I'm a little obsessed....

...with the new little kid kitchen table we have. Eloise and I do everything there every day. We eat there (yes, I sit down there too). We color. We paint. We play with puzzles and read books. We decorate cookies, play with Play-Doh, and just plain sit and gab (she has the gift just like her Mommy:). Did I already say it?? I'm a little obsessed.

I knew Eloise was at just the right age for a table and chairs. My goal was to teach her to sit and eat her meals there and also, use it as an activity table teaching her to also sit and start and finish a project without getting up and down and zooming around. And so far, we're a good week into the little kid table and it's truly the best. Eloise loves it. So of course, I do too.

And yes, it lives right smack dab in the middlde of our kitchen floor as if it were an island. Good thing we don't have one because this table and chairs is perfect in its place. There is plenty of room for it and the two chairs, then 2 bins of books, wooden puzzles, blocks and then our art stash for coloring and painting. To capture my love of the latest object of my affection, I've taken too many pics to even post here. But of course, I never leave you hanging so here are a few to show you what we've been up too this week.

Peekaboo

We have a book out from the library right now that shows many different ways to use your hands. On one of the pages a little girl is doing peekaboo. So instead of us doing peekaboo to Eloise, she did it to us. Check out how she places her hands to cover her eyes. This is why I love her so much.

(the first pic isn't the most flattering but the only one I have of her doing that portion of p-a-b:)

Charlotte snow

Charlotte had a white Christmas, the first in 60+ years. That's pretty exciting stuff for this neck of the woods. And it was really pretty. I went running today and there was hardly a car on the road, the branches were covered with snow helping them droop over the streets as I passed by. It made it feel cozy even though it was cold. But was really cool was how calm and quiet it was out there. Really a perfect day to be out for a run. It left me a lot of time to think about this Christmas and what a fun time it was for Eloise. I'm with most when I say Christmas is really for the kids. It was so fun setting up shop around here, getting things just right and then watching her explore her new playground of new fun activities and toys. She had a blast which means we all did too. She's at such a great age that honestly, she cracks us up constantly. Whether she's trying to talk (which she does really well but there are many other times throughout the day where she's not interested in actually speaking words. she has her own Monkey-tongue and dialog and she just ramble away. hilarious.), dance to songs, transfer one large pile of stuffed animals from one room to another individually, and the list goes on.  Christmas was particularly fun because of how she is at this age so all in all, we had a great time! 

And then to actually have it snow on Christmas day, although late at our house, was really very cool. We woke up today to 3-4 inches and Eloise loved watching it fall while she perched herself at our front windows. Occasionally she'd say "rain" but we helped her understand that today is wasn't rain, but snow.  Then she'd run around and say "snow, snow, snow" and go from window to window making sure her Tee Tat was inside rather than out where it's "buuuurrrrrrr" cold. Again, hilarious. 

Here are some pics to show our fun in the snow today.  Eloise LOVED it and did not want to go back inside. What a difference 11 months makes. Here is last January's snow to compare. As you can see, Eloise had a much better time this go round:) (btw - I've quickly figured out how to outfit a southern kid for a snow day.  You make a snowsuit out of fleece footed PJs, of course. Layers underneath the PJs. Layers on top of the PJs. Stuff her feet into oversized shoes. Add in a hat and mittens and away you go!)

First no mittens...let her get a feel for the cold stuff.

And out come the mittens.

My personal fav. Getting an icicle from Daddy.

"Eloise, where does the snow come from?"

Merry Christmas!

Our plan came together perfectly for Christmas morning and today was everything we'd hope it would be for Miss Eloise.  With my mom's and Mike's help, we put Eloise to bed last night and transformed this house into an entirely new playland for the Monkey.  It started with putting away all of her existing toys.  Then Mike put together her VERY cool train table, then a fire truck, then we set up her new table and chairs complete with puzzles and an oversized Dora. Last, we brought down all of the presents and ta-da.....Santa visited 2517 Bay Street and we were ready to go!

Eloise is still a bit too young to understand Santa although she quickly picked on saying "ho ho ho" when we said his name.  (must have been the 3 failed attempts to see the big guy:) But either way, I knew if we completely changed her play area, she'd flip out with excitement. And that's exactly what we all experienced early this morning. My mom and her new dog Lady spent the night and together with Mike and me and Sweet Pea, we all shared in a wonderful 2nd Christmas with Eloise.  Here are a bunch of pics.

After Santa arrived!

Some of Santa's elves.

And....this morning! She ran to the train table (and spent most of the day there) so we know it was/is a BIG hit.

Also, Eloise has a new BFF.


They even kiss and hug:)


Last year I insisted on having a "Monkey and me" pic in front of the tree. So I thought we'd keep the tradition going. Here's how we started out...


Give her Mimi and although not happy, she was a little better. Lol! Merry Christmas, everyone!!