We are loving life as a family of four! The past two and a half weeks have been so much fun. (And have gone by so fast! Time needs to slow down!)

Quinn is such a huge blessing to our family. She’s cuddly and loves to snuggle. (Maybe I should say, we love to snuggle with her and don’t give her much choice.) She seems pretty calm so far (granted it’s still the early days) and is a good sleeper. She doesn’t usually cry unless she’s hungry or is about to… need a diaper change. She looks a lot like Nora did as a newborn but with lighter hair and blue eyes. She gets really loud hiccups that make you feel so sorry for her. She looks around with wide eyes and her tiny mouth that reminds us of a little glow worm. Especially when she’s all swaddled up.

And she has an amazing big sister.

Nora LOVES her baby sister. For months before Quinn was born, if we mentioned the word “baby,” Nora would say, “GIRL!” I was actually a little nervous that she would completely reject the idea of a baby brother if we did indeed have a boy. Well, she was right and we were wrong. As was the Publix Deli Man, at least 10 strangers who told me I was carrying like the baby was a boy, and even our own labor and delivery nurse who also guessed we were having a boy. (Also, I am officially never guessing gender publicly again. How hard is it to guess correctly when there’s only two choices? How am I always wrong!? I’m like the opposite of a prophet.)

Of course, now we can’t imagine anything other than our family with two girls.

But back to Nora the Big Sister-
This girl adores her baby sister. Sometimes she just sits next to her and plays with Quinn’s little feet.

Nora is thrilled when Quinn is awake. We are still in that phase where she sleeps 90% of the time. (No complaints here!) So in the rare moment when Quinn isn’t sleeping, Nora cheers, “Mommy! Baby wake! Eyes open!”

Over the weekend we made a quick trip through Costco (we were completely out of dog food- poor Remy is even lower on the totem pole now). Nora was very concerned when the cashier moved our cart down the aisle with Quinn and her infant seat in it. “Mommy! Mommy!” She pulled me towards the cart and looked at me with an expression that said, “He’s taking our baby away!”

And if Quinn makes the smallest sound, Nora is the first to inform me that, “Mommy! Baby! Cry!” A few nights ago, Nora got her first taste of serious crying when we pushed poor Quinn past her time to eat (by about 15 minutes, but that was more than too long for her) and the little munchkin was doing the full on newborn wail as we pulled into our driveway. Nora dealt with the situation by plugging her ears with her fingers.

The next night she was clearly worried about a repeat when Quinn started to whimper as we neared our house and said in a voice of slight panic, “No, baby!” (No worries, we made it home in time.)

We feel so, so blessed and have loved having so many people stop by and our huge families with whom we can share this special time. The newborn phase really does go by so fast. We are trying to soak up, document, and enjoy every minute.

Here’s a quick 5 x 5 of some of the sisters’ moments together.
We are so happy you’re in the family, Quinny!

Nora has a big announcement to share…

Yay and Praise the Lord- we’re expecting another baby! We are so excited and happy to report that I am 13 weeks along, everything is looking good and the little one is about the size of a lime. (I find that to be a cute comparison for some reason.) We’ve been able to hear the baby’s heartbeat, which always seems like a miracle. Baby Teague is due in March, right around the time Nora is turning two. The official due date is March 19th.

And just in case you wanted to know it, here’s the story:
I was experiencing one or two mild symptoms right before my mom arrive for her visit in July. Just enough to wonder if it was possible. I knew that if I was, it would be super early. So I waited until after she left. It was a great distraction having her around and I tried not to get too excited. In fact, I thought I played it cool. Although it turns out, Mom was a little suspicious after I randomly decided to take a nap on the couch one afternoon and fell asleep instantly. But she didn’t say anything. At least not until her suspicions were confirmed. =)

Mom left on a Tuesday and I had told myself I would wait until Friday. Just to give myself time and to make sure the result was accurate. And also because Friday is my favorite day of the week.

I made it until Wednesday morning. I couldn’t settle down and started praying and felt like I should go buy a test right then. So I did. I came home, waited for the results, and gasped out loud when I saw the positive test result. I can’t think of the last time I did this, but I literally fell on my knees and starting praying. I prayed for the Lord to help this baby grow so we could welcome him/her into the family. I also prayed for trust and peace no matter the outcome. (Sadly, we had experienced a miscarriage a few months before.) I prayed for a few moments before I felt the familiar pat of Nora’s hand on the back of my head. Naturally, she thought I was playing peek a boo. I looked up and saw her happy little face and thought how great it would be if she could be a big sister in a few months.

I managed to wait until Josh came home to tell him the news. (I’m still a little proud of myself for that display of self discipline.) On any given day, I try to take several pictures of Nora (gotta keep those Pictures of the Day coming). So it’s become a natural part of our routine for Josh to look through the camera to see what pictures were taken that day. On this particular day, I had these gems waiting for him.

By the time I went in for my first prenatal visit, I was almost 9 weeks. The doctor was able to find the heartbeat. When we heard that whir, whir, whir, my entire body relaxed in gratitude and I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Josh and I were so grateful that we were able to hear the heartbeat that day. The weeks went by and we got into the double digits on our weeks. Yay! Soon it was time to go home to Atlanta for Tiffany’s wedding (Hooray!) We were able to announce the pregnancy to family and a few friends we were able to meet with in person.

And I’m feeling so much better! Poor Nora has become quite the independent player since I had so little energy. I supervised her playing, and that’s about it. And Remy. I just couldn’t stand the stank that is Remybreath. And when he comes in from outside? Forget it. I had to cover my nose and hope the cloud would lift soon.

But I think I’m over that The World is Made Up of Overwhelming Smells stage. I have some energy back and I’ve even been able to clean the kitchen without wanting to retch. Big progress. Speaking of big, I realized a few weeks ago that I was going to be needing my lovely maternity jeans sooner than I expected. Unfortunately, I had just lent them a few months ago to a friend who isn’t due until December. I felt like such a cheater having to email her and ask for them back! She probably didn’t even get a chance to wear most of them. Of course, she’s wonderful and was very understanding. She’s just one of many people who have been so supportive and happy for us.

There’s already so much excitement and love for this baby. He or she is loved and covered with prayer and we couldn’t ask for better support.

Josh and I have been so blessed and the blessings continue! In the past month, we gained a new nephew, James, Kemble’s engaged to our soon to be sister-in-law Ashley, we got Rex as a new brother-in-law, and now we get to announce that we have our second child on the way! Praise God for family, especially family that keeps growing!

(also viewable via YouTube)

Here’s a collection of five, 5-second clips from the past month. Inspired by this, who was inspired by this.

Some weekend footage to round-out Friday’s “Fork” post.

We’ve moved and are loving the new house! We took this video before we left but didn’t get a chance to share it before we had to pack up the computer. We wanted to remember Nora’s confidence on elevators. I think if she could have reached the buttons, she would have been more than happy to ride on that thing all by herself. It’s interesting to me that she just accepts that this is how we get outside. We go into this room, wait, and come out right where we wanted to be.

This is a fun video only because of Nora’s reaction after each block she places on the “tower”. So proud!

It’s been a little while since we’ve had a Nora & Remy video. So without further adieu…

We’ve challenged ourselves to see if we can do a movie a day this week. So here’s one of Nora playing the classic game, “Where did it go?”

She really picked this up during our last trip to Atlanta (where she also learned to crawl), but has since perfected it. Enjoy!

Nora’s on her feet now and a full time walker! (Video to come soon, we hope.)
She’s also dancing on her feet now, too. Which made us want to take a look back at the dancing styles of Nora through the past year or so….

I feel like if I don’t write all of the fun things down that Nora is doing, I’m going to forget all about them. And while I have tried several times to start an actual scrapbook for her, this blog seems to have turned into a virtual scrapbook. As long as the memories are being recorded somewhere, right? So here’s some stories and little things she’s up to.

• She loves shoes. Josh started a little daily morning routine where she hands him each sock and shoe to put on. She gets really excited and starts speed crawling towards him when she seems him coming with socks and shoes in hand.

• If she sees a shoe on the floor, she tries to find the owner and give it to him/her to put on. I was humoring her this morning in the kitchen and ended up wearing one sneaker (sans socks) for half an hour. It felt weird at first, then I forgot about it.
• If Nora finds a sock in the laundry basket, she holds it up and says, “Nanan!” which is her word for pretty much anything. In this case, it means “put this sock on.” And just in case that isn’t clear enough, she’ll hold up a foot. One time she found three socks. I put one on each foot but she still wanted to wear the third.
• Speaking of laundry- Nora’s actually pretty helpful with it. She kneels near the full basket and hands me one piece of clean laundry at a time. Only she’s really fast and I have to speed up to keep pace with her. So I do my laundry folding faster now.
• Nora’s become a watcher and a copier lately. The other day she was shaking a washcloth that she was ‘helping me fold.’ I couldn’t figure out what she was doing until I realized that I was shaking the wrinkles out of each towel before I folded it. She also copies us brushing our teeth by rubbing her fingers over her lips. My favorite was during Poppy and Panzy’s visit. She was watching Poppy eat with chopsticks. She used her own set to touch a plate, then her mouth, over and over, following along.
• We think “nanan” started from her trying to repeat after us when we ask her “Do you want a….” She just shortened “want a” to ‘nanan.’ This is our current theory.
• She L O V E S to be read to. (Which we love that she loves.) She used to be happy flipping through books herself, but now she brings them over to whoever is nearby. You hear her coming, too. She gets very serious and starts saying “nanana” as she does the three limb crawl, chosen book in hand. Her current favorites include “My Dog’s the Best” (dogda!) and “Booboo.” I think Josh and I have read Booboo about 100 times. Each. She loves that book and we both have it memorized by now. “This is Booboo. Booboo is a gosling. A small blue gosling who likes to eat. Booboo likes to eat from morning til night. Every day….”
• Anything that beeps, has buttons, and is small enough to hold up to her ear is a phone. “Hi.” Including- actual cell phones, the remote, our keyless car entries and most recently, a digital thermometer.
• She hates motorcyles and anything that has a siren. I blame the siren hating on Remy. If she hears one (which happens a lot since we live near a fire station and often have our windows open) she looks at me with terror. And right as she scampers toward me so I can pick her up, what does Remy do but start howling along? She looses it every time. Once it happened at a park while she was swinging and Remy was tied up nearby. I was so embarrassed to be the one with the wailing child and howling dog.
• If I give her some kind of food she doesn’t want, she promptly picks it off her tray and hands it right back to me.
• Like all 15 month olds, she knows the word no and what it means. But she likes to pretend that she wasn’t going to do whatever she’s being warned not to do. She reaches to touch the stereo and when we say, “No, Nora” her hand veers away at the last second to land on a DVD that clearly she was going for the whole time. Or last week, I saw her reaching for what seemed to be the humidifier. “No, Nora” I may have imagined this, but she went for a book behind the humidifier and I believe actually held it up for me to see. As if to say, “It’s cool, Mom, I wasn’t going to touch the humidifier. I was just getting this book. No worries.”
• Still obsessed with doggies. Now she sees one and says “dogda!” (newest pronunciation, up from ‘doggeegee’) and then opens her mouth and says “Ahhhh.” Which is how she asks for a kiss. Not from us, no. She only asks for kisses from dogs. And yes, she’s received a few before we could prevent it happening.
• She also likes to kiss illustrations of dogs in books. It’s amazing how she spots every illustration of a dog. The other day we were in the check out line and she said, “Dogda!” I could not figure out what dog she was seeing until I realized it was on a balloon two aisles over. She also loves to look at the DVD for You’ve Got Mail because there’s a 1 cm illustration of Barkley on the bottom corner of the cover.
• Nora’s going through a very affectionate phase. Sometimes we’re the blessed recipients (“She hugged me! Sob.”) but mostly it’s inanimate objects, such as stuffed dogs. She holds them close and rocks them like they’re babies.
• She likes to stare and say “Hi!” to other kids. She notices other kids almost as much as she notices dogs. In both cases, she completely zones in until she either gets a reaction or the child/dog moves out of sight.
• She loves watching home movies. Anything animated doesn’t interest her (Sorry, Veggie Tales. Your day will come.) But she watched the video Aunt Annie made from our beach trip over and over while she was sick. And on mute during plane trips.
• Nora likes to explore and find new things to figure out. Just when I think she’s explored all she can in our apartment, she comes across something new and exciting. Like the guest room clock radio…

Join Nora on her latest adventure as she uses her newest skills to acquire her most treasured possession.

If you’ve ever wanted to play “Get You!” with Nora, here’s your chance!

Here’s the requested birthday cake video! (Only a week and a half late!)
It’s a little long, but here’s Nora slowing warming up to and then dismantling her giant cupcake. It was hard to edit down because she ate it so slowly and the party was still going full swing, and adding background music didn’t do a thing for it.
So we present: Nora’s 1st Birthday Cake! The (Mostly) Uncut Version!

Full set of party pics here.