Alena's first day of preschool

Alena started preschool today.  She will be going two days a week and gets to pack a lunch to eat with the other kids.  As soon as we walked into her classroom, she took a seat and started drawing.  She was so busy she barely had time to say goodbye. Her teachers, Ms Michelle and Ms Coralie, said she was helpful and listened to directions.  It was hard to get much out of Alena, but I did find out that some of the kids pretended there was a new baby.  Alena said everyone was a doctor, but she was a nurse because she was patient.  They went to the school's library for story time and she got to pick out a book to bring home.  And she ate all of her snack and her lunch.  When I asked if she was excited to come back next week she said she was.  

Nora and I, in the meantime, went through boxes of clothes so Nora would have pajamas that actually would fit her.  Nora didn't seem too concerned over Alena's absence, but I missed her!

Fashionista

Alena always picks out her own outfit in the morning and gets dressed by herself.  Fortunately, she only likes to wear sundresses so you don't have to worry too much about her putting together matching outfits.  Her accessories sometimes get a little crazy, though.  Yes, she is sporting a blond rat tail.

Funny Nora

Nora is a little more willing to eat when she can stand on a patio chair during the meal.  

The new "cheese" face.

Who let that baby run around without a diaper? 

Have a seat!  Nora always wants someone to sit on her bench with her.

And they call it puppy love

Nora is in love with her puppy.  If she sees him across a room, she exclaims, "puppy!" while running over to get him.  She is always excited to see him, and is just as enthusiastic whether it has been hours or seconds since she last held him.  Lately she has been carrying him around in her mouth and shaking him.  But it is done in love.  Whenever she hears a barking dog (which is constantly in our neighborhood) she says "puppy!"  When she sees one walking by, "puppy."  If a dog gets close to her she cries.  Real puppies should be enjoyed from a safe distance!

Taking turns with the Kindle.

August

Some things we have been up to this month:

Alena:  She goes by the name "Annie Alena Jensen Mae."  Inspiration, of course, the movie "Annie."  She does a great job of singing the songs and reenacting scenes.  "Let's play Annie," is her constant refrain.  Sometimes she takes a break to play with Barbies.  Today I thought I heard the mailman, so I asked Alena to look out the window to see if the mailman was walking to Kory's house.  She replied, "It's just some people putting in a new kitchen."  That sounded strange, so I went to the window and saw there was a van with a picture of a kitchen on it.

Nora: Loves playing Ring Around the Rosie.  As soon as we all fall down she is yelling at us to start again.  She still calls Daddy "Mama" and calls the cats "puppy."  She carries her stuffed puppy everywhere and every time she sees him she happily exclaims, "puppy!" 

 Everyone has a watering can to help Mommy water the flowers.  Nora watered the sidewalk.

 We call this the slide by slide.

Tooth number 7 is finally through on the bottom.  It is not easy to spot. 

Alena and Nora enjoy some splashing while washing their hands in a bucket.  This was due to Alena making a cake with flowers, basil, and mud.

Lake Superior, Augus 2012

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.