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.

Check out the video below to enjoy the full show…

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 . . .