Silly Saturday

Halloween pictures to follow. I think we got some really good ones. Here's a freebie from this morning. Such a big girl. She can get up on her chairs all by herself now. Can you tell she's proud?

Blast from the Past

Just before Norah was born we got a little point and shoot camera that I could keep in my purse for impromptu photo sessions. Sort of as a result, Mark's (really really nice) camera has been neglected. He started taking pictures of Norah with it last weekend and man, does that camera take nice pictures! I'll be posting a few awesome pictures in the next day or so. As we scrolled through looking at the photos he'd taken, we found that the last time he used the camera was quite a while ago. Here's one of the most recent images he took up until last weekend:

Celebrities in the Baby World

I have a pair of pajamas with Tinkerbell on them. I bust them out at this time of year because they're especially fuzzy and warm. The first day Norah saw me wearing them, she pointed at my shirt and asked, "Wha dat?" I told her it was Tinkerbell. I also have a Tinkerbell mug, sweatshirt, and a couple of other things. Ever since that very first "Wha dat?" Norah has been recognizing "Teekeebeh" on everything. In fact, when the commercial for the new Tinkerbell DVD came on the TV, she stopped in her tracks and stared. I think it was the longest she'd ever paid attention to the TV.

In that same vein, we don't watch any kids' programs on TV yet. I anticipate several years of repetitive songs and characters with high pitched voices in our family's viewing future. I'm trying to dodge that steamroller for as long as I can. So imagine our surprise when Norah, while looking at a Sesame Street themed book (which I got on the dollar rack at a certain store) turns to the page with a little fuzzy red guy on it and proceeds to run around the house with the book yelling, "Ehlmooo!" Fortunately, I grew up with Sesame Street myself (though Elmo is a little on the new side for me) and it's one kids' show I don't mind watching. Which is a good thing because apparently the cast of characters on The Street have somehow entered the collective consciousness of America's children. Or, perhaps, they have some Sesame Street books at school too.

Bewitchingly Cute

I promised my mom I would post a photo of this outfit since she didn't get to see it. My mom got the tights and the black kitty socks (which you can't really see) in the dollar aisle at Targ*t. Love that place! All morning Norah was lifting up the little ruffled cuff of her tights and meowing at her socks.

Anyway, Mark calls this the Wednesday Adams outfit. Silly Mark. Norah will never have as much hair as Wednesday. But maybe we can disguise that fact with a pointy hat!

Divide and Conquer

There's one little milestone that Norah reached last weekend that I forgot to mention. In one of my posts from last weekend I introduced the (somewhat annoying) little pink doggy that Norah has decided is her new favorite. Last Saturday she asked me to turn him on. After an hour or so of listening to him yap earlier in the day, I just wasn't ready to set him loose on my home again. So I told her no, I wasn't going to turn on the pink doggy. She asked at least four times and I stood my ground. Finally, she tilted her little head and squinted those sweet blue eyes. I could almost see the wheels turning in that baby brain of hers. Suddenly, her face brightened and she said one little word, "Dada!" Then she took off at top toddler speed with pink doggy to ask Daddy to make him bark.

That's right folks! Our sweet little baby girl is already attempting that age-old kid technique of divide and conquer. Don't worry though, in this family Mom and Dad are a team. Thank goodness, because I don't think I could have taken another second of that barking dog!

Thankful Thursday - Milestones

As usual, today I'm thankful for my little girl. She has changed our lives in so many ways - most of them good! Here are a few milestones that she's reached recently that I don't think I've mentioned yet.

• She gives kisses. Real ones. No more open mouth slobber sharing, these are the real deal.
• She has way too many new words to count, at least a few more recognizable ones every day (most recently "noodles" and "peas"), and she's started stringing them together into simple sentences.
• She's decided that her once beloved bath times are now torture and she screams the whole way through. We don't know why. It started this week. We're hoping she gets over it just as quickly.
• She loves to throw the ball for the dogs to chase. This is a fantastic development as it entertains both the baby and the dog AND does not involve the possibility of the dog throwing up baby food a few hours later (as her other favorite activity involving he dog does).
• If you hold her hands while she's upside-down, she'll flip herself backwards and land on her feet.
• Upon hearing the word "booger" her finger immediately goes into her nose.
• She can blow her nose when asked. That doesn't mean she always will, but she can!
• She has six teeth showing and another two set to arrive any day now.

But my favorite milestone is this one:

On Sunday morning I was getting her ready for church. I pulled out a little outfit to put on her. She looked at it, looked at me, and said, "No." So, humoring her, I pulled out another one. "No." After the third one, I finally pulled out a skirt. She looked at it, smiled, looked at me and said, "Uh huh." I must admit, I did NOT expect this development so soon. I'm going to have to employ a "pick from these two outfits" strategy from now on, because it takes forever to get her dressed!

All in a Day's Play

We spent Saturday hanging around the house. As usual we got a lot less done than we originally thought we would. Fortunately Norah still managed to get in the required amount f playtime. Here are a few pictures from throughout the day.

First, I wanted to show off the cute little track suit my Aunt Linda gave Norah. She gave it to us when we were out visiting last Christmas. The tag on the inside says it's size 6 months. I was all worried that Norah would grow into it over the summer and it would be too hot to wear. As you can tell by the cuffed pants, my kid is a shrimp. But hey, it means I have to buy clothes a lot less often!

She played a long time with that little pink dog today. It was totally awesome because it's one of those dogs that takes about five steps and then barks five times in a really high pitched, fake dog voice. It grates on your nerves in about four nano-seconds. But Norah loves it. Our friend has a tradition with her little daughter that along with a birthday card, they choose one of her toys to give to other kids on their birthdays. So that little pink dog was chosen especially for Norah by Jade (with perhaps a little help from her mother). I'm thinking that in a few years we might adopt that tradition too. It helps teach kids about generosity. I'd imagine that, depending on how many friends your kid has, it probably cuts down on the ever-expanding toy population in your own house as well. I swear those things breed. Anyway, here's another cute one with Mr. Puppy. I don't know why the pink dog is a boy. He just is.

And of course, what Saturday at home would be complete without laundry. I did about four loads today, so only sheets and dog bedding to go. For Norah doing laundry consists of laying in the basket with her blanket, juice and a good book or two. Man, she's got it good.

And finally, I leave you with a lovely photo of Norah enjoying her new favorite pass-time. How does every kid in the world learn this!?!

Giving Kisses

I tried to get a photo of Norah kissing Daddy goodnight. This is the closest I got. Dang slow flash camera!

Another Grandma Outfit

This little shirt is from Grandma too. It has a panda on it (which she points at and says, "bear!") and the shirt says, "I love to giggle". And does she ever love to giggle!

Thankful Thursday & a Little Yee-Haw!

This Thursday I'm thankful that we're a part of a loving church family. We're really starting to feel connected there and I'm so excited about it!

Last Saturday the church had a barn party at the home of one of the members. First of all, it was a gorgeous locale. It was right along the Pine River with plenty of wide open spaces to run and play. And boy oh boy did Norah take advantage of that! Of course, I left my camera in the car and was too busy chasing the teeny tornado around to get it, but fortunately my friend Jan snapped a few. The rest you're just gonna have to imagine... sorry.

****But first this breaking news!!****

There were multiple cake walks at this barn party (of course, what's a barn party without a cake walk or twelve?). For the kids cake walk we were asked to make cupcakes and (drumroll please) I baked them. That's right folks, I may not cook - and I mean I really can't cook - but I can bake! I even got a little creative. Observe:

That's right. I mixed me up some neon frosting and went to town! I even piped on a few flowers for added effect. Sadly, on the drive to the party we lost one. We hit a bump just right and poor Orangie with the purple flower did a kamikaze move and landed head first on Mark's upholstery. Don't worry, it came out.

Now, on to the main event:

Norah's favorite part of the barn party was by far her first time ever in a bounce house. We happened to see that there was only one small child in there so we and our friends hijacked it for the babies. Jan and Jason have twin 20 month old boys. They're not really too much bigger than Norah so they were the perfect bounce house companions for her. At one point, Reed even tackled her - because that's what boys do - and she didn't so much as flinch. In fact, she was surprisingly daring in the bounce house. Man! Wish I had gotten pictures!!

Her second favorite activity, I do have a picture of. They had a little game where you toss bean bags into buckets. Well Norah thought it was great. At first she was very carefully placing the bean bags into the bucket of matching color (side note: No one demonstrated this. She matched the colors all by herself. She's either a genius or she's going to drive me crazy when she's older saying that her shoes don't match her outfit because they don't have "the same color pink" on them.). Once the boys got involved the game changed a bit. They showed her that the point of the game was, in fact, to put as many rocks from the driveway into the buckets as possible.

That's her and Kyle (Don't be fooled by the sippy cup that says "Reed". They're tricky like that.) putting rocks in the buckets as fast as their little hands can grab 'em. When I dumped the bucket out so we could eat she almost had a fit. You'd have thought she'd proven String Theory and I erased her white board (she's a genius, remember?). By the way, that's oreo on her face, not dirt. Jason was making friends with her by feeding her snacks. They next day when she saw him at church she was visibly disappointed when she realized that he had neither fritos nor mini oreos in his pockets. Sorry Jason. She's fickle.

Jan took a couple of family pictures of us to show off some of the amazing scenery. Unfortunately Norah was still upset that I'd just dumped her bucket o' rocks so she refused to display her rapidly growing collection of teeth (6 so far, by the way!).

So Happy Fall-idays, or Autumnal Equinox or Harvest or whatever, from our family to yours!

Memorial Box Monday on Tuesday...Again

My last thought before I fell asleep last night was Lord, help me to remember a really good story... even though tomorrow's Tuesday. This morning I thought of this one and it's a really special one to me. If I had to pick something to represent this story I'd pick something desert-y. Like maybe a cactus.

When Mark and I were first married we bought a house in my hometown. It was pretty far out in the boonies, so we could afford to buy a house there. At the same time Mark took a job in Anaheim - about 60 miles away from our house. Sixty miles is a lot no matter where you live, but when you live in California it makes for one hellish commute. Mark was driving 1 1/2 to 2 hours EACH WAY to get to work. If he didn't leave our house between 4:00 and 4:30 am he'd get stuck in traffic and his commute would stretch to 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Our first year and a half of marriage saw us going to bed before 8 pm most nights. Worse than that was the constant stress on Mark. That commute was really wearing on him and we knew we needed to do something different.

We'd been trying to get to Durango ever since we got married. Mark had known since his grandparents retired there when he was 10 that he wanted to live there some day. In fact, when we started seriously dating, he brought me to Durango and basically said, "I hope you like it here because I'll be living here some day (with or without you)." I appreciated his honesty - seriously, there's enough about marriage that you don't know you're "getting into" when you get married. At least I knew that part up front! The truth was, when I visited, I really did love it here. It's quirky, homey, and totally mall-free, but I love it!

Anyhow, by the time we entered the second year of Mark's awful commute, we were desperate to make a change. I had left a very unhealthy job situation and hadn't found a new job yet. We thought we'd found a workable solution. There was a satellite office for the company he worked for in Albuquerque. He would interview with them, get a transfer and we'd figure out a way to get to Durango from there. We were all set in our minds to move to Albuquerque. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some nice places in ABQ. But at that time it had one of the highest crime rates in the country. It also lead the country in car jackings, car thefts and murder. We were so desperate to do SOMETHING, we were willing to overlook those minor issues.

Well, we tried and tried. We went out and interviewed, looked at houses, made calls and followed up on every avenue. We tried for about 8 months and we just couldn't figure out what the hold up was! Finally one day I got online looking for a job. I prayed quietly, Lord, if we aren't meant to move to ABQ, please just let me help my husband have a better quality of life! Instead of clicking to ABQ jobs, I selected jobs near Anaheim.

Within a week I had interviewed at a temp agency, been matched with a prospective employer, interviewed with that company and received a job offer. Within. A. Week. We quickly placed our house on the market and it sold in just over a month (a miracle story for another time!). Before we knew it, we were living in the last place I ever thought I'd live. Newport Beach (see above). I remember in the beginning thinking Really Lord? Really? You're going to put us HERE? In the most self-involved, image conscious, materialistic culture ever? Really!?!

I wouldn't trade the time we had in the OC for anything. Ever. Even though it meant putting off our dream of Durango for a couple of years longer, the Lord sure knew what he was doing. We reconnected with several old friends from college who had all ended up in the same area. We joined their life group (small group) and their church.

To this day, those people in our life group are some of our dearest, closest friends (that's you, Cody & Amy, Kevin & Rechelle, Cindy, Alice, Josh, Noah etc.). The church we were all a part of was specifically called to equip and send ministers to the places that they were called to minister (to the right is a picture of one of the art pieces in the church hat I loved). When the time came for us to move, our life group literally prayed us there. I still miss being physically close to them, but I know that we have a bond in the Spirit.

In the end, of course, Mark's commute went down to 20 minutes and we enjoyed some of the quality-of-life perks that we had convinced ourselves we'd get in ABQ. But the Lord had so much more in store for us than that! We probably could have eventually made the ABQ plan happen in our own strength, but we sure would have missed out on God's best for us. In the end, it's true what it says in 2 Samuel "To obey is better than sacrifice."

Whole Lotta Shakin'

As promised, I tried to get photos of this weekend of more cute outfits from Grandma. I love the little top and sweat pants ensemble she had on. I probably took a good 200 pictures of it, but man alive, this kid won't sit still!! I managed to get a few clear ones and a few of her smiling. But not too many were both clear AND smiley. Never the less, heeeeeere's Norah!

That's a five pound kettle bell that my mom uses as a door stop. And yes, Norah can lift it. Just not with her favorite new toy the stress ball cow in her other hand.

In this one the camera almost managed to get her face in focus while she was dancing with the cow.

This one was between kissing the cow and gnawing on it's leg. Oh yeah, she's teething... AGAIN!

I only got photos of the one outfit on my camera. But once my friend Jan e-mails me the stunning images she captured at our church's barn party this weekend, there will be another post for sure. So stay tuned! All three of you!!

Thankful Thursday - Grandma and Great Weather

Today I'm most thankful for two things. I'm thankful for the amazing weather we're having. I'm always sad to say goodbye to summer, but there's something about the chill in the morning air and the crisp, clear days that really makes me feel grateful that we live here. The leaves are about 75% turned. Everywhere we look there's a golden glow. Just in the past few days the trees have started letting them go in little showers. I love to watch them spin and flutter to the ground. We went out to go to work yesterday morning and Norah was a little confused by all the new leafy toys laying in the driveway for her to play with.

That leads me to my second Thankful Thursday item. Grandma! The weather changed relatively quickly this year - or maybe I was just in denial about Summer being over. Anyhoo, I bought a few long sleeved shirts and a puffy vest for Norah (picture of that to come, so cute!!). But on the whole, I wasn't super prepared to bundle my tiny person up yet. Then came a little box from Grandma in California. I am forever amazed at how much my mom-in-law can fit in a little box. There were sweatshirts, sweatpants, long sleeved tops, leggings and even a pair of shoes! Everything was mix and match so, in total there were probably 30 new outfits in there. My girl is decked OUT thanks to Grandma!!

I had planned to get photos of Norah modeling all of her snazzy new duds this weekend but as usual, the time got away from me. So we'll do it piece-meal whenever she's got on a new item. In the pictures in this post she's wearing a onesie from Grandma (I'm pretty sure it says "Grandma's Angel" on it). She's also styling a sweater I got at a local church consignment sale and a pair of jeans from a thrift store. Top it off with a pair of shiny new white tennies (that managed to stay white for that WHOLE day!) and, of course, our girl doesn't go anywhere without an accessory. And by that I mean her snack cup.

Thanks Grandma!!