And we have a walker!

Tomorrow our sweet Nora will be one! And look what she did today!

She has been doing one or two steps for a week or two, but this morning amped things up with four and five step combos. Then this afternoon-tada! She started walking across the room! We are so proud of her. : ) And excited to have the big big birthday tomorrow!

House tour!

 Well, you asked for it, here's how our house is looking these days. In the photos, it's a little bit messy in some pictures. This is unrepresentative because it is normally a LOT messy. But I took the opportune time when the girls were asleep and I had just vacuumed to shoot these photos. I'm so sorry for the lens smudge in the corner of my last 50 or so shots. I finally cleaned it off today. Yeah, I'm not one of those photographer-junkie bloggers. But at least I remembered to clean it at last. : D Hope you enjoy the tour.

Sum-sum-summertime

Evidence

Nora is almost one! I can't believe it! But she has been doing her best to make me try to believe it with the following tricks:

Feeding herself with a spoon

Making bigger messes than she used to be capable of

Learning to walk! She has even taken a few steps on her own, but doesn't seem that excited about it yet.

Return to wonderland

 Last weekend we went up to the Boston area for my cousin's beautiful wedding. She lives in California and the event was full of Hollywood glamour. It was really fun! But one of my favorite parts of our trip was visiting the little neighborhood rocky beach we used to play at when we would take summer vacations to Cape Cod when I was little. "Up North" used to seem like a magical wonderland to me, since I was accustomed to Florida where it is always hot and sticky, and you pretty much never bump into 100 year old houses or rocky beaches with hermit crabs. I loved it there. And going back I remember why! It seems a little smaller than I remembered, but it still felt like such a special and beautiful place. One of the highlights of my life will be playing there for a little while with my girls and seeing them just as taken by it as I was when I was little. They both cried when we had to go, and I kind of wanted to too. But it was good we left when we did, because I was acquiring a terrific sunburn.

This picture is of Nora being a great sport on our now family legendary 18 hour travel day, which began at 4:45 am and ended at 9:30 pm. She was to puke in the car, rendering her carseat completely disgusting, shortly after this (about 15 hours into the trip).

But, ahhhhh. Thankfully we put all that behind us the next day. Here we are at the beach in Pocasset.

Prairie Home sweet home

You'll remember that last summer, Paul and I went to a show put on by the Prairie Home Companion crew, and it was just wonderful. We really love to listen to that show on the radio and since I had never heard of it before I met Paul, it is very much linked with our relationship in my mind. So, providentially, they were recording a live broadcast in Raleigh on our exact 5 year anniversary date. Of course, we went! We brought the girls along and had a really nice time. Here is the opening of the show (and us (me) being nerdy about it).

Finger faces

One day, when it was late afternoon and we were running out of things to do, I drew a face on my finger and made it talk to Ella. I had no concept of how big of a hit this would become. In Ella's mind, the absolute best thing to do with a pen now is draw faces on your fingers. All your fingers. And the palm of your hand. They do look friendly, I must say. Maybe that is the big appeal--12 little friends standing by (at hand? ; D )  if you need them.

Safety first

Sorry to return to the basket-helmet thing. But today Ella took it a bit further and got on her "bike" to ride to work after getting her knock-knock from Nora and me. She put it on her head, completely covering her eyes, and attempted to ride around the front room. After a few minutes of trying to do this, slowly, bumping into things, she took off her basket. "Mommy, I can't beeeee." You can't see? I asked. "No, I can't beeeeeeeve." You can't breathe? "Yeah."

Growing pains

So I mentioned we have been short on sleep lately and some of it is due to Nora's teeth. I took this photo last night with the intention of blogging to my friends who are in their pre-children years, that they should be thankful for the simple gift of being able to decide when to sleep and wake up for themselves. I just can't believe I had years and years of that without understanding how great it was. But then last night, everyone slept all night, so hallelujah, I lost my steam for that post. Anyway, here is a sweet picture of Paul who has lulled Nora back to sleep again when she woke up way past her bedtime.

But related to the whole teeth thing, everybody pray for poor little Nora's fingers. If you know Nora very well, you know she pretty much always looks like this:

I think the percentage of her life where her fingers are in her mouth is higher than 50. She always sucks them. And with all this teething, she must be sucking harder, because she has developed blisters on both her middle fingertips that are bleeding now. But she still won't stop! I am trying hand sanitizer to make them taste yucky, but it just feels mean, and it doesn't actually seem to work. So today we tried this on for size:

Nora gave it about a C-. It was ok. But not the same. I am going to keep trying to convince her of how great a paci is though (at the same time I'm trying to convince Ella it's not great at all--we'll see how that goes).

Knock-knock

Eeeek! Sorry guys, it got to be way too long again. I have several excuses, 1. I am so tired. Sleep has not been that regular of a thing the last few weeks. Teeth and thunder are two of the culprits. 2. My thoughts have been consumed with a project I'm working on, which I will share more about later. (That is, when my thoughts are not just chased away altogether by the constant stimuli of adorable girls crawling around, needing love, food, water, and potty, and generally tearing things apart.) 3. Um, I forget. Did I mention I'm tired?

Anyhoo. I took some cute photos this morning that document one sweet phase of our daily life these days in a roundabout way. Every morning, when Paul leaves for work on his bike, he gives hugs and kisses to us all, and also offers his helmet to Ella for her to "knock-knock" on. She loves it. This morning she put a basket on her head and requested that I knock-knock, because she was leaving for work. Then she wanted me to put one on too, so she could knock-knock on mine. It was a little scary, we are still (STILL) working on "gentle." Also, a bike helmet is more protective for your noggin than a basket. But it was pretty cute too, so I went along with it.

Nora thought this was all pretty funny. She is starting to show her sense of humor. When I laughed at her chewing on a sock this morning, she repeated it about five times in a row, giggling after each time she'd take it out of her mouth.

She was willing to try the basket helmet too. I kept Ella from knock-knocking her though.

As far as Ella is concerned, a basket is the "It" headpiece of the moment. What can I say? She wears it well.

Twofer

Hi again! We're still here and ok and everything, don't worry! I just kinda forgot to blog lately. I'd say, "We've been really busy," but I think probably you will get less tired of hearing that if I just encourage you to assume, and know, that we are always incredibly busy these days. If we ever get bored, I will tell you explicitly. Otherwise just assume that my two little toddlers are keeping me VERY BUSY.

But anyway, here are two little videos to show you some of what we've been up to these days. First of all, a couple weeks ago, we went to Asheville. It was really fun, and low key, but the important thing in my mind was that it gave us a little confidence that it is possible, and even enjoyable to take our two babies on a little weekend trip. Maybe we'll do that again sometime soon! Here is Nora crawling in some luscious grass and Ella trying to figure out how to get a manhole open at the NC botanical gardens.

I find this next little clip pretty funny, and fairly representative of the little two year old 'tude we are dealing with these days. What a little personality Ella is developing! Sweet, sassy and silly all mixed in together. I do want to tell you that all the "I'm pretty!" stuff at the beginning is not her bragging. I figured out that when I tell her to say cheese for a picture, she gives a big CHEEEEEESE face that is more like a fishie face than a smile. But if I tell her to say "I'm pretty!" she gives me a sort of flattered and shy smile. Works like a charm normally. Here ya go!

The time has come

 One last shot of Nora before she takes a major step into big girl land:

And then, tada!

Oh how I love tiny baby girl pigtails. Such a delight!

Also, Paul had jury duty today. You can tell he's taking his responsibility gravely, eh? But he got to be on a real trial and argue with his fellow jurors, etc. I think he really did enjoy wielding the sword of justice (is justice a sword, or something else?) and try hard to do what was right.

Rainy Morning

Ella has become such an avid little reader. And I have really been enjoying her books since they are almost all I have time for these days. So I thought I would highlight a book I really loved from our most recent trip to the library. My friend Betsy does all these book reviews that are more on the grown-up end, and I love reading what she thinks of them. I can't promise this will be a series because as you will have noticed, I'm not the most regular blogger at the moment and I refuse to promise to post anything for sure. But maybe there will be more. Anyway, this book is called Rainy Morning, and it's by Daniel Pinkwater.

I chose this one for Ella because she has lately been soooo afraid of thunderstorms. I thought we would read a few books celebrating rain or just debriefing it a little at least. I thought this would be a book about, "Oh it's a rainy morning so we snuggle under the covers then eat hot oatmeal and put on our galoshes etc etc." And it kind of started out that way.

We are first introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Submarine, who are about to start their third breakfast on a rainy morning when they notice their poor wet cat outside. They invite him in and give him a corn muffin. Then they notice their dog. He comes in and gets a corn muffin too.

Then the silliness starts as they invite their poor wet horse in "just this once" and then some crows, a coyote, chickens, a wildebeast etc.

They really ramp up the outlandishness when Ludwig Van Beethoven is seen outside, dripping wet. "Invite him in. He is my favorite composer" says Mrs. Submarine.

Then after the US Marine Band is spotted in the yard, we get the exchange that sealed this as a favorite book for me, " ' Herr Beethoven, is that the United States Marine Band standing in our yard?' Mrs. Submarine asked. 'Ja, ich glaube,' Beethoven said. 'I'm glad we bought four hundred and fifty pounds of muffin mix,' Mrs. Submarine said. 'Ask them to come in.' " Ach! So silly! I love it. The book ends with this full motley crew simply enjoy in tea and corn muffins in the kitchen until the sun comes out. No resolution other than that.

To me, this felt like a perfect, spur of the moment bedtime story, made up for kids who are calling out things to add. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it came about. I loved it because it was funny, but also because the was no conflict at all, just warm hospitality. My only complaint with the story was that I was getting really stressed about all these visitors making a mess in the Submarines' house. (May have PTSD from cleaning up after construction in this house). But we never had to deal with that in the book. We just enjoyed the warm cozy kitchen. The party was still going on when we left. Fun book. May I always be as hospitable as the Submarines.