Funny Hunny

Well, winter is surely upon us here in Wisconsin. We have been experiencing sub-zero temperatures and big snowfalls. Here's Nora on her "new" used sled we inherited from friend's. Nice ride. When it's too cold outside, I've been pulling her around the house, along with her moose from her Montana grandparents and her dolly.

Here's my girly girl. I wonder if it's just a phase or if it will be part of who she is. She can not stand to be near clothes without draping them around her or putting them on. She digs through our dirty or clean laundry bins and will walk around with my pajamas around her like a scarf. In this picture, I was going through my winter hat and mitten bin and she put this hat on all by herself. I thought she looked like a Russian or Buckingham Palace guard, so I had to snap a quick pic. When I dry my hair, she runs up to me so that I can dry her hair too.

Here's a picture from last Wednesday's blizzard. I guess La Crosse is considered part of the "Blizzard Belt". Snowstorms sweep across Iowa and hit us before they taper off. We got almost 18 inches in this one storm! Yay, I love snow.

Here's Nora and her friend, Hurshle playing with her new Little People Nativity Set from my family in Oregon (Thanks, what a great gift!). You can see they both have Little People in their mouths. I think it's funny because Nora and Hurshle were combining from our other Little People sets, so there were pandas, giraffe's and also a farmer present at this nativity.

Nora has been doing a lot of new things lately. For one, she is WAY more vocal. In fact, she hardly signs anymore-just babbles. Too bad we can only understand about 20% of what she says. She is also trying to figure out who or what drinks. She will put food up to her sippy cup at meals and make eating sounds. She also tried to give Clifford a drink from her sippy in a book we were reading. It was so funny. I think this stemmed from an animal book we have where Zebras are drinking water from a pond. She was very interested in that page. I think it just clicked with her that things besides her eat and drink and now she needs to figure all that out.

She is also very interested in what things around the house are yucky. I think she's developing a mental list. So far-the toilet, toilet brush, mommy's coffee, tub drain, diapers, and bones. She will point to them around the house or in books and make a yuck sound, then laugh, smile, or look to me to make sure it really is yucky (otherwise she'd love to touch all those).

Finally, she's answering "yeah" and nodding to us sometimes. This is so fun! We ask her a question and then she thinks about it and says, "Yeah". So helpful-even though sometimes I don't think she really understands what she's answering yes to.

A Lovely Little Visit

Last weekend, my parents were able to visit from Montana. They had a blast playing with Nora and catching up. The joined us at Justin's parents for Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving, we threw a wine, chocolate, and cheese tasting birthday party for Jeff. It was so fun to taste each wine and cheese paired together. There was a lot of laughing as we tried to describe each wine's aromas and tastes.
Mom playing with Nora after breakfast.

When my step-dad Glen got lost on Justin's parents land during a walk, we had to send out the rescue team. Since it was deer hunting season, everyone needed to wear blaze orange. I never thought I'd see the day where my mom was in blaze orange-here's a funny pic Justin snapped at the occasion.