Thomas Tidbits...: 3 Years & Counting...

Lots happening in the Thomas Casa recently with work travels + lots of evening work events for both me and Justin, Aunt Katie living with us, Anniversary celebrations, Halloween, house building, etc. We have been running non stop for the past month, and we're slowly getting back into our "normal" busy lives. I'm not sure we'd survive the mayhem without Auntie here... she has been a lifesaver almost every day. Ellie and Katie keep busy every day, exploring Austin and trying to keep my daughter's mania under control.

We're setting quite the example for our daughter as she continues to thrive on constant action. We've added some new activities to her repertoire to keep her stimilated - Mommy/Toddler Yoga at Little Yoga House, toddler storytime at the library, regular rides on the Zilker Zephyr (choo-choo), swimming at Katie's indoor pool at her gym, etc. And Eleanor still revels in her weekly music classes and prides herself on being the teacher's pet.

We celebrated 3 years of marriage at our 3rd Outstanding in the Field dinner. For those of you who haven't heard of OITF - it is essentially a "restaurant on wheels" the makes stops at farms throughout the country (and even Europe) to serve farm fresh food to 100+ people. Each stop is honored with a local chef that sets the menu and prepares the food. This year it was Bryce Gilmore of Barley Swine - he didn't disappoint!

For those of you that are on the edge of your seat about our Halloween costumes, you'll be sorely disappointed. Justin and I were too busy this year to commit to dressing up. As you know, it's "go big or go home" with us, and this year we stayed home. Bore-ring! Eleanor must have sensed the unusual Halloween antipathy because she, too, refused to dress up. She's pretty enamored with Curious George, so we bought her a very simple monkey costume as our backup option if we didn't get our family costume act together. As we were headed out to a company Halloween party, she stuck to her guns on the no costume bit. Serves us right, considering our attitudes this year;(

In addition to Outstanding in the Field, Justin and I continued our anniversary celebration with an ACL Live Taping of Portugal. The Man. I surprised Justin with tickets after he fell in love with PTM at Austin City Limits last month. It was my first ACL (Moody Theater) show, and it didn't disappoint!

This weekend, Grandpa Charlie and Cini were generous enough to treat us to tickets to one of their favorite singers of all time, Marilyn Maye. Marilyn is an incredible 85-year-old cabaret singer who could run circles around me with her energy and talent. We kicked off the date night with dinner at Uchiko, and then ventured out to listen to Marilyn. She was super entertaining, and she even gave us a shout out during the show: "l'd like to welcome the granddaughter of a very dear friend from Arizona who couldn't make it himself tonight - wonderful to have you here, dear." We stayed afterwards to visit with Marilyn, and she is as sweet as can be. Thanks again, Grandpa and Cini!

In new house news, we're hoping to pour our foundation this week, and the build will hopefully go quickly from there. We're really anxious to get into the house before Baby Boy is born, but timing is still up in the air.

New tidbits:

: Eleanor's super active and also have a very active vocabulary. New words/phrases: eyebrow, chin, neck, what happened?, oh boy!, smell (she gets a kick out of us smelling her feet and saying "pee-uuuu, stinky feet!", yogurt, yoga, fort, chewy (dog friend), Aud-dey (neighbor friend, Audrey). She's sure to point out every object and person she recognizes, so there is constant chatter.

: Forts are a bit hit in our house, as is hiding, zippers, pretend driving in our cars, and counting.

: Our next door neighbor's dog, Chewy, is Eleanor's new best friend. Chewy is a sweet dog that respects our daughter's love of dogs but doesn't invade her personal space. We've even gotten to the point of E throwing the ball to Chewy and him retrieving it and bringing it back to her. Super cute.

: We're on a few waiting lists for preschools (I was late to the game there). We toured our first school, Athena Montessori, this past week and fell in love. We don't have much to compare it to until we tour a couple more this month, but all in all, we were impressed. The program, facility, and teachers made me want to be a toddler again! We're finding that Eleanor really craves the social interaction with other kiddos, so we're working on keeping her stimulated with extracurricular activities. I think it's doing the trick for now, but I'm sure that will change when we have our hands full with a newborn come Spring.

Outstanding in the Field was held at Urban Roots Farm this year. It's a non-profit organization run by local high schoolers and volunteers.

The "kitchen"

This year had the biggest turnout we've seen - probably about 200 people.

We broke out our wedding china for the occasion - the first time we've used it since we registered for it.

Everyone brings their own plates - makes for a colorful table.

The super cool bus the OITF crew tours on. 7 people sleep on the bus throughout the tour!

An amazingly delicious dinner menu

First course

Second Course - part 1

... paired with Second Course, part 2

Third Course

Fourth Course

Dessert

Eleanor was showered with Halloween cards - we spent days putting stickers on them and re-reading each of them.

This is as close as we got to a Halloween "costume" - about a week after the actual holiday.

Train time at Zilker

Birthday buddies, Ellie and Nora, riding the train today. Nora's mom, Elisa, is due with their 2nd baby any day now. Troopers for meeting us out this morning...