Happy Birthday to Daddy!

Daddy celebrated his 33rd birthday this week by working. Good thing Alena and Nora came through with this fancy apron when he got home. Alena also helped make a mint cake and carefully placed the candles. On a less festive note, nothing makes you feel your age more than solicitation from a funeral home about advance purchasing of your funeral services. Thanks Cedar Memorial.

Cake balls

Alena, Daddy and I made cake balls for Valentine's Day. Alena helped in every step of making them. I think they turned out pretty well--we made nearly 100 and took them to work and daycare and they were gobbled up.

Stirring in the frosting

Sampling the mix

Alena put the sprinkles on every single ball

Alena thinks that smiling for the camera should always include squinting her eyes shut

Nora's poses

Nora is too busy now to smile at the camera. She doesn't like to look up from what she is working on for anything!

The little tooth

She is very secretive of the new tooth. Look closely.

Nora finally has a tooth!

I was starting to think it would never pop its pearly head out, but Nora's bottom right tooth has finally appeared! I swear it wasn't visible this morning but was at lunch. It didn't seem to bother her at all and she is happy as usual. She is 9 1/2 months old.

Sunday we went sledding down the icy alley. It was Nora's first time on the sled. She liked it as long as she was going very slow. Alena, on the other hand, requires speed! The wheel tracks in the alley made a good luge track for her. Monday she made a snow family with Daddy. They are almost melted away today after the stretch of really warm weather.

Snow

After a dry December and one of my only green birthdays, the snow has begun to fall. Friday all of the schools let out early and we celebrated the snow day with snow ice cream. We collected clean snow in a bowl and added sweetened condensed milk. Ben and I liked it, and while Alena did say it was yummy, she still prefers good old fresh snow eaten outside. Saturday only got up to 18 degrees, but there was no wind so Alena got her eating snow request. It was so fluffy that she brought a spoon to assist her in her efforts.

Snow ice cream

Off the charts!

Nora's stats at 9 months: 25 3/4 inches, 14 lbs, 11 oz. No surprise to me, she has dropped off the always exciting growth chart for weight. The doctor was quizzing me on her food intake (clearly she is malnourished) when I pointed out she is only 4% for height and perhaps she is just small like her mom. Social services was not not called...this time. We are putting her on a steady diet of cookies and Cheetos so she can be considered healthy.

What Nora lacks in size, she makes up for in ambition.

My birthday

We enjoyed a relaxing evening for my birthday. Ben made a healthy vegetarian meal, then finished it off with the richest cake ever. Ben and Alena made this flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream and raspberries. It was delicious!

Alena was savoring her cake. This was the first time in history where I beat her in finishing dessert. She was so busy saying, "mmm, mmm," it slowed her down.

Nora has a little raspberry on her cheek. She wasn't allowed to eat any cake, but she did get a raspberry. She was not impressed.

I did get a lot of help opening presents.

Grandma Dee turns 39

Angela's family came down for a surprise party for Grandma Dee's birthday. There was a spread of delicious food and a pile of presents as well. We had to tell a variety of lies to keep her off the scent but I think we pulled off the surprise! As a bonus, we got to spend New Year's Eve with the whole family. The kids made confetti and tossed it in the air at midnight (9:30.) Even Baby Nora stayed up for the festivities.

The kids were very helpful in opening birthday gifts.

Grandma gets ready to tear into her cake. She looks pretty good (Lily styled everyone's hair.)

The only quiet from these three all night.

My Christmas present

Nora's Christmas

Nora had a good first Christmas. She was mostly occupied with crawling to little pieces of paper so she could try to eat them. She drooled on one of Alena's presents and got it so wet Alena refused to open it. She at least was well dressed in Christmas attire.

Nora is always trying to climb as high as possible.

Santa brought some balls, just as Nora asked!

Eating a bow

Grandma Dee could hardly pass up this cute little dress for Nora's first Christmas!

Alena Christmas photos

Alena had a good Christmas. A couple of her gifts were finger puppets, a trampoline, a monster game, and a Little People zoo. Her favorite gift from Santa seemed to be a box of cereal. She said he made it in the North Pole. We celebrated with Grandpa Ed, Grandma Dee, Julianne, Sam, Kristina, and Great-grandpa Harold on Christmas Eve. We had Christmas dinner with Grandpa Steve, Grandma Diane, Melissa, Andrew, Tillie, Lucie, Gisele, and Benge. After opening presents at Grandma Diane's house Christmas afternoon, Alena said that there were too many toys and she couldn't decide what to play with. When we got home what new toy did she want to play with? Dr Bear and Other Bear (why did we get her new toys?)

Daddy, you be Santa, I'll be Santa's Elf. They played that game every night this month. To bad for Daddy the Christmas Little People went back into storage until next year.

Looking pretty in a dress handed down from Lily.

Standing

Nora is really into standing. She pretty much only crawls to get to something to pull up on. I bought a new box of diapers and thought she might like to use the box for standing. I didn't count on her figuring out that she could stand up and push it around the living room. What fun!

Of course the other reason she crawls is to get to me. If I go into the kitchen she is immediately upset and crawls to come find me. She likes playing best if she is in constant physical contact with me. Her other big trick that she is up to is more tongue action. She rolls her tongue and spits drool, points it out, and sucks on everything (Alena said that Nora gave her little people Santa a bath.)

Cousins in matching outfits

Grandma Diane made matching outfits for the girls. Don't they look sweet!

The big girls

The little big girls (they were not in the mood to smile, obviously)

Nora makes a break for it...

So she can work on her standing!

Santa Claus

Alena has visited Santa 4 times this year. Whenever she sees him, she needs to sit on his lap. So far she has visited him at both malls and our traditional Hy-Vee Santa stop. She is unwavering with her requests: finger puppets for herself and a ball for Nora. Nora has sat on his lap as well. She focuses mostly on tugging on his beard to see if it is real.

The big shot's first ride in the basket of a shopping cart. Now we will finally get to put Hy-Vee's giant carts with room for two kids to use.

Decorating Christmas trees

We decorated our big Christmas tree but first we warmed up with a gingerbread tree.

Alena chose to put all of the candy in the snow next to the tree. See the picture on the box? It was our inspiration.

Glass ornaments on the top, less destructible ones on the bottom.