Dinner at the Nelsons

On Saturday we spend the afternoon/evening with our good friends Bill & Amy Nelson and their children. We love going out to their place and Eleanor loves to play with the big girls! They have a lovely backyard with a swingset and the weather was nice for the first part of our time there. We then got rain that evening - which was great because we really needed it here in Southern MN.

Eleanor enjoyed all of the swingset equipment.

Here are the kids (and Amy!) in the treehouse.

Michael played some catch with Gloria.

Here is Lukas (they call him Lukey). He's 18 months and quite the charmer!

The big girls - Eleanor, Violet & Gloria

Amy made shredded roast beef sandwiches - so tasty! We had chips & dip, fresh fruit & veggies, potato salad, beans, and homemade monster cookies (with ice cream!) for dessert. Everything was so yummy! Thanks again, Nelsons, for hosting us at your place. We love coming over and spending time with our good friends!

Alleluia!

Happy Easter 2009!

We hope that everyone had a blessed Easter this year. Here are some shots from yesterday. Eleanor was sooooooooooooo excited to wear her dress to church. It's so fun to get little girls all dressed up! She also likes for me to do her hair now. She sits and lets me curl it - quite a little lady.

This was first thing in the morning when she discovered her Easter basket.

Here is another shot of the Easter basket after we got home from church. I got everything from the $1 bins at Target! It was Peter Rabbit themed and there was no candy...which after her Easter egg hunt yesterday was somewhat disappointing for her. Note to self for next year!

I tried to get some pictures in our sanctuary at church. She wasn't being totally cooperative, but I mananged to get something. Our friend, Kris Harms, was also taking some pictures of her and I think some of hers turned out really well.

Our little lady!

Prego update: I'm starting the countdown to weekly visits with my OB. I'm now 38 weeks and saw Dr. Harms this morning. Baby girl is moving down and has "dropped." I definitely noticed that because I'm peeing more than normal - which is saying a lot! Dr. Harms also said that I'm going to have a little bit bigger baby this time. He thought somewhere between 7 lbs 12 oz and 8 lbs. After 30 years of being an OB he's usually pretty accurate about these things!

Easter Egg Hunt!

On Saturday we took Eleanor to a local (and FREE!) Easter egg hunt at a church near our home. It started at 11 am and most of the people were there lined up when we got there at 10:45! Here she is with her empty bucket - ready to go!

She had to wait behind the pink ribbon with all the other kids until they said that they could go get their eggs. There were 2 Easter bunnies walking around and giving hugs. She thought they were funny!

Here is the crowd and how they set up the eggs in a big square.

The hunt is on! We were surprised at how well she did. They blew the whistle and she got right out there and grabbed her eggs!

She did pretty well, eh? The whole hunt lasted less than 3 minutes!

And finally, she got to get her picture taken with The Easter Bunny. This was the "lady" Easter Bunny who was wearing a little apron. Eleanor liked that she was wearing an apron.

She got home and wanted to open each and every egg to see what was inside. She got a nice little bowl of candy which we are slowly letting her have. If she eats her meals really well she gets 2 pieces. And, believe me, it takes her a good long time to pick out those pieces and then to eat them. It's easily a 20 minute activity!

I got some nice pictures this morning and will blog those later today or tomorrow. She was so excited to wear her dress to church this morning!

Easter eggs!

Yesterday we dyed some Easter eggs. This was Eleanor's first experience doing it...and I don't know that she was all that thrilled! We did it after her nap and I think she was still a bit groggy. But, it was still fun. I hadn't done that in a long time!

Here is the finished product. We didn't do anything fancy because I don't know how to do anything creative with eggs!

After dyeing the eggs we went outside to enjoy the beautiful day. Michael & Eleanor got their Concordia sweatshirts on!

Today we're going to go to an Easter egg hunt at a church right in our neighborhood. It's free and open to the public. I'll get some pictures and blog those later.

Happy 60th Birthday, Auntie Susie!

Aunt Sue (Michael's aunt) came to Rochester this weekend for a quick visit. We decided to celebrate her 60th birthday - which is officially April 17th. With the baby coming we won't be doing any traveling for her official family birthday dinner coming up this month. Six candles on the cake for her six wonderful decades! :)

Susan definitely has a way with children. Her niece & nephews adore her and now Eleanor is the next generation to receive Susan's unconditional love for her family. Susan was also nice enough to take care of Eleanor for us while we attended a wedding last night.

After church today we made a birthday brunch for Susan of waffles, sausage & fruit. Eleanor always likes to "help."

Thanks again for coming, Sue!

Bittersweet...

As my due date quickly approaches (April 28th to be exact) I'm starting to feel very bittersweet about this new baby. Of course, I'm excited to meet her, to see what she'll look like and to count all those fingers and toes. But, I'm also cherishing every "quiet" moment that I have with Eleanor. Eleanor seems a bit clingy to me lately and I think it's because of the impending birth. Michael's feelings have been hurt a couple of times because she'll ask for me or not want to give him a hug. But, I think in her own little way (as much as a 2 1/2 year old can comprehend) she's grieving for the loss of what has just been Mommy & Eleanor time - or perhaps that's what I'm grieving.


Just to update folks a bit on Eleanor, here are some funny things that she has said lately:


-She now calls my Mom "Karma Karma" - instead of Grandma Karma. It always reminds me of that Boy George song from the 80's.


-I was getting the crib in the nursery ready the other day and she kept climbing on it. After about three times, I had to get a bit more forceful with her to pull her down. She gave me this disgusted look and said "Mom, I am so mad at you."


-She likes to clap for everyone when they go to the bathroom. Since I'm going frequently these days, I've been getting a lot of applause.


-She's been at Mayo's backup daycare this week and when I woke her up this morning to remind her where she was going she said, "they have food there!"


-We were sitting on the couch the other day and she wanted to "see" the baby. Apparently, in order to see the baby she has to pull up my shirt and pull down the maternity pants. She was touching my stomach for a little bit and then starting pulling the maternity panel back up and said "Mom, cover up your baby!"


-Michael and Eleanor came to my OB appointment on Monday. I hadn't remembered that I would have to do the strep test (just a swab, but it requires getting undressed from the waist down). While the doctor was examining me and just about to do the swab, Eleanor flew off the little couch and got right by the doctor. Michael tried to pull her away quickly and she shouted "I want to see Mommy's butt!"


Well, that is about it. She says cute things all the time, but if I don't write it down I don't always remember. As of Tuesday I was exactly 36 weeks preggers...so, it's just a waiting game now! I'm praying for a short and relatively easy delivery as I had with Eleanor. Thanks for all your thoughts & prayers as we get ready for little sister!

Taking Lulu for a walk...

Spring has finally sprung in Minnesota! We had a lovely day on Saturday and Eleanor has been enjoying taking Lulu for a walk in the darling stroller that she got for Christmas (from Uncle Jordan & Auntie Natalie). She also loves to wear her sunglasses now. All we need now is some green grass!!!

Our Little Lady...

I loved this picture so much that Natalie took, that I decided to do a little bit of editing on http://www.picnik.com/. Try it, it's free!

Girls Weekend!

I know that many of you saw Natalie's blog about our girls weekend, but I wanted to put these pictures on my blog too (especially since this is basically my equivelant to scrapbooking!). Natalie, Eleanor and I had a wonderful weekend (March 6 - 8) while Michael was in Oklahoma City for a choral (very nerdy!) convention. It was nice to have company while he was gone. Being a single mom can get draining. So, we really appreciated Natalie's visit. In these pictures Eleanor is opening a present from Natalie - a new set of Playdoh. Eight new colors - including black & brown!!

We did take Eleanor to a puppet master/magician at the public library, but she was totally not interested. So, we walked over to the free family day at the Rochester Arts Center. Modern art isn't exactly my taste, however, I always appreciate seeing other people's creativity. Eleanor enjoyed walking around...

I have no clue what this is...but, we found out later that we weren't suppose to be taking pictures! Oops...

Natalie enjoyed seeing Eleanor play with her baby, Lulu. Here she is putting her baby down for a nap.

Shhh...baby is sleeping. Hopefully, this behavior will transfer over when we have the new baby!

I wish that we would have gotten a picture of the 3 of us. But, Natalie got this mother/daugther shot of us.

As Natalie mentioned on her blog, I had told Eleanor that she could have a "special treat" which was getting to watch her new Arthur DVD from the library while in the van. We don't normally watch TV while running around town - only on long car trips. So, I thought this would be considered a special treat. Well, apparently, a special treat is a cookie or something to eat. She kept hounding me like crazy...

As you can see, she finally begged enough.

This is my new favorite picture of Eleanor! Thanks again Natalie for coming down to Rochester! We hope to see you again very soon.

Potty training update: We are considering Eleanor fully potty trained at this point (except during nap & at night). She's been wearing big girl underwear since last week and has had no accidents since last week Wednesday - including at daycare & in public places!

Potty Training!

Eleanor just decided this week that she wanted to be a big girl and go potty in the toilet! Yipee! The only drawback (as you mothers well know) is that she's going potty 2 or 3 times an hour. Oh well...I'd rather that she get the hang of it now rather than when I have a newborn. We're fully aware that there may be some regression (when the baby comes), but I think a lightbulb went off for her and she just decided that is what she wanted to do. I also have been using the sticker reward system. I'm quickly running out of stickers! :)

She was doing great at home for me but I was worried about daycare. I took her yesterday and she only had one accident. She also went to church with us last night in her big girl underwear and went potty in the church nursery (3 times!). She likes the potties at church because they are small - so are the sinks. Pretty cool!

One more thing: Auntie Natalie updated her blog with our Girls Weekend (March 6 - 8), so please go to her blog if you'd like to see those pictures. She did such a cute job!

A snowy afternoon in the park...

Eleanor and I just had to get out of the house yesterday as we were both experiencing cabin fever! We had some freezing rain/really heavy wet snow late morning and early afternoon yesterday - but, after her nap things had stopped and the temp was really very nice. So, we decided to go for a walk. She wanted to go to the park, so I thought "what the heck, she's all bundled up with snow pants, etc. - let's see what happens."

As you can see, we ended up having such a nice time. Because the temperature was so nice the only hinderance was the sticky, wet snow - but she didn't seem to mind!

Weeeeeee!

Hopefully, we can get outside again today!

On a side note: We had a wonderful "girls weekend" with Auntie Natalie. I'll post some pictures soon - once Natalie emails me some! :) I have a few of my own...but, with her nice camera I end up getting lazy and let her take all the pictures! The only thing I regret is not getting a shot of the three of us together. As usual, it was "all Eleanor, all the time!"

Bragging Rights!

I'm going to take some time to brag about my husband for a minute. Michael's first published arrangement, Joy to the World, was recently reviewed in the ACDA Choral Journal (a national publication of the American Choral Directors Association, which has a membership of 30,000 conductors). Michael did not know that his piece would be reviewed and was shocked to find it in the journal this month! Here are some snippets from what the reviewer had to say:

"Michael Culloton has arranged a fresh and modern version of the perennial favorite Joy to the World. The composer's primary innovation is the use of mixed meters which gives the traditional melody a festive lilt."

"Aside from the divisi requirements, this piece is very accessible for a host of ensemble types. High school, church, college, and community choirs should be able to perform this delightful version with ease if they have the forces needed and can correctly perform the changing meters."

"Culloton has demonstrated that new arrangements of old favorites can be inventive and modern, yet preserve the original intent of the source material. Those who choose to add this joyful arrangement into their holiday repertoire will find that they will be caroling in style."

Reviewed by Jamey Kelley, Nashville Tennessee

I'm going to hope that this leads to more arrangements/compositions in the future. Michael definitely has a talent that he just needs to take the time to tap in to. Also, this was great publicity for the Matthew & Michael Culloton Choral Series through Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc. Hopefully, more copies of this piece will be sold very soon! :)