Sleeptastic

Eleanor has been sleeping a lot again. She started off sleeping nearly 24 hours a day, then went through a period of a few weeks where she was awake almost ten hours a day and now she's back to almost continual sleeping again. When she is awake, she's happy and alert, but these days you have to be looking for those golden moments between naps. If she wakes up on her own, or even with one of us right there welcoming her to the day, she wakes up fairly cheerfully - especially if she's waking up from a long period of sleep. But if she wakes up before she feels ready to, she wakes up cranky and ready to nurse herself right into another nap. I guess all this sleeping means she's growing some more.

One cute new development from the last few days to report: Eleanor has started hiding in shyness sometimes when she smiles. It's adorable! She'll turn her face into my chest and cover up with her hands when someone else gets her to smile really big. And sometimes when we're not holding her but get her to smile big, she'll just cover her face with her little hands and peek at us. Oh, and she's started smiling for strangers this last week, too. Her first recognition smile outside of me and Kelly was my mom when she was probably five weeks old and her first smile for a stranger was this Monday at Sears. It's fascinating to watch her own personal evolution!

Last Saturday, we went to a reunion with all the couples from our birthing class. We ate, shared our birthing stories and talked about all the cuteness involved with having babies in the home. While sharing birth stories, we learned that Eleanor was the largest baby from the bunch at birth - something that surprised us because we're not the biggest people. Here's a picture of Eleanor with all her little baby buds.

Also, I've been wanting to get these pictures posted for a while, but the last time I tried the system wouldn't let me. These are from Eleanor's first bike ride in the sweet trailor from Grandpa and Nana.