Happy Fall

Well, I just don't know where September went! Sorry for the long time without updates. I still have to "show" you all our place. I've been waiting to get a few more pictures hung up but who knows when that will happen so maybe I'll have to do that soon.

Nora is now 13 1/2 months and definitely a toddler. In fact, I had to cherish these top two pictures of her standing still because that doesn't happen much anymore!

This is what she's usually like-exploring every little thing! BUT she is getting so fun and I've loved this past 1 1/2 months more than all of last year. I have so much to update you all who haven't seen her in a while. She has changed so much since she's turned one and literally learns new things each day. For example...

She is always imitating us now-facial expressions, blinking, coughing, throat clearing, blowing her nose with a kleenex (at least bringing it to her nose and making a sound), shakes her head no, dances to music, and pretending to sweep when I set the broom down.

She's starting to understand more of what we say too. When I say: "It's time for a bath"-she books it upstairs, "It's time to eat"-she goes to her high chair, and "Where's you water?"-she goes to the fridge and tries to open it up. I've also started asking her where animals are in books-she will point to bears and cats about 50% of the time.

Physically-she's walking backwards, spinning in circles, walking quickly, sticking her tongue out, giving kisses and hugs on occasion, covering her eyes and then uncovering them, and trying to open up anything with a lid. She also just got 3 of her molars, bringing the total up to 11 teeth!

Verbally-Her pediatrician said she's right on track with language development-yay. In fact, I don't think she ever stopped blabbing the whole time we were at her doctor's appt. This was a slight concern since we have been teaching her sign language for some time now and delayed lang. dev. is one of the criticisms. She says "Hi" (and waves), "Bye or Bye,Bye", "Mama", "Aba" (means Grandpa) and all other kinds of alien sounding gibberish. She also says "Ba" which can mean Ball, Book, Bath, Banana or Bear depending on what we're near-good thing she's starting to point too! As far as signing, can sign a bunch of words which is handy to decipher what she's trying to tell us. She signs: Water, Milk, Eat, More, Dog, Cat, Bird, Fish, Want, Baby, Bear, Grandpa, Daddy, Bath, Book, Ball and Light. I'll have to shoot a video of this to show you all before she completely ditches signs for talking.

Whirlwind

This last week has been bustling. I have been longing to write but haven't had time...

Last week my Grandpa Brown died. His funeral was on Friday. It was sad to know that last week when we saw him was the last time I'd see him, hear his laugh and memorable voice, and witness his spitfire nature. I find much gladness that he is in heaven and out of suffering now.

My grandma and grandpa had been married 59 years.


Even sweeter, we got to share our wedding anniversary date with them-July 22nd 1950 and 2006.

My favorite memories with my grandpa were playing croquet in our backyard together and him teasing me. He was a jokester. I'm so glad he got to meet Nora.

The evening we arrived home from the funeral, several friends helped us load up a trailer. We spent our last night in our duplex and then drove down to unload. Several friends came along to help with this too.


On Sunday, my inlaws came to see our new place and help unpack. My father-in-law hung up most of my curtain rods and pictures. I feel so grateful! It looks a lot more homey with pictures. Give me another week or so and I'll give you a virtual tour so those of you long distance folks can see where we live now.


Adventures of moving. I know how to get around on 3 streets. I got a little cocky today thinking I knew a back way to the grocery store. I was severely humbled when I found myself lost. I finally got there and thought I'd try to find a shortcut to Target. Lost again. So, I'm sticking to the streets I know unless I have my map!


Today, I also got my library card-yay. I'm checking our Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens for my fall read. It's over 800 pages so it might take me all fall. The children's section of the library has a live turtle which Nora liked and I loved since turtles are my favorite animal.

Praise God!

Update. Justin has been studying for 2 months to pass his Series 7 License Exam. He needs this license from the government to be able to do his job for Edward Jones. Anyway, he took the test today-which he only got one shot to take-and PASSED!!! Woohoo. Thank you to everyone who was praying. This is a very happy day for us, since failing would have meant him loosing his job immediately. We're so glad the pressure of this monster test is off his shoulders.

What's next?

The training for Edward Jones is a long process-like 4 1/2 months. Next, Justin needs to study for the Series 66 License Exam-another federal regulation. This is next Thursday. It is less material to study and not as high stakes, but still important. After that we will enjoy Labor Day weekend getting settled in La Crosse and then Justin is off to Tempe, Arizona for 1 week of training there. When he gets back mid-September, he has some intense training with a Field Trainer for the next 2ish months. Finally, in mid-November he goes back to Tempe, AR for a week where he will "graduate" from the training phase. Then he can come home and actually start doing his job. Whew, I'm glad this will start to level out as the busy Christmas season starts. Oh wait, that already started-I saw Christmas decorations out at Walmart yesterday...

Nora's 1st Birthday

Our baby is 1 and is technically a toddler now. This was a bittersweet day for us. It's sad to think Nora will never be a baby again even though we are glad the sleepless nights and much crying are over. Sniff. Anyway, here is a recap from her first birthday.



We had a low key BBQ and party in our backyard. Apparently on your birthday your parents let you crawl on your highchair.

Nora eating her first bite of cake. I was kind of disappointed that she was such a clean cake eater.


After cake, Nora and her party guests Ella and Hurshle went for a swim in the kiddie pool. Emma watched longingly from the side. They loved playing with the plastic silverware from dinner.

Then it was time for presents. This was a fun but crazy time since all the baby guests "helped" Nora open her presents. It was hard to keep track of which card and tissue paper went with which present. Nora has been playing with all her new toys and wearing her new pajamas and clothes. Thanks everyone!

In other news, we are starting to move down to La Crosse. We took one load down last weekend, will take another Sunday, and do our big move next Saturday. We have our basement basically packed. It's so weird to see empty shelves. Also, I've finished my projects. For those of you who don't know, we bought cheap dressers from Craigslist and painted them black and a cheap table from a Thrift sale and painted the legs white. They ended up being more work than I thought but I like how they turned out!

Pool Days

Yay for warm weather. It's been a cool summer here, so we haven't gotten to go to the pool as much as we'd like. Thankfully, this week is hot, hot, hot. Here's some of us moms with babies cooling off in the shallow end-the new in place to be this summer. Man, do I love the pool! Water, sun, friends-what a blast!

Getting a little towel time in. Basically, the babies just crawl around and eat each others snacks, try to drink from each other's sippy cups, take each other's toys and crawl/walk to random stranger's towels as they tan. It's comical thinking about it really.

Garden

I can't believe I haven't written about our dear little garden yet. Since we have no land/yard of our own, when a couple from our church offered to do a joint vegetable garden on their land we were very excited. Here's our garden in full bloom.

Nora in the entrance, by the wildflowers.

This is a common scene. I pick with Nora right near me and she eats handfuls of dirt. I try to stop her in time, but sometimes I look up and mud is streaming down her chin. Gross.

Here's one of our fellow joint gardeners, Chrissy, holding Nora. Chrissy and I try to get out to the garden once a week. She is married to Lance, Justin's best man at our wedding. We're also sharing the garden with our hosts, Jay and Deb Holmen and their son and daughter in law-Dan and Melissa. It's so fun when all 4 of us couples are in the garden together.

One fun thing about our garden is the bean teepees. If you look at the first picture, you'll see them on the left. Here's Nora inside of one holding some fresh green beans. Besides beans, we've also been enjoying picking carrots, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, green peppers, fresh herbs and cucumbers (turned into pickles). I am especially waiting for our sweet corn and squash to ripen, oh and the tomatoes. It's so fun and delicious to have a garden!

Catching Up

We've had a fun and busy last couple weeks. So I'm going to write a few posts to catch up.

Last week, we had a little family reunion/vacation with Justin's mom's side of the family. There were uncles, aunts, first and second cousins, great-grandparents, grandparents, etc. We stayed in the lake house next to Justin's grandpa's house with 2 of Justin's cousins and their respective sons. Here's everybody together after celebrating August birthdays in the group!

Here is Nora with Lydia, Justin's cousin. Nora and Lydia loved each other! Grandma Sue and the aunts watch on. You may remember Lydia from our wedding. She danced with just about everyone in a tuxedo!

Nora got some quality time in with Uncle Jon this weekend. He rode her around in this dump truck which she loved. You look like a natural Jon...I don't know about this no kids thing.

Meet Ethan. This would be Nora's second cousin and they are 2 weeks apart. It was so fun to have a baby Nora's age there to play with all week. Here they are playing in their pj's.