Merry Christmas 2005

Christmas cookies!

Expert baker and decorator at work.
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Ig-blue

Sadly, it's warming up in Minnesota. Lo's snowman has toppled over and the ig-blue is melting. However, since it is warm, Lo got to go out sledding with our neighbors...her role models, 'Leen and Julia, Photo from this past weekend.
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Next shift

The night shift is about to begin.
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Bedtime ballerina

Instead of wearing her jammies, Lolo wanted to wear her tutu.
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Visit to Dad's Office

The girls and I stopped by Jim's office for their office pizza party. Jim's secretary's new baby, Savannah, is two days older than our little Norah. Lolo had a great time. She was so excited to go to Dad's office to "help."

"Saving" the blog

Jim was saying he thought it would be a good idea to save the blog - a kind of diary for the girls. Anybody know how to do that? (Short of printing it out on a regular basis). And if you do, please let me know in simple terms. I'm not processing very well these days.
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Our night owl

Norah has resumed her position as "night owl supreme". I'm averaging about 4 hours a night. The night shift starts around 9pm when Lolo goes down. And the morning shift starts between 8-9 am when Lo gets up. Norah reigns from 9pm-8am and really gets rocking between 2-4am. I can't wait until Norah turns 2. Why is it called the "Terrible 2s?" Compared to a newborn, a 2 year old is a piece of cake.
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A sweet BBD

For those that don't speak Lolo-ese, that translates into "sweet baby-doll".

Snowman!

Not even hard...

Tonight, Lolo amazed us once again. We've got a gate at the top of the stairs....presumeably to keep Lo (and now Norah) from tumbling down. For Lolo, we tell her it's to keep Verbi out of her room so he won't chew up her toys. In any event, Jim and I are in the living room and we hear what sounds like Lo going up the stairs. It's quiet. We check. And what do you know?! Lo is on the other side of the gate. We ask "How did you get over the gate Lolo?" Her reply "I go over. Not even hard." Unbelieveable. We're rethinking the gate situation.
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My "helper"

Lolo calls out to me from the bathroom this afternoon...."Mama. Come." I take a peek in. She proudly announces, "I help clean." Boy, did she ever! Water running out of the sink, down the walls, on the floor.....the downstairs bathroom is now very clean.
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Getting more organized?

Instead of an hour, it only took us 40 minutes to get out of the house yesterday. We'll see if that was a fluke or if I'm really improving. Of course, Norah cried all the way from Target back to our house. Lo tried to make her feel better by singing to Norah in the car. It was so sweet.
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Gouda's receding hairline

Poor Norah. Her hairline seems to be receding (courtesy of the genes from my side of the family, I'm sure). She had such a nice head of hair when she was born. Maybe that's why she's been so upset? Well, that and the fact that she's developing baby-fat-rolls all over....remember when Lolo was nicknamed "Cheddar?"....we've now got baby "Gouda."
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Sisters

Don't you just want to give these girls a big hug?!
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Oh Norah!

As Lolo loves to say...."oh Norah, Norah, Norah, Norah Kate!"
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Fair is fair...

Lately, every night before bedtime, Lolo has been requesting a snack. The other night it was raisins, last night it was goldfish crackers. Last night as I'm taking Lolo up for her bath she looks at me and says "Daddy says don't tell Mama...raisins in bathtub." Hmmm, is that so?!. Lolo continues, "Goldfish in bathtub?" Mama says "I think not!"
Jim later confirmed that he had let little Miss Lolo take her raisins with her into the tub. The concept of "don't tell" is obviously not very clear to Lolo.
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Norah at ski hill

Thought you'd like to see actual proof that Norah was AT a ski hill this weekend.
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Pigtails

Lo's newest "thing" is getting her hair done in pigtails every morning.

Lolo and Jim's igloo

On sunday, Jim and Lolo went out on the lake to build an igloo. The ice fishermen were impressed. A couple of different groups came by to inspect their work. With a little more snow, we'll try to build one in our yard.
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First true ski day

We had our first family ski day at a real ski hill this past weekend. Went to a little place called Christie Mountain. Fun little family hill. Perfect conditions. A nice light snow throughout the day. Following pics of Lolo ready to ski, her first chairlift ride, and first real run down the hill. I did manage to take Lolo down one run with her dad (don't worry, Norah didn't ski, our neighbor watched her for us). Lolo complained that I was holding her back and not skiing fast enough. As Lo said "Mama, don't hold-y!" Get ready to see our girl in the 2022 winter olympics!



Norah also had her first day at a ski hill. But she mostly spent the day in the ski "lodge"/ cafeteria. I don't think Norah thought the day was half as fun as we did. Norah slept a good part of the time...she's gotten pretty good at falling into a deep "milk coma". ag

Pictures, Finally!

I don't know why it didn't cross my mind to use a memory stick to transfer pictures from Jim's computer to our main computer (probably because I'm sleep-deprived and therefore slow-to-function). In any event, we've finally got some pictures of recent Lolo and Norah activities. Well, mostly Lolo activity...Norah basically just eats, sleeps, cries, and requires diaper changes.

Since I've been so remiss in uploading pics....I'm going to make most of these photos a little smaller than usual...just click on the pics to see the larger versions.

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Weekend in Wisconsin

Just got back from a weekend at our neighbor's cabin in Wisconsin. Had a great time. The girls did exceptionally well. It was a weekend of big "firsts" for both girls. Lolo had her first semi-sleep-over. She got to sleep in Eileen and Julia's room; while Norah bunked with Mom and Dad. Lolo rode her first chair lift AND skiied down like a big girl (without the ski bar). Norah visited her first ski hill. Lolo went sledding and helped build her first "almost" igloo. Norah slept for a 4 hour stretch one night (turns out this long sleep was just a fluke....darn!)
Here's where there is good news/bad news. The good news : I got some great pics and video clips this weekend. The bad news : no pics posted until I get a new card reader (see post below).
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Photo status

The good news : my camera and memory card are both in working order. The bad news : our SD card reader is messed up. I need a new one. Therefore, no new pics until I get a new card reader.
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Busted!

So, this morning Lolo and I get up to make breakfast while Norah and her dad sleep in a bit. We're both hungry. Since I'm a little slow this morning, instead of getting a starter snack for Lolo, I decide to split a brownie with her while we get breakfast ready....but with the caveat of "Don't tell dad!" We scarf down the brownie and clean up the crumbs of evidence.
Dad gets up and comes down stairs. What's the first thing Lolo says? "Mama says 'Don't tell Dad...Cake!' " Clearly, this is a daddy's girl.
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Out of the house

As Jim will attest, I'm perpetually late. Unfortunately, I don't see this improving anytime soon. The girls and I went out to run errands this morning. It took us over an hour to get out of the house....and that was with Lolo being cooperative!
Speaking of Lolo, she got another haircut on monday....and as she likes to say "I'm brave." No tears. Hooray! If only "no tears" would last throughout the day....
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Laundry

Can someone explain to me how a tiny 6 lb newborn in the family suddenly increases the amount of laundry that needs to be done by a factor of 10?
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More pics from Thanksgiving

Photos from Thanksgiving. Jim managed to get home in time for dinner and Lolo got to help her dad build a fire. While Norah didn't join us for dinner this year, she managed to wake up and join in the post-dinner festivities (our new little night-owl enjoys getting the party started around 10pm when everyone else is starting to wind down).
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In other news...

A moment to brag on our girls via photos. How many other 2 year olds do you know who can use chopsticks so well?!
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Thanksgiving

Well, I spoke too soon about a decent night's sleep. Between Jim getting paged and Norah crying for hours on end, it was a rough night.
We're hoping Jim will get to have dinner with us today. He's been at work since early early this morning. My sous-chef and I worked on the turkey this morning. It's ready to go....a little heavy on the sage (courtesy of my sous-chef) but I think it should be fine. Other menu items....sweet potato casserole, an experimental version of creamed spinach/spinach maria, sweet potato biscuits (which I actually made last night and Lolo declared "yummy yum yum" and proceeded to eat 2 biscuits by herself!), and of course, dressing, cranberry sauce, and a pecan pie. I often think back to our days back in Knoxville when we had a full house for Thanksgiving....we'll be thinking of all of you and wishing you were here to join us.
xoxo
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Things to be thankful for....

I'm feeling extraordinarily thankful this morning, after a decent night's sleep. Norah slept for two 3 hour stretches last night. Amazing. I'm glad she's our second, so I know how lucky we are to have such a relatively cooperative child.....This experience has been completely different from the first few months when Lolo was home. She'd sleep for 30 minutes to 1 hour at a time.... I was so sleep deprived after a few weeks that I could hardly see straight. Of course, Lolo has surpassed our expectations in her new role as big sis. She's so very gentle with the baby (well, as gentle as a 2 year old can be) and has asked to "hold-y the baby" at least once every day. What a double blessing.
As for photos, I'll try to mess with the camera some more today...but first, I need to brave the crowds at the grocery store to figure out tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner (I didn't have time to place our grocery order online last night...I was piddling around debating whether to sleep or give Norah a bath. The bath won out. She's still smelling relatively fresh this morning).
Wish everyone was here to celebrate with us this year. We have so much to be thankful for!
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For the record....

For the record, we are officially DONE at 2. Yeah, I know, we were officially done after Lolo, but this time....we're taking measures to ensure official means official. I donated all of my maternity clothes this morning (which I should have done immediately after Lolo was born, but thankfully didn't...unlike the baby clothes which we gave away and then had to ask for back). Norah has already outgrown the preemie clothes...we're working on 0-3 months now. So....whoever has a little girl next (Ben and Susan, we're hoping it's you)....consider the baby stuff yours. I want it out of the house.
Counting down the days until Norah sleeps through the night and the months until they are BOTH out of diapers....
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New pics!

Yahoo! New photos! Courtesy of Lolo and Norah's PopPaul.

Family trip

We took our first family trip out in the wagon today....first time the four of us have been in the same car together. As like a proper family of four, what do we do? Head to the grocery store for more diapers, then to Home Depot, and then back home so mom can tackle more laundry and Dad can get the satellite radio set up properly. Amazing how life changes with a couple of kids.
We're heading back out this evening for Norah's first photo session. Speaking of photos, we're totally bummed. Something is wrong with our memory card and/or card reader...we can view the photos on the camera, but can't seem to transfer the photos to our computer. (Hence, the boring non-photo blog). The biggest bummer? We're missing photos from Norah's birthday and Lolo's first ski day. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this problem, let me know.
In other news....the snow is gone. No more skiing today. Let's pray for a big snow year this year. We were so disappointed with the lack of snow last year. And we're dying to break out the snowshoes and sleds.
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Lolo's ski day

Lolo has been outside skiing with her dad. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with our memory card and the photos aren't showing up. We'll keep trying....but as an unbiased mom....she's really good at skiing.
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More from Norah's big day

Some additional photos from Norah's big day.
But first, the stats...
Norah Katherine
November 11, 2005
2:49am
6 lbs 5 oz
19 3/4 inches

Start of Lolo and Norah's Blog

Instead of regular "Thursday" photos, we're trying something new. We'll try to keep everyone updated with the girls' adventures via this blog. So photos, videos, etc. will be posted in this space. I can't say how often we will be posting updates....still trying to figure out our new system with the addition of Norah-Kate to the family. Check back periodically and let's see how well this works.
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