Slideshow Catch Up!

Sorry I've Been Missing...But...NEMO!

I'm sorry I've gone missing on blogging for a while.

It's been busy...lots of family stuff to add here, and lots of things to do. Brian and I have worked on the house, kept Nora pretty darn well entertained, and awash in new and used stuffed animals!

I don't know how many people have kids who insist that they AND their greeters in the morning (whether it's me, Bestema or Brian) say HELLO, KISS, and LOVE UP EVERY SINGLE TOY in their crib, but that's precisely what Nora does.

And in recent weeks, she latched onto the movie "Finding Nemo" so it's been on a few times (read: 20) and today, Brian and I crowned her collection with the piece of resistance: The Finding Nemo plush doll.

Nora and I have taken a couple of trips to Goodwill in recent weeks, resulting in the addition of Winnie The Pooh, Minnie Mouse, and Sully (the blue monster from Monsters Inc.) to her burgeoning collection.

So Finding Nemo was a bit of a challenge, but I got him on Amazon for cheap, and had it shipped here and waited for Brian to be home to give it to her.

She has done NOTHING but drag the fish around, repeating his name past the point of me worrying if she *might* have a few of Mommy's obsessive tendencies, and crying if he goes out of sight.

He even went with us in the car on the way to the fountain, and she death-gripped him in the midst of 100* heat, yelling "NEMO! NEMO! NEMO!" most of the way there and back.

Life, as she knows it, is perfect, good, and made up of a Clown Fish.

Roof Work...Made FUN!

Laying Around In The Grass

Brian and I had a VERY productive weekend around the house -- Brian painted a bunch of the trim, including the garage door, and we only have one side of the house trim to do up high before it's done.

Meanwhile, I cut back a bunch of the bushes, took a few dead things out, and trimmed roses until my forearms were scratched up. I even trimmed the fruit tree so we can walk under it with the lawn mower without losing an eye from the branches.

It's amaazing how much better everything looks when you clean it up. Most people probably wouldn't even notice, but we do!

Nora spent a lot of this weekend playing in the yard too. She brought a lot of her stuffed animal friends out and played with chalk on the back porch.

And yesterday, after her bath and all our work was done, she pretended to go to sleep in the grass, laying down with her friends Cookie Monster and Pooh. It's amazing how her ability to play is expanding and becoming more creative -- like feeding her stuffed animals and having them kiss each other goodnight.

The shirt she's wearing in this picture is one a friend of my parents made for me when we lived in Taquara, Brazil. I was 3 or 4 at the time, and it was hand-painted and my name "Julie" was painted on it too.

I was always a dark haired, dark eye-ed kid, so I thought it was kind of neat that the shirt fits Nora, and the image on the t-shirt is more like her than it ever was of me!

Seattle Trip

This past Tuesday, Nora and I drove up with Bestema and Miriam to Gig Harbor, where we visited for a few hours before going to spend the night at a friend's house.

Nora got to play with Aunt Jill, cousins, and more cousins for quite some time before we left.

Nora's cousin Tian even showed Nora how to ride a "Razor" -- a skinny skateboard thing with handlebars. Nora liked it so much, and Tian took her around and around the driveway!

When I got home, I bought her a helmet...just in case a Razor is in our future!


Nora and I then went to my friend Cheryl's house. Brina (far left) was visiting from New York, and Cheryl, Cindy and I all met her with all our kids except Cheryl's for a morning at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

This one is of Brina's daughter Carter, and Cindy's daughter Alyssa. It's so fun to see a couple of 4-5 year-old girls interacting...they took just a little while to warm up, but they all did great!

Nora had a blast at the zoo -- and played for some time in the Zoomasium, an indoor children's play area. This girl LOVES her slides!!!

Afterwards we went to Peter, Sarah & Odette's house and hung out with them in the afternoon, and spent the night before heading home in the morning.

Nora saw I was packing the car that morning and started saying "BYE! BYE! BYE!" LONG before I was ready to leave.

Her talking is coming in leaps and bounds now...she is also not only hugging and kissing her stuffed toys, but she tries to feed them her snacks and makes them "kiss" each other now too.