Friday, January 30, 2009

General Update






Nora Lee is 2 years old and such a delight. She is very intelligent and constantly surprises us with how much she understands and how capable she is. She loves food, cooking, animals, music, dancing (and recently singing), babies and kids, cake, pie, the Muppets, and dolls. Just recently she has been getting more attached to dolls and enjoying taking care of them. Sometimes she walks around the house patting a doll on the back and saying "shhh".

Matt's bluegrass band The Dustbowl Cavaliers rehearse in Matt's studio here at home and sometimes Nora and I go watch them play. They usually stand in a circle facing one another. Its been so beautiful to watch how Nora Lee responds to the music. When we first go in she stands by the wall for a bit. As she warms up a little she will go into the center of the circle and dance, stand by Matt and slap his upright bass along with him or use a guitar as you would an upright bass. The last few times she has gone over to the harmonica, gotten it out of the case and started playing along with the band. It chokes me up every time because there is something so sweet and pure about it all.

In general Nora Lee is very well behaved and is able to come with us most places. She counts to three and her vocabulary seems like it doubles every few days. She knows all the basic colors and loves words.

Its amazing to see her exploring the world.

My Tasty Skin

I go hiking a lot and carry Nora Lee on my back in a little backpack. Today we were hiking up a hill and Nora Lee began licking my back. I giggled and asked her if she liked the way I taste. She said "yeah!" I asked her what I taste like and she said "sausage."

Not exactly what I've been going for.

Toilet Paper

We had run out of toilet paper in our household so Nora Lee and I went to the store to buy some more. As we were walking in I told her that we were going to be buying toilet paper. I walked in first and she trailed behind me. As she entered the store she looked around for a moment and then held up her arms and said in a loud voice "paper, poo-poo, butt!"

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Nora Lee's 2nd Birthday






We had a small birthday party for Nora Lee here at home after returning from Iowa for Christmas. We celebrated quite a few birthdays in the last few months and birthdays have become a focus for Nora Lee. She sings "Happy Birthday" at least a few times each day. She says, "Birth-day you, Mama" or "Birth-day you Nono" (that's what she calls herself). Sometimes she sings happy birthday to an object that she doesn't know the name of, so she sings "Birthday you, this". She loves cake and pie and is excited for any occasion where they will be served. Who isn't though, really?

Christmas in Iowa






Matt's brother and his family live in Iowa City and this Christmas Matt's mom, stepdad, father and stepmom met us there as well. It snowed (I had hoped for a white xmas) and was beautiful. We cooked and talked and watched movies and ate. What better way to celebrate the holiday!

Nora Lee had four cousins there and was in heaven having all those kids to play with every moment of the day. Xmas was the first time she got to experience so many presents! Ripping off all that paper was delightful!

We also celebrated her birthday in Iowa and went to the Children's Museum to play. There was a small grocery store where kids got to shop and pay for groceries. There was a hospital where they could be doctors and nurses, a puppet kingdom and a small house and a play television news station. I think Nora could have happily moved in.

Oak Glen





Oak Glen is a wonderful little town about two hours outside of Los Angeles. It's known for its apple orchards and each year during apple season you can go and pick apples on many of the farms. We took Nora Lee last year but she was too little to pick apples. This year was different!

We went up for the day and ate apple doughnuts and apple pie and just poked around the beautiful little town.

October and Halloween






A few days before Halloween we went to a pumpkin patch to pick out a few pumpkins. On Halloween Matt carved while Nora Lee and I watched.

That night we took Nora Lee trick-or-treating and we all had a blast. No one trick-or-treats in our neighborhood so we went to a nearby one where tons of kids go. The houses were all decorated and there were children running everywhere! At first Nora Lee didn't understand what was going on, although she loved that there were so many kids around.

She was in her little pirate costume and carried a tiny metal bucket. We walked up to the first house and said "trick or treat" and they put candy in her bucket. It took a few houses but Nora got the hang of it and was really into it. We had to protect her a bit from the older kids running frantically from house to house, but it was a lot of fun.