Little friends

Nora and her friend Mae (Molly & Joel's daughter) were caught wearing the same sweatshirt! How embarrassing... Luckily they're adorable, so the fashion faux pa was quickly forgiven. Nora is 6 months and Mae is about 2 1/2 months. Cute!

Happy Birthday Grandma Linda!

Last weekend we went down to Yellow Springs to celebrate Mom's (Grandma's) Birthday, which was on Sunday. In celebration, Nora wore her watermelon dress (a gift from G'ma) and looked especially cute.

In other news, Nora's 6 month Birthday was Wednesday! Such a big girl. On Monday she tried avocado for the first time and loved it! So, now her diet includes breastmilk, brown rice cereal and avocado. We'll try bananas again sometime soon.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Four generations (Nora wanted to eat her hands more than have pictures taken):


Cute, shiny head:


Playing with her new keyboard (a gift from Dad/Grandpa):


Having an informal meal while Uncle Kevin serenaded us:


Exploring Great Grandpa's face:


With Great Grandma:


and Grandma...


Trying out a bike helmet...


Tickle monster...


Happy family...

The sun has finally arrived!

It's been really beautiful all week and we've been taking advantage by giving our yard some TLC and going for nice walks. It's wonderful.

Here are some pics of some of our weekend outdoor time...


Nora in her stroller...

Nora and me at Gypsy Cafe down the street from us...

Nora in her cute overalls!


Max had many outdoor adventures over the weekend...here he is cleaning himself off after a 3-hour excursion where he met many of the neighborhood cats and seemed to have fun playing in our neighbors' disgusting garage/storage shed.

In Nora-news, the bananas didn't seem to work so well with her digestive system, so we've stopped feeding her those. We've given her some brown rice cereal with breastmilk a few times and she opens her mouth wide and grabs for the spoon, which we take to mean she likes it! The adventure of solid food continues and we learn as we go.

She's still mostly in her 3 45-minute naps a day stage, but on Monday she took a 2-hour nap in the afternoon, so I'm hoping that will become a habit! Good luck, right? We have nothing to complain about, however, b/c she sleeps from 9pm to usually around 4am (for her early breakfast) and then to 7 or 8. I could be wrong, though, b/c I've finally gotten to the point where I can hardly remember when/how many times she wakes up at night...we both half-sleep our way through early morning feedings.

Nora has also started to reliably turn from her belly to her back w/in about 10 seconds of being put down...she seems to be boycotting tummy time pretty effectively. Changing her diaper has become a bit more tricky as she's discovered how delicious her toes are and she yells when I have to take back one of her legs. Silly foot eater.

Anyway, here's a video of her rolling over late last week - she's 10x faster now...we'll have to get another video to compare! Enjoy.

Sitting pretty...

Yep, you heard it here first...Nora has learned to sit up on her own (with the occasional toppling over, of course)! She did it for the first time in Yellow Springs over the weekend. It's very exciting, and you can tell she's happy with herself. :) Here are some pictures to prove it (video soon...):


Hilary (and Ryan) came up to see us!


Also this week, Nora had her first taste of solid food (bananas)! I wanted to wait until 6 months, but she's been showing strong signs of readiness (reaching for our food, following it from our plates to our mouths, opening her mouth while she watches us eat, etc.) so we decided to go for it. Here she is this morning, chowing down:



My mom came to Cleveland last week for a few days and watched Nora on Thursday while I went to work (well, for 1/2 the day until she locked herself - and Nora - out of the house and I had to come home to the rescue!). Then we went to YS for the weekend, which was great.

Here are some highlights:

In the car on the way to YS...such a good girl!

With Uncle Steve...

Meeting Al and Dennie (and Lacey, the dog)!




With Grandpa...

It was beautiful yesterday afternoon, so we hung out in the backyard for a bit of vitamin D...



And Max and Molly got to experience the great outdoors (the porch and the patio, at least) for the first time in their lives!




Last, but certainly not least, a big congratulations to Joe and Norma (and big sister Sofia) who had baby Fiona last Sunday. We went over last night to visit...Fiona is adorable and Sofia is being a great big sister.

Welcome to the world, baby Fiona!

Sofia, opening her "big sister" present...


Nora and Sofia...1 1/2 years and only 5 pounds apart!

Norma and Fiona...so cute.