In May, our little ballerina had her first recital, and we enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa.

In June, Eleanor both attended and hosted a tea party, and played dress up with her bears!

We had a really great vacation at the end of August, visiting both Santa Fe and San Francisco.  Along with Nana and Papa in Santa Fe, we enjoyed the beautiful St. Francis Cathedral, galleries, perfect weather, and flowers blooming everywhere.  High points were my Birthday dinner in the romantic courtyard of La Casa Sena, the enormous HaagenDaas ice cream cones afterwards on the plaza, walking Canyon Road, and the yummist French crepes eaten in Cathedral Park.

 We began our tour of San Francisco in China town and saw fortune cookies being made.  Then, we had a wonderful Italian lunch in North Beach, during which Eleanor fell asleep in my lap.  We carried her down the block, and sat people watching in the park in front of St. Peter and Paul Church while she finished her nap.  While in the city, we also visited the Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium, saw the Golden Gate Bridge, grazed free samples at the farmer’s market, rode a cable car, and paddled a boat on Stowe lake.  Our hotel was outside of the hustle and bustle of the city in lovely Berkley, where we celebrated our eight-year Anniversary with dinner and champagne.

While in California, we also toured Point Reyes and the Yosemite National Park area.  In Point Reyes, we visited the beach and the Saturday farmer’s market.  We lunched outdoors on French sandwiches and champaigne in Sonoma on a beautiful day under sunny yellow umbrellas.  In Yosemite, we dipped our toes in icy water surrounded by tall trees, saw Half Dome, hiked Mirror Lake and took our pictures next to giant Sequoias.  We stayed in a cabin and made smores over the campfire in the evenings.  We wrapped up our trip back in Berkley at Chez Panisse for Jonathan’s birthday.

Shortly after our return, Eleanor celebrated her fourth Birthday.  She hardly misses an opportunity to tell people everywhere that she is four.  She learned to ride a two-wheel bike with no training wheels this fall, as well as enthusiatically taking to the ice for her first time at the skating rink.  She and her Daddy have started reading chapter books before bed.  Their first selection was Charlotte’s Web, which they read three times before starting in on the Chronicles of Narnia.  She is very bright, and amazes me with her good questions.  Eleanor enjoys dance class, climbing trees, playing with her teddy bears, wrapping presents, having Mommy French-braid her hair, getting together with friends,  and making new friends at the playground. 

 
Jonathan made a business trip to Romania in late September to meet with a group he now manages.  Their office is in Kluge, a University town in the state of Transylvania.  Luckily, he didn’t encounter any vampires or gypsies, but he did complain that the weather was a bit dreary.  Mainly, he just missed “his girls”, who kept in touch with him via webcam while he was away.

Eleanor was a Care Bear for Halloween.  We made pumpkin pie from scratch and trick-or treated with neighbors.

I’ll close this post with this sweet picture of me and my cuddle muffin taken the day before Thanksgiving, which brings us nearly to the present Advent and Christmas seasons!  Whew!

Eleanor has been really into her pink Strider run bike.  She has been to the BMX hills on 9th St., the Velloway, and rides every week at the Austin Farmer’s Market.  She and Vivian have been riding down to the park on matching bikes!  I made a little video of her at the BMX hills- what a cool kid!

We’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful spring weather, being out for hikes, bikes, and even Eleanor’s first canoe ride.  The top picture was taken at Pace Bend Park, where we stopped on the way back from picking up our new wingback chair, purchased off craigslist!  Our favorite new-found hiking spot, though, is a secret park of off Spicewood Springs, near town.  It is beautiful- tons of bluebonnets!

The picture of Eleanor on her run/ balance bike is of her tentative first ride.  Now she runs and coasts so fast that I have to run to keep up.  She loves it and rides almost everyday.  Last week she even made a one-mile ride on the Veloway! 

You may notice in the second canoe picture that Eleanor’s teddy bear, Dylan, came with us and is even wearing a life jacket.  In case you don’t know, Eleanor has always been really into bears.  She has over twenty of them, and they are her main source of play.  In the last picture, she has taped plastic easter eggs to their faces as masks- pretty cute! She’s also been working on her photography.  She took the one of us- cool!

We had friends, Tom & Melissa and their kiddos Anna & Sean, Alena & Brian and thier son Darwin, as well as Uncle Glenn, Nana, Papa & Grandmother join us for Easter lunch.  What a blessing of friends and family!  We were so delighted to see the porch accomodate us all, and it was a blast watching these kids having fun with a water balloon toss and egg hunt!  A cloudy, misty morning cleared up to part sunshine and we miraculously had tempertures in the 70′s.  Eleanor was such a beauty in her mama-made Easter dress!  We made some frosted cookies to take to church, and dyed eggs.  Happy Easter!

Usually Texans complain about having only two seasons: winter and dang hot, but this year we’ve had a long, absolutely glorious spring!  We’ve been seeing highs only in the 70′s and some rain.  In late February, when the iris are usually blooming, we actually saw snow!  I’ve lived here for thirteen years and never seen a snow, so it was a pretty big deal!

We celebrated Valentine’s Day for about two weeks.  What a great holiday!  We made pink-frosted heart-shaped cookies and had Vivian and JoEllen over for tea and Valentine card making.  Vivian’s 3rd Birthday falls on Valentine’s weekend too, and we had fun jumping around at Gymboree and gobbling chocolate cupcakes!  BTW, Happy Anniversary Amy & Keith!

Jonathan’s been putting more holes in the walls.  You’d think we’d be done with that after last year’s big remodel- apparently not!

I’ve been crafting away, and have started a new blog just for show-n-tell of what I’m making.  It’s http://amybrumley.blogspot.com/  Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Eleanor is such a delight!  So imaginative and becoming so capable.  We’ve been going to the Lenten concert series at church.  We’ve talked about good concert etiquette and she is pretty well-behaved.  We’ve heard an oboe, a trombone choir, singers, and a trumpet.  She’s also getting good at talking on the phone and it’s really cute.

Hope you all are well!  Happy spring!

Eleanor was a joy to us and so many this season.  I have a story of how she touched one of our neighbors:  We went for a stroll down the block to look at lights.  One neighbor lady had her front door open and Christmas music pouring out.  Eleanor went into her yard to hear and look at the lights.  She came out and invited us in to see her tree.  Eleanor looked at everything with such delight, every ornament, present, string of lights.  Then, Eleanor sang “Silent Night” for her.  I think she was really touched.

We had a funny morning that leads to how she came to know how to sing Silent Night so well!  Last year she received a book for Christmas that plays “Silent Night” and lights up.  She has been asking to get this book out since about Easter.  When I finally got it down for her it was out of batteries and only went “wah, wah”.  But the book had a web site on the back for ordering new batteries.  We did and our batteries came right away.  I put them in for Eleanor and we listened to electric “Silent Night” music about three thousand times in eight hours.

Now, usually E wakes up and runs to our room first thing.  Last night she awoke twice and the second time went back to sleep on her little bed in our room.  Then, first thing this morning, eyes still closed, we hear thud thud thud as she ran to her room.  Jonathan said “that’s unusual”.  Then, thud thud thud, E running as fast as she can back to our room and – you guessed it- “Silent Night”!

Then she sighs and hugs me and says “I love this kind of music” and puts her face right up next to the part that lights up.

If that’s not enough to crack you up, listen to this story from yesterday morning.  She made up this story first thing in the morning, and I got out of bed and and had her dictate it to me again, so I could write it down.  Try to imagine her laughing heartily at her own story:

In our house we have Goo Bears.  Goo Bears are blue and turquoise.  When they grow up, they cut holes in thier tails.  Goo squirts out of their tails.  Baby Goo Bears eat the goo.  It tastes like honeydew.  Goo Bear goo is green becasue it’s made of honeydew.  Mommy and Daddy Goo Bears clean up goo with Goo Mops that have scratchy sides and flat sides.  But Baby Goo Bears clean up goo with their mouths- they eat and drink it and toss it!

What charmed lives we lead!

Here are some pictures to catch up on the last two months (my! I have been slack!).  Our family vacation to the Texas coast and E’s Birthday were in September.  Her party was Circus themed and I made a parachute “big top”.  Halloween in October- face painting and cookies!  E was a flower and we went out trick-or-treating with her friends, Vivian, Ava and Anna.

Here is some of what we made.  Nobody actually finished at the party, so you’ll have to wait to see just how cute these turn out in a later post.

And because our Anniversary is just four days after my Birthday, here are a couple of us just before going to the most wonderful dinner I’ve ever had!   Just for the record- my husband is the most awesome husband in the world!  Seven years- yay!