to celebrate her first day of school!

Eleanor Grace at Almost 11 months

Sitting pretty at the Columbus Rose Garden
Busy crawling away from Mommy
Eleanor doing her "headstand"!
Holding "baby's" hand while sleeping.
Exploring the zoo with Daddy
Playing with her friend, Margeaux.

Eleanor is almost 11 months now! She is a busy girl, always laughing, "singing" and crawling after her sister. She pulls herself up on anything she can get her hands on and is beginning to cruise around furniture more. Today she even stood by herself for several seconds and will hold on to our hands and take a few steps! She is getting so big; it's hard to believe! Eleanor only gets two bottles a day now, one at her morning nap and one when she goes to bed at night. When she first wakes up and goes down for her morning nap, she gets her formula from a sippy cup. Hopefully by the time she is one and drinking milk, there will be no more bottles! Eleanor seems to love all kinds of food and is completely finished with baby food. She really enjoys yogurt and cheese, but also seems to really like cantaloupe, carrots, any kind of bread and especially LOVES her Cheerios! One of Eleanor's favorite activities is bath time. She gets to excited when we start the water, that she stands holding on to the side of the tub and screams with excitement until she is put in. Once she is in the tub, she enjoys trying to dive face first into the water, much to Mommy and Daddy's chagrin! Eleanor has also finally found a "lovie". She really loves a little bald baby doll that looks just like her. She'll fall asleep holding baby's hand in her crib. Now that Caroline is in preschool, Eleanor will be having her own little playgroup with 9 other babies every Friday morning. It will be nice for her to have her own group of friends now instead of always tagging along after Caroline and her friends!

Pretty soon our baby will be one year old! You know me, the birthday party plans are already in the works! Stay tuned!

Patterns

The other day I was leaving the Y with Caroline and grabbed some fliers on the way out. Caroline asked if she could hold the papers, so I gave them to her. When we got to the car, I told her I would take them, so she could climb in. She said she "wasn't finished yet"  and then said "I have to do something with them." Then a few seconds later she handed me the papers and said, "Look, Mommy! I made a pattern! Pink, yellow, pink, yellow!" I thought it was pretty funny, considering that I didn't even realize that I had two pink papers and two yellow papers and that she thought to put them in a pattern order.  She is always surprising me!