Nora - Up Close

Where's My Cookie?

Nora loves teething biscuits, but she often loses them. Can you spot it?

Duck...

Duck...
Silly Goose!

Rainy Day

Anne Parks loved the opportunity to use her umbrella on one of our very rainy days last week.

Cheerios

I'm not sure if Nora ever actually ate any of these Cheerios, but she certainly loved playing with them.

A Day at the Museum

A few Saturdays ago, the girls and I spent the afternoon at the Museum of Natural Science with my sister, my dad, and Smith. It was great fun, and my dad got some pretty cute pictures, too.

Book Club Christmas Party

Another Christmas party about which I never posted was the one for my book club.
The hostess, Katie Wallace, had decorated a tree with a copy of the first page of each of the books we'd read this year.

Instead of gifts, we each brought a favorite book to share; then we played "Dirty Santa" to see which book we'd get to take home.

At the end of the night, we used my camera remote to take a group pic. I snapped some better ones than this, but I like this one the best. I don't think anyone is looking at the camera. We had a hard time getting ourselves together.

Bee Class Christmas Party

I've neglected to post about Anne Parks' school Christmas party. It took place a couple of weeks before Christmas, and these pics got lost in the shuffle.

It was great fun, and Jason and I enjoyed seeing Anne Parks interact with ther classmates. On party day, the kids didn't have to wear their uniform and could wear jeans. It was Anne Parks' first time to wear jeans and was very proud of herself. She also loved her sparkley pink headband.

Anne Parks and Alex eating their snack.

The classroom was chaos with everyone ripping into his or her present, but Anne Parks waited for her teacher to tell her she could open hers.

Anne Parks, Lauren, and Addy Katherine making silly faces.

Our BIG Girl

Nora will be 7 months old on Monday. She is just a joy. It seems like she is always smiling or laughing at something. A couple of weeks ago, we went in for her 6-month check up, which she thought was great fun.
Here are her stats:

weight: 20 pounds, 13 ounces (> 97th percentile)

length: 28 inches (> 97th percentile)

head: 44 cm (82nd percentile)

As you can see, she's a BIG girl! She's wearing 12 and 18 month clothes and has totally outgrown all of Anne Parks' hand-me-downs!

Nora is:

saying da-da and ma-ma

clapping

getting up on her hands and knees and trying to crawl

rolling to get where she wants to go

looking more like her sister every day

Nora's favorite things are:

her sister

teething biscuits

taking a bath

her blanket

standing up

her sling/Baby Bjorn

my necklaces

meeting new people

Nora has:

an infectious smile

a few silly, long strands of hair that stand straight up

a belly button that can turn inside out

the ability to twist her tounge upside down (like her dad and AP)

legs that are too long for many of her 12-month-sized pants

Forgive the quality of some of these pics. I took them with my phone.

Disney: Day 4

We spent our last day of park-hopping at Animal Kingdom (where Jason once worked!). Aaron, Jason and I raced to Everest to ride our one "big-kid" ride of the trip. Then we went on the safari ride and watched The Lion King show. We spent most of our day in the playground in DinoLand.

Anne Parks just loved this bird. She followed him around for a while and told me that she was going to call him "little fella".

Digging for fossils in DinoLand

After playing all day, everyone was pretty worn out. We boarded the monorail and just rode while the girls slept.

Even Aunt Jen took a nap.

Our next stop was the Contemporary Hotel for dinner with Chef Mickey. The girls slept for a while after we'd reached our destination. They were quite a sight!

Anne Parks decided to wear her Snow White dress for dinner. She thought it would be fun to eat an apple just like Snow White. Minnie saw her and came running over trying to get her to stop. She had to explain to Minnie that her apple was not poisoned. Minnie was relieved!

After dinner, we made our last trip to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks.

Anne Parks found a princess outfit that she didn't already have.

The castle was lovely, and so were the fireworks. We saw Tinkerbell fly across the sky and the fireworks were set to holiday music. In the middle of the show, Anne Parks leaned over to me and said, "Mama, this music is instrumental." She was right - very observant! (We'd talked about that word a few weeks earlier when she asked me why there wasn't singing on some of the Christmas songs we heard.) Goodbye, Disney World!

See ya real soon! (I hope.)