Baby's First Thanksgiving

I recently celebrated my first Thanksgiving. What a great holiday - family, eating, football, napping. I loved it! We started the day at Oma and Oda's house for breakfast. Here we are - all dressed in purple...

Next it was off to Mem and Pep's. I got a new bow for my hair from Mem...
I ate mashed potatoes and carrots & turnips. Delicious.

Later, we bundled up and headed out for the Thanksgiving parade. Here I am with Mem waiting for the parade to start.

I saw firetrucks, Benny The Bull and Gina Glocksen from American Idol. I fell asleep before Santa came by.

HOPE

What a great week for America and what a great week for Chicago!

This week we elected a new president and he lives in the same city as me! Mom and Dad got up early last Tuesday to go vote and I got to go with them. I wore my Obama Baby t-shirt! Here we are on our way to the polls.
Later, we gathered with friends to anxiously await the results. Here I am with Mom and our friend Jen in their matching Blue State t-shirts!
Just a few hours later, the results were revealed...a landslide win for Obama! The champagne flowed as we watched our beautiful city become the center of the world.

ROCKtober

Wow - I can't believe October has come and gone. What a blur. It was an awful month for us Cubs fans, but other than that it was pretty great. It started off with the celebration of my Aunt Beth's wedding on October 4th. Here I am with Dad getting the last minute details of my flower girl duties...

And here we are outside the church. Isn't my mommy beautiful?
We had some more excitement on October 15th when my new cousin arrived - Zachary David LeMaistre - and he's already a Bears fan!
I celebrated by first Halloween. Here I am at my Aunt Angie and Uncle David's house in a pumpkin costume...

But my real costume was a peacock!

I went trick or treating at the zoo and to a bunch of parties. Here I am with Mommy at my music class Halloween party.

On November 1st Dad and I celebrated Dios De Los Muertos. That means Day of the Dead - which is not as scary as it sounds. Here, Dad and I are modeling our matching Day of the Dead t-shirts.

The Pacific Northwest part 2

From Seattle, we headed east to Walla Walla, Washington - which is really fun to say! Aunt Pam and her husband Greg have a winery there called Gramercy Cellars.

We were there for the beginning of the fall harvest and Mom and I both got in on the wine making action with some good, old fashioned grape stomping. Here I am going in...
And here I am coming out!

We went out to some really nice restaurants on our trip and, even though I didn't get to eat any of the food, I was always very well behaved. Here is Aunt Pam teaching me about espresso. Everyone drinks espresso in Washington.

The Pacific Northwest part 1

We went on vacation last week. My first trip to the west coast! We started in Seattle - home of indie rock heroes Death Cab For Cutie, TV's Frasier Crane & that weird space needle thing. I heard it rains all the time there, but we had nothing but sunny days. Here we are at the beach...

We visited the world famous Pike's market. Mom and I got to pick out some beautiful flowers. We also bought lots of fresh produce for a dinner party we had at Aunt Pam's later that night.
Dad and I watched the famous fish mongers throw fish around. Here's Dad pretending to throw ME onto the ice! He's always making jokes.

We spent an afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. It was really nice. Here's Dad and I checking out the elephants...

I also had my first carousel ride at the zoo. Not scary at all!

We visited with lots of people while we were there. My Pep happened to be in town for business and he came to that dinner party. So did my dad's high school friend Doug, who I had never met. Coincidentally, Aunt Barbara and Uncle John happened to be in town, too. They were visiting John's daughters, who live in Seattle, so we got to spend some time with them.It wasn't all running around though. Here I am just relaxing...

From Seattle, we headed to Walla Walla, Washington. Stay tuned for the Pacific Northwest part 2 - which will include photos of me stomping grapes at a winery!

Wake Up The Echoes!

My first football season is upon us. I've been hearing about this Notre Dame my entire life and I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about. Tradition, honor, yelling at the television...Here's the whole family ready for week 1 in their Fighting Irish gear - my outfit even has leprechaun booties!

"We only watch one team in this house. Isn't that right, Eleanor?" (that's a line from the movie Rudy that Dad likes to recite on game day - of course, replacing my name with Rudy's) Here we are taking in a tense moment for the Irish. They went on to a decisive 21-13 victory over "powerhouse" San Diego State University.
I turned 7 months old this week. I think I'm going to start eating these signs...

On The Move...

Hey Everybody - I'm 6 months old now. Yup, another photo of me "holding" a sign.

I can crawl now! That's right, I am on the move...
I love riding around on Dad's shoulders -and pulling his hair!
I eat food now, too. Here I am enjoying some peas on a recent visit to Delavan.

Also, I've started climbing. I almost made it out of my crib! Dad has since adjusted the height to make it more challenging for me...

The Friendly Confines

Last week we celebrated Mem & Pep's birthdays by taking a tour of Wrigley Field. What a place! We got to go in the clubhouses, the press box, ON THE FIELD!

"This is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever seen." Next year is now! The Cubs are in first place and the LeMaistres are on the field at Wrigley.

Happy Birthday Mem & Pep!

Pitchfork Day 2

We went back to Pitchfork for a bit on Saturday afternoon. We saw a great band called Fleet Foxes. I wore a pretty yellow dress, so there wouldn't be any confusion about my gender. I figured out why Roger Miller from Mission of Burma wanted to take my picture (aside from how cute I looked). He sometimes wears headphones like mine when they play!

Public Enemy!

Last night Mom and Dad took me to the first night of the annual Pitchfork Music Festival. Everyone thought I looked very cute in my AC/DC t-shirt and headphones - though many people asked "How old is he?" HE?!?! Girls can like AC/DC too! Whatever. Today I'm wearing a dress. Lots of people asked if they could take my picture, including Roger Miller from the legendary band Mission of Burma, who played earlier at the festival.

The headliner last night was Public Enemy, who performed their groundbreaking 1988 album "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back". Dad declared them to be amongst the top 3 most influential groups in the history of hip-hop - or something like that. Here's Dad raising a fist at they launch in to "Bring The Noise"...as if he were 12 years old again!

After some rocking, Mom and I disappeared backstage for some quiet time. Here I am catching a nap under the stars while Mom enjoyed a Popsicle and another parade of admirers.

Today is Pitchfork Day 2 and Dad has promised to teach me about Fleet Foxes.

USA #1!

I celebrated my first 4th of July last week in Naperville. What a day! It started by watching the world famous Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. It was very exciting, but based on the yelling, things did not go the way Dad had hoped. After that we had a big bbq outside. Uncle Jay tried to have his own hot dog eating contest (not good) and Mem dressed me up like Lady Liberty...

After the bbq, we went to the Naperville Ribfest to see one of my favorite bands, The Turtles. Unfortunately, I fell asleep before they played my blog's namesake "Eleanor, Gee I Think You're Swell". That didn't stop Dad from bringing me up front for this picture though...
I woke up later to take in my first ever fireworks show.
It was beautiful - and thanks to my fancy headset - not too loud!

On the 5th, we headed to Delavan, Wisconsin to see Oma and Oda. I wore a bikini and even went swimming in the pool with Oma.

I turned 5 months old the other day and I have found my feet. Sometimes I even put my foot in my mouth - literally.