Tis the season....

I feel like the holiday season passed by way to fast this year. We were out of town the last few weeks in November and didn't get into the full swing of things until the first week of December. I was also in school until December 12th. However, we did manage to get all our Christmas decorations and lights up! Of course John went all out with the lights this year. He said he did it for Eleanor, but I'm pretty sure he enjoys it just as much. We thought about getting an artificial tree this year, but ended up with a real one. We had fun going with the Hackings to pick it up.

The highlight of the season was having Eleanor around. She had Christmas down! She loved Santa and even loved sitting on his lap. She got to sit with her little friend, Aspen. We had coached her about seeing Santa and sitting on his lap. The day before she kept saying she was going to be nice to Santa and thought hard about what she wanted to ask him. She was really cute. When she sat on his lap she looked up at him and gave him a little wave. Here is what she told him she wanted: a REAL horse and REAL pig, but no ducks. She also wanted a brush. After she finished she reached over and gave him a hug. It was ideal!! After seeing Santa, she made sure to point out every Santa we saw and give him a wave.
Eleanor also loved learning new Christmas songs. She learned Jingle Bells, Santa Baby and Up on the House Top. She got a book that plays Up on the House Top and now she can sing most the song. She also wrote her first letter to Santa. She was really into it and spent quite some time making sure her drawings were perfect!

Eleanor did really good this year not to play with the Christmas tree or ornaments too much this year. However, I did catch her giving it a good flick!We made our annual trip to Temple Square to see the lights. This year we went with our friends Becky and Blake and enjoyed dinner at Settebello and a little Christmas shopping at Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn before. Eleanor has been into temples lately, so this was a HUGE deal for her. She was squealing and so excited to see the temple and the lights. This year they had a nativity in the reflection pool and Eleanor said that it Jesus was swimming in the water and she wanted to go with him. She also pointed out a statue of Joseph Smith that the rest of us missed. (Thanks to the nursery manual she loves to tote around, she has become quite the church scholar). Another cute thing she did was copy John with her hands in her pockets. She would not allow us to put mittens on her. Poor girls hands were ice!! After Temple square we visited "Christmas Street" for our first time. We all loved it and John said he would LOVE to live on a street that went all out like that. The next day Eleanor was talking to Mimi on the phone and told her we saw the lights at "Temple Circle".

my little nude artist...

today i thought i could get a few things done while eleanor was entertained with water colors. entertained, she was. she was in deep concentration with her art work. she spent almost an hour on two paintings. she also spent a few minutes doing a little body painting. a few days ago we had her write her letter to santa, and so today she informed me this painting was for santa.

and yes, i did give this child a bath and comb her hair today.

my favorite things....

this was too cute not to capture. eleanor waking up in the morning with her two favorite things, her 'pretty shoes' and her 'fancy jammies'. she insists on wearing this outfit all day. i have to fight her to wear normal clothes out, but once we get home her clothes are off and she wants back into her jammies and her shoes. she's quite stuborn, but it's well worth it!!

for dad...

growing up my dad was always taking photos of us kids sleeping. now, i understand why...


this is after i moved her onto my bed. The past few weeks all Eleanor wants to wear everyday is a t-shirt and a pair of shoes. If it were up to her she'd wear this outfit out everywhere!!

thanksgiving...

This Thanksgiving we totally stuffed our selves with TWO dinners! For the first we went to my aunt Shauna and Uncle Ted's home. We had a really good time and a great dinner. We also got to see Grandma and Grandmpa Wolfley. It has been over a year since we saw them last. Eleanor really took to Grandma Wolfley. She sat on her lap most the time and played with her chin. It was really sweet.

After dinner with the Nielsens, we headed up to Elk Ridge to spend the rest of the day with John's family. After dinner all the kids went out front and played. Ashley and Michelle gave Eleanor a few lessons on how to jump rope. Eleanor had a ball playing with all her cousins and we enjoyed just hanging around with family.

final project...

I just finished my last project for my photography class!! I'm really excited to see it in person. I kind of got sad finishing this assignment, knowing that it will be one of the last projects I'll work on for school. You can preview a few pages here.

i wanna be a cowgirl...

earlier this week eleanor was watching sesame street and there was a little girl who was a cowgirl and had a stick horse. while she was watching it she had me get her stick horse so she could be a cowgirl as well. while she was playing i told her this week i'd take her out and let her ride her horse in the "mountains" like the little cowgirl on the show. i figured i'd better get her out on her horse before the weather got to cold. i'm so glad we did this today. eleanor had such a blast. here are a few little coversations she had with her horse:
eleanor: come on horsey, let's go see the temple.
eleanor: mom, i'm a girl cowgirl.

i'm sure we'll be up in the mountains again real soon....

uofu blackout...

Last week John and I went to the Utah v. TCU game and it was crazy! It was freezing cold out and ground and seats were still wet from snow. Thankfully, I brought a few blankets and we had plenty of warm clothes on. We were afraid Utah was going to loose, but they pulled it together the last few minutes and won! It definitely was a great game to attend!!

Going Private

Okay, I've decided to make my blog private. Let me know if you'd like to be sent an invite you can email me at martin.julie.anne@gmail.com. I think I''ll try and make it private by next week. Thanks.

election day...

For months, Eleanor has been into the presidential election. She can identify both Obama and McCain. When asked who she is going to vote for she says, "Obama". Its the best! Well today she finally got to go to the polls! We didn't think John was registered, but it turns out he was and he was able to vote. He was pretty excited to cast his first presidental ballot! I am anxious for tonight!!!

perfect fall day...

Today was one of those perfect fall days! It started with me getting up early and getting my house completely cleaned before Eleanor woke up. I then made Eleanor and I good breakfast, got dressed and gathered a few things I needed to return (a number of sweaters not used for our Halloween costumes and a few other odds and ends). We then headed up to the University of Utah to try and get tickets for the TCU game this Thursday. When we pulled into the parking lot of the stadium, Eleanor got so excited about "going to the game" and being at "mom's school" ( I took her to campus on Halloween and showed her where I have my classes). She was quite upset when we didn't get out of the car. The line to get tickets went ALL the way around the stadium. I really didn't feel like standing in line for 2 hours with a 2 year old, so I called John and we decided I'd come back in a few hours and see how it looked. So, to burn some time Eleanor and I made a quick stop to Ann Taylor Loft and Old Navy. Of course, I found 6 coats I'm conventing for! (I really LOVE coats, I guess that's reason enough to live in Utah!) While I was in Ann Taylor, Eleanor wanted to hold my purse and I didn't realize until we got in the car that she had collected all the children's books laying around and shoved them in my purse. I had to give her a quick lesson on shoplifting then we took them back! Funny girl!

After shopping we heading back over to the "game" to see if the lines were any better, but it wasn't! It was just as long! So I called John and we headed over to his work to pick him up for lunch. He didn't have much time so we headed over to Hires for a quick lunch. John ordered a root beer mug, but I'm pretty sure he only got one or two sips. She had to hold onto the handle the entire time!! I love meeting up with John for lunch, I just wish we could do it more often!!

After lunch Eleanor and I checked out line again. The line was defiantly better, it was gone with a note on the window of the ticket office saying "SOLD OUT". I was a little disapointed, but didn't mind too much because I'm sure its going to be FREEZING Thursday night!

I wanted to get a photobooth with Eleanor so we headed over the the Utah Museum of Natural History. I wasn't planning on going through the Museum, but Eleanor saw a few animals and insisted we stay. It was my first time to actually go through it and it wasn't half bad. The best was watching Eleanor's reaction when we walked into the dinosaur room, her eyes were huge and she said, "coool". It was great! We then got to see all sorts of spiders. As mentioned before, Eleanor is totally into spiders. Her favorite was seeing the tarantula. Personally, I thought they were a bit creepy, but it was fun watching Eleanor get so excited over them!!

After the museum we headed over to my favorite park. We've been taking Eleanor this park ever since she was itty bitty. The weather was perfect and I loved having all the leaves on the ground! Again, I LOVE this time of year. This year I feel like we've had such a great fall!! It was nice for Eleanor to get out and play. Her favorite things to do are: Hang, Swing and ride the "dragon" (a small little dinosaur).

Our next visit was the Salt Lake Temple. I choose to drive through the Avenues to get there and I'm so glad I did. I seriously love the avenues and would LOVE to live there! I seriously would live in Utah the rest of my life if I could have a home there! Eleanor loved the area as well and would say, "I like this house" to almost every house we past. We made a quick drive by to Aunt Sara's old place. (wish you still lived here Sara and Dick).

By the time we got to the Temple Eleanor was pretty tired so we just did a drive by. I rolled down her window and right when she saw the Temple she yelled, "I found the Temple!". Needless to say, she thought it was the coolest thing!!

Before we got on the freeway she was out cold, which was nice for me because that allowed me to do all my errands, while she slept. I ran to Micheal's, Ikea, Walmart, Smiths and Costco. I am so lucky that Eleanor will sleep anywhere!!

When we got home I made some homemade chicken noodle soup and had it ready just in time for John to get home. We ate dinner together and caught up on a few shows. It seriously was such a great day!!

happy halloween...

from Bert, Ernie and Kermit!

*to see more photos, visit here.

photos..

The past few months I've been feeling a little overwhelmed about all the digital photos we have, so I started organizing and making backups. I put all our photos on both hardrives and cds and then placed them in a fireproof safe (a little neurotic, yes). Then today I've been adding photos on our smugmug page. With three backups, I think I should be good. Now, I just need to start printing photos. I love digital, but I miss having prints.

A few years ago my brother Ashley went through all of my parent's photos/slides and gave all of us digital copies. It is seriously one of my favorite possession. My dad took so many great shots of us as kids. I really want to make sure my kids have plenty of childhood photos.

*sorry for the photo overload.