It’s been such a fun year with you. You are so smiley and squeezable! And now you’re ONE!

You are doing so many fun things now.

• You love to see other kids so you can wave and smile at them.
• You can sign “please” and show us where your hair is.
• You can stand on tippy toes and reach things that Mommy didn’t think you possibly could. We have to especially careful to keep the remote away from you because you like to hide it in laundry baskets or with your blocks.
• You love to sneak up on Remy when he is napping so you can grab his tail and say, “AH!”
• You can spot dogs from across the street and have starting yelling, “Hey!” to them.
• You have a new purple hat that you wear with a big smile when Mommy says, “Oh, so pretty!”
• You changed your dance style; now you hold your arms out to the side and shake your head so hard, you almost fall over.
• You love seeing your daddy come home from work and crawl across the floor as fast as you to say hello with a big hug.
• There’s a stuffed dog that says your name and you like to wrap your arms and legs around it and fall face down on top of it, sumo style.
• The other day, you crawled up to me laughing because you were carrying one of your shoes in your mouth. I think you were trying to make me laugh, too.

And today Daddy taught you a new thing- he taught you to hold up your hand to Praise the Lord! Just in time for your birthday. You also had your first chocolate chip pancakes!

We love you so much and are so happy that God is letting us take care of you. We have had such a wonderful year with you and can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.

Nora’s almost one! Here’s some of the things she’s doing these days:

She hugs us! The best chance for a Nora hug is immediately after getting her up from a nap. She puts her arms around your neck, buries her face on your shoulder and squeezes. It’s pretty much one of the best feelings ever.

She makes her baby doll give her hugs by pulling the doll’s arms around her neck. A Nora hug to herself.

Nora l o v e s macaroni and cheese. She ate it tonight until she started grunting. I think she must have been way past full.

She continues to love dogs. We know whenever a dog is around because she’ll say, “dog gee gee! dog gee gee!” Sure enough, we’ll turn around and there’s a dog.

Nora’s a starer. She stares at everyone within a ten foot range. I think it makes some of the neighbors uneasy on the elevator.

Poor girl doesn’t know what to make of the sun. When any rays land on her face, she squints and turns her head away like she’s just going to endure it as best she can. (She’ll get used to it during the sunny summer months… surely….right?)

She likes to hang out under the dining room table. Her own personal fort to read or tear apart a used tissue that Mommy didn’t realize she found. Of course, that’s also where Remy’s bed is so she regularly kicks him out. He doesn’t seem to like it, but he forgives her because…

Nora has been caught feeding Remy several times. She’ll hold her hand down to his mouth and giggle as he licks the food off. We are aware that this is very gross and are working on explaining that to both of them.

Speaking of our floor dwellers and their relationship; Nora is slowly gaining authority over Remy. Remy was begging near her high chair, as is his custom, when she looked right at him, said something like, “Ba!” and Remy humbly sat down. Another time Nora realized that her spinning ball toy scared Remy every time she made the balls spin. I could see the gears turning as she played with it and watched Remy scurry away. Her eyes lit up and a smile slowly spread over her face. As soon as he came back she did it again. Poor guy.

She’s still doing her little Nora dance- hands clasped in front, face forward, swinging her elbows from side to side. She’s gradually working a head bob in.

One of her favorite things to do is to put a small toy- or spoon, or sock, anything really- on the seat of a chair, wait to make sure it doesn’t fall, seems satisfied when it doesn’t, only to take the toy back and do it all over again. About 20 times.

Nora’s latest accomplishment is pulling herself up to stand. The other day, she was hanging out under the table (again) when I heard a small bang (aka bonk) followed by crying. Sure enough, she tried to pull herself up on a chair that was tucked in under the table. Turns out the table is just a few inches shorter than she is. She was so confused why she wasn’t able to finish her new trick or what force was pushing on her head.

Josh taught Nora how to do a fake laugh. It’s pretty gratifying- you fake laugh and she’ll join right in. I love that it’s obviously fake and entirely different from her real laugh.

She’s working on saying “uh oh.” It’s more like “eh eh” at this point.

Nora’s moved bath time into the big tub. And she loves it. She’s liked bath time since she was about three months old, but wow. She really loves it now. So many interesting properties of water to explore. (It looks solid, but it’s not! And where does it come from??)

1 month until Nora’s first birthday. We’re pretty excited, but Nora doesn’t seem to care. She’ll change her mind when she has her first taste of that birthday cake, though.

Who will win Round 1?

Rest assured: All fighting participants were closely supervised.

For the first time in….I’d guess 20 years, neither Josh nor I could stay awake until midnight. But we still had quite the New Year’s Eve day.

It started when we woke up around 5 am. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, which was nice and relaxing. Nora was doing just fine, crawling around on the floor at the gate. I know, I know, I can’t believe I was okay with it either. But it really is true.

Poor Nora’s had a bit of a cold and I think she was just worn out from all the festivities, but we were hopeful she’d do okay on the plane. (It was a morning flight after all- yippee!) I didn’t realize how exhausted she was. Just after take off, she burrowed herself between my arm and sweater and passed out in seconds. Josh and I stared at each other with hope. (This so did not happen on the last flight back to Seattle.) She slept for 40 minutes! It was a New Year’s Eve miracle!

After she woke up, I thought, “Great, she got a nap time in. She probably won’t fall asleep the rest of the flight.” Oh, me of little faith. My girl took another quick nap about an hour later. Then, in the middle of flipping through one of her books, she just leaned back onto me and closed her eyes. And took her third nap- she slept for an entire hour! I even got to sleep.

So yay for another good flight! She did get a little fussy towards the last hour, but not enough to draw too much attention. Oh, and I should mention that on both this flight and the one into Atlanta, we recognized a flight attendant from our Oh-No-We-Are-The-Parents-of-The-Screaming-Baby-on-the-Plane flight. And both said, “Oh yes, I do remember you guys.” They were nice about it, but still. Oh dears.

Thanks so much for everyone who prayed for our trip. We really appreciate it and are so thankful that the last two flights went so much better. Praise the Lord for the small things that make such a difference.

We landed around 11 am Seattle time. It was the weirdest feeling to drive home from the airport feeling like we had so much of the day ahead. Our day had started 7 hours ago. We woke up in Marietta and were in our Kirkland apartment by lunch time. (Local time, anyway.) The wonders of modern travel. I mean, we crossed the country in one morning. It took the pioneers on the Oregon Trail, what, six months to do that?

Nora was downright giddy when we walked down the hallway to our door. Remy wasn’t there; he was still at our AWESOME FRIENDS, THE SMITHS’ (YOU GUYS ARE WAY TOO GOOD TO US!!) house. So while there was no Remy to greet us, guess what was waiting for our arrival? The saddest, Charlie Brownest tree you ever did see. Aww…

And guess what else was waiting for us? Lots and lots of Christmas cards! Most people were still sending them out when we left. Opening them felt like a 2nd Christmas. I love this tradition. The Christmas cards will be displayed for awhile. The tree has got to go before it just keels over.

Then we had an afternoon that we didn’t really know how to fill. We ended up ordering pizza, getting some things unpacked, waiting on said pizza, catching up on Tivoed shows and taking turns holding Nora who was just about done.

Okay, fine, the truth is that I bent over to pick up my bag when I was standing next to the opened door of the taxi while I was holding Nora and when I stood back up, I didn’t realize how close the door was and she bumped her head and it was all my fault and she’d been doing so well and suddenly she was a train wreck and I felt sick about it. I admit it.
So while she was probably just tired and recovering from the busy day, she was pitiful, cranky, and not at all herself. I spent the afternoon reassuring myself that there was very little chance she had a concussion.

Josh went to pick up Remy around 5. When he made his grand entrance, Nora was absolutely thrilled. Her eyes lit up and she was so happy, she couldn’t do anything but sit, stare, and yell with pure delight. If we’d known she would be so excited, we would have documented it.

Nora was ready for bed around 6. Josh made it until about 6:15. He didn’t even make it to a bed, he just slept on the couch. I caught up on some Glee episodes- reruns I hadn’t seen yet, yay – and read until I could no longer form coherent thoughts. I fell asleep around 10.

However. I was awake at the stroke of midnight. I probably could have slept through the nearby fireworks, but Remy could not. It turns out that along with my phone’s low battery warning, Remy is terrified of the sound of small, planned explosions. He paced nervously around the bed and breathed on my face until I woke up to reassure him. So I did get to hear fireworks and the clock said it was exactly midnight. I didn’t miss New Year’s after all.

Hope you all had a great New Year’s celebration! Or at least that you were awake for it. =)

With the holidays and our trip to Atlanta only weeks away, Nora has been working very hard. She’s trying to get her newest tricks ready to go so she can show them to her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and all the cousins.

Just when you finally got the “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord” song out of your head, here it is again. I was playing the video on my laptop for Nora. She was very entertained, so I started filming her reaction. In the middle of it, she started CLAPPING. For the first time EVER. I had a huge smile on my face. You can tell the moment she notices that something she did made Mommy smile.

We had a great Thanksgiving! We got to watch the parade and have dinner with our friends who are also neighbors. It was a great first Thanksgiving for Nora. For breakfast, I was making Monkey Bread and asked Nora if she could help me mix the dough with cinnamon sugar. That’s my girl—she likes to bake.

Nora is definitely a dog person. She can spot a dog a block away. She flaps her arms, makes excited grunts, and stares until the dog is out of sight. Of course, there’s plenty of dogs up here for her to stare at and the dog owners love her for it. Often they bring the dogs over so she can say hi. Here’s the sound she makes that we are pretty sure is meant to be for “doggy.” It’s a bit of a stretch, but we like to think she knows what she is saying. =)

And as you might remember from a previous post, Nora’s been working on “dada.” Now she’s practicing “mama,” too! She’s getting pretty good at that one. The “Ba” sound on the other hand . . .