Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

We shot this a month or so ago when Nora Lee still couldn't saw her "L's". Its so cute! Matt worked with her and now she says "little star" but its so fun to have this version on tape.

Hogarth Steps in For Santa!

Nora Goes to Disneyland!

Last week we took Nora Lee on her first visit to Disneyland. When we first arrived we sat down to a wonderful buffet breakfast where many of the Disney characters come visit you at your table. She met Minnie and Chip but was very nervous when Captain Hook approached us. I asked him to keep on goin' which he gladly did :)

After breakfast we visited Sleeping Beauty's castle which was a little scary for her. As we exited she said, "We are safe at last."

We then went on Peter Pan and Its a Small World, both of which she loved. We also got to take a princess tour and meet Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and Jasmine. This was also a big hit.

The other exciting things were when she got to drive the car in Autopia and the candy store (Im still excited by that!)

After about four hours she was pooped and ready to go home again.

It was such a sweet day.

Santa

Nora Lee met Santa the day after Thanksgiving. When it was her turn, she went up to him, looked him right in the eyes and said she wanted a new shirt, a lollipop, underwear and a wig. Santa got a heartbroken look on his face as he wondered if Nora Lee was a cancer patient wearing a wig. Mimi straightened him out and then, with a look of relief, he said, "So you'd like Halloween costume." Nora replied, "No, I want a wig!"

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving here in Los Angeles at home and were delighted to have my mom and Dario and my in-laws, Lee and John come join us for the holiday. It was such a treat to have them all here! We cooked delicious food, sat around chatting, Matt played the banjo and we had a feast. The next day we did a little Christmas shopping and then decorated our house for Christmas. It was a blast!

Nora Lee Tap Dances

Our new dog

He are photos of our new dog Hogarth. He is a one year old terrier mix that we adopted from the Pasadena Humane Society. He is energetic and fun, loves to play and is a total snuggler. He is wonderful with Nora Lee and she adores him. He is such a sweet new member of our family. And, Matt is having no allergy issues!!

Halloween

Dorothy and Toto at home ready for Halloween!!




Decorating a tombstone at the Trader Joes fair.



Nora Lee wins 1st prize at the Trader Joe's costume contest!! Our Trader Joes had their first annual kid's Halloween fair. There was face painting, crafts, a magician and a costume contest. She got a trophy and everything! After she won, we told her to go up on stage to get her prize. She brought back the trophy and said, "What is this?"



The party at our house before trick-or-treating. We are playing "pin the bow tie on the ghost".



Daddy and Nora Lee hot on the trick-or-treat trail



Eating more dinner at ten o'clock at night after a very long Halloween



See Nora Lee Trick-or-Treat!

Pumpkin Festival

Prepare for dizziness!

Recent Nora Lee quotes

#1
Nora: Im taking a big drink of water because my body says to take a big drink.

Sara: It's good that you listen to your body.

Nora: I'm listening to my body and it's saying funny things to me.

#2

Nora Lee: Why does the wicked witch want those slippers so bad?

#3

Sara: Did Audrey (her doll) run fast from the bear?

NL: No, because she is a slow running creature.

#4

Stranger: I love your shoes.

Nora Lee: Actually, they are ruby slippers.

#5
I asked Nora Lee to get out of the bath and she wasn't cooperating. I said, "Im going to count to three then Im going to come in the bath and get you." So, I did and said, "Next time I'd like you to come to me like you usually do." She responded, "Some days I will, and some days I won't." Well, at least she's honest.

#6
Nora Lee loves taking her vitamin C tablet each day. She asked for another one and I said that she could have another one on a different day. Nora Lee was silent a moment and then said, "Lets pretend its a different day."

#7
Nora Lee is starting to put together words that have a double meaning. She pointed to the TV and said "This is a screen, " and then pointed to the screen in the window and said, "and this is a screen too!" She is also exploring words that rhyme.

#8
Nora Lee loves food and likes just about everything except scrambled eggs. She only likes them if they are hard-boiled. She loves to peel them and then slice them in the egg slicer. I giggled at breakfast when I noticed her getting one slice of egg, putting salt and pepper on it, eating it, then getting another slice of egg and repeating the process.

OMG!

I leave Nora Lee for one day with Katie and she turns her into a pop star.

Yoga

Nora lee knows that I meditate and do yoga and asks me questions about both. On a few occasions she has done yoga with me. Today she asked for me to put on a yoga video so she could do yoga while I did some work on the computer. She came in after a few minutes and said, "I can't keep my legs straight." I laughed and told her that it all takes practice. She may have inherited my tight hamstrings because I think most kids are like jelly and, just like her mama, she can't touch her toes. Ah well.

Cologne and Alone Time

A few short stories...

1.) When Nora Lee gets tucked into bed by Matt she has requested that he spray some of his cologne on her. She said, "I smell my shirt when I miss you daddy."

2.) My mom was visiting for the weekend and when she left Nora Lee got very upset and began to cry. She ran to her room and said, "I need to cry alone in my room because I am sad that grandma left." So I left the room and a few minutes later she came out and said, "I'm done crying now."

3.) Last week I was tucking Nora Lee into bed and I was exhausted. I was desperate for sleep too and she was using every excuse to prolong the going-to-bed process. I looked at her and said, "Please, please go to sleep! I am so tired and I can't go to sleep until you do! " I started to cry in my exhaustion and then she started to cry. She said, "You can't cry because I am crying. I am frustrated because you are grouchy."

4.) Today Matt was away all day and at one point she stopped and said, "Is daddy home? I hear a daddy noise."

Summer

Lemons from our tree.



A mama bird built her nest in a lantern hanging on our porch this spring. Three baby birds hatched and we got to watch for several weeks as their mama brought them food.



A huge Zucchini from our garden!



Nora Lee and I doing yoga

Jokes

Because Nora Lee's language skills have jumped so dramatically in the last few months we started teaching her jokes. We noticed that she liked to perform and loved the idea of bowing before and after a performance. Here are the first jokes that she started telling. Its about the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Here's how it usually goes...

Joke #1

Nora: "What's a pirate's favorite letter. You say 'What'."

Person: "What"

Nora: "R!!"

Joke #2

Nora: "What's a ghost's favorite fruit. You say 'What'."

Person: "What"

Nora: "boo-berries"

We are currently working on Knock-knock jokes but she hasn't got the timing down yet. I know 2 1/2 and doesn't get comedic timing. Can you imagine?

Panties!

In the last three weeks Nora has suddenly transitioned into using the toilet during the entire day! About a year ago she expressed interest in the toilet so we bought her a little one for the bathroom. She would poop and pee on it sometimes, maybe once a month. Then she went through a patch of using it three or four times in a week, then back to not being that interested in it. We have never really paid much attention or focused on it. When she did use the toilet we expressed congratulations but didn't pressure one way or the other.

Then three weeks ago she started wearing panties and using the potty for every single poop and pee! Exciting!! She still wears a diaper at night but its exciting to have her mostly potty trained.

Funny Quotes

Funny things Nora Lee has said recently:

- "That's a good choice Mama."

- "How 'bout we play a game and then eat food. Is that a good plan?"

- Nora: "There is a really big linon (lion) in my house."

Me: "What's his name?"

Nora: "Kitty."

We were eating homemade pizza and Nora said, "Mmm, mom, you make this very well."

Nora Lee wants to know everyone's names, first and last. She remembers them even when long periods of time have elapsed. Months can go by and she will still remember their full name and their pets names. I'm envious of this ability!

We have kept Nora's hair in a short pixie cut because she never wanted for us to mess with it or put clips in it so it seemed like the easiest way to keep it out of her face. Recently she decided that she wants to have "yong" (long) hair. She is patiently growing it out now and happily lets me put clips and headbands in :) Its amazing to have her making these kinds of decisions for herself now.

Tonight

Tonight at dinner Matt and I were talking about an actress on a TV show. Here's how the conversation went:

Sara: "She's a saucy one."

Matt: "I know."

Nora Lee: "I'm a saucy one?"

Sara: "No honey, we were just talking about an actress on a TV show."

(Pause)

Nora Lee: "She's a saucy one? She's a dippy one?"

Matt and I laughed so hard because Nora Lee had never heard the term "saucy" used for anything other than sauce and she immediately thought about dip - thus the "She's a dippy one?"

Later tonight after her bath, Nora sat on her bed clean from a bath and combing the hair on her stuffed chicken. She said to me, "You a good parent." She cracks me up!

The Angry Bear

Nora Lee spends much of the day in imaginary play. From the time we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed the whole family participates in pretend worlds. We have some regular games that we play and some that spontaneously happen in the moment. Nora Lee's language skills are incredibly good and she is intensely inquisitive. She asks many times each day, "What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Why did he say that? Why did you laugh at that?", Etc. This has been challenging for me because I try to answer her questions as best I can but some of them are complicated answers - and it just gets tiring :) As a way of lightening my mood when the questioning drives me bonkers, I begin responding with an old improv game. When she says, "What are you doing?" I respond with something like " Flying a kite, what are you doing?" and she will say "Climbing a mountain, what are you doing?" We can go back and forth like that for quite a while.

She loves for us to make up stories and in the last few days Matt told her stories about mean bears. (Nora Lee is fascinated with being "mean" and being "nice". Our household is regularly visited by both mean and nice animals. When a mean one comes, we cower in fear and pretend to cry and she protects us. When nice animals come we snuggle them.)

In Matt's recent stories about the "angry bears" he shared that angry bears are really just sad bears. This evening something made Matt angry and he calmly said "That makes me really angry." Nora Lee went up to him and said "You not angry daddy, you a bear. You not angry you just sad."

Wow.

Tea Party

Nora Lee, my mom and I went to Orlando last week to visit Matt's parents, also known as Mimi and Poppy. Nora Lee not only got her own tea set to play with but Mimi took us to a fancy tea where we each got our own plate of crazy goodness. Nora Lee went hog wild. Notice in the photos how she indulges and then the final photo of her on the way home.

I call it "The Sugar Crash".

2 1/2 Years old

Nora Lee is shifting so fast its felt a bit overwhelming to blog about it all. So, I'm just gonna sit down now and write everything that's happening with her this week!

Matt and I think she is getting her two year molars. She has had a fever and been delicate and says her mouth hurts. We've been making lots of yogurt and fruit popsicles and she has been eating a ton of them.

Since my last post, Nora Lee has become completely able to verbally communicate. When she comes to a word she cant say she gets the sweetest look on her face and says, "I can't say that word." She can't say "L" yet either so all "L's" are "Y's".

Her most recent example - "I don't yike wizards."

She is very tender and affectionate. She loved hugs and has started saying adorable things like "I yuv you so much" and "So happy to be here."

She is a master at puzzles and can now easily do 12 piece puzzles without a picture and with no help from us. Last week I took five of her 12 piece puzzles and mixed them together to see what she would do. It took her a bit but when I checked in later she had all five puzzles done. Crazy.

She has been blowing us away with her problem solving skills. We have been talking with her about taking dance classes at some point and one day she said "Nora (she still talks in the third person) take dance class by self. She doesn't know how to drive." I was shocked since I had never talked with her about driving her there. She had realized she was dependent on us for a ride!

Nora Lee has been learning about pretending over the last few months. Her understanding of pretending has increased a lot this week because we took her to see a dress rehearsal of Matt's show "Fellowhip". For those of you who don't know, this is a musical parody of the "Lord of the Rings". She had never seen a play before. I thought we would leave after the first 20 minutes or so but she wanted to stay through the whole thing! I think it blew her mind that everyone was up on stage pretending for so long. Since then she has been singing the songs and watching the DVD.

Nora Lee is very inquisitive. She asks lots of questions and likes to know how and why things work. Her most recent interest is knowing people's first and last names.

She has her dad's incredible memory. We can visit a person a month before and when the person's name comes up again she will ask about their dog by name. I'm a little envious since my memory is not so sharp!

I feel like every six months or so a huge shift happens in Nora Lee and suddenly so much more is expected of me as a mom. It always feels scary and overwhelming when it first happens but then I find my footing, adjust and feel solid again. Most recently, all of these changes in her, require so much focus and constant attention.

I find myself taking deep breaths and slowing down and letting things take much longer so that I can let her wash her own dishes or dig out the plant herself. She wants to do it all and I do what her to learn it all. I feel so blessed to be her mom and have our family. It's incredible for my own growth because the only way to be the mom I want to be and to have a peaceful household is to let go of the small battles and surrender to the moment, to let go of my own ideas about perfection and to embrace the unknown. That has felt scary for me but I'm so much more comfortable in that than I have ever been before and its because of what I'm learning as a mom. God bless her!

An Ode to Mary Poppins

Nora Lee is crazy-go-nuts for Mary Poppins. Here she is singing "Spoon Full of Sugar" and "Let's Go Fly a Kite!" The next video is her version of "Feed the Birds".

Shuffle-Tap-Tap

Nora Lee loves to dance and has both tiny tap shoes and ballet shoes. Last weekend her Auntie Colleen taught her how to shuffle-tap-tap.

In this video she is showing Matt and our friend Lauren what she learned.

Happy Birthday Daddy

Sweet Pics