Reed Chats and Nora Walks

So, it's a big night in our house!  Nora really walked!  Crazy!  She took a few steps last week, but only like one or two before sitting down.  Last night we got her to take a few more.  But tonight, she really did it on her own, and had direction.  And I got it on video!  Please ignore my annoying mom voice.

Nora also has a tooth actually coming in.  I've been saying for the last 5 months that "she's teething" but for real this time.  And funny, she isn't that grumpy about it!  I thought all those fussy times before were the teething, but then when she actually is teething - no biggy!  You can see it coming through if you watch her carefully, but she won't dare let you put your finger on it or hold down her lip to see it.  It's the lower left one.  I'm sure the next few are close behind.

And to top off all her growing up, she crawled herself to the top of the stairs today too!

Not to be outdone, Reed wanted to also show off his skills.  He insisted on being on film, I asked him some questions.

Well, that's my quick update, more later.
Cheers~

Cannonball!

What a busy weekend we ended up having!  Sparing you the boring details, I'll highlight.  We went to a friends house for dinner on Friday night, they have a pool in the complex.  They invited us to swim, though only Reed swam, Fogg did only cause Reed forced him.  Reed loved jumping in the pool over and over.  We taught him about a cannonball, he picked it up immediately!

 Saturday was spent running around the morning, getting some things done before we wanted to go to join James and Michelle on their boat up at the lake.  We looked at a pop up trailer camper, got tint on my new car, ran a few other little errands.  Then we headed up to the lake to have some fun in the lake water.  It was a little breezy which kept the heat off really nicely.  Reed of course jumped in the water a million times.  We headed home in the late evening.  After a bath, the boys were watching some olympics and after I put Nora down to bed, I came upon this scene:

 Cute right?

Sunday ended with a trip to SLC to visit some friends who have a little boy right around Reed's age (a few months younger).  Sam and Reed look so much alike and enjoy doing the same things together.  Anyway, here they are playing in the basement on some bars. 

Monday, Nora turned 10 months old!  Can you even believe it? She weighs about 19 pounds already, a little chunker!  She is standing a lot these days, she will let go of whatever furniture she is holding and stand for quite some time before grabbing again or sitting down.  Won't be long before she is walking I bet.  She puts everything in her mouth, everything.  She loves jewelry of any kind at all.  She crawls everywhere, pulls up on everything.  For the most part, she sleeps good at night, unless of course she is sick, which is more often than not.  Poor girl.  In fact, yesterday she had to get put on a nebulizer cause she is struggling a little in her lungs from coughing so hard.  It's already making a difference.  My favorite thing is first thing in the morning when I come to get her up, she is usually just sitting in her crib, playing with her blankets and stuffed animals and she coo's and smiles at me when I come in.  Well, maybe my ultra favorite thing is when she snuggles her head in when I'm holding her.  She isn't gravitating to any specific toys yet, but in true baby fashion, her favorite things are remote controls or phones.  Not play ones, real ones only.  She sure does love her stuffed animals and blankets (de-de) as Reed does. 

Oh, and we ended up buying the pop up trailer so we can go camping and such.  It was a killer deal and we are really looking forward to going camping as much as we can.  It'll be great with the kids and I have a feeling we will get a lot of use out of it.  

Cheers~

Ugh

So yeah, that's how I've been feeling the past week or so.  Ugh.  I know I haven't posted for quite some time - sorry about that.  To say my life is busy is an understatement!  Since I last wrote, it's been super busy both at work and at home.  I feel like I'm crazy busy at work, then I get home to more craziness.  I feel like I barely have time to tread water let alone get ahead of anything.  I try my best to always enjoy the parts of life that are the best though - my family.  Laundry, cleaning and all that stuff can wait (and apparently does!).

Exciting news - got a new car!  We happened to find a car that works perfectly for me and it was a steal!  It's another Honda Civic and though it's not technically "new", it's pretty darn new.  It is a 2011 silver civic LX that was rear ended with only 2,000 miles on it.  It had to get a salvage title, so it was super cheap - half the price of a new car but basically new.  You could count 2000 miles as almost test drive miles.  It still smells like a new car and everything is super nice on it.  So we snapped it up and sold our old Honda all within 5 days - sweet!  I'm loving driving it, it just feels so smooth.  Oh, also it's a manual transmission, so that makes driving kinda more fun.  

I had to attend a work trade show last week and weekend, so that probably contributed to my feeling of UGH.  I'm looking forward to a weekend of not working and taking a day off next week hopefully so I can catch up a little.  

So on to some pictures.  Reed got a hold of the camera the other day and here is a sampling of his pictures.  I went ahead and removed the pictures of carpet, walls and his fingers, giving you the ones with a bit more content.  Mom took the first two.

^ This one is fairly artistic

 ^ Picture of pictures - whoa!

I've also got on my list of things to do (which seems to grow even though I check things off of it) is to update the kids baby books and such.  I wanted a picture of Nora with one of her favorite people - Miss Max.  Max is Nora's primary caregiver at school and they just love each other to death.  This is this morning, Nora giving Max hugs.  Max is from England, wonder if Nora will have an accent?

One of our activities last weekend was Ava's 3rd birthday party.  It was just the four little friends which made it so much fun, a lot less chaos.  I had fun hanging out with my friends there too!  These four little munchkins are just the cutest and I love that they are all growing up together.

Reed, Ava, Liam and Jane

 

 

 ^ This picture is just adorable to me!

 We went to a friends house for dinner on Sunday night.  It rained a little while we were there and on our way home we say this double rainbow!  It was so bright - sorry the picture sucks.

Other shenanigans happened over the past few weeks.  Reed put grapes in his cheeks and we all laughed really hard.

 Reed loves his slip and slide

 Well, that's it for now, sorry for the craziness of my post, it's how my brain is working these days!

Cheers~

24th, Tubes, Pics and T-shirts

 Here are the happenings from the past week.  We had the 24th of July here in Utah, Nora got tubes and we had a busy weekend, as usual. 

If you aren't from around the Utah parts, you may not know that the 24th of July is a big deal.  It's Pioneer Day!  It's the day that the pioneers (actually when Brigham Young's party) arrived in Utah and he declared that Salt Lake is "the place".  So basically to me, it's Fourth of July round 2.  Fireworks, BBQ's, parades and celebrations are done for a second time!  Anyway, because it's not a national holiday, I don't get it off work, neither does Fogg.  But my daycare does!  So mom graciously stayed with the kids and took them to the park across from our house for the annual festivities.  In the park, they do a balloon drop, where they fill up a hot air balloon, float it up a couple hundred feet then throw candy out.  Kids go running for it.  There are also games and other activities at the park. Mom stayed there all morning with the kids.

 Nora naps while Reed watches the balloon fill up.

 

 Reed also played in the sand at the playground.

 And did the big water slide!  Here he is going up...

 And coming down!

 Mom said that Reed was the smallest kid doing it by far, and he did it several times.  He was freezing and shivering but he still waited in line for his turn!  We've got a little water boy on our hands.

Nora got tubes in her ears on Thursday.  It was so not a big deal - which is awesome!  They never had to give her an IV or anything so for her it was almost a non-thing.  We had to be there super early in the morning, they had us put this little gown on her.  Isn't she so cute?

 Anyway, it all went fine.  They took her back at 8am and we were walking out at 8:30am.  She was grumpy after she woke up from the anethesia but after a short nap, she was happy and normal the rest of the day!  I really hope this helps with the ear infections in the next year or so and that she is happier.  She already seems to hear a little better and have better balance.

I also did a little photo shoot with the kiddos.  I don't have any new pics of them, so I needed to get an update.  Plus, Nora's little outfit is so cute, had to take pictures of it.  So here are some updated pictures of the kids.

Nora got this shirt, a pink version of the same shirt Reed had around the same age.  I had to try to duplicate and I didn't do too bad!

 Ready for ski season!

3 Hour Tour

We got to borrow a boat all day on Saturday.  We had a great time hanging out with friends, playing in the water.  As you can see, Reed loved jumping in and swimming.  Well, his swimming is more like running under water.

He pretty much did that ALL DAY LONG.  I'm sure he jumped in and climbed out at least 100 times.  Crazy kid!  Not surprisingly, he completely conked out on the short boat drive to the ramp to pull out.  He was sitting straight up in the chair and just fell over asleep.  The rest of us enjoyed the water a fraction of what Reed did, but still had fun playing and staying cool.  There were lots of floating things to play with, even a waverunner to play on for a few minutes.  We watched a wakeboard contest for a few minutes but mostly we ate food, drank beer and played in the water.  Nora even got in a couple of times and she seemed to enjoy it as well.  We got a little floating thing for her and she would kick her legs and splash and just watch.  Not a cry out of her about it, she seemed to like it a lot.  Here are some more pics of the day.

A Big Day

Friday was a big day in the Fogg household.  Nora turned 9 months old and Reed earned himself a new Lightening McQueen toy for going a full week with no accidents (potty training)!  Because the kids had their well-check's that day, I just took the day off and got together with a few of my friends and the kids.  We met at Kaytee's house and let the kids play in the water toys that we had. 

 

I love how the picture below is total chaos.

 Ben just chilling.  I love how he was standing, just a cool guy.

 The three year olds decided to wear these star rings on their heads.  You can see Reed on the left, Liam is on the right, Jane is kinda hiding behind him.

Nora is a big 9 month old!  What a cutey girl!  She has a big bruise on her cheek from a crash against a side table on Monday.  As I was wrapping up this photo session, she fell again and got a matching one above her right eye.  

 As you can see, she is on the move.

 And grabbing everything.

 There she goes!

 Now she is back.

 See the bump on her neck?

 She does this all the time, stand up on everything!

 

 

 

And here is Reed enjoying his new toy (he wouldn't stay still for a picture so I had to take an action shot).  So he said to me last weekend "where is my big Lightening McQueen?".  He only has one, and it's the size of a matchbox car. I told him that if he used the potty all week, I would get him a new "big" one.  Well, he did it!  So I took him to the store after our water party and he picked out the big "LaQueen".  Let it be noted it was a $25 McQueen!  I tried to get him to get the clearance one, but nope he wanted the big one.  Had to keep my promise!  This week he working to earn a new spiderman that he picked out (only $4!). 

 

Saturday was our friend Michelle's 30th birthday.  Her hubby threw a fun 80's theme party, here we are dressed all kinds of 80's.  Fogg and James had it down, as they remember the time.  Pretty sure this is what both of them wore back then for real.

That's what I've got for the day, catch up later~