Stationery card

Modern Wreath Christmas Card

Browse Shutterfly's unique Christmas card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Playing at the Park

Here are some shots of Nora playing at the little park in Patrick and Emily's neighborhood over Thanksgiving. I am so grateful for the bits of warm, sunny weather even in November and December that let us get outside to play!

Counting

Halloween!

Nora loved dressing up as a cat for Halloween (thanks to a timely hand-me-down from Reese). She even enjoyed chasing her own tail. However, the highlight for the month of October was our neighbor's blow-up decorations. A tall, skinny ghost and a stack of pumpkins. I can't even begin to count how many times she said "Punkin'Ghost!" She would wake up and want to check out her window to see if they were there (since they were deflated during the day). And she would get so excited when they went up every evening.
Additionally this Halloween we discovered that Nora has inherited her mother's cravings for seasonal candies. Hopefully Nora can avoid becoming the addict Mary Grace is!

Playing Catch-Up

I have been painting kitchen cabinets. For a month. Nora is more toddlerish than ever, and is currently destroying all in her path in our bedroom, where I am typing. Also I am 22 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. Are those good excuses for lack of posting? Nope, I didn't think so! Here are some pictures as we try to catch up from our lack of family blogging!

New milestones:

• 12 teeth!!!
• She says lots of words and is beginning to combine them. For example "Daddy home." "Help you?" "Whoa, Nora" and "Siwwy dirl" (silly girl).
• She can point to and name the letters in the alphabet and count to 10.
• She can destroy a room in .5 seconds
  

Summer Fun: Fountains

Well, we have had a great summer, and did not spend too much time blogging about it :) Though a full 2 and a half months in between posts seems excessive - sorry!
Here are some pictures of Nora and Reese in the fountains at Maryville College, and some of Nora at a birthday party at a splash pad in Knoxville. She had so much fun splashing around - as you can see, she is not timid about getting her face wet!

Self-feeding

Lately, Nora has been trying to feed herself with a spoon. It's more like painting with a spoon! She is pretty careful at first, but after a while usually resorts to trying to eat it with her fingers. Also, don't be fooled by the spoon being in her RIGHT hand...she spends 90% of her time with it in her left hand. Not that I am pulling for her to be a lefty, or anything :)

Swim Day

You know it's summer when an ice-cold pool is a relief! We had a great time swimming at Aunt Sarah's pool last Saturday. Nora likes being in the water, but was a little more cautious about getting her face near it than she was last year. She loved going back and forth between the baby pool, the big pool, the chain-link fence, and the lounge chairs. All was like a picturesque Saturday afternoon until the car ride home. Just keep scrolling down.

Here's what happened.

MG: Nora? Do you want some goldfish?
Ben: Yeah, she's probably hungry.
Ben (looking in the rearview mirror): Nora, don't stuff so many in your mouth at once. Yeah, that's right, spit out that little bit. Wait...auughhhhhh! Oh my gosh!
MG: Is she throwing up?

She had indeed. So while I went into Wal-Mart to grab a few crucial items (paper towels, butter, and decorating bags) Ben was in charge of the clean-up.

And somehow it resulted in this shot.

MG: Oh, my gosh! Someone's going to nominate us for one of those bad parent photographs!
Ben: No, the car was not running. Yes, it was still cool for the 30 seconds it took for me to take this shot. Yes, the doors were unlocked and I had the keys.

And yes, those women in the background were giving him some weird looks.

May Days

Here are a few pictures from a Mother's Day shoot, and last week, when we hit 90 degrees! It's funny I'm posting this today, when it's rainy, and around 60.
Nora is getting really hard to capture on film, at least the front of her is! She runs all the time now, mostly away from us. I think there were only about 7 shots of her facing the camera and smiling of the 2oo attempts tried!





I found out one day when I was watering the garden just how much Nora likes the hose. She walked right into the stream of water, fully clothed of course, and had so much fun running in and out of it! She also loved playing in her kiddie pool, especially getting in and out, in and out. She did not like the grass clippings that stuck to her hands ("nyuuuch!")




She's using lots of words now, including "poo-poo" when she has a dirty diaper (yay!), "pappy?" which means we sing "If you're happy and you know it" over and over, and "Weeese" which is her friend Reese! Elmo (a.k.a. "la-la") continues to be a favorite, especially on a certain miniature guitar, complete with wammy bar and the worst renditions of the alphabet song and Seasame Street song ever heard. No volume control, no off switch. If it didn't keep her happy in the car, the batteries might have gotten lost by now.

A Few Pictures for April

Here a just a few pictures for the month of April. Not doing so great on the two posts a month goal for this year.

We noticed recently that we had 44 posts for 2010! I'm not sure if we're going to have that many for 2011. We had also forgotten what we blogged about before Nora...oh, yeah, we wrote about what we were doing!

Here' s a picture of Nora getting into the pantry, which she does any time the door is left ajar. Her ability to get into things is increasing. She's so fast! And her reach is growing. Tonight she actually climbed up onto a stool to reach onto the counter top. Oh no...

Here's another of Nora sporting my new favorite hair-do. Pigtails! I'm so glad it's finally long enough!

And finally, a picture of a few of the Easter cookies I made. Let's face it, I'm a total novice in the field. But getting a little better...

Trip to the Park

In Abstencia

Don't worry, we won't share any excuses for why we didn't post at all in February. Although, we're wondering if people who check our blog have given up on us!

Nora's milestones:

Walking!

Two teeth!

An ever-expanding vocabulary! Here's the short list: Na-na-na (banana), ba-pa (apple), cra-ka (cracker), juuu (juice), noi (milk), num-num (yum yum), de-dyet (blanket), nigh-nigh (night night), ba (bath), ball, da (dog), tahhhh (Star, our new little dog, pictured below)

Animal noises! Only growls, woof-woofs, and fish puckers at this point...

Here are a few pictures from the past several weeks:

Time with our friend Clark

Our little dog, Star

Getting into trouble - yes, that's a checkbook and a remote

"Sharing" with our friend Reese