Toddlers sure are busy

Well, I've really fallen off the blogging wagon lately. I apologize. My excuse is that Nora is ALL OVER THE PLACE lately and when she isn't running around trying to climb on things she shouldn't climb on, she's attached to my hip and won't let me put her down. Phew. She's sleeping now - a time I usually reserve for brushing my teeth and maybe eating a little, but I decided to throw you all a bone and post an update with some pics and videos of our little swirling dervish. Enjoy!

Nora is now 15 months and a week. She weighs 23 lbs and is just over 30" long, with a 19" noggin (50th percentile).

She knows 10 signs: dog, cat, bath, baby, food, book, more (the sign for more has now become the sign for food), daddy, music (she made this one up herself), and all done. She's not so into speaking English yet, but she talks a lot in her own language and often points at things and asks "dat?", wanting us to identify the person or object. She "whos" when she sees an owl in a book and sometimes "mews" when she sees a cat. She can identify ears, nose, eyes, mouth, teeth, feet/socks/slippers/shoes, and- her favorite - belly buttons.

This is from the 12th, so it doesn't show all her signs, but you can get the idea:



She loves anything that looks like a phone and will walk around the house having long conversations, including lots of fake laughter. She often holds the "phone" up to our ears to make us talk. Sometimes even the pets get into the action. Pretty cute.


She still has a real love of music and dances to just about anything. Just this week she's really gotten into making towers with her big legos, and she likes to clean up afterward by throwing each piece back into the bag.

She has 6 teeth (4 top, 2 bottom) and is currently working on 2 early molars (the ones behind her canines) and possibly the canines as well...poor thing. Before these teeth started coming in she was sleeping from about 7:30 to 7:30 or so, waking once or twice (once she slept from 8 to 4:30 without waking!) and going back to sleep very easily. She starts in her crib, next to our bed, and usually joins us in bed at some point. The teeth have messed everything up (isn't it nice to have teething as a scapegoat?) and the past two nights she's been up for 2 hours in the middle of the night and hasn't even let me sleep in! Meanie. She's also been nursing A LOT, which is fine with me b/c it's generally the only time I get to sit still all day! Does the teething ever end?!

All in all, she's as cute as ever and is getting more personality every day!

Video games (her controller was not plugged in, unfortunately)...


Loving her teddy bear, a gift from Bev Price (my K-3 teacher and a bear aficionado)...


Reading at her new table...


Catching up on the newest sports news...


Me: "How old are you?" Nora:

Live action

There's nothing like seeing our Nora in action. These videos are a few weeks old, but they're too cute to pass up.

In other Nora-news, this week she's had a little sign language explosion! She learned "dog", "more", and "food" in one day and has her own special way of signing "book". So cute.

So, here are some videos!

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - there are so many cute photos and videos from the holidays that it took me a while to get through them all. In fact, I still haven't gotten through them all and now there are new ones piling up! If Nora would just stop being so adorable and interesting it would be much easier to catch up!

Anyway, I'm just going to dive in.

We had a wonderful Christmas at home, just the three of us, and then went to the Bongorno's for Christmas afternoon and dinner.


Nora, having a Christmas morning conference call...she's a busy lady.



With G&G Bongorno:


On Saturday we drove down to YS for more Christmas, visiting with friends/family and New Years!

Uncle Steve gave Nora his childhood stuffed gorilla, CC (Steve LOVED CC). Nora has grown to love CC dearly, but she played hard to get at their first meeting. :)


Nora spent a lot of time trying to put those baby dolls to sleep! I can relate...


This is one of my favorite recent Nora pictures...


And here's another favorite. She had a bit of a diaper rash, so we let her air out and when Chris asked her "where are your pants?" she showed us this fancy move!



Grandma Linda and Nora:


Buckethead at Grandpa Rex's:


Playing peek a boo from behind the door...clearly, she enjoyed this game. :)


Nora and Eli got to spend some quality time together...


They played a nice duet (video coming soon)...


The famous Yellow Springs ball drop!


"The ball" up close...yep, it's a disco ball w/ Christmas lights (I actually thought it was just tin foil, so I'm impressed that's it's a disco ball!)...


And, last but not least, Nora and Finn finally got to meet (video to come)!


Finn and Sarah...


Nora and Caroline...


Chris and Jake, on a walk through Cincy (Finn tried out the Ergo and slept like a baby!)...



There are a lot more pictures - I'll post a link to a Shutterfly album soon. And, you can look forward to lots of videos! I promise I'll be better at posting in '09!. :)