Reading Books

Eleanor got her own rocker for Christmas. She enjoys sitting in it with "Baby Doll" and her milk and water (she's a two fister...must take after her dad...) and reading.

Favorite Food

One of Eleanor's favorite foods is salsa. When at the Mexican restaurant she gets her very own bowl and uses one chip to shovel the salsa in until it dissolves. The other night we got Mexican to go and Eleanor decided it was easier to just use a spoon instead of the chip. This kid cracks us up!

Yaya's Islandx2

Well, really its Yaya's x3. We took Eleanor for her third visit to Yaya's Island and she had a blast. She played for 2 hours and then had a dinner date with MarMar and JonJon for Mexican. Here she is playing in the bouncy pen with the ball pool. She even met a friend!
Please excuse her mother's video editing as she doesn't know how to crop the song, but wanted to cover up the non-existent sound track.

Diaper Registry

We are looking forward to the addition of our family in April. You might be aware that we cloth diaper. It has been a great success with Eleanor and we intend to cloth diaper Marshall as well. Under the "My Links" section on the side we have added a link to our diaper registry. While we don't expect anything if you do want to help out this is something we really need. Thank-you.

Picture is of Haute Pocket diapers from Nicki's Diapers

Snow Days

Recently we had a couple of inches of snow and lots of cold weather! Here are some pictures of a bundled up Hammond's Family and short, very bad video of sledding in our yard/driveway.

The snow was very powdery and hard to sled in so Mommy and Daddy had to pull each other and Eleanor on the sled. Its very hard to pull the sled to get it going and then take a good video.

Christmas 2

Here is Eleanor opening some of her presents Christmas morning.

Christmas

Eleanor had a big Christmas. Santa Gran and Kimmy visited early with a rocking chair and "Skippy" the kangaroo. She loves climbing into her chair and reading to herself.
Christmas Eve brought lots of excitement. We hosted dinner at our house so it was a day of getting food ready and playing with Daddy. Eleanor got to Skype with Granny Jill and Grandad in New Zealand and unwrap her first present. She loved it - both the books and the unwrapping! It was then that she realized all those wrapped presents under the tree contained things to play with. Daddy spent the rest of the afternoon keeping presents under the tree and the wrapping on. He did a great job, only one bow was lost! Before it got dark Eleanor left some reindeer food on the front lawn to help Santa and crew find our house. She had a lot of fun and you can see some in the video below. (Please excuse the camera woman, as she was also being Mommy.) This must of helped because Santa had no problems.
Christmas morning Eleanor found an awesome tool bench complete with tools and building materials next to the tree. She went from saying, "No" and wrinkling her nose when Santa was mentioned to saying, "Santa" with a smile. (Hopefully, this means next year she will visit with Santa...)
After a big morning at home with more gifts from Mommy and Daddy - a booster seat to eat at the table with and a coat, hat, and mittens we traveled to MarMar and JonJon's. There we got to play with Jazz the dog and Cephus ("Kitty") the cat. Eleanor also scored a cool dollhouse and remote control. She was also great at being Santa's helper and taking gifts around the room to others. All this fun was followed by a big brunch and a nap!
We hope everyone had just as much fun as we did this year!