What a Happy Day indeed. I’ll keep this brief except to point out that there’s a new gallery up with some new photos that you might be looking for :-D

Everyone is doing well here, happy, healthy and loving our newest family member, Lydia. Nora gave her a thorough checkup at the hospital — all ten toes are there!

Enjoy the pictures!

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Not to worry, we’re doing well, quite well! Apologies for the service interruption — but c’mon, we bought a house and lots of other fun stuff!

The Good Stuff

Enough excuses, on to the good stuff. And there’s a LOT of good stuff! As usual, Nora’s constantly keeping us on our toes. Whether it’s coloring with crayons on things that she shouldn’t be coloring on (more on this later) or jumping on her trampoline (yes, we have a trampoline now) while clutching to her piggie asking for big jumps there’s never a dull moment in our lives.

This is Nora’s first time behind the wheel of a fire truck! She got right down to business hitting switches and trying to beep beep the horn.

What’s New

Firstly, Nora talks. A lot. It’s still a surprise to hear her repeat something I haven’t said in a month. Instead of sitting in the back of the car flipping through a book and occasionally making a peep she’ll often point out the buses on the road and the planes and helicopters in the sky and the puppies walking down the sidewalk and the stars on the Star Market signs. There’s actual conversation, too. Talking about what we just did, what we did last week, what we’re going to do when we get home. It’s not just reactive, either. She’ll often suggest, “How about…milky?!” (often said as I handed her a sippy cup full of water and as she and Mimi started to leave the park one day). She’s starting to be able to tell us what’s bothering her now, a nice change of pace from simply whining ;-) “I helpa you, okay!” (actually her asking US for help). Oi — so much fun!

Nora DOES a lot. She, among other things, sings, draws and jumps on trampolines. She bakes cookies (pretend cookies, of course). She goes down slides like it’s something she’s always done. She shares, she plays with blocks, she reads, she cracks up at funny situations in movies or cartoons. We build spooky houses, draw happies, suns, trees, kitties and fishies. Suffice to say that she’s full of ideas for things to do inside on a rainy day.

Intrsts

For better or for worse Nora’s been watching a handful of movies including Finding Nemo and a few others. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we could probably quote nearly the entire movie. Like most intrsts, though, it waxes and wanes as time ticks on. These days she’s more likely to happily coax me to come play in the kitchen (her word for the play room) where we’ll read books or jump on the trampoline or play with piranhas. Yes, real piranhas. Real piranhas that have been stuffed inside of a marble ;-)

Speaking of books, she’s still quite the reader. It’s interesting to observe the pattern of books that become favorites for a while and then slowly fade from intrst. I can’t think of a better way to spend my weekend mornings than reading to her, but what’s even more fun is watching Nora decide what book we’re going to read next. It’s fascinating to watch the decision making process! For the parents, the icing on the cake will always be the fond memories we have of sitting there with her on the floor as she turns the pages like a big girl and, occasionally, helps us read a sentence or two.

Noraffiti

Enough said. Keep your colorable valuables off of the floor and, preferably, out of Nora’s reach. Nothing is safe.

On The Horizon

It still sounds surreal — pre-school! Nora’s now officially registered to start next Fall. Admittedly, we were on the fence about it. In the end we decided that it’s going to be better for her to start then rather than wait a full year and be nearly 4 years old. That’s all we have to say about it as we’re still dealing with the enormity of our little baby girl going to school :-(

Walk in the woods!

Daddy and Nora recently went for a super fun walk in the woods! We didn’t see the diverse array of wildlife that had been promised, but we did get some fresh air, some good exercise and an appreciation for just how big (read: heavy) Nora is these days. We didn’t go it alone, we had great company in the Sherson family (sans matriarch) including the Emma, the dog. Nora seems to long for her time spent in the wilderness recalling, “Oooooh a walk in the wooooodsss”. Needless to say I think (hope) we’ll be spending more time in the woods!

I’ll Leave You With One Thought

That’s right, Nora dressed up as Princess Leia for Halloween this year :-D

Nora’s biggest fans know all too well just how normal it is for her to ramble on and on about waffles and airplanes and matters of fact (bonus points if you can place that quote). It’s happened for months now, and quite frankly we’ve loved every second of it. Lately things have started to change; our little Miss is starting to string words together like it’s her job! “Dadda eats suh cheese” (as Daddy takes a bite of his grilled cheese), “Momma Dadda ree booka siiit” (as we sit down to read some books before nun-ites). It’s all starting to make sense!

Along with her constantly increasing vocabulary Nora’s getting more and more able bodied every day. She doesn’t want to be carried up and down stairs, she wants to walk up and down them on her own. She might not want you to read that book, akshully, she’ll sit and read it on her own. She easily climbs up on the couch and sits down on her own, no assistance required. At the park she can make her way up the steps, across the bouncy bridge and down the slide all on her own. On the one hand it makes me happy to see her taking these baby steps (tee-hee) toward independence. On the other hand, STOP GROWING UP SO FAST!!!!

Nora’s found arts & crafts to be a fantastic activity for a few months. She’s been honing her Play doh skills, her drawing skills, her coloring skills and her stickering skills nearly every day. It’s only a matter of time (probably shortly after she stops trying to eat the Play doh and coloring on the walls!!) before her pieces start showing in the trendiest galleries across the globe.

The dog days of summer have treated us well. Nora’s been getting plenty of time in the water, it’s both practical and recreational. She’s actually putting her face under water on her own! She has a blast being towed around her cousins’ pool in her tiny little tug boat. As you can see she’s also gaining some crucial ocean experience. First lesson: incoming waves can topple you :-D Second lesson: salt water is salty, she was constantly licking her lips tasting the ocean. Cute, but a little gross if you ask me.

1 + (202 / 365) = 1.55 years (and counting!)

We recently attended a birthday party for Izabelle (Trish’s college roommate’s daughter). We had a blast! They’re about an hour away from us in New Hampshire, it was the perfect distance for a quick cat nap on the way up and back. While we were there Nora became very familiar (eventually) with their dog Jillean — it never ceases to amaze me how obsessed Nora can be with dogs in books and pictures yet be so skittish with them in person. She eventually warmed up after a delicious lunch with Jackson:

It’s a monkey!

We knew very well that Nora had been listening to us and understanding most of what we say for months now. She’s the proverbial sponge soaking up the entire world around her from the second she wakes up from the second just before she falls asleep every day of the week. I won’t bother to list off all of the ridiculously incredible things coming out of Nora’s mouth, but suffice to say that she’s literally saying new things every day. The usual flow of conversation involves her asking “What’s that?!”, we say what it is and she tries to repeat us. You can almost see the wheels turning inside her head as she listens to us and tries repeat it.

We’ve just entered into the climbing phase, apparently — anything above floor level is fair game. Things that help you reach even higher things earn bonus points! We’re having to resort to timeouts here and there that ultimately end up amusing her more than anything else. Count to ten, right?! Right. As I mentioned, she lloves climbing up on things that let her reach other things — sometimes, though, she just sits and reads her books :-D

Nora + water == fun. She’s developing a rapport with water that we hope will last a life time. She loves tubby time, especially since we’ve stopped using the baby tubby. There’s so much more room, so many more toys to play with! We recently picked up a little backyard inflatable pool that’s been a big hit. Nora had her first underwater experience on Father’s Day at Uncle Brian and Aunt Christie’s pool. A puff of air to the face, a dunk from Daddy and few seconds later it was all over. She handled it all like a champ. We keep practicing in the tubby with putting our faces in the water and blowing out air, too. We can’t wait to play a game or two of Marco Polo! (Or get her into a kayak :-D)

Things really couldn’t be better. We’re all happy, healthy and enjoying the great weather. I know this is a recurring theme, but expect more frequent updates at a Sterner family blog near you ;-)

As we go for walks around the town I see couple after couple toting around a baby younger than Nora and all I can think is “where did our little one go?!”. She’s right there with us of course, usually holding on to someone’s finger as we walk along the sidewalk to the park or the pond.

Family Snushi Dinner

We went out for a family sushi dinner a few weeks ago to a local restaurant japanese joint! Mommy and Daddy took care of the raw fish while Nora polished off a California roll (light on the soy sauce/wasabi) all by herself. Well, almost all by herself. She got to try some miso soup and vegetable tempura, too. She loved the sweet potato tempura, crunchy + sweet and mushy = yum. This was the first of what will be many visits, I think. I hope.

We don’t really worry as much about little things like “is she going to see that big crack in the sidewalk?”, our worries are more like “where did she go?!”. Seriously. Nora moves with the grace of a baby elephant yet remains nearly silent. She confounds our sneaky baby detection systems. She can make it from the kitchen to the office in 13.7 seconds flat. It’s funny how that’s both amazing and, at the same time, terrifying.

Communication used to be somewhat difficult with the little peanut, that’s all changing. She probably understands more than 90% of what we say to her (and in her presence, yikes :-/), it makes things like cleaning up pretty nice akshully. If asked to help pick up the destruction she causes she usually obliges for at least a few minutes. That’s usually followed up by MOAR DEMOLITION!!

Nora, where’s your belly?!

There it is!

When she’s not busy unstacking books or chasing the kitty around so she can give her kisses Nora can still usually be found with her face in a book. Her new most favorite makeshift-toy-in-the-kitchen is a Ziploc bag of bottle caps that Daddy uses for home brewing. Sometimes they come out individually or in small groups, sometimes the bag is shaken about like she’s some maniacal maracas player with bottle caps soaring through the air and ricocheting off of walls, cabinets, whatever is in their way. It’s quite an event but rather difficult to get on film due to its short life and spontaneous nature. Speaking of Ziploc bags.

Nora’s figured out how to open zippers (she actually got this months ago), Ziploc bags, boxes of cereal, screw-off tops and, last but not least, doors. Yes, that’s right. Nora opened her first door last night. It was the door to her closet so she could get her tub out. Why her tub? We don’t know, we were both awestruck at what we’d just seen.

When it comes to talking Nora’s never been a slouch. I know that she understands about 90% of what we’re saying, the flip side is that we are starting to understand her about 10% of the time. I imagine we’ll understand 100% of what she says by the time she’s 14 or so. Get it?! Get it?! Her vocabulary consists of words like, “Teddy!”, “kitty!”, “what’s that?!”, the sometimes awkward “who’s that?!”, “cookie” (followed by her infamous cookie monster impersonation), “chicken”, “truck”, “GRRRRR” (a bear/tiger), “snort wheeze snort wheeze” (someone/something sleeping), the list goes on and on.

Last but not least, Happy Easter!