farm land

I met up with Tiffany, Paul and Addie today at Farm Land. I went with Mindy Johnson a few weeks ago and Eleanor loved it!! It is Eleanor's dreamland!  She loves feeding all the animals and loves the pony ride. Since our first visit, every time she talks on the phone with anyone she tells them about how the horse in front of her pooped. We even had to come home and put diapers on all her horses because she was positive they were going to poop. She cracks me up!! Well, after todays visit I decided we need a year pass. I'm sure we'll be down there at least twice a week...

memorial day

We had a great memorial day weekend! Saturday we spent most the day doing yard work. We laid down weed guard and put in new bark between the fence and curbing.  We were beat so we just ordered in food and spent the evening at home. 

Sunday was a huge milestone, Eleanor stayed in nursery the entire time! The trick was having Lori drop her off with Evan. I do the nursery singing time and would take her with me before she was old enough for nursery. By the time she was actually in nursery she was used to be being in with her.  I get the biggest kick out of watching her sitting on her little chair participating in nursery. She doesn't really sing, but she's got a lot of the hand actions down. I think her new favorite is Book of Mormon Stories.  

Sunday evening we had Jay and Scott over for a BBQ.  It was such nice weather and Eleanor, Zack and Bear had a blast playing out in the yard. Eleanor loved chasing Bear and Zack to give them hugs and kisses. I don't think either really enjoyed it! After the BBQ we went over to Jay and Scott's to get some Johnny-Jump-Ups starters for our flower garden. While we were over Zack took Eleanor on a long ride in his little motorized truck. It was hilarious, it was like they were on this little date! On the way home Sara called and said they had a lay over in SLC and because Jeff's back was hurting they were able to change their tickets for the next day at 3pm.

Monday morning we met up with Sara, Dick, Jeff, Elyse, Dick, Janet and Kara and her kids at Ruth's Diner. It was raining all morning and was so beautiful in the canyon. It was fun getting to see all of them and it was a great excuse to go to Ruth's. We LOVE Ruth's!!! After breakfast we stopped by Westside Nursery to pick up some more creeping thyme for our walkway. We were going to try and build our pergola over the weekend, but the rainy weather didn't allow us.  The weather warmed up a bit and we were able to have another BBQ with Scott, Michelle, Jay, Scot and Lori and Ryan. I made my famous beer-batter fries (i don't really think they are famous, they just take forever so I'm going to claim they are famous!) and everyone else brought some great food!! Of course we had to end the night playing a little game of ticket to ride. So there you have it!!

cookie weather...

it was cold, cloudy and rainy again yesterday. on my way home from picking up eleanor, i decided it was a good day to make cookies. this is a rare occasion, i hate making cookies. the truth is while in nyc i bought the magnolia bakery cookbook and really wanted to try it out. i made the toffee pecan cookies and yes they were GOOD! of course i had my little helper...

spring...

dang, it was cold today! yesterday it was 93 and today it was 50-something. what a joke! of course i've been letting eleanor play outside these past few days and of course she HAD to be outside again today.  she was so mad i would not let her play in the 'water' (rain). i swear if we bought her a little dog house she'd prefer to just live outside. hopefully this week john and i can finish our pergola and gate so she can have free range out on the patio. 

arizona...

Eleanor and I just got back from a two week vacation. We flew down to ari

here comes the sun...

finally, a warm day!! it felt so good to have my windows opened all day and look out to see the sun shining and everything so pretty! john and i bbq steaks and ate outside tonight. it was so nice. i'm looking forward to spending most evenings outside. 

7:30 pm....

today we took a quick trip to ikea and found a few toys for eleanor. one being her new horse. she's loving this new toy and has been playing with it all day. tonight after her bath (i had to fight her to keep the horse out of the bath) i let her take the horse out for one last ride. i'm loving that she's wearing evan's halloween pjs. 

and its done...

ahhh...i finished my second semester last night. what a wonderful feeling!!! it's really nice being in art school because you don't have final exams, but you do have big final projects. i'd much prefer projects over exams, at least you get to have something to show for all your hard work. i'm looking forward to my three week break before summer classes begin... 

*i wanted to put my flash project on here, but it won't allow. here is just a frame from it...

one more...

i know, i know. i'm obsessed with taking photos of eleanor and bear together. they are just too cute together to not share!

project...

in a day...

eleanor's new favorite snack, peanut butter. do think she's related to grandpa? she was supposed to be eating it with apples...
eleanor in her new shirt. thanks mimi. 
and of course eleanor and bear playing. they played all day! by the end of the day i think bear had had enough of eleanor pestering him. 

bear...

it's official, eleanor has a dog! (hum, i wonder who's boss around here!). eleanor has always loved animals, dogs especially. john and i have kind of talked about getting a dog, but weren't totally sold on the idea. well yesterday john called from work asking if we wanted his co-workers bichon. had it been any other kind of dog i probably would have passed. both my mom and sara have bichons and eleanor LOVES them. so i told him yes and last night josh brought 'bear' over to our house. i don't think eleanor quite understood that 'bear' was hers. it was really cute, bear would only let eleanor get near him or pet him. she would run around screaming and yelling and bear would be right there behind her. she was in heaven!! oh and she keeps calling him jakey. we have to remind her his name is bear and then she'll either say 'bo' or 'beary'. he finally warmed up to john and i and laid on our laps for a bit. he really is a good dog. this morning we took him out for a walk and you can tell he's already comfortable here. the only thing is if i'm holding eleanor bear wants to be right there and they same goes if i'm holding bear. i tried taking a few photos this morning, but i couldn't get the two of them to hold still for more then one second. now they are both down for a nap. hum, maybe eleanor will start taking naps!!

eleanor put your boots on...

i left eleanor in my room for less then one minute while i went out to my car to get a book. when i come back i found eleanor on top of the bar stool with her boots on. just recently she has started climbing on things. as you can see from the photo, she is still a little nervous when she's on top of things. about the boots, she is always putting john or my shoes on, but this was the first she actually managed to get her own on. dang, she's growing up too fast!!

las vegas...

this past weekend we took a little trip down to vegas. for my birthday john got us tickets to see 'love'. the show was amazing! i knew i was going to love it, but i had no idea just how much!! of the many highlights of the show was sitting next to a japanese man who was crying and signing the entire show. 

of course we spent a lot of time at the pool. eleanor has no fear of the water. she kept trying to get away from me and did not like us holding her. it was so nice having warm weather and being able to enjoy being outside. i'm so ready for summer time. (and then we come home to utah and have snow 2 days later!)

we also drove out to hoover damn. i had no clue they were building a new bridge. i guess its been quite a few years since we've been there. we did the damn tour, which was okay. i remember years ago it seemed a lot cooler. 

aunts...

today in the car eleanor started saying amy's name over and over. i've been trying to teach her to say, "aunt" before all her aunts names. so, today i was correcting her and telling her its "aunt amy". we then continued through all her aunts. after we finished she paused for a second and then said, "aunt jakey".  jakey is my mom's little dog which also happens to be a male. her little brain makes me so happy!

12+ hours of boob tube watching

i think john and i set a record for watching tv this weekend. not only did we watch 8 hours of general conference but we also managed to watch the entire series of pride and prejudice. i believe this was the first year i managed to stay awake the entire conference. there were so many good talks. I know it's not very productive, but I love a good day of just laying around in my pjs and spending time with Eleanor and John.

kite runner in training...

last weekend we watched the movie 'kite runner'. i'd read the book a few years back and was a little apprehensive about the movie. well it turned out that we both really enjoyed the movie. i knew john liked it, but i had to clue he'd be so into kite flying now. today he went out and bought eleanor a new kite and later told me he wants to arrange a neighborhood kite flying competition. he cracks me! i love how excited he gets about things. i also love how he got eleanor a spider man kite. she really does love spider man! he had a little issue getting the kite up and going, but eventually he was out of string and the kite was soaring!

*i had just posted this and went into the kitchen to find john doing research on kite flying. he's reading how to make the string strong and capable of cutting down other kites. i love this guy!

los tres amigos

frogs and pink nails...