The one with the zoo visit

Eleanor's new things

• We are sensing there could be hoarding tendencies starting to emerge. She likes to pick up as many items as she can... whether it be birthday cards, screws from her toolkit, farm animals, and then carry them around to put them down somewhere only to pick them up. The hard part is that she usually doesn't pick them up in an organized fashion resulting in them dropping to the ground, leading her to pick the dropped item up resulting in other items dropping causing frustration and sadness. 
• She's learning the idea behind "you can't have your cake and eat it too." She wants to wear her garden gloves but once they are on, she has a tizzy and shakes them off. However once they are off then she wants them back on. Same thing with her oversized clog slippers.

She doesn't seem to slow down... she's constantly busy. She takes stairs like a champ, both up and down. She knows where her belly and her toes are if you ask... nose is next. She knows places she's not supposed to go so if you see her and go to get her she goes faster for them! She likes to swing and "mow" the concrete. She'll look at books to her hearts content... she's only over 13 months but I wonder where the baby that I had went? Daycare says she's a joy to have, which makes my heart warm. 

We had some family time this weekend, we had breakfast at the zoo! She ate well, which didn't shock me... she always does breakfast like a champ... gobbles up scrambled eggs, loves sausage and has no problems with pancakes! We then went around the zoo a bit. She was half interested as we aren't quite there to understand the animals yet. She liked the birds the best probably as they seemed to offer some familiarity to her. She also thought it was fun to walk through the tunnels to see the BIG kitty.
 best meal: breakfast was fun.. and it's always pretty good!

The one with Father's Day

We settled into another week of normalcy.

We spent some time together working on the new nursery to get that closer to being finished, including rummage saling for clothes. We also took a nightly walk around the loop, which we all enjoyed but someone really liked when we took her down to the lake for the first toes-in-the-water for the year. She was having a good time until she suddenly dropped! Soggy bottom and all!

On Sunday, we celebrate Matt on Father's Day. This wasn't his first father's day but last year was pretty tame. This year we did whatever he wanted including watching the US Open, going to Scheels, working in the yard, hitting up the range, and having special meals - like Nutella Cinnamon rolls or baked Italian sandwiches. I did feel bad that I made him cook his own sirloin steak that night for supper but hey, when you aren't good at the grill, you stay away.

He did get his Father's Day tie... last year was orange, this year was yellow and a little pink foot print to remember just how small she once was!

best meal: probably the steak with broccoli salad and pasta noodles.

MJR: it's 6:45, I don't think Father's Day needs to start so early.

ALR: Obviously someone disagrees with you. Would you like to take it up with her?

MJR: Eleanor, Dad wanted one thing for Father's Day, to sleep in, can we make that happen?

ALR: Well, compared to Mother's Day you did sleep in... so be thankful for what you get. Eleanor wants you to open her gifts now.

The one with Becca's Wedding

Matt's been pressuring me for some time to take a weekend just the two of us and with the runway project in a good place and two willing babysitters to come from Lansford AND a good reason to go, we left Eleanor in Bismarck and headed to Deadwood for the weekend. One of our friends, Becca, was getting married and she's always been there to support our friendship/relationship so we wanted to be sure to be part of her big day.

It was an intimate wedding at a black hills lodge with a reception at a neighboring lodge. The location was very wooded and scenic and had beautiful little touches of Becca and Mike. Her dresses (yes, plural) were beautiful. One was long while the second for the dance was short. Both stunning and fit her well. Friends and family were so nice and it was even nice to run into a couple friends that we'd partied with previously in Dickinson.

It did have a nostalgic feel to me... a very much end of an era feel. I had partied with Becca many times and we'd done and seen so many things -

from an attempted roller derby match to shoveling snow/chipping ice in the drive way to after bar scenes... there were many stories and many laughs and as I sat there round and pregnant I realized that I was so glad my party days and memories happened (and when they happened) but that they were memories now. We are officially growing up... I now worry about vegetables and child proofing. I go to bed around 9:30 - which was when I used to start to head out for the night. I have phone full of pictures versus selfies and I have an eye on the future with my heart in the present as best as possible.

It was a lot of miles in a short amount of time again to talk, think, theorize with Matt... which we did a lot when we were first married but not as much recently. He did let me grab a cat nap too - which was a rarity for us too. On the way back, we drove by our Dickinson houses, including the first place we lived together in. We were surprised how it looked and was allowed to get so overgrown. Nike would be so angry.

It was nice to share a dance and some moments with Matt, hard for me to not worry about her as she's always had one of us there but I know she had a good time and the hug when we got home made my heart feel better.

After Michele and Randy said their good byes, we did head up stairs and started working on his crib as it had come previously in the week, while Matt was gone. He had a bit of help that was excited to take part in the process.

Best meal: hmmm... we grabbed a snack at the Bowman c-store, we had appetizers at the Gem in Deadwood (chizlets and a quesadilla), and had supper at Becca's reception. The dessert that her step sister made was so amazing though! Who doesn't love wedding cupcakes?

MJR: that was a nice wedding.
ALR: yes, it was.
MJR: not the nicest I've been to, but then again it's hard to compete with our wedding.
ALR: you are supposed to say that.. and I agree with you. Do you think we could do it again?
MJR: You've asked before and I always give you the same answer.
ALR: So you'll think about it?

The one with the room remodels

After getting back from vacation... we slowed down a a bit... for a couple reasons. All of us were tired after going straight for a couple days and we also needed to prep for Matt to leave for a week to go to Providence for "work."

The big things that we got done that I wanted done was to work on Eleanor's new room and start working on Second's revised nursery. Matt had a vision for the new nursery and I wanted Eleanor's room like her nursery so it was pretty easy to get started. I helped paint a bit the nice part is that with his room, we only had 2 walls to paint. We did a lot of the work while our "little helper" was sleeping but she insisted on helping some of the times. It did break my heart the first time she walked into the old nursery and was shocked that her crib was gone. In the same sense, she walked into her new room and immediately pointed at the pictures that had gone up!

Just having her room done was a big sigh of relief for me. I wanted her in and comfortable well before he comes in August so she was aware of her space and her toys. I'm probably silly in thinking she's aware or cares.

We spent the weekend playing a bit around the house. It had gotten really hot so we even set up her water table/pool and let her play a bit. Matt and I even had a camp fire and I enjoyed my first s'more of the season. 

During Matt's week of leave things were pretty lowkey for Eleanor and I... we had ham steaks and broccoli, sweet potatoes and hot dogs... some high culinary standards. We were glad on Thursday when Matt came home that afternoon! 

ALR: Hey, how was your day?
MJR: Great! We are at a seafood place right now.

ALR: Well, that's good.

MJR begins to go into detail about what he ate.

ALR listens attempting to not be irritated: That's nice. I had a bowl of coco puffs and a hot dog after I picked carrots up off the floor. 

MJR: oh.