Unstoppable

She's a girl on a mission.

A lady with a plan.

She's got important things to do.

And nothin's gonna stand in her way!

Shoppin'

With Grampy and Uncle Bob.

Fortunately, this little girl will have no shortage of big guys to hold her hand (and to tell little guys just how precious her hand is to hold).

In Our Neck of the Woods

This is what the first day of May looked like:

This is Norah enjoying the first day of May.

This is Norah finished enjoying the first day of May.

Can you imagine what life would be like if all door handles were set at 8 feet high? It'd be kinda like this, I guess.

Thankful Thursdays

This Thursday I'm thankful for girlfriends.

I'm thankful for the ones who send you a facebook message at just the right time to tell you they're praying for you. I'm thankful for the ones who guess what's going on without you having to spill the beans. I'm thankful for the ones who understand that sometimes the soonest you can manage to return a text message is three days later. I'm thankful for the ones who let you crash their date night and then insist on buying your dessert.

I'm thankful for the ones my daughter has. God willing, they're going to grow up together. Though they may not end up best friends, they're helping each other learn some pretty important lessons right now.

They encourage each other to achieve the improbable (like climbing into the big papasan all by themselves).

They're teaching each other how to be sweet, gentle and affectionate.

And they're learning that sometimes you just have to share your snacks.

Like it or not.

But they're discovering that usually, they like it!

I call this look...

"Blue Steel"

If you haven't seen Zoolander in a while. Watch it. This concludes our public service announcement for today.

Next Time Won't You?

As anyone who remembers the first time they drove all by themselves can tell you, the absolute best place to sing is the car. Sure, you sound amazing in the shower, but unless you have one of of those schmancy water proof radios it's pretty tough to crank it up like you can in the car.

Norah has learned this lesson earlier than a lot of people do. We don't even have to crank the music. She can come up with her own tunes. ABC's is her signature song. She actually sings it three times in the video, the last one is definitely the best. As a bonus, I only got a little carsick turning backwards to film it. :-)

PS - I wanted to capture her rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle" but I was operating a motor vehicle at the time. Anyway, it goes like this: "Twinkle twinkle. How I wonder. How are you?"

Green Thumbs & Corsages

Aaah California, how I miss its lush foliage. Not that I would ever be able to coax a plant to perform this way, no matter the environmental conditions. My mom and mother-in-law both have a talent for orchids. This is a talent that I did not inherit (not that I could have very well inherited it from my mother-in-law, but you know that I mean). Anyway, I just thought I'd share. An astounding three shoots of blooms off the same plant. You may be tempted to give some credit to the temperate climate and proximity to the beach but no. My m-i-l is just plain amazing!

The only person I knew who was better at orchids than my two moms was my maternal grandfather. He grew every species (and color) of orchid ever known in the little sunroom off his front porch. Every holiday he would make my grandmother, mother and I a special orchid corsage for church. The Easter ones were pretty big, so were the ones for Christmas. The biggest ones of all were the ones he made Mom and Grandma for Mother's Day. They were the ones that required TWO pins to keep them on.

He never got a chance to make me one for Mother's Day. We had already moved to Colorado when I got pregnant with Norah and he passed away just four months after she was born. Since I didn't inherit his green thumb, I'm pretty sure there won't be an orchid corsage in my baby girl's future (at least not one from me). But maybe he'll have one waiting for each of us, just on the other side of the Gate. I'm sure he's got a big one put together to give to Grandma tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day to the people to whom I owe my current motherly existence. And to those in the family who know what it means, "I'll see you in the Morning."