Family Vacation

It has become a tradition to spend a week week at a cabin at Lake Red Rock with my family and we've been doing it for the past 7 or 8 years. This year was a little more hectic, but fun, now that Nora and Jarod are mobile and both very busy. We had a great time and were fortunate to have nice weather so that we could spend a lot of time outside. We went on Matt's new boat 3 times and Nora loves the water. She just doesn't love being contained by a life jacket.

In other news, we had to have tubes put in Nora's ears this past Friday in effort to relieve her from her never-ending ear infections. We know it is a very common procedure but we were still pretty anxious. But it went very smoothly and just like everyone had told us it would be; there was about an hour of torture as she was waking up from the anesthesia but then she took her morning nap and woke up as good as new. She has to wear X-small size earplugs every time she takes a bath now but that is much less painful than having her on antibiotics once a month like we have been doing. Yeah for healthy babies!

One year pics

This photo session could have been titled "The Faces of Nora". You can take it from us... she makes some good ones! She is pretty easy to read and is so happy the majority of the time but she will definitely let you know when she ready to be done with having her picture taken. And, you'll see, her tongue sticks out most of the time letting her drool flow freely, which was also captured well in these pictures.

Number One!

As hard as it is for us to believe, we've now got a one year old on our hands! We celebrated with a cupcake party on Friday. We weren't sure how Nora would react to the party but she got a good nap in on Friday afternoon and was prime for having all of the attention. She loved having everyone sing to her and dove right into the cupcakes.

Here are some Little Tykes trying out Nora's Little Tykes Table.

Here is the birthday girl and her sweet new wagon and water sensory table.

May Milestones

In addition to celebrating my first Mother's Day, I also graduated from Drake University with my MBA. I debated on whether or not to go through the commencement ceremony considering I've been done taking classes since December but I was glad that I did it. You feel a little more of a sense of accomplishment after wearing the cap and gown and going through the whole pomp and circumstance.

It isn't necessarily that Nora is especially excited about my graduation but showing off that she is "so big" has turned into her favorite picture pose. For those of you who remember the "Superstar" Saturday Night Live character from a while back, it is a similar move.

Easter

Hope everyone is enjoying the springtime weather as much as we are! Justin got a new camera (toy) and Easter with Nate and Jarod gave him plenty of opportunities to play around with it.

9 Months

Nora turned 9 months old a few weeks ago which leads to a photo shoot and an appointment with the pediatrician. She doesn't have much of a chance for being petite with our genes and the Dr. says she is in the 98th percentile for height and 60th for weight. She didn't have to have any shots at the appointment so for the social butterfly that she is, it just seemed like a fun outing. Gone are the days when we could set her down and walk out of the room and know that she wouldn't get into trouble. As I'm writing this, she just dumped out a laundry basket of clothes that I folded. Guess I get to start again!

February

Nora loves her friends and thought it was fun to get to exchange Valentines at her daycare party. Too bad that Nora isn't able to eat any candy, but Mom and Dad took care of that for her.

Here are the big kids on a scavenger hunt...

This is Grady and Nora giving them helpful directions.

Valentines Day at our house usually gets combined with Justin's birthday on the 12th. This year we took our first family vacation to Minneapolis for the weekend. Justin loves the show Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel and we thought it would be fun to go to some of those places where those shows have been and there were 10 restaurants in Minneapolis. We had a lot of fun- it was kind of like a scavenger hunt but with food. All modesty aside, we really do have the best baby. She was a good sport through the driving, slept good at the hotel, and loves to people watch so she was in heaven being able to sit in her high chair and stare at everyone. As a birthday present for Justin, I bought Man vs. Food t-shirts for all of us. I'm not sure how cute it is for a baby girl to wear a t-shirt that says "Man vs. Food" but we thought it was funny even if she only wears it once. It was a little too embarrassing for us to all wear the same shirt in public so we staged it out over the weekend.

This was one really cool place we went. It was an old bowling alley that has been turned into a restaurant and they serve organic food. We had granola pancakes for breakfast- yum!

This is Nora loving the king size bed at the hotel. It seemed to put her crib to shame!