Where are we playing today?

 

Look at that form! 

Golf clubs

Grandpa brought Nora her first set of golf clubs this weekend. She loves them and constantly asks to play 'ball'. 

Organizing

Nora spent a great deal of time the other night organizing all my reciepts and printer paper. She put a reciept on top of each piece of paper that she layed on the floor. I'm not sure what the method to her madness was, but she was very confident in her process. 

New hair cut

 

Body painting with applesauce! 

Mommy, this feels cool! 

Posing for the Camera

 

Grandma?

What are these things for Grandma? 

This is the only safe way to have the piano bench at the moment. She is climbing onto everything right now and this one is the most dangerous. She is always stretching for the keys of the piano and I don't even want to think about what could happen! 

Kitty Blanket

Nora loves to give Sydney a blanket. The amazing thing is that Sydney just lays there and lets her do this! 

Her Curls are Getting So Long!

 

White Trash

Ok, I know that isn't politically correct, but that is the way Nora's room is looking these days. I've put a blanket over her window in an effort to get her to sleep longer in the morning. It helped this morning as she slept until 5:30. Hopefully she will sleep a little bit longer tomorrow morning as well. I'd like to try to get her closer to 6:00. I'm not going to give her anything to eat or drink until 5:45 tomorrow morning to slowly move her breakfast later as well. I'm hoping that the combination of the two things will help.

The other good thing about her sleep is that she is going to bed between 7:00 and 7:15 now without any protest. Logic would say that the earlier I put her to bed the earlier she will wake up. Everything I've read negates this notion and says that she will probably sleep later. I'll let you know if all those researchers are right! Let's sure hope so!

She was wonderful this morning as we got ready for school. She played like an angel in her bedroom with her books while I got ready in peace. It made it so much easier than trying to have her in the bathroom with me. It's the little things that make things easier! Good luck to those of you that have number two coming!

After being up for 48 hours, we sure hope you got a good night's sleep Daddy!

Bye Bye Daddy

Brian just left for a two week business trip to London and China. It is going to be difficult around the Remfrey household as a single-parent. Thankfully Nora is playing by herself some, but she is still waking up at 5 am. No matter how late we put her to bed, she wakes up at 5:00. Sometimes she has a little milk and a banana (the morning staples) and goes to sleep on our chest, but most mornings she is ready to play. That is going to be tiring...Brian and I usually trade morning duty.

Thankfully Grandpa is coming on Sunday to visit for a couple of days. Maybe he'll take morning duty ;-)

Playing Alone

Nora has been in her bedroom reading books ALONE for 40 minutes. She chooses a book, climbs up into the rocking chair and proceeds to 'read' the book to herself. It is really fun to sit in the living room and listen to her babble, I mean read, all her favorite books. I can tell when she has a book about animals because she makes all the animal sounds she know. What a character!

"What a Polite Child You Have!"

Nora's vocabulary continues to grow every day. Her favorite things to say at the moment are "thank you" and "welcome". If she is trying to give us something (like the contents of my makeup bag every morning), she will repeatedly say "thank you" until we take the object from her. After we take it from her, she will immediately say "welcome"!

More pigtails

 

Nora's pigtails

This morning we got a bit adventurous and put Nora's hair in pigtails. I doubt that they'll last for very long but they are really cute!!


 

Fun on the beach

 

There's the one I threw, Mommy!

 

Throwing rocks

 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

We celebrated Mother's Day on Sunday with a day of exploring.

The three of us headed out to the Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands to take advantage of some of the most beautiful weather we have had since our move here...high 70's and not a cloud in the sky. We had a picnic at Fort Ebey State Park, on top of a dune that overlooked the water with the Olympics in the distance.

Nora especially enjoyed the seashore. She has developed a penchant for throwing pebbles into the water. I have posted a couple of her in action.

 

Doggy

Nora loved kissing the doggy at the coffee house we stopped at this afternoon. 

Ladylike?

I guess we're going to have to work on this at some point ;-) 

Chatterbox

Nora's ability to put words together into sentences has really taken off. Every day she is learning more new words (although the definitions of some of them still require translation). Tonight's new one was daddy juice (beer).

We have the good fortune of living just a few minutes away from Trader Joe's (our faaaaavorite grocery store). The cashiers there give Nora stickers and balloons every time we go. It's a sick marketing ploy but it works incredibly well...Nora wanders around the house asking us for loon? ticker? loon? yeah!

Another one of her favorite activities is chatting with Nana, Papa, Grandma and Grandpa on the webcam. Last night, when Grandma sang "The Wheels on the Bus" to her, Nora insisted that they sing "the kids on the bus go UP and DOWN" over and over again. Every time they sang "UP" she stood up, and when they sang "DOWN" she would flop down onto the chair.

Grandma tried to sing a different song, but Nora refused...she just kept saying "up dowww, up doww!"

Zoo?

Another of Nora's favorite places. The zoo here is amazing! 

Yummy!

I had to include both of them...they are just too cute. Nora looks so proud here. 

I love Pad Thai!

Here's Nora enjoying some Pad Thai with Daddy on Saturday after going to the Children's Museum.  

I love bath time!

Nora is an absolute freak for the bath right now. "Bat" in Nora speak could be every night or even a couple times a night if she had her way. This picture was taken on Daddy's new camera phone. Nora is sitting outside the bathroom and her bedroom. It seems that she and Daddy
had an excellent time while I was in Las Vegas having an excellent time of my own.  

Bubble!

Playing with bubbles is Nora's new favorite thing to do. Anytime we open the patio door, Nora perks up and says "owsye? baboo? owsye? yeah! baboo! baboo! peees? baboo!"

She has come up with a few "enhancements" to the English language. Here are some most commonly-heard "Nora-isms" along with their translations:

baboo = bubble
baby = Nora
bikey = a bicycle
daayi bikey = motorcycle (any motorcycle!)
daayi = daddy
eesye = inside
henno = hello
owsye = outside
pee = please
poo = pool
sidididilee = Sydney the cat