Toddler Times

She learned a new word today...(watch the video to hear it!)

Nora is leaving her babyhood behind and is fully immersed in toddler-hood. Although she still has a darling, round, chubby-cheeked face, she is slimming way down and almost all of her baby-fat rolls are gone. She'll probably hate me for sharing this picture but it's so darn cute I just have to:

Not only does it show off her toddler body, but also her determination to get into anything she possibly can. She opens those cupboards and drawers (also the ones in the kitchen) and pulls out anything she can...over and over and over again. Notice the toilet paper roll is empty in the background (and how it's up on the counter)? That's on purpose; otherwise she'll unwind the entire roll. She seems to have a sixth sense for when a computer or tablet is left unattended and before you know it, she's "using" it. 

Henry got his first pairs of boxer-briefs and Nora was dying to try them on. She was so happy to be getting to wear her big brother's clothes. Pretty cute, too!

And, finally, she's smiling on command now! She looks JUST like Henry did at this age when he learned to smile. I'll try to find a picture that I am thinking of where Henry has the exact same look on his face.

16 Months Old

Look who's 16 months old already!                          

Almost a year and a half old! Here she's sitting on a chair Henry put outside his room. I'm not certain exactly why he put it out there, but I know he had a good reason for doing so...in any case, Nora took full advantage of the opportunity to sit in her big brother's chair. As always, her most favorite activities are anything that Henry is interested in. She is getting interested in superheros and can identify and name Spiderman. It's not the most enunciated pronunciation of the word, but I understand it. Speaking of speaking, she is increasing her vocabulary daily. Thankfully her use of the word "no" has decreased. In it's place are "ow!" and "sorry!" A lot of things happen to her for which her response is "ow!" She doesn't quite understand the meaning of sorry yet because she'll often hurt herself then say sorry to herself or repeat it if someone says it to her, but it's super cute regardless. She also has started to say Wilbur; it sounds like Bur bur when she says it. We keep trying to get her say "Henry" but not yet. She calls him "buddy" (also calls Wilbur this) and "bo-bo" which is a nickname Brett uses for her.

This face reminds me so much of Henry. I think their eyes look the same here, as well as the serious expression. This picture was taken at Henry's basketball class. Nora wanted to play so badly with the big kids. For the most part she was able to be distracted with her own ball (one of her favorite toys) but at times she would just bee-line it for the middle of the class and we'd have to run out and grab her before she got run over.

Another serious look here as she poses with a paper plate paddle we made for playing balloon tennis during the snowy weather.  She wouldn't play with me and Henry at first, but after we were done with our game she quietly picked up her paddle, got the balloon and practiced by herself. She reminds me of Henry in that way as well - wanting to figure things out herself before jumping in to something new.

Look at how long her hair is getting! Although it's hard to tell in these pictures it's also getting a lot thicker. Her bangs are so long that they are constantly in her eyes. I've tried everything I can think of to keep them pulled back but she pulls everything out (and then says "ow!" of course!).  She's getting more teeth - ugh. I think these are the last ones for awhile though.

Finally, a smiley picture to close out this post. She is still loving the rocking horse, which makes me very happy because I wasn't sure if she would like it or not!

Snow Days

AKA: Snowpocalypse 2014

The snow started falling on Thursday afternoon. School was released an hour early that day and cancelled on Friday as the snow continued to fall...and fall...and fall. By Friday evening we had about 4 or 5 inches. By Saturday another couple inches on top of that and then added a layer of freezing rain on top of all the snow. Luckily the layer of ice wasn't as thick as they were expecting (or as thick as it was in 2008 when we had a similar storm around Christmas time). The slow thaw started today (Sunday) but although some snow has melted and major streets are passable there is still so much snow (turning now into slush) that it hasn't all melted and now the forecast is for more freezing rain starting around 4 am, so school has already been cancelled for tomorrow.

It's been a fun few days in the deep snow, though! Each morning we went for a walk down to Starbucks and Thriftway. Friday was absolutely freezing - I don't think it made it above 20 degrees and with the wind chill it was in the single digits. It's been slowly warming up since then and today's high temperature of 34 degrees felt almost warm! We bundled up in many layers and wrapped scarves around our faces to keep the brutal wind off us on Friday, but by today we even walked farther to the park and Henry played on the play structure and Nora spent some time in the swing. But by far the most fun was had sledding down the street in front of our house.

Luckily one of our neighbors let us borrow their sled and both Henry and Nora had a blast sledding down the hill. Henry went on lots of runs and was super excited to share his fun with Nora. By today, when it was actually warm enough to spend more time outside, the snow was too slushy to sled.

We also had lots of fun playing in the snow in the backyard - complete with snowball fights of course. We had blizzard conditions much of the time with the wind absolutely whipping and the snow falling so hard so it was difficult to spend very much time outside (especially for Nora), but we made the most of it. Nora seemed to like it but not be overly excited. As usual, she just wants to be doing whatever her big brother is doing, so she was happy to be near him no matter what else was going on. Thankfully, Henry's old snowsuit fit her perfectly so she was able to stay warm and dry in the miserable conditions.

By today (day 4) we were all going a bit crazy with cabin fever and trying to keep the kids occupied has been getting harder and harder. Thank goodness for Pinterest where I got the idea for this fun project with baking soda and colored vinegar...

Basically they just drop colored vinegar into a pan of baking soda and watch the colorful fizzing. That kept them busy for awhile! We also made paddles out of paper plates and popsicle sticks and played tennis with a balloon. I expect we'll do more of that tomorrow as it was a big hit. I'll be up searching for more ideas tonight. It's extra tricky to figure out activities because not only do they have to appeal to both ages but we have to have the supplies on hand as driving anywhere is obviously out of the question. Here's a video of the baking soda/vinegar project as well as a couple sledding runs. If you listen carefully to Nora during the art project, she says "spicy" twice - she was tasting the baking soda and saying it was "spicy." I think she just means it's yucky - but I always tell her not to eat my salsa because it's spicy and I make a yucky face. The first sledding run is Henry by himself and it gives you a good idea of just how FAR he was able to sled. Fun!!

January Update

Another few weeks gone by - and we're almost to the end of January already.  The highlight (for me, at least) in the last couple weeks was going to the WAPICI Winter Pow-Wow at PCC. At first Nora was disturbed by the loud volume of the drumming, but after a few minutes she got used to it and then enjoyed watching all the costumes and dancing. Henry, too, loved getting a chance to see all the regalia up close and get a real feel for what a pow-wow is all about.  Last night we went to the grand re-opening of the Portland Ballet Company where we got to see some beautiful performances. Unfortunately there was a bit of a wait prior to the performances starting and then a some long speeches and Nora wasn't patient enough to sit quietly through them so she missed most of the dancing, but the parts she did see she was absolutely enthralled. There were boys in most of the dances and pictures throughout the studios of boy dancers which we made sure to point out to Henry. I hope he'll express interest again in taking some more dance classes.

We've been taking advantage of the sunny weather and our fabulously large backyard by playing lots and lots of soccer outside. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa we've got an awesome new soccer goal to practice with. We were debating signing up Henry for t-ball this year, but I think we'll forgo that in favor of soccer. He's definitely enjoying it so far! We've also been going to the park a lot and Nora is proving to be quite fearless. She climbed to the top of a very tall slide (the stand alone type - probably 10 feet tall) and slid down all by herself...three times in a row. I was stunned. She's only 15 months old! She's also enjoying her present from Grandma and Grandpa - this "bike."

She's so proud of herself riding it around - I'm sure she feels just like her big brother. She hasn't quite figured out how to sit, push and glide yet; she more or less just stands and walks with it, but I know by summer time she'll be scooting around on it so quickly!

 A couple more pictures to round out this post - Gigi making Nora laugh and laugh and laugh...and the two kiddos playing outside.

Oh, and one more video! You just have to watch it - no explanation other than to say Nora has an ongoing fascination with belly buttons...

15 Months Old

15 months and three days, to be precise. She's running (which is hilarious to watch, except when, as today, she was running downhill on the sidewalk trying to keep up with Henry - that was just scary as I kept thinking she was going to fall flat on her face at any moment), she's climbing on everything, she's gotten all four first molars and one of her canine teeth is in (I'm sure the others will be following shortly), she's saying more words every day and has even said her first sentence! Last week at the mall she said "Gigi, where are you?" and now she says "where are you?" all the time - when she's looking for Wilbur, looking for Henry at school, even looking for particular objects around the house. I was looking for her shoe the other day and said "we need to find your shoe" and she said "where are you?"  She can follow two part directions (e.g. get that book, take it to Henry), she uses a fork extremely well and is fairly competent with a spoon. She has just recently gotten very interested in books - she loves, loves, loves to have books read to her but also likes to go in Henry's room and pull books off his shelf and look through them by herself.

She's very mischievous and gets herself into lots of "trouble" (as evidenced by the Cheerios picture above). We have to keep most doors in the house closed as she loves to get into pretty much anything she's not supposed to - her favorites are the dog's food and water and the toilet (yuck). She can do the hand motions for "I'm a little teapot," "head, shoulders, knees and toes," "Patty-cake" and "Itsy-bitsy spider."  She still loves her dolls and stuffed animals. But most of all what she really loves the best is being with her big brother.

I promised Mom I would try and list all the words she is saying so here goes: hi, bye, Mama, Daddy, dog, woof, bird, tweet, shoe, boot, tree, hat, drink, no, meow, see, this, ball, doll, belly, please, where are you, ... oh boy, I know I am missing some - I'll try to add to the list as I remember them.

Winter Break Play Time

Before Winter Break began I was worried that we would be bored, bored, bored and driving each other crazy...but that turned out to be completely wrong (well, maybe not the crazy part...) - we were busy, busy, busy doing all kinds of fun, cold/rainy weather activities.  We went to Pump-It-Up (picture above) twice, including once on Christmas Eve day. I'm proud to say the idea to go on Christmas Eve day might be the best idea I've ever had and will surely turn into an annual tradition. Going there is like a high-intensity workout and leaves the kids exhausted. A perfect solution for the pre-Christmas excitement that tends to keep munchkins awake later than they should be.

We also went to the Play Boutique and had a pretty good time (pictures above). Nora had an awesome time - she is just the right age/ability level to really enjoy it. Henry had an okay time - he's getting a bit too old/big to really enjoy it as much as he used to, but he still had a good time on the play structure and bouncy house.

 Last Friday we went to the Children's Museum. It was Nora's first time there and I'm thinking we might have to renew our membership again (after letting it lapse for the last year). She absolutely loved it - she walked around that place like she knew exactly where she was going and, since she has no fear, was perfectly content to just explore on her own. Above they are are playing on a spaceship on the left and Nora is getting ready to slide down the slide all by herself after climbing up all by herself of course. The girl is a beast, I tell ya.

One of Henry's favorite parts is the dig pit. I don't really understand the draw, but he loves it. Look how long his legs look in this picture! He is getting so big, it's pretty crazy.

And, finally, Nora does some shopping while Henry was busy serving up food in the dinner. Look how she's standing on her tip toes on top of a box to get taller. 

Christmas 2013

Yikes! I knew it had been awhile since I last posted, but I didn't realize just how long...did I just figure out my New Year's resolution?

We had a great Christmas...despite Nora's screaming fear of Santa. She actually was fine until she actually was placed on his lap and then fine again two seconds after getting off his lap. Henry was so excited to see Santa - he wrote a letter to him (see picture below of him giving Santa his letter) and also preemptively wrote a thank you note to be mailed after Christmas. He asked for (and received): a Superman belt, a Batman belt, a Ninja costume, a Superman playset and a Crayola airbrush kit. Santa brought Nora a rocking horse that she LOVES! and brought a tent/tunnel for both of them to share.

Christmas Eve we spent with Brett's parents and had a lovely dinner and fun exchanging gifts. I, unfortunately, did not bring my camera with me (I was pretty terrible overall taking pictures this holiday season). Christmas morning once the kids were awake we did Santa gifts and stockings before Gigi, Bumpa and Uncle Geoff came over to exchange gifts. Once again we were all spoiled!

Henry checking out his Santa loot.

 At first the only thing Nora really cared much about was getting her hands on candy but then Henry showed her how to ride her rocking horse and she has been riding it ever since! Here's a picture of Henry with what turned out to be one of his most favorite gifts - a bow and arrow set (suction cup tips, of course). Yesterday his friend told him that his sister has a REAL bow and arrow set...so guess what he wants for his birthday?

Henry was a very sweet helper to Nora - helping her unwrap her gifts which he loves doing.  We had breakfast, opened more presents, Nora had a nap, we played for awhile and then headed over to Gigi's house for dinner with more of the extended family. 

And, of course, more gifts! Including this playset for Nora that BOTH the kids love...it plays the same songs over and over and over. Lovely. ;)

 Showing off their respective celebratory headgear.