Pre-Xmas

We've had a lot of excitement in our house the past few weeks as we approach Christmas. As of Tuesday evening, I am an official MBA gradutate! It has been a little crazy being a full-time working Mom and part-time student so I'm thrilled to have this accomplishment under my belt and drop the part-time student role.
Now for the picture worthy events...
Nora was a very wiggly Baby Jesus in the Christmas program at church last Sunday, which means Justin and I were Mary and Joseph. It was hard to take each other seriously in our costumes but it made for a fun memory. Baby Jesus performed pretty well, mainly because she loved being front and center stage!











We took Nora to see Santa Claus at church a few weeks ago. She wasn't so sure about him at first but liked that his outfit felt like a kitty so it ended up being okay.

Thanksgiving

Nora didn't get to feast on the wonderful food that we did, but she is thankful for her family who passed her around and played with her!

6 Months

It is hard for us to believe but Nora turned 6 months old last week. She now weighs 17 lbs 7 oz (I promised her I'll stop publishing her weight soon) and is 27 inches tall- which the Dr tells us is about the size of an 8 month old. We are so thankful for our hearty baby girl! She hasn't quite mastered sitting up on her own yet, but she rolls over all the time and then looks up at you to make sure you get really excited about it. It worked out well that her 6 month photo shoot could also double as Christmas pictures so here are some of the shots. My friend, Marji, took them for us as she does an awesome job in her "mini" studio!

Halloween

We've had a lot of fun celebrating Halloween this year. Here is Nora as a puppy when we went to a pumpkin farm a few weeks ago. What a cool place that is! Next year we're sure she will love it, but this year she just went along for the ride while we did the corn maze and the hayrack ride.

Since we knew we were expecting a baby at Halloween last year, Justin had the idea that he wanted to have our baby dress as a football so that he could wear a jersey and carry the baby around as he handed out candy to trick or treaters. Even though we had a girl he still wanted to have her dress like a football. So here is my attempt at a costume for her. She wore it for Beggars Night and to "Trunk or Treat" at our church and I can proudly say that people were able to positively identify her as being a football.

Nora is like her parents and doesn't like to miss the opportunity for a party- and her daycare provider, Amy, is known for throwing great parties! The two other babies were chickens, and a puppy with two chickens just sounds like a recipe for disaster, but how cute are they?!

And just because it makes for a funny picture... we've got a cereal eater on our hands now. We're pretty sure it would be just as effective to throw the cereal directly onto her bib but the stuff looks and smells like wallpaper paste so we can't really blame her for not loving it.

Photo Shoot

Here are some of the pictures we had taken at Mom's a few weeks ago...

New wheels!

Its true... we've made a 15 year upgrade to our cars and got a 2010 Camry. The sales people laughed when we told them that our 3 month old daughter will need to drive this car when she turns 16, but we are serious! Even for people who hate spending money on cars, having a new one is pretty fun.




Go Hawks!! Nora got to sport her Hawkeye cheerleading outfit and cheer on the Hawks with her newly turned 1 year old friend, Kate!

Baptism

We had Nora baptized on Sunday and it was such a big day for her! She was great through the whole ceremony but was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day. We were so blessed to have family and friends join us in the celebration. It might be difficult to tell in the pictures but I had the train from my wedding dress made into a baptism gown for Nora and it turned out adorable! For my own self esteem I chose to scan an old picture rather than try on the dress and take a new one, but you get the point.

Beach fun baby

Justin said it was a waste of money for me to buy Nora a swimming suit so we had to get a little mileage out of it! She didn't like it as well as taking a bath but at least she tolerated it for a while.

Rude Awakening

We got woken up after midnight last Thursday because it sounded like a tree fell on our house. When we walked downstairs we discovered that our dining room ceiling had collapsed and chunks of drywall and insulation were all over the floor! This was the last thing I wanted to deal with on my last few days of maternity leave but the timing is never good for this stuff. We've had it repaired and the contractor that came to fix it said that the weight of the plaster pulling down on the ceiling combined with the weight of the insulation pushing down caused the 70 year old drywall to give out. What a mess!

Summer pics

And just because I'm just now getting around to this blog, here are a few pictures from this summer:

No strings attached...

Nora got her harness removed on July 27th after having to wear it for 2 months straight! Trust me, if you had to change diapers and give baths around this thing for 2 months, you'd consider this a milestone, too.

Before...

After!!!