Spring has Sprung...

And so has Norah! Would you believe she gained an entire pound in one week?! She really had slowed down there from January to April but BAM she's now not just a little baby anymore...she's starting to look more and more like a little girl everyday. CRAZY. She's now 7 and a half months. Before I know it, I'll be planning a birthday party!

(Click on the pics as they are low resolution, they'll open into the full clear images)

Some of her new things?

1. TEETH! Houston, we finally have teeth...and two of them at that! One day the bottom two finally popped all the way through and I got all excited. I think I scared at her. She looked at me as if to say, "Mom, c'mon. I'm growing up. What is the big deal? Get over it."


2. SITTING...and PULLING UP TO STAND! She's been sitting up by herself since the day she turned 6 months, but as of right now, she is showing absolutely no interest in crawling. Just in the last couple of days though, she's really started to pull herself up to stand while using other objects. Amazing. It will be interesting to see if she skips crawling altogether. She'll be on all fours and get mad because she can't "go" anywhere, she's much happier just sitting and rolling and goofing off. Crazy kid.


3. LITTLE TURTLE! She's hilarious now (well, not if she's screaming) when we go to get her from her crib. She gets on her belly and lifts her head up like a little turtle and peers around to look for us, as if she's saying, "I'm going to stop crying now, and look around the room to see if you're coming to get me." It's pretty funny. She's smarter than we give her credit for!


4. WHAT'S NEW WITH US... Just enjoying each day (some are more frustrating than others, I'm sure you can imagine) with Norah. Our childcare situation seems to be evening out now. Rich had been working doubleshifts in order to care for Norah on Mondays. We now have to find a sitter for just Mondays and what a task that was! We finally have someone. Rich keeps Norah on Tues and Wed and part of Friday and Norah's Nana (Rich's mom) keeps her the remaining 1.5 days. We're lucky to have been able to work something out like this! In other news, we're just busy....busy with Norah and everything else that comes with it. When we're not at home with her, spending time together, one of us is at work. Add that to regular household stuff, running errands, etc....and there you have it. It's our life right now. And we were just talking about this tonight, we wouldn't change anything.

5. RUN, NORAH, RUN! Ok, well, Norah's not running, but her mommy is! It will be my first post-baby 5k. I know 5k is nothing to you marathoners, but it's an accomplishment for me. Heck, I'm just going to try to run 3/4's of it! It's hard to actually get some running in. There. is. just. no. time. I refuse to run at 5am, and it's hard to squeeze in a run after work, but before Norah's 7pm bedtime. Anyway, I might be burning some serious energy, but Norah isn't. Ha!



Random photos

Not exactly sure how this one happened, as I was at work, but Rich thought it was funny that Norah managed to snag a bra out of the pile as he was folding laundry. Her face is saying, "Arrrrrrrrr"


Do you see how ornery she is?


Gotta love her dimples...she cracks us up!





Norah's First Easter. The idea was nice. You know, have grandma make a pretty little dress (it turned out beautiful), the Easter bunny came to our house, go to church, etc. Norah had other plans in mind. She SCREAMED all day. By the end of the day, Norah wasn't the only one in tears. (We later found out she had an ear infection, severe constipation and teething issues all at the same time.) We tried to make the best of it and even managed to get some good pictures in the process.








Last series of pictures...Norah's second wedding was last weekend. You know, we kind of have to laugh. What baby at 7.5 months has been to two weddings, one bridal shower, one bachelorette party? That's what happens when your mommy is an event planner. I guess she'll have great party ettiquette in preschool, right? If Norah wasn't so all over the place (active baby!) I might've gotten a good shot of her and daddy! (At least now we have one decent picture of her in the beautiful, infamous Easter dress!)


Ok, last thing! HILARIOUS. These are must see videos!

Getting tickled by daddy's mustache...too funny!


Gasp! We actually caught one moment during Easter where she was happy!


And my favorite...reflecting by the window. She looks like such a big girl here!


I have more videos and pictures, but I'll save those for later!

It's MARCH. And that means....Norah is 6 months! Yes, that's right. As of March 5th, she's halfway to her first birthday.

Each day is bringing something new and exciting! She loves soaking up the world around her. Her current obsessions include ceiling fans at the fire station, picking up odds and ends at Wal-Mart (she loves the electronics department, go figure...she's so Rich's kid) and watching other babies and kids, especially her cousins.

Norah went for her big 6 month appointment last Monday and it looks like our once height-off-the-charts kid has slowed down a little. The doctor thinks she just had one heck of a growth spurt in December! She got 4 shots and as usual was a champ. She was out like a light before we even hit the parking lot.

The girl still desperately wants her sleep when she wants it. No bargaining on that one. She's finally starting some sort of regular napping routine during the day and still continues to go to bed super early, around 7:30p.m. depending on the night. She'll sleep until about 6am or so. But it never fails, she'll always wait until the night before I have a meeting the next day or something and she'll decide to have a party in her crib at 2am on random nights. Nice. For the most part, we've got the sleep thing under control. For now anyway!

She still loves her swing. She'll love it all the way until her legs fall over the edges.



I completey did a double take looking at this one. This is a face that Rich makes all the time. I laughed when I saw this.


Later on if this weather stays nice (nice meaning no sub-zero temps, no unearthly winds, no snow) then Norah and I are headed out in the stroller for a walk. We plan on doing a lot of that when the weather's nice.

I’m behind, so I’m making up for lost times and including pictures that I should’ve been sharing in here all along. This is long, so perhaps read it over morning coffee. Or your beer. Or whatever beverage you choose, but I promise it’ll be worth your time!

Wow! So much time has elapsed since I last had a moment to post in here. I'm sure you'll forgive me; life has been crazy to say the least! I now do truly understand when people say, "Amazing how time flies - they grow so fast!" No kidding.

Where did December go? Where did January go? And holy cow, it's almost March. March?! That means Norah's almost 6 months old.

And though we've nearly survived this first 6 months, it still seems surreal to have here her. Last year she was merely a bean and now she's our beautiful little baby girl, her personality blossoming each and every day.

How about an update? December was a great month for us. Norah was baptized with her newborn cousin, Shelby Lyn-Marie at our family church. It was wonderful to be surrounded by loved ones for their special day.







And...Norah got her ears pierced! (Yes, daddy approved).


Christmas was wonderful. Having a baby this year at Christmas time brought new meaning to the holiday season. The holidays are a lovely time, but it was even more beautiful this year because we got to see it through the eyes of a child. Of course Norah had no idea what was going on, but her mommy and daddy had fun capturing everything on film!





Oh, sorry to disappoint you. No pictures from New Year's Eve. I was tired. Rich was tired (and sick!). We were old party poopers this year (no table dancing for us) and tried to just stay up and watch the ball drop. And well...guess who else decided she couldn't miss out either! Yep. You guessed it. That sneaky turkey.

So January was the month of no sleep for us around here. Our 10+ hours of sleep-calgon-take-me-away-angel turned into waking 2, sometimes 3 times a night. This of course is lovely when her mommy has to work each day! After a couple of visits to the doctor, we realized that it was the teething realm that was to blame! Drool city around here. Now I know that teething can majorly throw off a baby's schedule. And I didn't like it one bit, but what can you do? Just hug and kiss her and comfort her as much as possible...(but oh, how I missed my bed!)

During the month of teething madness, the hand was ALWAYS in the mouth.


As many of you know, Valentine's Day was disasterous around here. Norah had no date. Neither did cousin, Shelby. Her mommy and I captured the moment perfectly.



Also February brought the exciting, but unknown. We finally got to break away as Rich and Stacy the couple and not parents for an evening out of town for a George Strait concert. Of course I was a basketcase leaving Norah overnight (it was inevitable) but all was well. We were sure upon our return that we definitely missed her more than she missed us!

So this brings us to March. We're so excited for the things to come. Easter! And she gets to go to her second wedding in April! And swim lessons! Every day something is new! Parenthood is just the BEST. There are no words. I don't even remember what life was like before I was a mother... (and respectively, Rich feels the same way)

Some of Norah's cool new things:

1. GROWLING. Yes. She growls. Beware. (I think she probably learned this from Rich. C'mon, you have to agree!)

2. BABY YOGA. As you'll see in the video, she loves her floor gym. In fact, she taught herself baby pilates. She's almost mastered the tree pose. As far as flipping, she never flipped either way for the longest time, but finally at 5 months old she flipped front to back AND back to front in the same day!


3. TEETH. The middle of January brought two teeth. (Thank God! Something to show for all of this teething agony!) They were juststartingtopeerthrough and bam. Now they're gone and have receeded. We're hoping they come back through soon. This teething stuff is the pits.

4. FOOD. The girl loves her food. I was really trying to wait a little longer to start solids, but a few weeks ago I knew it was time when the poor girl actually started watching my mother in law eat crackers. She'd watch them go from the bag to my mother in law's mouth. Also, she cried at my nephew's birthday party when she watched him sink his teeth into cake and she didn't get any. See the video below and you'll see. (Um. Leave it up to me to document my kid eating cereal for the first time and the tv talking about a sex tape. Niiiiiice.)









5. MOMMY! DADDY! Perhaps our favorite new thing. Everyone is right. She's getting to the stage where she doesn't just lay there and stuff (I loved that phase too, by the way) and with that comes fun opportunities to intereact more with the world around her. Something has clicked in her and a friend was right. There's nothing like going into her room in the morning, and from the moment she sees me, she begins kicking her legs and cooing and breaking out in this huge dimply smile. She knows who her mommy and daddy are and she lets us know! If that's not the most rewarding thing in the world, I don't know what is!

6. ALMOST SITTING UP! She doesn’t want to be on her back. I think it’s just a matter of days before she figures out how to do this on her own.



Attempt #2. I reallyreallyreally promise that I'll try to do better at this blogging thing. Aside from still learning the ropes at this parenting thing, I've got a couple of side jobs for the business right now and Rich is pulling some overtime shifts when possible. We're hanging in there...but incredibly blessed to have what we have.

Stay tuned!