There is no doubt....

that winter is here! It has been quite a snowy start to winter. After I posted our fun in the snow pictures last weekend, we had a few more inches fall on the night of Stephan's Christmas concert (very cute--it was way too dark and crowded for pictures though!) which made for a mess of an evening. Yesterday we had 10.5 inches in our community that closed school and work. And we are supposed to get 4-7 inches tonight and through tomorrow. I think Mother Nature is trying her best to beat our near record snowfall of last year!

(frosted trees along our driveway)

The kids LOVE it! Stephan played outside all morning in a snow fort with friends next door. When they decided they were too wet to stay outside, he played with the neighbors on the other side. He is 100% soaked now. Norah played outside with Casey while I scrambled to get our Christmas cards out the door (watch your mail!) and went for a walk in her stroller. She cried and clung to him when I tried to bring her inside. She can't get enough of the snow!

(I told Stephan to walk around the side of the house to take off his wet clothes in the garage. I didn't realize that meant climbing over a nearly 6 foot tall pile left by the plow!)

The peanut and her Daddy-Man are having an afternoon snooze.

Christmas cards in the mail: check!
Hot cocoa on the stove: check!
Fireplace roaring: check!
Snuggling on the couch with the Little-Man watching a Christmas flick (Miracle on 34th Street, my favorite!): check!

It doesn't get any cozier than this!

Snow Angels

I am really enjoying all of the snow we've had this season. (I wish it would snow just on the weekends though because I get a little worried about transporting the crew on slippery roads on work and school days!) Our backyard provided quite the winter playground for our snow angels this weekend. Casey and Stephan worked hard to shovel the deck and icy spots that don't get touched by the plow. Norah thought that was hysterical and laughed every time they tossed a shovel full of snow. She is an outdoor girl and could not get enough of the snow. Then we all settled in with a pot of hot cocoa on the stove.

Enjoying the shovel viewing....

Norah on Stephan's sled. They went down the little mound in our yard together a few times. He is such a great big brother!

This picture turned out terrible because I accidentally bumped the camera to a different setting, but it was such a sweet moment so I had to share it anyway.

Norah at 15 months

A few things about Norah at age 15 1/2 months:

1. She LOVES to brush her teeth. She was always fascinated by watching us brush her teeth & thanks to the Raffi song, had the motion down solid. She was thrilled when she finally had enough teeth to brush with her own little toothbrush.

2. Norah claps for herself when she is proud, but her teacher told me that last week Norah clapped and cheered for another toddler when she walked for the first time. Norah was the only other child who noticed her little friend's achievement.

3. She dances to the shortest clip of music, even a cell phone jingle she may hear at the grocery store. She does a funny little head bop. She had the greatest time listening to Stephan and cousin Ethan play Guitar Hero over the weekend.

4. Norah loves Eskimo kisses. When we are holding her, she comes at us with her nose!

5. Norah is suddenly not sleeping well at all. She takes great naps, but is waking up 2-4 times a night. Last night was the first night I got a semi-decent night's sleep in a couple of weeks because she only woke up once. I gave up coffee nearly a month ago & she is making it hard for me! :)

6. Norah is moving up to an older classroom at day care even though she is not 18 months old yet. They think she is ready. She visited her new class yesterday & entertained herself for a long time by sitting in "the big kid" chairs. She gets such a kick out of real chairs and swings her feet while she laughs & laughs.

7. Norah follows simple directions very well and her babbling has gone from regular baby babble to what we call Ewok talk. (Did you know they created a language in Return of the Jedi called Ewokese? It's based on a nomadic Chinese language called Kalmyk. These are the things you learn when your son watches movie making documentaries over and over and over.) She is trying to say new words all the time, like flower, and even if she does not say it correctly, she has the right syllable pattern. Flowers are bah-wers.

Norah is our cheerful, happy-go-lucky peanut. She is full of joy!

Daily December

On my other blog I wrote about a scrapbook project I am working on called Daily December. This is my picture from day 2. Norah was so darn funny and happy last night....even more than usual. My journal entry for the scrapbook that night was all about her joy. She is a happy little peanut!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Now that we have celebrated Thanksgiving and December is here, I am very excited for the Christmas season! I asked Danielle at Blogs by Danielle to give our blog a holiday look. I LOVE the way it turned out! And I added a few favorite Christmas tunes. Danielle is so creative & I love to support her because she is also very charitable. (And if you know me, you know I like to give my business to stores, restaurants and companies that give to the community.) When Danielle designed our first blog look, she donated her time and talents as a fundraiser for the Half the Sky Foundation. (It's one of my very favorite organizations. You can read about them here.) And now Danielle is contributing a portion of her fees to Souls4Soles. (You can read about them here.) The organization coordinates shoe donations for people all over the world and during relief efforts for disasters like the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Danielle's contributions will support their latest project "50,000 shoes in 50 days." A $5 donation will buy two pairs of shoes! (You can read about that effort here.) If you have a blog, consider a makeover from Danielle here. And if you don't have a blog, but you want to help Soul4Soles, skip that nearly $5 coffee concoction today, make your caffeine at home, and donate that $5 instead to buy two pairs of shoes for people in need.

Are you ready for some boo-ball?!?

Norah loves "boo-ball" as she calls it. Whenever she sees a picture of a football player or a clip of a game, she claps and cheers. Here she is cheering on the Pack with Pops and Liza. We had a lovely dinner at their house after the game.

On the way home, Stephan said "Well, it's too bad we lost, but hey, at least we're better than Detroit!" There's always a silver lining.

Check out these curls....so cute!

How to Cook a Turkey

When Stephan was in four year old kindergarten, his class wrote "How to Cook a Turkey" recipes that ran in the local paper. Just in case you are looking for a new recipe this year, here is Stephan's suggestion....

"There are turkeys at the farm. Ask the farmer to show you where they are. Pick out your own. I'll pick out a brown one with feathers. Take the feathers off because we don't eat them. If you do, you'll get turkey sick. Use a knife to cut the feathers off. The turkey doesn't like them either so he will let you do it. I like chicken in my turkey so cut a little hole for that. Put the chicken in and then put the thing you just cut off back in really tight so the chicken doesn't come out. Oh! I took the feet and the two legs off first. I don't like the feet because they are hard. Cut off the skin because I don't like it. Don't put anything on the outside, not even sauce. Put it in the oven. (It's a big square thing in the kitchen.) It's so hot. Turn the knob to the red beeping thing that says number one. It's done in six minutes. Then take it out. Eat it, but my mommy said "No, don't eat the turkey. It's too hot." (I call her Mommy, but my dad calls her Rebecca.) When it's cooled off, then eat it."

The first snow

We had our first snow of the year. It was only a couple of inches, but it was beautiful.
Truly a winter wonderland!

Quick trip to the zoo...

It was sunny this weekend and just warm enough to bundle up and walk around the zoo. It was a short trip because of the weather, but we saw quite a few animals & it was a great way to get outside.

Casey & Stephan enjoying the bonobos.

Norah just can't believe her eyes!

Norah has been to the zoo a few times, but it is more & more exciting for her as she gets older.

When we first walked into the main entrance, she squealed when she saw large animal banners. She was stunned when she saw the real things!

Up close and personal with a python...

This snake followed Stephan in every direction he moved. It was pretty neat to watch, but sort of scary! Stephan must have looked like a tasty treat. I was thankful for the glass.

Who needs toys....

...when you have a tupperware cabinet?

Gobble! Gobble!

On Thursday I went to a Thanksgiving lunch party in Norah's class. They made us hand print turkeys. Parents brought in cranberry sauce, stuffing, potatoes and turkey. Norah enjoyed the feast & is by far the messiest eater in her class!

Today I watched a Martha Stew*rt thanksgiving special while Norah ate a snack in her chair. Every time Martha said "turkey," Norah turned to point at her hand print turkey that is hanging in the kitchen.

Norah at 14 1/2 months

bundled up and exploring the yard...

Norah is at such a fun age! She is still such a cheerful little peanut & we love watching her grow into a little girl with her own personality. It is fun to see how differently she plays than Stephan did at her age. Her play is much more about imitation like pretending to cook. She has a musical circus train with animals that Stephan also had when he was little. Stephan played with it like a train and was fascinated by how the wheels moved & quickly learned to say "choo choo!" Norah prefers to dance to its music. She lines up the animals, points to each one, kisses them and pushes them around in her walking toy as if she is giving them a buggy ride. She also loves to care for her dolls and "Melmo." She brushes their hair, feeds them with an empty sippy cup and rocks them.

Norah is saying a few new words like baby, "boo ball" (which is football...courtesy of Stephan...and she uses it in the right context) book and apple ("bapple").

peek a boo!

cozy nights

Winter weather is officially here! We have enjoyed the fireplace every night. Our neighbors have been making a lot of fires too and sometimes Casey & I stand on the deck at night just to smell the air. (We love that smell!) We have not retired the bonfire pit yet. Casey made a huge fire to bundle up and enjoy yesterday after the Packer game.

Happy Anniversary!

We miss you, Daddy-Man!

Casey was on a work trip this weekend & when he is gone, it is hard not to think of all of the little things we love about him...

Casey sets a great example of hard work. He has always given his job 110% even when it was a challenge. When he was a senior in college and a new dad, he completed a double major while working full-time as the editor of the school paper. He has worked long, terrible hours over the years. And I can honestly recall just one time he called in sick. MAYBE two. The only other times involved surgery! Stephan takes notice. From a young age, he has always pretended to be Casey's profession while playing at home and understands how hard Casey works to provide for us.

Casey is very romantic. He does the icky jobs around the house and in the yard. He brings us little surprises every time he goes to the store. He cracks us up. He is our family rock. He makes a mean burger on the grill. He is always willing to toss the football even after a very long day. He lets me rent Jane Austin and other "chick flicks" from time to time and actually watches them without complaint. (After all, I have watched more than my fair share of action adventure movies.) He is thoughtful and always reminds me to do nice things for myself when I get too busy. He has even more patience than I do to sing Itsy Bisty Spider with Norah three dozen times. He gives the best hugs.

Only in America

I aim to keep my blog bipartisan because we have family firmly on both sides of the aisle who keep up with our photos. But no matter how you voted, it was a historic night. Since this blog seems to have replaced any hope for a scrapbook or photo album after Norah's birth, I want to record this event for the children to remember. I plan to turn the blog into a keepsake book for the kids.

I remember the election in the year I was in 5th grade as Stephan is now. My class went to see both of the candidates speak. I hope Stephan will always remember this year when an African American became the candidate for president, a woman nearly did, and a woman was also chosen as the vice presidential candidate. Both tickets offered a historic choice.

We enjoyed watching the night's results with Pops & Liza, Leslie & Jackie and Diana & Gil.

"Only in America

Dreaming in Red, White & Blue

Only in America

Where we dream as big as we want to

We all get a chance

Everybody gets to dance

Only in America"

-Brooks & Dunn

"Listen to the Mustn’ts, child,

listen to the Don’ts,

Listen to the Shouldn’ts, the Impossibles, the Won’ts.

Listen to the Never Haves, then listen closely to me.

Anything can happen, child, Anything can be!"

-Shel Silverstein

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself;
but each of us can work to change a small portion of events,
and in the total of all those acts

will be written the history of this generation."
-Robert Kennedy

"Call him Dr. Jones, Doll."

Here he is in all of his Indiana Jones glory! Stephan had a fun filled Halloween week with his party & parade at school and Trick or Treat in our new neighborhood. It was pitch black! All of the kids wore glow sticks and we carried flash lights. But if anyone said "mom" or dad" we had no clue who was calling for us. Even though we stuck to just our street, Stephan received a boatload of candy, a slinky, a sharpie & religious materials to boot.

Below is the only half way decent picture I got of Norah that night. I tried to dress her up again today & she would not sit or stand still for me. I will keep working on it. She was a cute little flower fairy. Although you can't quite tell in the picture, she is wearing a green & yellow tutu with white flowers along the waist. I saw a felt flower headband in PB Kids that I liked, but I made something similar to attach to her winter hat because it was chilly! It has a yellow pom center with a bumble bee. Norah rode in her stroller for just a moment & then wanted to walk as fast as she could to keep up with the big kids.

Creepy Crawlies!

WARNING! Really gross bugs below! YUCK!

Gramps took Stephan to the public museum yesterday on Stephan's day off from school. He snapped a few pictures with his phone of Stephan checking out a few creatures in the live bug exhibit. Stephan is awfully lucky that Gramps was there because there is no way I could have watched this! (The second picture is particularly icky!)

They also saw a wonderful interactive traveling exhibit about the Titanic. Visitors get a boarding pass with a passenger's name and information. The exhibit staff are in costume & character. At the end, visitors can find out if their passenger survived the Titanic. Stephan LOVED it and has been begging to go back. Last night, he dressed up as a "3rd class Titanic passenger" and carried his ticket around the house. He wore his Indiana Jones hat, a blue sport coat and packed a satchel with various traveling items. If Stephan is not some kind of movie set creator when he grows up, I will be shocked!

BLAH!

This one makes my stomach turn....

American Heroes

Last Year Stephan had this Joshua Chamberlain book on his Christmas list. Santa brought it for him :) If you have children who love history like Stephan, the American Heroes books by RFK Jr. are great books. (He also wrote a nice children's book called St. Francis of Assisi Life of Joy.) I received an email today that the next American Hero book is out! I was very excited to make it my first official Christmas purchase! (And to keep my blog politically balanced, I want to note that Mrs. Cheney also writes wonderful children's books about history which Stephan also owns.) It makes my heart glad that Stephan finds so much joy in learning about our nation's history. But this brings me to the real purpose of my post: WHAT to do about Christmas....our sweet ten year old son still believes in Santa with his whole heart. Last year in 4th grade many of the kids believed & so did cousins and friends we know. But I have a sad hunch he is one of the last believers. I think we need to tell him before someone at school does. And yes, yes I realize that Santa is not what Christmas is all about, but telling him reminds me that he is growing up fast....and I personally am sad to let Santa go. Good thing we have Norah!!

From Amazon...I have no idea if I am allowed to post these. Please don't sue me! :)

The Trick or Treat countdown begins...

It is five days and counting until Trick or Treat. And our first Trick or Treat at night on the real Halloween! Stephan is busy practicing his whip skills, which WON'T be used along the Trick or Treat route, don't worry! Grammy scoured the resale shops to find a brown bomber jacket. It's PERFECT. I snapped a couple of pictures of him in his full costume, but I decided not to post them. That would ruin the fun next weekend! But here is a sneak peak.

You may remember that Stephan worked hard last year on a very long story called Indiana Bones. He started a few new chapters this weekend that he dictated to Grammy. He told me he will give it to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for free just as long as they put him in the bonus features when they turn it into a movie :)

He is doing very well in school! He had a big unit test in Social Studies this week & got 100%! He also continued his 100% streak on spelling tests. This is the first year he receives letter grades instead of satisfactory, development, etc. On Wednesday I get to spend the afternoon at his school for their Halloween party & parade. I am excited to get to know the kids at his new school. He feels a little bad that kids are getting into who is popular and all that fun stuff. He seems less concerned about whether or not he might be popular than he is with the concept in general. He keeps asking me "Why does school have to be that way?" Don't we all wonder?!? He has made some good buddies, but I feel like the kids at his new school are older than at his other school. Does that make sense? They are just a little closer to middle school life....

Did I mention that Norah LOVES to color with crayons! I give her paper and crayons in her high chair when I cook. She thinks it is SO exciting! Every now and then she looks at me and squeals with delight like she just can't believe what she is creating. Then she holds her pictures way up high over her head and squeals some more. I love watching her grow into a little toddler!

14 months!

Our little peanut is 14 months old! It is just amazing to see how much she has grown and how much she has learned.

Norah now says banana (ba-na) and hi (hi-ya). She has been saying hi for a little while, but it was previously a greeting reserved just for her da-da. "Hi-ya da-da!" She also said Liza (Li-ya) this weekend. Don't worry everyone, we're working on other names too! :)

Norah loves her dress up shoes and has been wearing them around the house. She brings them to me in the morning to put them on and every now & then she stops to admire their shininess. She likes hair accessories so much now that she wants to wear several all at once. Hey, two headbands and a bow could be a new trend!

Her favorite spot is under the kitchen table. She sits underneath the tablecloth with tupperware or measuring spoons & occasionally pokes her head out to say 'Hi-ya!" Sometimes she just sits under the table quietly. I saw her little feet sticking out the other day & looked under the tablecloth to find her just relaxing with her sunglasses from Julia & Grace.

Norah enjoys looking at my Parents magazines over and over and over. She flips the pages to look for babies. She was particularly fascinated with a picture of a sleeping baby so I tore out the page & she carried it around the house with her. I am going to cut out pictures and make a little book for her.

And Norah still loves to imitate. She coughs when we cough, sighs when we sigh or copies any silly sound that Stephan makes just to see if she will do it too. Her new "move" is a golf swing. She started to swing her arms with her hands clasped when she watched Casey and Stephan hit balls in the yard. If you ask her to golf, she'll show you her swing. (This thrills Casey more than you know!) She loves when I sing "If you are happy and you know it" because she can't wait to do whatever action I sing....clap your hands, stomp your feet, find your belly button, stick out your tongue...and so on.

One of the greatest sounds is Norah's laugh. She is so full of joy and happy just about all of the time. However, when she is inpatient (in the car, for example) she has mastered the loudest SCREECH that I can only describe as a baby pterodactyl. Not even a Raffi cd can tame the pterodactyl these days. We hope this is a short lived phase like her brief meltdown phase when she got dressed or undressed. (That passed, thank goodness!) I made up a silly song about patience that I sing when she screeches that seems to work....most of them time.

I'm so excited!

The symphony will perform the music from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as part of its children's series. They will also perform pieces from Holst and Stravinsky. I ordered tickets right away! Even though Stephan traded in his cello (sniff! sniff!) for the guitar, he still enjoys classical music. He notices it during movies and we find some of his favorites on Itunes. He is particularly fond of the Harry Potter score. I can't wait to hear it played live with my little man!

An update to the previous post...

Liza just sent these pictures over from Sunday. Here is Norah wearing my headband! (And cheering on the Pack!) This reminds me that I forgot to tell the leaf story in my previous post. What are big brothers for? Filling their little sisters pants with leaves, of course! While we were at Pops and Liza's house, I realized that Norah's pants felt a little puffy in the seat. When I looked inside, I found TONS and TONS and TONS of leaves. Stephan looked a little embarrassed, but we all had to chuckle. I found it particularly funny because it had been a couple of hours since they played in the leaves & I hadn't noticed!

Pop snapped this picture at Stephan's game. We were so proud of his motivation & sportsmanship. He played on both teams! When the other team did not have enough players, he played as their goalie until others arrived. And then he played goalie for his own team. He did SO well! Stephan loves to play goalie & is thrilled when his coach gives him a chance to fill in for their regular goalie.

This is cousin Hannah racing to her 1st place conference championship win! We were not at the race, but I had to post the picture and say how proud we are of Hannah! When I first met Casey, Hannah was about three or four years old. And now she is in high school and an AMAZING runner! You may see her in the Olympics one day :)

Pumpkin Farm

Over the weekend we went to the pumpkin and apple farm. It one of my very favorite annual traditions...4th of July activities, pumpkin & apple picking, and decoarting the Chirstmas tree. We went to the same farm I went to as a child and have always taken Stephan there. And now we live right near by! Casey is very particular about pumpkins and Christmas trees. And he always finds the perfect ones! And somehow Stephan always manages to stick his foot in the mushiest pumpkin in the patch. Yuck!

Norah was fascinated by the pumpkins. I wanted a cute picture of her sitting among all the pumpkins, but she had other plans. She examined each one carefully and rolled on them with her tummy.

Stephan walking down the Golden Delicious aisle. He said it looked like Bridge to Terabithia.

On Sunday we watched the Packer game at Pops and Liza's house. Aunt Shelly was in town for the weekend and brought Norah this cute polo track suit. She liked to point out the stripe to everyone she saw. And she was thrilled with her bow! Norah really likes wearing hair accessories lately. She has always tolerated them, but now she wants to wear them. (And I am SO excited about that! Finally, she loves shoes and accessories!) Even though she has a lot of stretchy headbands, she likes to wear one of my regular headbands. She wore it all weekend & didn't want to take it off at bed time.

This is an atom splitter made by Stephan. He checked out a book called Star Jumper from the library. The character in the book makes all kinds of creations with boxes and other supplies. Last night after homework and dinner, Stephan got to work on the atom splitter. He did it entirely on his own and improvised some of the parts since we did not have all of the materials used in Star Jumper. (I don't know if you can see the slits with quarters in the front of the box or how the forks are attached to the sides.) He wants to make a model of Star Jumper's spaceship, but the supply list he gave me has about 40 items! And we don't have many of them like nylon yarn and copper wire. I want to figure out a way for him to make it though because he is so creative. Hmmmm....there seems to be engineer blood in his veins. I wonder where he gets that?!?

Stephan has always enjoyed making elaborate things out of household items. When he was 4 and 5 years old, he used to make costumes out of printer paper. If he wanted to be Robin Hood, he made all of the arrows, a bow and the arrow bag out of paper. (He also had quite a collection of costume hats to go with whatever he made!) And when he was in 1st or 2nd grade, he made elaborate scenes, such as a Civil War camp, in our living room. He made the fire out of construction paper, brought pots and pans from the kitchen, made a tent and set up a little scene with other items he would find from around the house. It was fun and creative, but he always wanted to live his scenes in place for days and days....

Stephan is very thoughtful with his work and play. I think that is why he is struggling with the speed math unit at school. He gets all of the problems he finishes correct, but he always, always runs out of time. They have 5 minutes to complete 100 problems, and he needs just one or one & a half more minutes. It has caused a lot of frustration for him AND us during math homework. I found a speed math "training" book on Amazon. Maybe that will help.

(I am sorry the text spacing is off in this post! I cannot make it look normal!)

Creative title???

So often I have trouble thinking of a title for my posts. If you searched the blog for "A Fun Weekend," I think you would find a handful of posts. We really did have a fun weekend though! And it was a long weekend for me thanks to a certain explorer.

Stephan's soccer team had another great win. The kids are working hard to communicate well and work together as a team. That evening Casey and I joined Pops & Liza, Joel & Arlene and Casey's Uncle John and Aunt Sally who came all the way from Fort Worth, Texas for a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. We were so happy that they invited us to join them for a night out on our own. (Not that we don't love eating out with the kiddos!) It was a treat to visit with everyone. The next morning, we all went to brunch at another favorite restaurant along with Stephan and Norah. The little peanut was much more interested in playing outdoors though and was thrilled as could be to play in the leaves. Liza, Casey and I took turns taking her for walks during breaks between courses.

Norah and Liza called each other to coordinate their orange wardrobe.

Aunt Sally and Pops

Pops, Daddy Man and Steve-o
Three generations of Young

Later that afternoon with our tummies full, the kids and I drove to visit Gramps and Jude at McCreedy's cabin to play on the beach. It was actually that warm! Stephan spent his time digging a WWII trench complete with sticks and some kind of netting while Norah discovered the sand. She was very uncertain of it at first, but after a while, she was sticking her fingers and toes deep into the sand. She pushed up on her knees, raised her arms high and then flopped into the sand over and over. She loved the wet sand at the water's edge. She stuck her toes in the waves and would have jumped in if I let her.

While Stephan was in the hammock, five or six deer sprinted through the yard!
On the way home, we spotted three more deer at the edge of the road.

Stephan will always find a project!