I know, two posts in the same day?? It's a miracle! But really, I just couldn't resist. You'll see why.

Vacation: Part Deux

Towards the end of our vacation, we decided to have a little fun and bought a kite. The winds on the beach were pretty intense, so we assumed we would have no problem flying the kite. Here Chris, with Gavin on his back, prepares to send it up. If only it were that easy.

Meg and I look a little ridiculous here but only because we were both laughing so hard we couldn't really stand up straight. Seriously, look at me. I was probably trying not to pee my pants in this picture.

Looks like we got it up, huh? Too bad it only lasted about seven seconds.

On the way back we perched Nora on the boardwalk. See, see how windy it is?!? Anyone could fly a kite in this weather, right? Nope.

"Hey Nora, make your weird face."

She's got this down pat.

A couple family shots before heading back to Maine.

Who's the geek who wore the Outer Banks sweatshirt in the Outer Banks?Shane woke up early and trekked over to this beach for the shot. Just gorgeous. Hopefully someday we can make it back there again. Thanks for a great trip Meg and Chris!

Rewind

I was going through the hundreds of pictures I've accumulated over the past month (ridiculous, I know, time to start deleting) when I noticed a few Easter pictures that I hadn't posted. Or, rather, Easter preparation pictures. Nora and I made a special Easter treat this year to share with everyone and I forgot to tell you all about it. It starts with a crumbled chocolate cake; gluten-free in our case, but any basic chocolate cake recipe will do.

Throw in a can of delicious, fake, grocery store frosting. Here you can tell Nora thinks all her dreams have come true.

Mix the frosting and cake crumbs together until they're an even consistency. Observe said combination. Wonder if Mom will notice if you stick your finger in it one more time. (She will.)

Roll about two tablespoons of the mixture into a ball and place on a lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining cake/frosting combo.

Now forget to take pictures of yourself melting white chocolate, dipping lollipop sticks in it and sticking one in each cake ball. Also forget to photograph the chilling of the pops for ten to fifteen minutes. Dip the chilled cake pops in melted white chocolate, colored white chocolate, or really any chocolate of choice. Follow the directions of the true master, Bakerella, by clicking on the link. Then marvel at the cuteness that follows.

This poor pop had a crack. A mortal crack.

I took care of it. We won't be seeing any cracked pops around here anymore.

Nora loved these pops so much she decided to give one a hug. Of course, she had no problem eating it after. Like mother, like daughter.

Here is the final product- and there were a lot of them! I only made one 9x13 cake and used one can of frosting, but it still made almost three dozen pops.

We packaged them up and headed to Nanny and Grampy's house to begin the Easter celebrations. Egg dyeing was the first order of business.

I think I pretty much covered Easter day in an earlier post, so you get the gist of what happened the next day. I'll be sure to finish up the vacation photos I have to post. I'm so on track, right?

Just a couple vacation videos-

At the beach

Well, here we are at the beach, and we're absolutely loving it. The weather has really been amazing and we've been able to spend lots of time outside every day. Nora, though initially pretty freaked out about the ocean and it's giant waves, has now become comfortable enough to play on the beach, though she still has no interest in doing any wading. I don't blame her, though, because the waves are pretty huge, plus the water is mind numbingly cold. Or foot numbingly. You get the picture; it's really cold. She does enjoy walking along looking for shells (in the drier parts of the beach) and of course, watching the beach acrobatics that go on.This is the end of the path that leads from the house to the beach. And that's Meg, Chris and Gavin making their way ahead of us as we all went for a walk.Gavin and his favorite guy.

Sweet little Gavin wasn't very excited about the ocean at first; in fact he was pretty terrified. However, after a little cajoling and playing with his parents he was used to it enough to hang out with us on the beach.

Okay, I will admit that Shane might be riding a bike in this picture with Nora on his back in the ergo; however, I will say that he was riding around in circles on the driveway in front of me and I wouldn't let him go faster than, oh, 2 mph. Nora loved it, of course.

Here are Nora and I at the beach this afternoon. See how relaxed and productive I am while on vacation? I get pictures up on the blog the day I take them! Maybe I should go on vacation much, much more often.

And finally, our little girl who we can't get enough of. Can you see why?

Easter

And only a week late! I've finally managed (I think) to figure out what's going on with my computer, and as a result, I finally can get some pictures up here. We had a great Easter weekend spent at my parent's house. We went up the night before and visited with the Dunton's, who came out for a mini duel birthday celebration. My birthday is the 13th and Rachael's is the 16th. After a nice visit and lots of good food, there was important work to be done. I had been buying things here and there for this basket for weeks, so when it was finally all assembled, it looked like I went a little overboard. (I did.)

The next morning the kids were up bright and early to come downstairs and see if the Easter Bunny had visited. Nora immediately gravitated to the presents the Easter Nanny (I mean Bunny) had left.

A chocolate egg; what more could you ask for?

Dad hung out with Wylie for a while; he hasn't yet reached the candy-obsessed age.

Here Nora takes her first bite of chocolate of the morning. Many, many more followed.

We can't get enough of this little boy!

I was kind of tentative about posting this picture because I thought Tara might be less than impressed. (Are you?) But then I realized if it had been about half an hour before anyone could have snapped the same shot of me dancing and clapping my way around the table with the kids. It's just what we do.

Here Evan, our new babysitter, reads to Kalen. No, seriously, I'm thinking about hiring him to be my new 'manny'.

"Hmm. I don't see anything yet."

Nora was such a good sport to put on this dress. Or, rather, to let me put this dress on her. It was mine when I was a kid and also worn at Easter. (I think- at least that's what it looks like in the pictures.) I really love this dress; Nora and Shane, not so much.)

And because this all happened over a week ago, I thought I'd throw in a picture of what we're doing now. This was actually taken today. Miraculous, I know. We're down in North Carolina visiting the Outer Banks with our friends Meg and Chris and their son Gavin. Many, many more photos will come from this trip, but here's little Nora enjoying the sun and sand. (And yes, she has plenty of sunscreen on.) Enjoy!

Issues

I'm still having issues; I couldn't upload more than one video yesterday without my computer threatening me. So, for now, here is the first of two videos of Nora receiving her Easter presents from Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Toby. More to come, if I can figure it out!

Another exciting day with Nora:

Although this has happened before, never has she done both of these in the same day on two separate occasions. Woohoo!

Well, it was going to be great.

A great post, that is. I had plans for numerous photos to be posted with well-written descriptions for each, occasionally resulting in a deep belly laugh or at least a smile from the reader. It was going to be wonderful, really. Until I started putting my pictures on the computer. Apparently, the 'cleaning' our computer was supposed to get wasn't that thorough, because I still don't have enough memory to edit more than these two pictures. As soon as I start to work I get a message about my 'scratch disks', which sounds kind of sketchy, in my opinion.

I'm still going to post these two photos, though, because I have been meaning to for the past month. These are from our trip to Vermont. We had a wonderful time visiting Meg, Chris, and Gavin, and were joined by Nick, Alli and Ken. (These are all great friends from college.) This first shot gives you an idea of what our trip revolved around- eating! Meg and I love to cook, and really enjoy cooking a big meal together. We usually spend a lot more time in the kitchen when we visit, but while the kids are young, it's a little harder. We'll have plenty of opportunities soon as we are going on vacation together! (And we'll have husbands around to pawn the children off on. That's what they're there for, right?)

I'm so glad I chose this as my second picture to edit before the stupid memory gave out. (Remind me again what the heck we're paying the computer guy for??) This is little Gavin Gordon; he is such a sweet boy! I was sick when we visited, and had to hold back from kissing him for fear of passing on whatever I had. (Watch out for me next weekend, Gavster!)

I figured you might want to see a little Nora action, but as I can't really do much photo editing, I guess I'll have to post a video. Poor you.

Today we took a nice hike up Bald Mountain in Camden with our (new) friends Stephen and Molly. We met them through Josh's restaurant, Brevetto, where Stephen and Shane work. The hike was really fun; the weather was beautiful, not too cool, and the views were great the whole way up. Once we got to the top it was a bit windier and cold, so we broke out Nora's winter hat and mittens, and didn't hang out too long. Overall, though, it was really nice to spend some time outside in the warmish weather. We took a few videos during the hike, but none worthy of the blog. Shane did (accidentally) take one that was forty-two minutes long from his coat pocket. I deleted that one. Here's Nora on the ride home discussing, among other things, our dinner plans. Enjoy!

Well, we can't get enough, so we're assuming you can't, either. Right?
Hello?
Tap, tap.
Is this thing on?

I told you-

I just want to say that I warned you all. We have a new obsession...

A Little Test

As an early birthday present, Shane bought me a sweet little hand held video camera called The Flip. I love it. We've never gotten around to buying a video camera of our own, and after my sister let us borrow hers, we never got around to buying the tapes for it. This little camcorder is SO easy, and so handy. We'll be posting plenty of videos of Nora for everyone to see. Be prepared!

(Don't worry if it doesn't work right away; I'm figuring it out as I go!)