The Things She Pretends To Be In A Day...

Oh my goodness. Miss Nora pretends to be everything from SUPER Grover with the full on costume, to a simple Jessie from Toy Story because, she says, "I have the hat, Mom!" Miss Nora has such an amazing imagination. One that makes her a princess most days, and so many other characters. So often on the way home, she'll tell me what we're going to pretend to be as we leave school and start to drive.

I think the most wonderful thing about this age is her ability to see joy and imagination in every little thing. And, she's begun to READ. I got a few books on my Kindle Fire for her, and tonight we laid in bed and read the story of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, and she and I would alternate pages, and aside from big words like "ministers" or "attendance", she could read them all. Brian gets the credit for the reading, really...he's worked with her a lot to make it fun, and has done an amazing job. What fun this age is!

A Moment In Time

This is a moment in time. Not one that would mean much to most, even those close to me at first glance, but it was truly transformational. This is the moment when I received my "pin" as an RN. From a favorite instructor no less. My exam is tomorrow. I've studied a fair amount, but have tried to listen to the wisdom of the nurses who've gone before me who insist that I know what I know, and that I'll somehow be able to use my powers to deduce the right answers. I'll let you know how it goes.

One More Coast Pic

I had such a good time with my family last weekend, I wanted to share a few more pictures for the fossil record, and just say again how gorgeous and fun our day was at the Coast.

I just started my internship at a local hospital, and I'm almost finished with Nursing school. This weekend has been slow as Miss Nora has caught some bug that makes her fight it off with a 102.5* fever, which is fine as long as you give her Tylenol and Advil around the clock. But all is well.

Old Places, New Faces

We are at Cannon Beach, one of my very favoritist of favorite places on Earth. Miss Nora is so happy, and we had so much fun.

I haven't been here in ages. The history of this place is long and storied for me.

Suffice to say, to bring my girl, my dear husband, and myself to this lovely place and enjoy the day was nothing short of pure heaven.

Just because it's cute

Source: weheartit.com via DeAnne on Pinterest

Look What's Cookin', or, Valentine's Day, The Cinquetennial

Valentine's Day always freaks me out a little bit.

I've been married 12 years this year, so it's not that I'm newly single.

Maybe it's just that I haven't forgotten a few doozies that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Like some spectacular breakups...

...and some spectacular days that were pretty darn newsworthy if my life were printed in a newspaper, which thankfully for all of us it's not.

But there was a day five years ago today, after I'd had four of my five miscarriages, including losing my baby boy Jacob the year before...The Valentine's day in the midst of that winter of 2007 in Denver where we had something like 75 inches of snow and 7 back to back to back to back snowstorms, where the snow behind Carl's Italian place on West 38th Street in Denver was so deep that I plowed my Subaru into the snowbank to make a little room for us to park the car, and break the big news.


I had to tell my husband that I was pregnant.

Again.

Nothing so far had gone well for us in the baby-making department. In fact, we'd pretty much been abyssmal failures at what seemed so easy for everyone else around us.

But you know, good accidents happen sometimes, and I called my husband up and asked him what he'd like to do for dinner that Valentine's Day evening, he said we could go to Carl's, and so we did.

I thought, as I pulled the Subaru into the snowbank, that I would tell him outside in the car, so if he was going to cry or freak out (like I had been all day) that he could do it in privacy, and then we could decide about going in.

In the past with our first pregnancy or two, I'd done something cute to tell him the news, with the expectation that the pregnancy would go well.

Well, when you're pregnant for the fifth time, and you have no living children, the conversation starts more like this:

"Uh, honey? There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. I took a pregnancy test this morning and it was positive."

Silence.

He takes my hand. Starts saying really strange things like "It'll be ok honey. We'll get through this too."

Silence.

Prolonged silence.

Then he says:

"It's mine this time, right?"

And we dissolve into laughter, and of course I punch him.

Then he says "I was just trying to lighten things up a bit!"

It worked, and I punch him in the arm again.

"Yes," I say. "This time it is!"


Little did we know that in the next 7 months, I'd be laid off from my job...by the end of the year we'd move to Oregon, and sell our house in Denver (in that order). That I'd be hospitalized for five weeks with placenta previa, and our darling Nora girl would be born healthy and fine, even if she was a bit early.

Happy Valentine's Day to my bestest of the best friend, husband, companion and love of my life. He rides the waves that life tosses towards us and is that eternal voice inside my head that tells me "It's going to be OK".

I love you Bri.

Happy New Year!

Miss Nora and I took the train up to our in-laws house in the Seattle area, then got to see two of my brothers and Mom up in Bellingham too.

We had a very nice 5-week break from school...well, I took two of it off from school. The past three weeks since Christmas, I've spent at least a few hours a day getting ready for next term of school.

I'll be done in the spring, and am looking forward to it!

There will be a day when I can blog more.

Miss Nora is talking like a regular 4-year-old now, asking lots of "why's" and showing me what she knows. She'll ask if she can help and proudly tell me when "I can do it by myself!"

She can do 48-piece puzzles by herself, recently wrote her own name by herself, and is learning to read!



Nora has a cousin who plays in the University of Oregon marching band, so we watched the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and the parade that went before it, and saw her cousin. Nora was so taken with the whole thing, she made a "band hat" for herself and Bestema, and marched around the house with her kazoo and harmonica. She then asked if she could take her stuff to school, and we gathered all her musical instruments (she has many maracas and other little things to play) and she led a marching band at school.

That's about it from here! I haven't forgotten my blog, just haven't had a chance to do much with it, but we'll do it again soon.