Our new neighbor

One of Eloise's favorite things about our new house is the 2 year old little girl next door. They love each other and especially each other's toys! A few weeks ago, the neighbor's didn't have water, so we threw them in the tub together.

Centennial Olympic Park

We spent an afternoon downtown at Centennial Olympic Park for a family fun day. There was also an all-day dance recital going on with occasional crowd participation. Our babysitter, Noelle, is a ballet teacher with Atlanta Ballet and was performing, but we arrived late and missed it unfortunately.

There are fountains that spray up in the shape of the Olympic rings and you can run in and out of the circles without getting wet if you time it just right. Eloise and I were trying to do that but didn't stay dry, oops!

Going to work

Eloise has caught on that I dress differently the two days of the week that I go to work. She is also obsessed with closing and opening doors right now. So, she loves to play the game 'going to work' and she puts on one of my shirts (underneath the towel) and then this purple towel and says it's her coat (like my white lab coat) and then says "Au Revoir" while waving, "Going work." She then shuts the door runs to the other side of the room, returns, opens the door and just standing there grinning ear to ear until you explode with emotion, "oh, you're home from work, hello, let me give you a hug etc etc, gush gush." OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

More Fun..

At Mighty Jumps with Dawn and the kids. It's always such a good nap time after going to a place like this! Thank you Dawn for being such a good sport =)

Pippy Longstocking! I bought this green stripped shirt while we were running errands and Eloise insisted on wearing it immediately. I left the tags out and visible since we had to go to at least 2 or 3 more stores just to prove that I don't dress my kid like this on purpose.

This is one of Eloise's new favorite activities. We try to use cloth napkins (ie. the bandannas) to reduce using paper, but I guess it defeats the purpose if I'm having to wash them with each use. Eloise especially loves it and cracks up if Logan decides to get up and walk around and the "blankets" stay on her.

These pictures are of a wonderful story quilt that my mom's cousin, ila, made for us when Margot was born. It's so fun for the girls to look at and name the characters. ila asked me to send her a picture of the girls sitting on it and I keep forgetting to take one. So, on this evening I remembered, but we couldn't wrestle Eloise down and convince her to sit and smile with her sister. Elmo was willing to, of course.

Fun around the house

Yep, I pretty much have 3 kids with how much I have to do for/include Elmo in our lives.

Not sure about this kid, I think she's related to Elton John somehow!

Eloise loves painting...check out her awesome hand-made smock from Auntie Dawn. She looks so big to me in these pictures, I can't believe how fast she's changed.

we love to play out on the back deck in the mornings

6 1/2 months and trying to take off!

we're still alive

Sorry for the month long absence from the blog.....we're getting there. Anyways, I'm hoping to post a bunch of what we've been up to this past month. Our first weekend in the new house was Labor Day weekend and my good friend, Emily, came to visit. She works in the Nascar industry and since Alan and I were signed up to volunteer with my work to do oral cancer screenings at the race, we convinced her to come to Atlanta and work so that we could see her. This was Alan's first time to a Nascar race, so Emily gave him the millionaire's tour....

In the Fed-Ex suite eating lunch

Emily's boyfriend, Marc, works in the industry as well. We got to hang out on the track before the race while the drivers were introduced and got into their cars.

p.s. since it was a night race, the girls spent the night with Grandma and Pops (the first night away for Margot) and did awesome. SLEEP, DELICIOUS SLEEP!!!

Eloise is 2!

Since our friends and family were getting together to help us move, we decided to have Eloise's birthday party too. She's excited about being two and if you ask her to tell you her age, she'll say "2" and then she'll tell you everyone else (animal/toy/elmo) that is 2 also (regardless of their real age).

Logan was a mess for the week leading up to the move and finally was able to relax as we started unloading the truck. She seems laid back, but don't be deceived, she positions herself very strategically to get the most attention!

This one definitely needs some explanation....Eloise received some Elmo underwear and immediately put it on over her dress and wore it like that the rest of the day. She looked pretty awesome with her new frog boots too!

The dancing queens at it again.....this time with punching balloons.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!
As everyone started singing, "Happy Birthday," Eloise burst into tears...poor thing.