Returning

There has been plenty of action in our lives lately, though most of it has been of the 'hurry up and wait' variety. For those not in the loop, we put an offer in on a house and were accepted. For the past month we have been gathering files and signing papers, all the while keeping our fingers crossed that everything comes together before the April 30th deadline we've placed for ourselves in order to meet the tax credit eligibility requirements. Nora had just got the news that our loan as approved in the following picture:

Okay, just kidding. I'm not sure what she was so excited about when her dad took this picture, but it doesn't really matter. Quite adorable, don't you think? I recently had a revelation in the diapering department. Nora has been daytime potty-trained for quite some time, and for the last several weeks has woken up in the morning completely dry. We've been using disposables for months because (and this may be tmi for some readers) our cloth diapers were causing her to develop a rash everytime they got wet. (For those in-the-know moms out there- I tried stripping them a few times and finally gave up. I think I may need to use bleach...) However, since she wasn't actually getting the disposables wet, I felt like a huge polluter using them every night. So, after using a few of the old dipes for cleaning I realized that they were the perfect solution to my nighttime conundrum- how to not waste diapers but not leave the mattress unprotected. She's pretty excited about these thick cloth 'underwear'. (Yes, I am totally tricking my child into wearing a diaper. A step backwards? Maybe. At least she stays dry all night and is still diaper free during the day!)
And remember dear, sweet little Barkley? Well he had a little fun of his own on St. Patrick's Day after going through the trash. I had been making some St. Patty's Day treats for my book club and Bark found the remnants in the trash, then spread them all over the kitchen floor. He has little lovely themed 'beard' to prove it.
I'm sorry for such a random post, but I figured if someone was still reading this a month later you wouldn't mind! Seeing as there's a real holiday coming up, I might be convinced to bring out the camera and take more than one picture of the festivities. Maybe it will even be as lovely as last year's post. (Look at her cute little bum!) Happy Easter!

Fun With Nora

Going Away

This past weekend Shane and I took a trip to New Hampshire and... We didn't bring Nora. Crazy, right? We went to help celebrate our good friend Ben's thirtieth birthday. Rachael (finishing off her triple sow cow double lutz turny-thingy in the above photo) planned a fantastic birthday weeekend in North Conway as a surprise for him and it really was great. It was nice to feel like a young couple again, though I'm not gonna lie, we both missed Nora and kind of wished she had come along. (But only kind of.)

It helped to have this cutie around to focus our attention on. Gavin is eighteen months now and SO cute. I'm not sure how I managed to snap this photo as he's always on the move, but I'm glad I did.

The whole weekend was a surprise for Ben, but the big night out was Saturday, when we all headed over to the local Flatbread Company of North Conway. It was good. Really good. Like, five pieces of pizza good. I even ate two slices with mushrooms and loved it. Two thumbs way up for the Flatbread Company. We have seriously been missing out on a local resource seeing as there's a Flatbread Company in Portland, only thirty minutes from us!

After the night out, we all went back to the rental house and spent the next three hours in a hilarious game of Guesstures pitting the girls against the boys. We won (of course) and poor Chris (Gavin's Dad) will never live down the performance he gave in that last round that clinched the game for the girls!
The next morning Shane and I headed out early to pick up Nora three and a half hours away. I pulled out the gazeteer and tried to find alternate routes home...

And Shane took the wheel. I love weekends away.

How was your weekend?

We're still here!

Believe it or not, I do still post things here on this blog now and then. I know, crazy, right? Even though it's the dead of winter around here, we've kept ourselves quite busy. The weeks pass by in a blur, full of work (and school for Nora) and weekends packed with fun. Last weekend we brought home Nora's first real bed (borrowed from my parents.) The transition has been amazing. She has spent every single night in it since Shane set it up. Granted, I have had to go in to soothe her on a couple of occasions, and have definitely fallen asleep there, but what can I say? The new mattress is WAY more comfortable than our ancient one.

We also took a hike up Bradbury Mountain this past weekend, and though it isn't much of a hike, it was great to catch up with family and friends. Barkley especially enjoyed getting outside and playing in the woods.

Shane and I took our token arm's reach photo. (Scroll down.)

Wylie was very intrigued with Hayley and Evan's new puppy, Ollie.

"Ooh!"

Ollie looks very serious here, don't you think?

The next picture warrants a bit of explaining. My Dad and Diana, a family friend, both have joint issues. Dad has two fake hips, with a replacement being scheduled to do yet another one, and Diana recently had ankle surgery and is just getting back into the swing of things. We weren't sure they would make it to the top, not because it was too strenuous a hike, but because the trail was quite slick, and even those of us on two sturdy feet didn't escape without a fall. (Me? No....) So you can see how surprised we all were when the two arrived at the top, no more so than Kalen and Nora, who promptly screamed a welcome their way.

Nora, of course, passed right out about two minutes into the car ride after the hike. She actually hiked up the mountain on her own, and hitched a ride on my back on the way down. What a sweetie!

And speaking of sweeties, here are my Valentine's roses from Shane. This is actually one of the first times he has gotten me roses- usually it is a wide variety of exotic flowers, or a cool potted plant, but this year he went the more traditional route. I don't mind! I've told him before that he doesn't need to get me flowers, because I usually forget about the poor things and they quickly die on me. In all honesty, I really don't mind that he ignores me!

For your viewing pleasure...

Just a couple videos of Nora doing her workout. These were taken before Christmas, but I just found them and thought you might enjoy. The noise in the background is the dvd I bought to work out at home with. Now and then Nora asks if she can watch it and I have to search for it. Obviously I use it a lot.

I warned you!

Well, I warned you all that a big Christmas post was coming, and amazingly enough I've finished it before Valentine's Day!

Christmas morning dawned bright and early, and we were even able to wake Hayley up in time to come downstairs with us. Usually it takes a little more effort to get her going, though from her expression in this photo, I wouldn't say she was completely awake.

When the kids finally were allowed to come downstairs and see what Santa had delivered, they were blown away.
A cat! A real cat!
Well, not a real cat, a Fur-real cat. My favorite kind of cat, actually. No claws, no shedding, no staring at a spot on the wall for long periods of time until you're totally freaked out and think the house is haunted. It's my kind of cat. (Can you tell I'm more of a dog person??)

And of course, shoes. Two new pairs, actually!

Here Nora tries out a sweet new drum she found on the floor.

Can you tell who it actually belongs to?

Shane made this awesome kitchen for Kalen at Tara's request. Nora enjoyed showing Wylie how to do some cooking.

Wylie showed Nora the 'downward facing Sylvia Plath'. Very impressive form, Wylie!

Obviously I didn't take many of these pictures, seeing as I'm in quite a few of them. Aunt Debbie was the photographer, thank goodness. I was much too busy hoarding my gifts and hoping to draw out Christmas until the new year. She caught a great shot of Shane opening his gift from me. I wasn't sure he would be that excited about it. Luckily I was wrong.

I bought him this print along with a gift certificate to get it matted and framed. If you're a Cosby show fan, you might recognize it as the painting hanging in their living room.

Nora also received a sweet keyboard. She's been rocking out quite a bit since Christmas. Drums next year?

Here I was showing Tara the necklace Mom and Dad had bought for me. Very fancy!

This was what the living room looked like for about four hours on Christmas morning. It was chaos, mostly controlled, and absolutely wonderful. I loved it.

As the tradition goes, Shane wrote me a scavenger hunt to find my present from him. Usually I search for it on Christmas Eve, but this year I convinced him to let me do it on Christmas Day, where I would have time and daylight on my side. I had just found one of the many clues hidden outside in this next picture. Unfortunately, this was not the farthest clue. I had to get in the car and drive for one, but it was better than last year, when I had to go and visit a friend down the road to get one of my clues!

My new snowshoes and poles are absolutely worth it, though. Thank you, Shane!

There you have it! Our Christmas in a nutshell.It was a wonderful few days spent with family, and though I'm always a bit let down when the season ends, I know it will be back again, sooner than I expect!

The first post of Christmas

Well, it only took five weeks or so, but here you go, another post. I've got plenty of pictures from Christmas to share, too, but I'll stretch them out over a couple posts. We made lots of Christmas cookies this year, and this is just one of those baking sessions.

Something's missing here. I just can't put my finger on it.

Nora received a big package of Christmas presents from Jenny and Toby in the mail and there was a special, unwrapped treat for her.
Obviously she loved it!

We also decorated cookies over at Kalen and Wylie 's house. We set these two up and they went frosting crazy.

Nora and Kalen were very focused. This was just a teaser post, I promise.

We have plenty of Christmas day pictures to post next, so stay tuned!