I can't believe this is the only picture I took today! It was hard to photograph these two on the move. Dan, Katie & Reese came over today. We went for a wagon walk, had a cookout, played in the yard and had a small bonfire. The neighbors joined in the activities as well. It was fun to see Norah and Reese play together. They are at an age where they have a lot of fun together & Reese is such a sweet big cousin. After dinner, it was nice to sit back and see all of the kids run back and forth between the three yards & ride bikes. I just love where we live.

Later that evening, Stephan and a friend from next door ate popsicles on our deck. He played her Elvis Costello songs on the stereo he brought outside. It was very sweet. Lately, when he plays outside with friends, he likes to bring them to the back door and offer them lemonade or snacks.

Around the state....

We had a busy Saturday with a farm breakfast in our county, a drive to an area where Casey does a lot of his sales work, and then the farmers market at our state capital. It was a fun family morning!

We visited the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. It is one of Stephan's favorites. It is small, but well done. Here he is watching the state capital from a periscope that looks up over the top of the museum.

Stephan in front of one of the Civil War exhibits.

Norah enjoyed the museum too. She ran around pointing & saying "Ooooh, Look!"

At the farmers market....

Later that afternoon we went to the playground with Grammy and to get ice cream and visit a fun children's shop.

Lucky 25

" Remember, Norah, we have to wash our berries before we eat them."

Too late!

Today is Grandma's birthday...she was born on the 25th day of her month just like Casey & Norah! Which also means Norah is 22 months old!

Norah always makes us laugh. Casey and I constantly share a "Did you hear/see that smile?" She is happy, spirited...in a wonderful way, and is usually laughing, singing, or dancing/jumping/spinning from point a to point b.

Norah loves to pick strawberries in our yard and explore all of the plants & flowers. "I be in the garden now" she often says. I previously wrote how she tells us plants need water, dirt & sun to grow, but she added peanuts to that list. Hey, it could be the next gardening secret!

She has developed a new little bedtime routine in the past few weeks. She asks to go to be when she is ready. She does not necessarily fall asleep right away, but she talks to her entourage of dolls and animals as she drifts off. This is a big change from her lengthier more involved routine. In her bed, she has two dolls (Sophie & Baby...she won't give it a new name, she likes Baby), two small jaguars that she calls "Baby Jaguar," and Elphie the Elephant. (The elephant was actually a very soft dog toy that Casey picked out with Norah. But after a few hugs, she fell in love and said "That's Norah's" during the rest of the shopping trip.)

I had a nice teacher conference at Norah's school. We knew she was bright, but it's nice to hear it from someone else! She said that Norah is very ready to move up to the 2 year old room, but they won't have space in that room until the end of the summer when it will be the normal transition for her. Her teacher remarked at her growing knowledge of the alphabet (she can sing it, but not if you ask her to), numbers and new shapes like octagons. They played with shaving cream yesterday (something they often do; the kids love it!) and Norah said "I am drawing shapes!" while she made circles in the cream. We have noticed how much more she talks at home & her teacher also commented on the full sentences she has started using such as "I am eating my lunch, Miss Kaylee!" However, Norah needs to work on how much she shoves into her mouth at once, which we know too! Poor Miss Liz is worried she will be doing the heimlich one of these days & warned me that they don't cut up the children's lunch in the 2 year old room as much as they do in her current class. She loves her food and wants to eat it fast like her Mommy...or before someone else grabs it!

Norah says funny little things like "And away we go!" when it's time to go to bed. She can be heard singing herself little reminders about taking turns and clean up time. Norah also loves to cheer for us and herself. She says "You did it! Yay, Stephan! So proud you!" At Grandma's house this week, she showed her growing imagination when she put two little toys on her arms, waved them up and down & said "I'm a butterfly!"

She has been wearing pigtails everyday this week. It's SO cute! She still doesn't have much hair, especially on top (she kind of has a mullet), but it's long enough in the back to make two small "ponies" as she calls them.

When I close my eyes and think of her these days, I see Norah throwing her chin up in the air with a huge smile across her face, her arms out wide, taking in the world. I wish I could bottle her up!

Watching her Daddy...

Pool time!

Grandma took us and Aunt Shelly to the pool on Saturday. Stephan loves jumping off the diving board and hanging out in the deep end. He also makes the poolside cook earn his wages & could eat his weight in french fries.

Norah loves the little swim shirt that Grandma bought. She is fearless and would probably follow Stephan off the diving board or plunge into the water face first if we let her. She made a little friend named Grace who is six. Norah liked clapping for Grace's pool tricks.

"I go out there? I go for walks?"


Norah is an outdoor girl. Something pretty exciting needs to be happening inside to keep her from trying to escape out the door.

Happy Daddy Day!

Happy Father's Day! Or "Daddy, Happy Daddy Day, Daddy!" as Norah says it and sings it to the tune of Happy Birthday. We love our Daddy Man! We had a lovely weekend of swimming, eating, walking along the main street of our community, eating, and yeah, more eating! After a nice meal with Gramps & Jude, we went to a favorite chocolate shop. I wrongly thought the easiest thing for Norah to eat would be a white chocolate covered pretzel rod with pink sprinkles. Why did I think she would hold it at the bottom where a tiny bit of the pretzel is left plain? She sure loved licking that melted chocolate off her hands! And Stephan got his favorite chocolate covered peanut clusters. Later I asked Stephan if I could take his picture and he rearranged himself for this....

I asked Norah to smile and got this.....

Smelling the "pennies"

Norah likes to help me with the potted flowers on our deck. She will tell you they need dirt, water and sun to grow.

She has started to say "Hi Becca" to me sometimes and for half a day called everyone she saw Casey. We both call her peanut & Casey calls her "Norah-bean." In return, we are frequently Daddy-bean and Mommy-bean. Or sometimes names like Daddy Honey-bean.

Stephan has been having a blast with the neighbors on both sides of our house...building forts, swimming & playing with light sabers. They walked down to another neighbor's house yesterday afternoon to see his collection of vintage cars. Stephan is a car lover & I am pretty sure he started to calculate how many hours of weeding it would take to earn enough money to buy a vintage convertible. As he always says "Hey, I dream big!"

Summer is finally here!

After many days with temperatures in the 60's (which I won't complain about because it didn't get out of the 40's for so long) and gloomy skies, it seems like summer is finally here. We took the kids to the pool for a little fun. The next day Grandpa and Grandma took them to their pool for three hours! They love the water, especially Norah who spent most of that time paddling around the big pool with Grandmas.

Showing her Daddy the orange noodle she found...she walked around the baby pool for a long time picking up treasures and putting them down before she moved on to the next one.



Splashing in the fountain

We had an exciting start to the weekend. Casey and I went to Chicago for Nic's graduation. We stayed with Shelly and Dan in their beautiful new condo & had a delicious dinner with them on Friday! On Saturday, we had two nice meals with Gramps, Jude, Nic, Jessie & Sam before we spent the night out with Sam & Jessie. It was wonderful to see everyone & celebrate Nic's achievements! The kids stayed home with Grammy. Thanks, Grammy!

Don't laugh because I photograph Norah's art! I have done it a few times because I may not keep everything and want to remember some of her favorite crafts like gluing cotton balls and tissue paper sqaures. (Sometime during 3rd or 4th grade, I realized that I could not keep everything Stephan made.)

Norah came home with a little development report. They do these every six months or so. It's fun to read the list of things they keep track of from saying 3+ word sentences to unscrewing lids. Her teacher wrote that Norah talks a lot and loves to be outside, art projects, the sensory table & the sandbox. Even though she likes to eat the sand every now & again. Yes, we have a sand/dirt/dog food eater.

A few fun things about Norah:

She has started to offer pretty specific details about her day without us asking about them. On the way home from school, she will tell me what she ate, who threw a ball, something she did on he playground that she should not have done (hey, she is honest) and so on.

Norah has started to say "I love you" quite often. We knew that she knew how to say it, but she has started to tell us more spontaneously. The other day at the store, I adjusted her head band and Norah said "Thank you, Mommy. I wuv-oo, Mommy."

It seems like a funny thing to record, but the other day Norah told us her body temperature for the first time. She told me she was hot and started taking off her sweatshirt. She has done it a few more times, and as insignificant as it sounds, it occurred to me that she had never done that.

Norah tells us she is sorry and hugs us even when she has no reason to apologize like when I stub my toe. Her teacher said she does it at school without any prompting. One day when they kids were quite loud and silly, Norah's teacher covered her ears and said "Ouch! That hurts my ears." Norah went over to her, put her hand on her shoulder and said "Sorry, Miss Liz."

I noticed she says a few things I say such as a long "Ummmmm...." when she thinks and "Ha, that's funny." She has started to say "Ha, that's funny" a lot & it makes me laugh.