Rollin' With The Homies

Norah wasn't the only one who had a new friend to play with this past weekend. C has a little brother, J, who is almost exactly two months older than Penny. She had fun watching all of the trouble he could get into now that he's almost walking. I'm sure she has a few new ideas filed away for when she gets a little more mobile.



She got to hang out in the stroller with him while we went on a little nature walk during our picnic on Saturday. Of course, sitting in the stroller didn't last long for her. After a few minutes of squwaking her displeasure, she spent the rest of the walk with the man who is still (and hopefully will be for a good long time) her favorite.



When she did finally go back in the stroller, she was much happier having spent some quality time walking with Daddy.



And the drive back home was spent in blissfull quiet with our two talky girls completely passed out from the excitement of the day.

The Thing About Sisters...

...is that dressing them alike is fun.


Even when Grammy has to help one of them stand up,


and neither one will keep still,


or smile at the same time.






Because the thing about sisters...





...is that they won't always put up with being dressed alike.






So Mom had better take lots of pictures






While they still think it's fun.



**Thanks to Grandma (Mark's mom) for these adorable matching outfits!**

You've Got a Friend in Me

We have some friends in town visiting. They were our friends in college, who we then lived near in Orange County, who have now moved to Colorado. They're not as close to where we live as they once were, but they made the seven hour drive with two kiddos to come see us!

They have a little girl, C, who is almost exactly Norah's age, her same size AND just as talkative as she is! We met up with our friends at a park yesterday to let C run around after the long drive. We walked up to her and said, "Hi. Wanna come see this!?!" and ran off. C said, "YEAH!" and ran after her. Needless to say they were fast friends.

A few weeks ago, C's mom took her shopping for Norah's birthday present. As soon as she set eyes on the Jessie doll from Toy Story, C would hear of nothing else. She absolutely insisted on getting Norah the Jessie doll to go with her Woody doll. It must've been a premonition given Norah's Toy Story themed birthday this year. Either that, or C has great taste in presents!

Birthday Present

Since she was just barely two, Norah has been telling me that when she grows up she wants to "play a blue guitar". So of course, when I saw this online on a sale site I had to order it! Technically it's a ukulele, but since she's three it's a perfect sized guitar for her.



It was such a hit I didn't even have time to tune it (and by that I mean, google "how to tune a ukulele") before she started playing. She was also so excited about it that I couldn't get a good, smiling picture of her with it.

I did manage to get some videos. Unfortunately, Blogger still hasn't fixed their video integration issues with Mac. So this video is from my Facebook page. If you can't see it, it's because most of my Facebook stuff is private. Let me know if you want to take a look and I'll "invite" you.

Three

Happy birthday to my sweet, sweet Norah. Teller of jokes. Drawer of pictures. Talky-talk-talk-talker. Kindest, most caring Big Sister I have ever seen.

You were the one who made our "couple" into a "family". I can't believe that it's already been three years since I took a squirming bundle home (with not one earthly idea what I was doing!). So far, the experiment seems to be going pretty well. Let's keep working on it together. It's been a great adventure so far.

Love and a pinwheel on top,

Mom

Early Presents

We had Mark's family up to our house last weekend to celebrate his birthday (late), his grandma's birthday (slightly less late) and Norah's birthday (early). She was very specific in her requests this year. I verified over the course of about two weeks. Every time I asked, she told me she wanted the same things: Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys "like on Toy Story" and dinosaurs. I asked if she meant that she wanted a stuffed dinosaur toy. No. Hard plastic dinosaur toys were her little heart's desire. I don't know that she has ever seen a hard plastic dinosaur toy, but she got it in her head somehow that that's what she wanted.

Well, boy did the relatives ever deliver! Uncle Frank, Aunt Tina and their girls got Norah a toy story book, complete with small (think G.I. Joe sized) action figures for her to act out the story with. Grandma and Grandma got her a Woody and a Rex action figure AND four dinosaurs! It has been almost a week and she's still thrilled! As a bonus, all four dinosaurs were easily recognizable as characters from Land Before Time, which is one of her favorite movies. She has Little Foot, Sarah, Sharp Tooth and Ducky. She is elated.

I was so busy watching her open her presents that I forgot to take any pictures. I only have pictures of her playing with the dinosaurs because she insisted on taking them to my mom's house every day this week. I'll do my best to get shots of the Toy Story figures soon. She truly, truly loves them all.

So here she is today "giving the dinosaurs a drink" because they were thirsty from swimming with her in the pool at Grammy's. She wasn't trying to drown them, I promise.

And pouring out the water after they're done.

As usual, Penny looks on at the antics with great amusement. I can't wait to see what kind of trouble she encourages her big sister to get into when she can actually talk.

Mom of the Year - Dinner Edition

This is what my almost 3-year-old ASKED to eat for dinner. She even asked for the salad! Shredded rotisserie chicken went in the blank spot in the picture. Needless to say, I was so proud!

At the end of dinner she asked if she'd eaten enough to have fruit snacks. So, turns out she's normal. Good thing I get the organic, dried fruit pieces from TJ's. I will be keeping my Mom of the Year award for now. At least until the next time she asks for Cup O' Noodles for dinner...