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.

A Visit to Grandpa and Grandma Wise's House

Last week, Justin had another week of training in Arizona. Nora and I took the opportunity to visit Justin's parents. As a huge animal lover, Nora loved the visit. Justin's parents have a new puppy, Doc. Nora was hestitant to like him at first, since he would try to nip at her and take her toys-you know normal curious puppy behavior. Soon she warmed up to him. She loved helping Grandpa spoon water into Doc's mouth, below.

In think Nora still holds their cat, Maddy, as her favorite pet in the house though. Maddy is the best cat in the world-spoken by an almost cat hater. Really, she takes all of Nora's abuse and chasing. Also, she is the most snuggly cat ever. If you just sit on a couch with a book and a blanket, she senses coziness and wants to be a part of it, on your lap. It's just wonderful.

There was also a mouse in the house! Here's Nora in her Halloween costume. No trick or treating this year, but she had fun in her costume and looking at Grandpa and Grandma's pumpkin.

The highlight of Nora's week, and every visit to Justin's parents, are her rides on Grandpa's "tractor" which is really the riding lawn mower. She "asks" to go on it all the time when she sees Grandpa and she loves to "guide" the steering wheel and push the buttons.

One day, we went outside to get some raking done. Nora even had her own rake, but the helping didn't last long. Soon she was playing in the leaf piles and exploring the huge yard. It was so nice to let Nora get over 50 ft. from me and not worry about someone snatching her or her going into the street. I truly hope it is in God's plan for us to live in the country someday.

Happy Fall Days

On warmer days this fall, I've been trying to take Nora on walks to explore our neighborhood.

We have a little park about 4 blocks from our house, we both like to play at. Nora loves the slide!

And the swing! See the smile? I'm so glad since Nora used to cry every time we put her in the swing.

It's been great to get the exercise. Speaking of, I just snuck in a tough workout DVD while Nora was taking her nap. Lots of sweating happening. Have you done a workout where you've sweated this week? If not, you should try it. It's hard, but you'll feel great afterwards!

Tour De Rental-Part 2

Well, I think it was a bit of wishful thinking on my part to show you our upstairs the day after I posted our downstairs. I actually have about 4 posts written in my mind, it’s just that some days this mythical “free time” eludes me. So here I am madly hunting and pecking on my keyboard before Nora wakes up…

Okay let me show you the upstairs.

This is Nora's room. Her big closet, toy/bookshelf, and dresser. The flowers on her bookshelf are a dried compilation of all the flowers we received after she was born.

Nora's changing table and rocking chair-where we read books before naps and bedtime. Her window also lets in a lot of light-it's delightful. You can see a view of the beautiful leaves changing on the bluffs from that window which is a nice treat every time I close her curtains.

And Nora's crib. My, her walls are bare. Maybe someday we'll get to hang up our pictures. Oh well!

So between Nora's room and ours is the quaint, little bathroom. Really it's the perfect size. It has everything it needs and who hangs out in the bathroom anyway? Moving on...

Now we're in our bedroom. This is a view from our bed of our "new"dressers. We bought them off of Craigslist this summer and painted them black/added new pulls. This turned out better than our table since we've mostly finished them, save a few touch ups. For shame, what mother would have taken pictures of her house when her daughter didn't have any pants on-how embarassing!

And our bed, which Justin bought me this year as a 3 year anniversary present. Very lovely!

Tour De Rental

As promised, here is part one of the tour of our new place. We feel so blessed that God placed us here, right next door to our good friends Josh and Colleen Toltzman and with very affordable rent for the area.

So come on in...I'll show you around!

If you walked in our front door, this is what you'd see. Our living room-nice and bright. I love it!

Then you walk through the living room and see Nora on the kitchen floor in a bucket. Anyway, I included this pic, because did you notice the floor? Maybe it's not the greatest but it's like the finest tile to me, compared to my ugly 70's orange linoleum at our last place.

So, back to my kitchen. This kitchen is a bit smaller than our last place-less cupboard and counter space and still no dishwasher but I love it a zillion times more. I think this is because it is just so bright. I feel so cheery whenever I'm in it. Here is Nora tucked in her little spot between my coffee "station" and my food prep area. We have lots of conversations while I cut green peppers and such.

Here's the view of our back door and table. We bought that table for $5 and accumulated free or cheap chairs to surround it in hopes of refinishing all of them and painting them white before we moved-fools! We only got to painting the tables legs which now need to be repainted due to scuffs from the move. Anyway-that is now slated as a Spring project.

And here it my small, but adequate counter and cupboard space and appliances. Thank goodness I have a pantry!

That is the first floor. I will try to get the 2nd floor up tomorrow. We are also working on a signing video for Nora, but our little actress is caving under the pressure of performing on camera so it may need to be edited over a few takes. Either way, I'll post it here or on Youtube with a link on here.

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.