Weeeeeee!

One advantage to living on a hill (at 9,000 feet elevation) is that when it snows (all Winter long) you don't actually have to GO anywhere to "go" sledding. Hence, the day after Christmas my parents made the trek up to our house with their handy plastic snow disks and we took Norah on her first sledding "trip". Here's basically how it went:

Our pre-trip family photo

I went down first to document their descent from below. Mark said that as soon as she saw me sit on the disk and push myself down the hill she started pointing to the disk he was holding and asking, "Norah's? Norah's?"

Daddy and Norah started WAAAAYYYYY up at the top of the house!

At about this point I could hear her giggling.

Getting closer...

Norah was yelling and signing "More! More!" the minute they hit to bottom.

That was fun!

The tough part was toting twenty pounds of baby and a disk back up the hill. Fortunately Grammy, Grampy and Daddy had blazed a trail in their early trips.

They went down a second time and I took pictures from our top deck. Mark said that they got all sat down on the disk and while they were waiting for me to get to the back she kept scooting forward and yelling, "Wee, wee, wee!!"

The second time she tried to start back up the hill on her own.

Didn't get too far though. :-)

My sweet snow bunny and her favorite sledding partner.

Possessive Much?

This morning I decided to count the number of words and phrases that Norah uses on a regular basis. I know, weird. If I don’t think of activities like that in the morning my poor little brain has real trouble waking up. I end up a walking zombie until about an hour after I have my coffee. Anyway, I counted no less than 85 words and phrases that she uses regularly. I thought it was closer to 30 or 40 but as I got going, I just kept thinking of more and more things she says. I mean, she knows 10 words for items of clothing alone (socks, shoes, boots, pants, shirt, hat, mittens, gloves, tights, jacket). And yes, she knows the difference between mittens and gloves. That’s what we get for living at nearly 9,000 feet!

Aside from the sheer magnitude of words that she’s picked up, she’s also putting them together in two word phrases. Just tonight I told her we were going to brush her teeth, I said, "Ask Daddy if he can help you please." She looked at Mark and said, "Hep peese." Her favorite phrases currently have to do with what belongs to whom (according to my grammar check, it’s definitely whom). She points to our coat rack and identifies “Mama’s jacket”, “Daddy’s gloves” etc. She calls herself No-nah and will often point to her belongings and say, “Nonah’s shoes”, “Nonah’s necklace” etc. When she wants you to give her something, she’ll identify it, “Mama’s necklace” then point to herself and ask, “Nonah’s necklace?” She does this a lot at dinner when she wants to try our food.

My favorite recent development has been that Norah is learning WHO belongs to whom. At small group last week she ran up to our friends Ashley and Mark (whose daughter’s name is Ellie) and said, “Eh-yee mama!”, “Eh-yee Daddy!” Then she ran around the room identifying who were the daddy and mommy of which kid, including “Nonah’s” Daddy & Mommy.

Yesterday my mom was putting Norah in the car seat. She patted my mom on the arm and said, “Nonah’s ma-maw.” If that doesn’t warm a grammie’s heart, I don’t know what will.

New Favorite Activity (and snack)!

Every time I tried to coax Norah into the snow she became very distressed that the stuff seemed to be sticking to her boots. She'd take two or three steps then yell, "Boots! BOOTS!! Up...PEASE!!" Then, as happens often with toddlers (and even more often with girls) on Sunday she suddenly changed her mind. Here are some photos of her first time in the snow. She especially enjoyed throwing herself face first into the piles, WWE wrestler style. She enjoyed herself even more when she discovered that she could eat it! I still can't find snow pants that fit her. The smallest ones I've found are 2T and she wears a 12 months. I'd even settle for 18 months, but any bigger than that and they wouldn't do any good anyway. She came in pretty soaking wet from the whole thing, but she sure had a ball!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from Mom's camera. When Dad uploads the pics from his (much more professional) camera, I'll add them to the post. Enjoy!

Ok, I'm ready! Where's the snow.

Wow, this stuff is deep.

Mom says I can eat this. I wonder if she's right.

Oh yeah! This is great!!

Check out my awesome wrestling moves!

All this snow is getting kind of...cold. Time to head inside!

New Show

Five reasons I like Sing Off:
1. No band = better talent - This isn't a hard and fast rule, but at least no one can call it a "song" when all they do is scream over a professional musician playing a guitar solo.
2. Ensemble competition = fewer hotshots - Even the soloists really work on their blend.
3. Short timeframe - one elimination a day means less anxiety medication for viewers.
4. Nick Lachey in a Mr. Rogers sweater - he's a dork and he doesn't even know it!
5. Judge Ben Folds (!) in a burgundy velvet blazer with square black plastic glasses - he's a dork and he totally embraces it, which makes him infinitely cooler the The Artist Formerly Known as Mr. Simpson.

Open House!

Last Saturday was our first ever open house. The snow was coming down pretty hard east of town, so a few people weren't able to make it. It was actually much lighter at our place, it snowed just enough to add to the atmosphere. In any case, we had a great turnout and we can't wait for next year! It was way too busy to actually take pictures during the event. But here are a few photos of the festive Christmas decor.

Here's a view of the entry hall.

Here's the view of the entry from the kitchen.

I set up this little tree in the art niche at the end of the hall. It was the first Christmas decoration I bought when we got married. We used to put it up on a box in the front window of our house so it looked like the top half of a real-sized tree.

This is the dining room chandelier.

And here's the view of the great room from the dining area. This place was made for a Christmas tree! **Bonus question - can you spot the tiny Christmas decoration helper?

I also managed to get a photo of my little elf and her grampy!

Where Do We Live Again?

My work had our Christmas party last weekend. The attire started out as black tie required but after some hemming and hawing from some of the guys (I work with mostly guys) who didn't want to rent tuxes, it became black tie optional. Still Mark wore his nice suit and it's the most dressed up I've been since I moved to this cozy little mountain town. After all, Durango was once voted one of the top ten worst dressed towns in America. Seriously.

I don't have any good pics of me and Mark yet (my mom did take some!), but I got a few of my hair. I did it myself and I was pretty proud of the result. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures until after the party so it's not quite what it was in the beginning. Still, I "do" my hair about once every five years or so, so I thought it came out nice.

Snowed In

Even living at such a high elevation, we really don't get snowed in that often. Last year we made the mistake of not purchasing a snowblower. Let's just say that Mark didn't need to worry a bit about putting on winter weight with all of the shoveling he was doing! He was able to keep up because we didn't really get a lot of snow at one time last year. It was pretty slow and steady.

We just had our first big storm come through yesterday and last night. This year we're REALLY glad that we got a snowblower. I think total we ended up with about 3 1/2 feet. About two feet of that was waiting for him on our driveway this morning. You know it's deep when your 16 month old watches her Daddy push the snowblower out of the garage into the snow and says, "Stuck."

Memorial Box Monday - Angels

Our pastor is doing a series on angels over Christmas and New Years. I feel like it's a great opportunity to study something that a lot of churches don't talk about much. The bible describes angels as ministering spirits sent to serve those who believe in God. I think that there are a lot of times we come into contact with angels that we might not even realize it. The Word even talks about the faithful "entertaining angels unaware". The sermon yesterday reminded me of a story that I hadn't thought of in a long time. So here it is, take it however you want to, but I fully believe that my family met two angels on one particular day...

I was about 11. I was headed to my first Halloween party with our church youth group. I was SO excited! My mom brought my brother along to drop me off, but he was NOT invited. This party was for those mature and sophisticated enough to be in the youth group (like my 11 year old self).

The hosts lived on this great ranch in a canyon not far outside of town. We drove the road fairly often, because is was also a back way to the next town over. It had just started doing this annoying foggy drizzle thing that sometimes happens in southern California and October. I was a little miffed that the party would probably end up being all in-side because of the weather. As we were driving along, I decided it would be a good idea to change the radio to some more suitable tunes, and turn the volume up a little. My mom thought that was not such a great idea. As I reached to turn the radio back to my station and turn it up a little again, we hit a slick patch on a curve in the road.

I remember looking out the passenger side window and seeing the ground rushing toward me. I can still see the glass in my hair out of the corner of my eye as I threw my arm up to shield my face. We did a complete roll and landed on our wheels. The next thing I remember is standing next to the car, facing away from it, and looking at the ravine we would have plunged into if our momentum had taken us for another roll. I heard my mom's voice and turned around to see the car. The rear passenger side, where my brother nearly always sat (to force me to move my seat up as far as possible) was completely crushed. I have no idea why he decided to sit behind Mom that day.

We met up outside the car and did a little physical inventory. Miraculously, none of us had anything worse than a paper-cut sized scratch. This was before cell phones, so the next decision was which one of us would try to find a house to call Dad (and the police, and the tow truck, and the insurance guy and...). The nearest house was probably a quarter mile away.

Just then, out of the fog, we saw two men walking toward us. They said that they lived nearby and heard the noise. They said that the police had already been called and they offered to check for injuries. One of the men said that he was a doctor. They checked all of our heads and said that none of us had concussions. The "doctor" said that when the ambulance came we didn't need to go to the hospital. He said it would just cost us money and none of us needed medical attention. They told us that someone would be there soon and offered to wait with us. My mom thanked them and said that we would be just fine as long as the police were on their way.

They said goodbye and turned to walk back the way they came. I turned to say something to my mom and when we looked back toward the road we couldn't see them any more. Now I don't know for sure, for sure that those men were angels, but I know that when we mentioned thanking them, none of the police knew where the call had come in from. Our car was totaled, no one was hurt, not even scratched. Over the years we heard about a lot of accidents on that curve in the road. Fortunately, it was never anyone we knew, but I've always wanted to find someone else who had an accident in that spot and ask if they met two nice men in the fog.

My mom says that she thinks the men were angels posted there to take care of people who have accidents on that curve. I've often wondered if God doesn't post his "ministering spirits" on other curves in the road in my life. I'd like to keep an eye out, but I really should just try to watch the road.