Christmas 2015 and New Years 2016!

This Christmas was so incredibly fun. Having children at Christmas time is amazing, endlessly exciting, and exhausting all mushed together. 

This was the first year Lucy had specific requests from Santa: a doll that looked like Lucy and a Hippopotamus.  She was also worried she might cry when she met santa, but decided "I'm going to be brave so Nora will be brave, too." We got the sweetest picture of them in his lap. I'm not going to lie, I kind of wanted a screaming baby pic, because, they are hilarious. (But I'll take adorable, too.) 

Nora discovered the Christmas tree. At first she would roll or crawl over to it and just pet it. Which then escalated to attempting to eat all of the Christmas lights she could possibly reach. 

Our attempt at a picture of 5 wiggleworm cousins.

The excitement on Christmas morning was amazing. Lucy woke Christmas Eve at 2am, came into our room with the biggest smile on her face. I hated to burst her bubble and send her back to bed, but 2am was just a LOT bit too early to start that party. 

Come 7am, she was smiling from ear to ear when she saw all the presents under the tree. She quickly decided that all of the toys were for her to play with (Nora's included.) Thank goodness Nora is a good sharer...so far.

We have a lot of birthdays to celebrate over Christmas!

And some very un-seasonably warm weather that lead to hiking for Jack's birthday. 

On New Year's Eve, we celebrated "Noon Year's Eve" at Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. We will have to add this to the list every year, it was a great way to involve the kids in the celebration!

We also had a surprise visitor all the way from Colorado. My sweet baby sister Mel (Aunt Mimi). It was the perfect way to start off the new year with laughter and hugs and driving 20 minutes out of our way because we were talking too much. 

Happy 2016! 

Nora: 8 and 9 months

Whew, I am soooo behind on blogging.

Life has been crazytown, y'all. Our sweet "chubby pumpkin" (as Lucy calls her) is now 9 months old!

She has celebrated her first Christmas, and New years (post to come), has 2 bottom teeth and is crawling! She does a sophisticated army crawl, which can become very quick when she sees a person, or thing she wants badly.

 She's also started pulling up to standing, and is a little babbling baby. We hear mama, dada and baba on the repeat, and I swoon at those sounds again! She is attempting some baby sign, but so far it just seems like she is playing with her hands.

With crawling, she has gotten incredibly curious. She started out timid at first, but now, every space is her tunnel, and the Christmas tree lights a new teething toy.  She started crawling the day after Christmas, and we quickly took the tree down (teeth and electricity don't mix well.)

I love to see this little blossom of her personality, and I can't wait to see what the next few months bring, before she turns ONE. (How can this be happening in the next few months!?)

We love you Nora Jo!

Nora 6 and 7 months

Our sweet Nora Jo is 7 months! Months 6 &7 have been amazing. She is sleeping through the night and her momma feels like a new woman! 

She is an eating machine and loves some fruits. True to her nature, if she doesn't like the food you are trying to get her to eat she gags dramatically and acts as if she might throw up. 

She is thinking so hard about crawling and can get her little knees up but mooshes her little face in the floor in the process and just jibber jabbers, talking into the floor. 

She is incredibly ticklish and loves to laugh.

She adores her big sister (most of the time) and has recently discovered all of her sisters toys. She rolls all over the floor until she catches one of Lucy's toys and then proceeds to slobber all over it. 

I can't believe you are on your way to being mobile, and are closer to turning one than you are being my newborn baby! We love you sweet Nora Jo. 

Trunk or Treat

We went to our first "Trunk or Treat" this weekend! It was a cute little chance to debut our Halloween costumes and practice Trick-or-Treating. 

Lucy has insisted on being Sully from Monsters Inc. this year (which we may have seen 3,000 times) "because he's blue and blue is my favorite." 

The babies were less than thrilled about all the dressing up and Nora lasted about 20 minutes in her Owl costume before screaming to get out of it. 

But oh those cheeks!

Some of the trunks had little games to play before you could get your candy. The girls loved it! Lucy also wanted to eat a different candy in between each and every car. 

It was a great practice for Trick-or-treating and also very confusing to a three year old who has just been taught not to take anything (including candy) from strangers because they are bad.

We can always un-confuse her next week, right?

In the meantime, we will be practicing our ROAR...

Nora: 5 months

Sweet Nora. You are now 5 months old! Sometimes the days fly by and sometimes in the middle of a screaming night I wonder when you are going to big like your sister and we are all going to sleep. But I promise not to wish the days away.

When you are happy you are squealing with delight so loud that it can be heard throughout the whole house! And when you are mad....lookout world.

I can't wait to see where this passionate side of you takes you one day! (Maybe you'll be an actress or a politician.)

When I pick you up, you lay your head down on my shoulder as if to give me a hug and I just melt. And when you cry you say mamamamama, I suppose because you know i can fix it! You adore your big sister. She makes you laugh and smile no matter what sort of mood you are in-and mom and dad use that to our advantage!!

You have started solid foods for the first time and it's fun to see what you like/don't like compared to your sister! The jury is still out on a few veggies because of your sensitive little tummy, but I'll find a way to get you to eat them one day!

Gagworthy:
Green Beans

Like:
Peaches
Pears
Applesauce
Peas

Happy 5 months sweet Nora Jo!

ten on ten:September 2015

Ten pictures from simply beautiful moments in our day on the 10th of the month!

There are only 8 today because I got a new phone and 2 of my pictures disappeared in Verizonland. 

The 10th was full of chunky baby smiles, first day of preschool friends and my new favorite Podcast: Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey. Listen to it, y'all. You will feel like you are sitting down at Happy hour with a couple of girlfriends and you won't want it to end. 

Have a blessed weekend!

Nora 4 months

This little sweetie is 4 months old! 

Sweet Nora, you are a happy, delighted little child. You love to be snuggled and to be in the center of the action wherever you are. You go with the flow most days. We now think you have reflux, as our calm happy little baby turned into quite the screamer overnight at 4 months. You can roll both ways now, but most of the time you prefer to just hang out on your back (and you love to sleep on your back!)

You are nowhere near sleeping through the night, but sometimes I groggily treasure those midnight moments with just the two of us. 

You squeal {loudly} when you're happy and you scream when you're mad/sad. We can't wait to see the little person you are going to grow into!