3-month-old Eleanor!

Sweet Ellie-Belle, your precious newborn days are quickly fleeting and you are now three months old! Our days are often filled with the busyness that your big sisters bring, but we are never too busy to get down on the floor with you and watch you learn to play, or snuggle up with you on the couch, or just watch your face light up with joy when you lock eyes with us. Here are some of the ways you are growing and changing this month.

~ You are a great sleeper! We usually put you down to bed between 9 and 10pm and you always give us at least a good 5-6 hour (and sometimes even 7-8 hour!) stretch before you need to eat again!
~ It is very easy to get smiles out of you! You will give a big smile to just about anyone who gets right up close to talk to you. You also really like ceiling fans and smile really big when you see one.
~ You really enjoy playing on your playmat now. You have learned how to bat at the toys as well as grab onto them. sometimes you hold on so tightly that you bring the whole mat with you when I pick you up.
~ You are getting pretty chubby these days =) That's probably because you nurse at least every two hours during the day. You weigh somewhere right around 13 pounds. You are wearing all 6-month clothes now.
~ The jury's still out on what color your eyes are going to be, as well as who you look most like. Right now your eyes are still blue, but they are a very dark blue. I think that you are a very good combination of both your big sisters in your pretty facial features.
~ You had a minor little medical procedure done last week (a tongue-tie clipping) and you were very brave! It was pretty traumatic for about three minutes, but you nursed right away and everything was all better!
~ You are now officially a thumb-sucker. I can't lie, it's pretty cute. Maybe I'll be changing my tune when you're headed to kindergarten and still sucking your thumb, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it =)

 

~ You still love to be carried around in Mommy's sling. We took you to the zoo for the first time last week and you stayed in it the whole time. Anna Kate and Caroline made the observation that you're kind of like a little kangaroo joey!
~ Speaking of the sling, you go with Mommy each week to the preschool to teach Spanish and you stay in your sling the whole time. Usually you sleep for the whole hour, but sometimes you are content to just look around and listen to the children sing their songs.
~ You have now gone to the church nursery a handful of times (especially during Easter week while Mommy was pretty busy). You've done really well each time, but I still like to keep you with me mostly.
~ You are starting to really love your daddy. I have had a number of evening commitments this month and you do really well with Daddy. He's always able to rock and cuddle you to sleep (as long as I'm not gone more than a maximum of 2.5 hours, at which point you become STARVING).
~ You do really well with tummy time for short periods of time. You hold your head and chest up very high off the ground and I know that you're going to start flipping over any day!
~ Your big sisters just can't get enough of you. They were clamoring to get their picture taken with you today, so I had to humor them =)

Baby Eleanor, you are just the sweetest. You are our "bright, shining one" and you light up our lives. We love you and look forward to what your fourth month will bring.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

And now for some comparison pics...

Anna Kate - 3 months old

Caroline - 3 months old

Eleanor - 3 months old

A visit from Uncle Jonathan

It's been a busy spring for Uncle Jonathan (Luke's brother) with classes and internships, but he was able to come visit this past weekend and we had a great time! This was also the first time that he met Eleanor. We had a great time playing outside, watching AK's t-ball game, and just spending time with him. Here are a couple pictures of our weekend.

Thanks for visiting, Jonathan! Come back any time!

Eleanor's first zoo trip!

Since it turned out to be a beautiful spring day, we took a family trip to the zoo this morning. This was Eleanor's first zoo trip and this is how she spent most of it:

She did wake up in time to see the flamingos before we left!

And we had to stop at the gorilla sculpture to take this picture.

Reminds me of this one we took almost exactly 4 years ago. How things have changed!

 Happy Friday, everyone!

Easter 2014

We have had a wonderful time celebrating and teaching our girls about Jesus' resurrection over the past few weeks. We did the 12 days of Easter again, which includes Bible stories and activities to go along with the resurrection eggs that have become pretty popular. The girls loved learning about the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. It has been neat to see how they grow more and more each year in their understanding.

Saturday morning we made "Resurrection Rolls" with our good friends Will and Caitlin and baby Henry (and unfortunately forgot to take pictures). But funny story...so to make the resurrection rolls, you roll a marshmallow (representing Jesus' body wrapped in a linen cloth) in cinnamon (representing the burial spices) and wrap it inside a crescent roll (the tomb). When you bake it, the marshmallow melts away inside the roll so that when you open up the tomb, Jesus' body isn't there anymore! Sounds great, right? Well, try telling that to a 2- and 4-year-old who were expecting to get to eat a marshmallow inside their breakfast. My girls were all but crying because the tomb was empty. But don't worry, we saved the day and gave them another marshmallow to eat alongside their resurrection roll. Crisis averted.

And here we are on Sunday afternoon at the Thompson's house (after Sunrise service, church-wide breakfast, LifeGroups, and worship service - what a day)!

He is risen, indeed!

Play Ball!

(Photo credit to my good friend Lisa whose son is also on AK's team)

I feel like we have entered a new season in this whole parenting thing. The world of extra-curricular activities! Now, Anna Kate has been playing violin for a while now, but I just teach her at home as one of our "preschooling" activities. So, starting t-ball this spring has been a whole new ball game (pun intended).

Our county rec department baseball league is pretty popular around here. T-ball for the 4- and 5-year-olds, Coaches Pitch for 6- through 8-year-olds, and player pitch after that. Anna Kate has been talking about wanting to play t-ball since last spring when some of her older friends played. Well, actually, sometime around September she told us (totally out of the blue) that she decided she was going to switch from t-ball to golf. Mind you, she hadn't even started t-ball yet, but her sights were set on golf. We explained to her that golf isn't really an option for four-year-olds, so maybe she better start with t-ball. That was satisfactory. She was so excited when the time finally came!

Here is a picture of our little ball player and her team!

(She's the second one from the left on the front row and her good buddy Colten is second from the right)

Playing center field in their first game

 

 

Waiting her turn...

And her first at bat!

 (The pink Hello Kitty bat makes all the difference)

Luke is really enjoying getting to practice throwing and catching and batting with her, and we are all having a great time getting out in our community each Saturday morning to meet new friends and watch these sweet little ones play ball!