Easter Fun

Despite fighting the tail end of a cold, Nora had a great Easter! She woke up to her first egg hunt and some bunny shaped pancakes. Then we dressed up and went to church. We were lucky to have Josh's brother and family visit for dinner, some egg dying, and yet another hunt. Nora absolutely adores her two cousins, so this was by far her biggest treat of the day. We tried to teach Nora of the reason for our Easter celebration which is the resurrection of our Savior. It is thanks to Him that we have hopes of a bright future with our family and Heavenly Father.

Happy Easter!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

We usually make a bigger deal out of holidays, but I'm embarrassed to admit it, I almost completely forgot St. Patrick's Day this year! Nora and I did manage to make some shamrock sugar cookies, though. It takes all the patience that I can muster to get through such an activity with an almost two year-old. I choose not to think about all the raw egg she ingested in the process. Her diving across (and fully ON to) my newly floured surface to grab the green sprinkles almost did me in. I hope she had fun!

Easter Egg Hunt

Nora had her first egg hunt of the year on Saturday at the church. It took her a little while to get the idea, but once she did, she was able to come away with, drum roll, please... one egg. I grabbed a few that some of the kids were putting back because they had taken too many (there were supposed to be nine eggs for each child) so that she wouldn't feel bad when she saw how many the other kids had found. Needless to say, she was thrilled to discover that the egg she found was filled with candy. What could be better? Nora has the biggest sweet tooth I have ever seen. She wakes up from her nap almost every day talking about candy. Does that mean she was dreaming about it too?

makin' pizza

We went to a very cool mothers' group activity today at a pizzeria that allowed the kids to make their own pizzas and watch them go through the oven (is it starting to seem like all of our posts are somehow about food?)

chocolate dipped baby

For an after church treat yesterday, Josh and I decided to do some chocolate dipping. Nora was in heaven. This was the first time she was actually allowed to have as much as she wanted of something deliciously sweet (except maybe on her birthday) and she ate an amazing number of these huge chocolate covered strawberries. I justified it somehow because afterall, deep down inside they were only strawberries...

It's a...

I thought for sure we were having another girl. It takes a big person to admit when you're wrong and this time I was. Our ultrasound on friday clearly showed a little BOY! Nora wasn't sure about what she was seeing on the monitor screen but at gym class walked proudly up to her teacher and announced "I am getting a baby brother!" I was so proud of her. We are thrilled with the news and are a little relieved to have only one name to figure out instead of two this time! (with Nora we didn't know we were getting a girl until the day she was born) Only 20 weeks to go!

Nora's first Sleep-Over!

One of Nora's adorable friends is getting a baby sister so we got to take her for the night. The girls have had an absolute blast. The only hard part was getting them to sleep! Josh thought it was a good idea to put them in the same room. For a about an hour we kept hearing them singing and talking to each other "do you want to sing that song, the itsy bitsy spider?" "Do you have your bear?" "My jammies have hearts" and kicking, screaming and laughing. It really took me back to my sleep-over days except what I remember saying to my friends at night was "truth or dare?"

A Day at the Zoo!

I couldn't believe when it got up to 45 degrees on Monday. We hit the zoo! Nora loves animals with a passion that has no end. I'm putting my favorite picture first. Nora was pretending to be the sleeping wolf. A lot of the cages said it was too cold for certain animals to be out, but we still got to see quite a lot- including a cougar fight! Nora's favorites were the reindeer, river otters and llamas (whom she stood and talked to for about 10 minutes before I could pull her away).

Gym Class

I signed Nora up for a gym class to beat the cold this winter. I felt like she needed some more opportunities for exercise and socializing on days that we wouldn't normally leave the house except maybe to hit the grocery store or mall and it's way too cold to play outside (for me anyway...) It's been a big hit. Nora loves her class and has made all sorts of new friends and skills there. Check her out!