The North Shore

Last week we went to the north shore of Lake Superior with the whole Ossman crew.  Alena's highlight: eating s'mores every night at the campfire.  We also swam, biked, kayaked, hiked by a waterfall, ate wild raspberries, and threw a lot of rocks into the lake.  Alena and Lily somehow managed to put together matching outfits everyday (and every night.)  Nora was too little to do everything that the big kids did, but she did enjoy trying to eat rocks.  And she was even included in a game of tag with the cousins and two other kids staying next door!
 

Two of our condo neighbors witnessed Ben setting up the timer on the camera and took pity on us.  I think Alena had a little more fun than it looks. 

Come on, Alena.

 

Nora's 15 month update

Nora had her 15 month check up today.  The doctor said that everything looks good!  Her stats are 29 1/4 inches and 18 pounds, 1.5 ounces.  She has rocketed up to the 15th percentile in height, though she continues to stay off the weight charts.  She burns calories like they are going out of style as she doesn't understand the concept of sitting still.  Nora continues to be a very loud and demanding eater and will express her displeasure if you forget to give her a fork to eat with.  This weekend she clearly said "milk" for the first time.  But mama and uh-oh continue to be her favorite words.

Alena and Nora play dress-up.

 

Nora successfully got both of her shoes on tonight all by herself!

Nora takes puppy and the magna doodle for a walk. We might have the two sweatiest kids ever.  Though in their defense, they were playing outside in the playhouse tonight.  It was still 100 degrees at 7 pm.

Sharing

Look out, Nora is at the wheel!

 

 

Nora loves sharing her zucchini bread with Alena.

Ta daa!

More summer fun

The girls burned off a little energy at the park after the temperature dropped under 90 degrees.

 

The one thing the two can agree on is that pillow piles are fun.  Alena used this as an opportunity to "accidentally" jump on Nora.  Which Nora thought was funny.

Daddy took them to the splash pad to cool off.

Loud Nora

Nora loves building and knocking over towers.  And laughing very loudly.  She has a strong sense of justice and is quick to scream if she doesn't get her way.

Father's Day excitement

Father's Day started out well with Daddy playing golf with Grandpa Steve.  The real excitement was this evening when we got home.  Nora fell asleep in the car on the way home from Mama and Papa's house, so we came up with a plan of action to get her quickly to bed.  I used Ben's keys to open the door and prepare her bottle while Ben got her changed.  We got her to bed in record time!  It was such a pleasant night that Ben, Alena, and I were outside playing around.  It was getting pretty late and Alena had to use the bathroom, so Ben went to open the door.  Locked!  This is not the first time our door knob locked itself.  No problem, use the spare key.  Oh, yeah, that is locked inside the car, and the car keys are in the house.  We went around the house looking for a window that we forgot to lock.  Our house was locked up tight. We aren't cool enough to have smart phones, but I do keep a phone book in my car (which was not locked). Ben called the locksmith.  He said it was $70 for a house and $50 for a car and he could be there in under a half hour.  I threw a minor fit, Alena declared that she would sleep outside, and Ben continued looking for a window to open.  But the locksmith made it in under 10 minutes.  He laughed when we said the car keys were in the house and the house keys were in the car.  When he was opening the door with his air pressure cuff he said it was tight and we could drive it into a lake and it wouldn't leak.  Good news, I guess.  He had it open in no time, the car alarm sounded, and Ben grabbed the house keys and sprinted to the door so he could get the car keys to silence it.  Alena finally learned how to break into a car!  Nora slept through all of the excitement, fortunately.  How could you ask for a more fun day, right?  Thanks Fred's Lock and Key!

As Aunt Julianne can attest, don't count on getting a good picture of these two.  It is really a matter of settling for not super terrible.  This is the picture we put in a frame that Alena and Nora decorated for Daddy.

 

 

 

Beginning of June

June has started off with a bang.  Alena had hand foot and mouth disease which knocked her out for several days, then Nora got it which included the most disgusting looking blister on her sucking thumb.  Other than that she wasn't really bothered by it.  Now I am running a fever.  June has not been kind to our health so far.  But we have gotten some good playing in.

Nora loves playing with blocks.  She is getting good at stacking the square legos.  After she makes a little tower, she takes it apart and puts it right back together again.  She always makes this face when she is stacking.  This is Rapunzel's tower that the girls (and Daddy) were working on.  Alena is a pretty good sport about letting Nora help as Nora usually ends up destroying the tower eventually.

I came home sick from work to this scene.  The first dip of the season.

 

Baby on the move

Nora--good luck trying to keep this kid still for long!  She really only rests when she sleeps and would prefer to do everything while walking, including eating and bathing.  She has a great love of shoes and socks.  If she is not wearing them and sees some, she either tries to put them on herself or she brings them over to one of us to help her.  Her love of walking is probably equaled by her love of sleeping.  An hour after waking up from her 13 hour slumber she is usually ready for another 3 hours.

Nora has a couple of words that we can recognize:  Mama, dada, yeah, uh-oh, bye, meow, roar, nana (which can mean Nora or Alena.)

Alena is still her idol.  Nora tries to get kitty blanket every chance she gets.  Alena is a pretty good sport about it and keeps an eye out for Nora causing trouble.  The other day I was in the kitchen and heard, "Nora is drawing on the couch!"  Sure enough, Nora had a blue marker and was going to town.  When I asked Alena why she didn't stop her, she just laughed.

 

 

Alena models

 

 Alena came down the other morning and she had dressed herself for the day.  She decided to wear 3 skirts.  A modeling session followed.

 

We are so proud of Alena for giving up diapers at night.  She decided that she would rather get up to use the potty when she needed to and was successful as soon as she put her mind to it.  Wow, that was a lot easier than I thought!  If she has to go in the middle of the night she does it by herself without any help!

 Poor Alena has been sick the past few days.  The other night at 3 am we heard her door open.  Fearing the worst (that she had, or was going to throw up) Ben and I both sat up in bed.  She came in and said she wanted to finish her apple juice (that she started before bed) and was in a very chipper mood.  After drinking the juice and asking Daddy some very important questions such as, "Why do you stand up while you pee?" she was sent back to bed.  Where she had turned her pillowcase into a sleeping bag because it was "cozy and warm."  She was running a fever during the day which led her exclaiming, "I'm as cold as an iceberg!"  Hopefully she feels better soon.

May

Poor Jones.  Sometimes it can be hard to find a warm lap to relax on.

Such a sweet girl!

Forced into playing peek a boo.

Nora waited several days to exact her revenge.  Alena was taking a rare nap on the floor and Nora went over and repeatedly tried to step on her head.

 

Nora now thinks she is old enough to jump on the trampoline.  She has her muscle shirt and parachute pants on so she will be comfortable during the workout.

Hanging out in the crib

When Nora wakes up from her nap, Alena likes to climb into her crib with her.  This afternoon Nora woke up and was playing music on her mobile when Alena came in to jump around.  Nora is pretty much 100% walking now.  Really more like running.  When she plays it mostly consists of walking back and forth across the room.  She doesn't even like to sit down to play--everything should be done while walking!  And she really loves her shoes.  If she is not wearing them, she is carrying them over to Mommy or Daddy to have one of us put them on her.

Four teeth--the other top tooth has finally dropped far enough so she looks less lopsided.

Someone is in the doorway...

Daddy is home from work!

Muffins

Alena and I made some chocolate chip banana muffins this morning.  Nora wasn't as dainty eating them as she was her birthday cake.
 

Baby Aunt Kristina is peeking around the corner!

 

The pooping monster

Alena came down this evening when she was supposed to be sleeping.  The reason:  the light turned off on her ladybug and when it is dark the pooping monster poops on your eyes and you can't see.  Which isn't nice of the pooping monster.

One-year-old walker

What does a 16 pound, 14 ounce, 27 3/4 inch one-year-old look like when walking?  She looks really cute!  Nora likes to do the majority of her walking practice at night.  I think she is doing a pretty good job with only a week of practice.  Other big news is that her blocked tear duct finally cleared up.  She was scheduled to have a procedure to have it unblocked last week,  but two weeks before it her tears spontaneously started draining on their own.  Her eyes look even prettier without the gunk. 

Happy birthday Nora!

The big day came and went, but not without some excitement. We had a party with grandparents and two aunts. Nora tried some cake but didn't really go as nuts as we thought she would over it. A couple of highlights of gifts she received were a new cell phone and a shiny bow on top of a package. The real excitement came as the party was winding down--Nora walked back and forth from Mommy and Daddy repeatedly (some while talking on the cell phone.) What a way to end a birthday party!

Excuse me, I have to take this call. Dadadadada.

Nora's wall of fame. Look how much she has grown!

Cake consultants were on hand.

That was good, but let's get to walking!

Fisherwoman

Daddy recently decided to give fishing a try, and Alena has gone with him a couple of times. She caught a "big mouth bass" out of Grandpa's pond and we fried it up for supper and it was really good. The only bad thing is, she didn't have the proper gear. She refused to use the little black pole that Mommy used as a kid because it wasn't pink. We were at Cabela's this week when she saw a Disney Princesses fishing pole. She took it off the rack and was carrying it around. When I told her that we needed to put it back, she told me, "Don't take it away from me." Well, I guess we were feeling crazy, so we let her get it. She got a couple of sparkly rubber worms for the fish to eat which she played with for about an hour on our way home. She has been practicing casting and reeling in a weight in the backyard. When she reeled it in, she declared it was a keeper and let everyone eat some of it

Alena and Papa Ed at the fishing derby.

It's a keeper!