Tag: Eleanor

Another Day Out with Thomas

We first met up with Thomas, the cheeky blue engine, two years ago. We missed it last year because we spent the summer up in Wisconsin while we waited to move into our new house, but we went again this weekend. I don’t know if you know this, but carrying a big rock to meet Sir Topham Hatt? It’s a thing.

Thomas travels around North America through the spring and summer, and the event is held near Chicago each year at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. It’s a cool place, with an impressive collection of “rolling stock” (locomotives and cars). Eleanor and August are still afraid of the biggest engines, but the smaller, friendlier ones are much less imposing.

The kids got temporary tattoos, played with train tables, and climbed on a giant sand mound. Not sure how that last one was train-related, but they enjoyed it.

And of course, there was the obligatory Thomas train ride.

The kids waved at him and thanked him for the ride every time we saw him puff by. My goofy little cuties.

August 18, 2014
Eleanor’s Fifth Birthday Party

We had two birthday parties on Sunday. The first was for Eleanor’s friends, and the second, later in the day, was for our family and also celebrated Brandon’s birthday. We tried this last year, thinking that it was a good way to separate the events but still have everyone involved, and it went well. This year? It felt kind of bananas. But it went well too, so yay? (We were tired that night!)

We had a dozen five-year-olds in the house, and the party was fast and fun. I snapped most of these photos after they had left, but before our family came by.

Hey look, a sneak preview of the books on the shelves! With a weird, giant horse balloon.

And more use of those giant balloons… There were three in all, and the kids loved carrying them around the house. (Brandon had them filled at the grocery store for $2/each with heart-shaped weights. The party store quoted $7/balloon with just string.)

That photo of E from when she was six months old still cracks me up!

The kids at the party spent most of their time up in the playroom, playing with Play Doh, using the toy kitchen, and trying on dress-up clothes. We didn’t want to interrupt them and steer them toward activities (like Pin the Tail on the Pony) that they might not really enjoy when they were already having fun, so we went with the play that was happening naturally. At one point, Eleanor and some of the other kids formed a marching band and they went through the house making a jolly racket, and my favorite getup was the girl who paired leopard-print kitty ears with black glasses and bongos. I like your style, young lady.

(Eleanor was kind of bummed about not playing the pony tail game with her friends, but we did do it later when our family came over. The adults were all pretty sure the older kids cheated, because their tails were all right on top of each other in just the right spot.)

We put down a plastic tablecloth and rounded all the kids up when the pizzas we ordered had arrived. To keep them busy in their seats while we got the food ready, we had markers and pre-cut circles of paper that fit my button making machine. The kids ate while Brandon made their designs into magnets, which they took home at the end of the party along with their goody bags.

After pizza came the birthday cake. I didn’t get a great shot of it because Brandon and I were both busy keeping up with all of the kids, but the cake looked similar to the one in my post on horse birthday party inspiration. Instead of bunting, I made some big paper hearts to go behind a toy horse.

But oh! The look on Eleanor’s face, and her friend’s hand on her arm. Love this shot.

And thus went our birthday celebration weekend. I don’t know if we’ll divide the parties up the same way next time though — we were all exhausted! I’m curious… do you combine the kids and the family into one party? Have them on separate days? Just do one or the other? We might need to rethink our approach.

May 6, 2014
Five Years Old (Eleanor’s Yearly Photo)

I took a monthly photo of Eleanor in the same Eames rocker, in the same spot, every month for the first two years of her life. (I did the same thing for her little brother, August.) When I came to the end of my two-year project, I decided to keep the tradition going with yearly photographs instead.

Eleanor is five years old now. Here is her yearly photo.

We found out recently that baby number three will be a boy, and Eleanor will soon be a big sister to another little brother! She continues to be very helpful when it comes to name suggestions, but Super-Boy has been the best to date.

Happy birthday, Eleanor! We love you to Mars and back. (It’s much farther than the moon, you know.)

April 29, 2014
Eleanor’s Motto

By Nation of Amanda. Prints (and other merch) available here.

February 4, 2014
Eleanor Picks Paint Colors

August gets excited when we do something different to his room. “A new blanket? For me!? WOW!!!” He’s two though, and he is not the bundle of opinions that is four-year-old Eleanor. She’s a character, but I love that she’s so into personalizing her room. She has been steadfast in her wish for dark blue walls, so I wanted to make sure she would like it by showing her some mock-ups of her room before we paint.

E was making silly faces for me the other day, when she asked me to take pictures of her wearing her new shoes. As I looked through them, I realized that they were pretty representative of her opinions on the paint colors. So here we go! Mock-ups and reactions.

First up, pink. I don’t think pink is the way to go for her new room, but we had to start with a baseline.

What do you think, Eleanor?

That’s what I expected. Here’s aqua.

This could be nice. See? It works with the light, and the bedding. How about it, E?

OK, that’s a no. All right, all right. Dark blue? Yes?

Do you like it?

Ah. I see that I have your interest.

Oh, oops, I hit the lightness slider too far to the left. That’s really dark.

Let me just fix that. Wait, what? You like it?

Of course that’s the one you go for. DARK BLUE. All right, kid. It’s your room! Let’s make it work.

October 9, 2013
Eleanor’s New Room Wish List

Blue!

That’s it. Just blue. Dark blue, to be specific. And a new bed because according to Eleanor, her Jenny Lind bed is old. (Kid, I bought that for you a whopping two and a half years ago. It is not old.)

After our little video interview, I asked her to look at my Pinterest board of kids’ bedroom ideas, and to tell me if she liked any of them. Right away, she zeroed in on the one I expected.

Not dark, but a very pretty shade of blue. Below is the other girl’s bedroom in that house. At first I thought it was the same room from a different angle, but no. Variations on that blue are used exclusively throughout the house.

The wallpaper in each room was designed and hand-printed by Marthe Armitage, and the photographs are by Francois Halard for Vogue. And be sure to check out the comments at the end of the article, if you read it. “Delicious!”

After seeing those rooms, not only does she want blue, Eleanor wants wallpaper too. I swear to you — there was no prompting on my part. I was kind of a proud mama! Except… the house we’re buying already has five (maybe six?) rooms with wallpaper. Even if we did add another, because we may, I’m not sure if it would be in one of the kid’s rooms. What Eleanor wants at age 4 is not going to be what she wants a few years from now and paint is so much easier to change. I have considered wallpaper for her room before, but I’ll have to think about it before making a decision one way or the other.

And about that bed. She was not too into the idea in the video, but when I showed Eleanor a picture of her bed, in blue, she liked it. So maybe a little painting is in our future after all.

Glo-bo!

July 22, 2013