Nora's Frozen Party

Nora's third birthday is today.  Three whole years old.

We are in awe of our little girl every day.  She is so stinking smart, so very independent and makes us laugh almost every single day.  She loves her brother, she loves the movie Frozen, wants to be a baby when she grows up, and loves math.  She is either super happy or super grumpy. We love having this little girl in our family.  She has her daddy wrapped around her pinky finger.  He acts tough but she can win him over pretty quickly.  She really does know every letter and number and color, loves to sing songs and is starting to play a lot with her babies.  I love her smile and her little giggle is about the best sound ever.

This morning, she was mad at me for "not getting her" and asked to come snuggle in bed with me.  So we did and I said "happy birthday!".  She said thank you and that two year olds are babies and she is now a big girl.  Then Reed crawled in bed too and they gave each other hugs after he told her happy birthday.  Then she got grumpy and didn't want to go to school.  They made her a big banner and I brought Frozen cupcakes for her to share with her class.  Reed wanted to come have a cupcake with her in her class so hopefully they do that for them both.  Nora cried when I dropped her off and was asking for "Reed-o" (that's what she calls him).  Sweet girl.

Day she was born

1 Year Old

2 Years Old

3 Years Old

Nora asked for a Frozen party for her birthday.  We invited her friends that are around the same age.  She is jumping on the tramp with her friend Addi (her twin from school).

 Her Frozen cake

Lala gave Nora a fantastic Frozen themed gift.  It was a roller bag filled with Frozen stuff.  She literally gasped when she opened it.  Loves loves it.

I wished I had caught it on camera, but she had this "O" face almost every time she pulled something new out.  She was in little girl heaven.

This afternoon we are going to the pumpkin patch and a few more gifts from us.  More pics tomorrow I'm sure!

Happy Birthday Baby Princess!

First Real Haircut

Well, my baby girl might just not be a baby anymore.  Fogg has been asking me to cut Nora's hair for at least a year if not more.  I just couldn't stomach that thought of her hair being cut.  Dumb, I know but it's just my thing ok?

Anyway, Nora's hair has grown and grown, but the ends were starting to get a bit snaggly and needed a trim.  I've been cutting her bangs for a while now, but never the back. I had to take Reed to get a trim, so I thought, I'll do Nora's too!

She didn't really want to do it, until we walked into the salon and then she was like "I want a hair cut".  She didn't have any emotion at all during the whole appointment but she also didn't cry or have any issues.

Before:

After:

Cute girl! She is a big almost 3 year old now - no more paci's, diapers, bottles. And most importantly, I did ok with the haircut, no meltdown for mommy!

Lately

The above picture is sort of special to me.  Here is why: There is no changing pad on top of that dresser and there is no diaper pail next to it.  This is the first time since we were preparing for Reed's arrival that this room hasn't had either of these things.  That dresser has always had a changing pad on it.  But as we know from the previous post, times have changed.  I'm pretty excited about this fairly small thing in my life, it's very changing for me.

I also got to rearrange my purse/bag. What a joy to not carry around diapers.  Or to worry about making sure they are always there just in case.  I am finding stashed diapers everywhere now!  The diaper pail outside the front door is gone too!  Nora is only in overnight diapers for accidents while she sleeps, which is not bad and we can take those straight to the can once a day.  Freedom!

We were without Fogg this week as he was in Maine for his grandmother's memorial.  We got to have a dinner with Nana and Papa because the kids have been asking for them lately. 

Nora just loves her Nana.

They both love when Papa tells them stories.  Here he is telling them some story and showing pictures on his phone.  They were mesmerized.

I got the kids new fun Halloween PJ's.  They glow in the dark which is kinda fun.  Too bad I couldn't get a picture of it.  But I wanted to do a before picture and here they are.  I just love how Reed leaned in to his sister.  They just love each other!  After this picture, they insisted on sleeping in the same bed so that they wouldn't be lonely.  Adorable.

Next up is Nora's birthday - 3 years old!  Crazy!

Bye Bye Diapers

We are so so proud of Nora!  She uses the potty now!

We've been talking about and occasionally asking Nora about potty training.  She is sometimes interested, sometimes not.  She would pee every once in a while but overall, she just liked her diapers.  Fogg and I decided one day, though she wasn't completely on board, to just dive in.  We asked her every 20-30 minutes to sit on the potty, made a big deal of peeing and encouraging "no accidents".  We bribed her with whatever she wanted as a prize if she would poop in the potty - she chose an Olaf (the snowman from the movie Frozen).

That first Saturday she did great, not one accident but she only peed.  That Sunday morning she pooped - on the floor.  We kept at it though and the next day, she was in the bath and stood up quickly and said, "I have to poop!".  So we pulled her out and sure enough, she did it!  We were all so excited - including Reed - and made a big deal.  She sort of just stared at us like "that was it? that's all going potty is? no big deal!".  And from then on, every single time she has used the potty.  She earned her Olaf and is so proud of herself.

She even once got out of bed one night, pooped in the potty, got back into bed and went to sleep.  I found it the next morning.  She didn't even feel like she needed to tell us about it, she just did it cause that's what you do now.  We have had just a couple of pee accidents when she sort of just forgets to go, but I'll take it!  It's been two full weeks now, I think it's stuck!

We are so very proud of our Nora.  Our lives are changed now, no more buying diapers (she still uses overnight diapers), no more changing poopy, no more toting them everywhere.

Showing off her new undies

Some other random photos:

Reed has been drawing a lot lately.  I mean he always does but he is drawing things for people, cutting them out and passing them out.  

Above, London is showing off his personalized drawing.

Below, Reed decided to draw Mickey Mouse.  He did this all by himself then stated "do you  know how I knew how to draw Mickey? I watched the show and drew it to look the same". 

 Some he keeps for himself.  This is his little gallery that has cropped up on the wall next to his bunk bed.  He gets the tape out by himself and here you go!

And finally.  Oh our independent little girl. She was grumpy about something (can't remember what) and stuck her lip out.  She left it sticking out for several minutes.

Oktoberfest

One of our favorite things to do in the fall is to go to Snowbird to attend Oktoberfest.  They put on quite an event up there and we enjoy the food, beer and activities.  The weather this year was just beautiful!

We went with our good friends, the DesChamps.  They have a little girl, Alice, and are expecting twins in the new year.  Anyway, we had fun eating lunch, riding the tram to see the Alpenhorns, playing in the bouncehouse for the kids, eating waffles and getting balloon animals.  Reed was sort of grumpy all day as you can see by the pictures.  The balloon helped cheer him up a bit.

Fogg went out of town to attend to some family business (see below) and one of the mornings, this is what my bed looked like.  I don't like to share my bed, but at least they are darn cute!

After Fogg got home, he had a battle royal with Nora about eating dinner.  In this picture, she had a full mouth of chicken and wouldn't swallow it.  They started the stare down.  Dad eventually won.  We have made some changes to the whole dinner situation so that we don't do this any more.  One day, I will maybe share with you what we decided to do to change our lives - assuming it works out!

Well, Fogg was out of town because he went up to Maine to visit family and see his grandma who was not doing well.  We were told she was on her last days so he headed up there and she still hung out for another couple of weeks.  He left on a Wednesday, she passed on the following Monday.  She passed away a week ago, on September 8th.

Gram was well loved, a strong willed, great lady and we will all miss her.  She lived a long life, had 4 kids, 6 grandkids and 6 great grandkids.  Here are a few pictures of our trip up to Maine two years ago of Gram.

This is gram (in pink) with 3 of her kids, 2 of her grandkids, and 3 of her great grandkids.

4 Generations!  Gram, Dick (oldest son, second kid), Fogg (Mike), and Nora and Reed.

Gram with Fogg's parents and our kids.

And this is my favorite picture of Gram.  She didn't smile much for pictures so to capture this was great. And it's hard to get a 9 month old smiling has it's own challenges.  I just love this one!  Her great granddaughter, who is her namesake!

Ok, well off to the next week, Fogg is gone again on business this week, wish me luck!

First Day of Kindergarten

Reed's first day of Kindergarten is today!  He wasn't very excited a few weeks ago but he gained his excitement lately.  We got a new backpack and went back to school shopping which made him excited.  He kept asking in the past week about when he starts school.

Just Reed and I went Back to School shopping last Monday night.  We got him a haircut, went out to dinner and shopped for clothes and supplies.  We both had a blast!  He asked to have that special date each year and I'm happy to do it!

Last Thursday night was Back to School night.  We saw his desk in his new classroom, he got a box of supplies to keep at school, and a folder with some "homework" and info.  He thought it was awesome!

 I remember doing this as a kid in kindergarten! He made a little guy to look like him.  Could he be more of a typical white boy?  He made this completely on his own.

 Moving up classrooms means he leaves the previous teacher. We LOVE Miss Max!  She was Nora's first teacher, when she was only 12 weeks old.  Nora loves her still and Miss Max visited Nora every single day -still.  But she skipped up out of infants for the summer (and for a little while) and got Reed for the summer!  Reed began to love her just as much as Nora!  

 Nora had to say goodbye to her teacher Laura.  This school has such awesome teachers! 

 First day of school picture on the front porch!

 Doing some weird pose.

 I also treated them to First Day of School Donuts!

 Reed's new classroom.  How cute is this?

 Reed in his seat.

 How cute is this picture?  Love that adorable kid!

 Learning how the day will go.  They did roll call.  Miss Nila is Reed's teacher.  She said "you can say either 'here' or 'present' when I call your name.  It started with "here!", then a few kids said "present!".  Two kids said "president" and one kid said "turkey".  Luckily Reed chose to say present.

 All the little kids.  Reed is the second in on the left.

 One last sneaky pic before I left (yep, I was that parent!).  

I can't wait to hear how the day went and how he feels about it.  Now, I need to get on the track of helping him with his homework.  Yikes!