I have been watching the Olympics....

.....thus no blog posts. I have also been incredibly lazy about blogging, simply put I just have not felt like it. Sorry, folks. I have a lot of posts all written down in my head. I have a few recipes (I even took pictures), some Elanor stuff, a few mom posts/Elizabeth's ideas/rants BUT we are also going out of town on Friday (to Oregon) and will not be back until the 19th!  So, I will try to squeeze in a few posts before we leave.  

How about this be my Elanor post (because I know everyone has been missing her), yes? I thought so.

She has been wanting to do a lot of this lately:

As in, she does not want to sit in her high chair and would prefer to sit at the table. I only let her do this sometimes, because she is still a messy eater.

 Pardon the crazy hair... I believe she had just woken up from a nap and insisted putting this princess dress on (the one I promised I would put picture up of).

 Elanor has really started to have certain things she really likes. About a month or so ago, we started watching a movie with her on Friday nights (she had not previously watched any tv), and she loves it! She is really, really into "Tangled." I mean slightly obsessed. She also loves "Beauty and the Beast" and recently "Cinderella". She of course still loves Winnie the Pooh and Elmo.

 She loves playing the "I pretend to sleep and Daddy kisses me and I wake up game" over and over.

If you remember, that gift bag in the picture, is what we put Elanor's 1st birthday present in. Elanor recently discovered that I still had it and loves to carry it around. It is the only "Tangled" thing she owns (besides the movie, thanks Mom!) and she treasures it. Almost every day and often more than once a day, she puts the bag on her shoulder, runs over to the door and says, "I want to go".  I ask her "where?" and she responds "car" and I again ask her "where in the car?" and she usually responds with either "Mali (her friends Malachi)" or "Eli (her other friend)".  It is pretty funny and I am not really sure where she gets this whole "purse" thing from, since I hardly carry a purse.

 I am teaching a Mommy and Me ballet class this year and I get to bring Elanor with me. I am so excited!!! To prepare her, since she is a bit young, we have been having little ballet classes in the morning. Elanor LOVES it. She can say "ballet" very well and is always requesting to do ballet. 

A little fairy looking  at herself in the mirror.

Despite all of Elanor's girly tendencies, I would not call her a girly-girl, nor do I want her to be one. I want her to be well-rounded. She is the fastest little toddler, I know. Really--she is very speedy and loves to bolt away. She also loves being outside and does not mind getting dirty one bit, in fact she loves playing in the sand and dirt. She is talking quite a lot and is a pretty funny little girl and loves to make us laugh. She loves having an audience and gets a little crazy when she has one.... Any time we Skype, she runs back and forth as fast as she can. I think she is showing off or something? She always has been and is still such a cuddler. I love it. She has also recently learned how to kiss properly (as in not an open mouth kiss) and will plant a kiss on anyone, literally. She loves hugging and kissing people, especially her little friends (which are mostly all boys). She also loves to help me bake and do the dishes. Seriously, doing dishes (aka playing with running water) is one of her favorite things. She still loves to read. She will read for a really long time by herself and she also loves to snuggle up with Tyler or me and have us read her a book... or twenty.

Oh, and big news for anyone who cares, Elanor is mostly potty trained. She is doing so well now and is always in underwear. It just clicked for her and  she loves using her potty! I think the "Elmo's Potty Time" video helped, and I am not joking. I might do a whole post on potty training if anyone is interested.

Elanor will be 20 months old on August 10th and I cannot believe how fast she is growing up. She is such a fun little girl and we love her so much!

Here is a cute little video of Elanor eating yogurt:

Oh, and we have been enjoying the Olympics (except NBC can be rather annoying). Favorites so far: Gabby Douglas winning the All-Around,  the girls gymnastics team winning the gold, Michael Phelps' 22 medals--I will miss him, Missy Franklin and the whole US swim team, all the swim relays (men and women), watching the Netherlands guy on the high bar last night--awesome, Track-- I love all of it: the mens 10,000m race was awesome (Mo Farah and Gallin Rupp). I do not like how I cannot stream live from NBC because I apparently don't have enough of a tv plan or something. NBC prime-time can get so annoying and drawn-out and dramatic, plus I wish they would show us more events and more athletes from other countries. Oh, well. I still love the Olympics because it just reminds me of how we are all human and so incredibly similar. You know how in Sci-fi stuff one planet works more like how one country does here? There are not any countries, just one, unified planet. I kind of like that idea and the Olympics makes that seem possible. Anyways.....I will talk to you all later and try to have another post up tomorrow!