Ho Ho Ho

Nora had a few encounters with Santa this year.... She even saw his reindeer. Pete and Nora went to get a wreath at a nursery one day and Santa and his reindeer were there. Then the next morning all of us went to the Chanhassen Rec Center and had breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Then the next week we had the opportunity to see Santa at the tree lighting in downtown Chanhassen. Santa rolled up on a huge firetruck with the sirens blaring. It was awesome. Nora had a great time. Each time we drive by the location she yells, I saw Santa on a firetruck there. Such sweet memories.

The Gingerbread House

So, we took it upon ourselves to create a gingerbread house. The box makes it look so beautiful and easy to do. The pieces were cut out and simply needed to be decorated and put together. Well, it wasn't as easy as it looks. We had the ghetto gingerbread house.

This is what we thought we could create... We were wrong.

What matters most is that Nora thought it was awesome. She was on a sugar high the entire evening. She snuck candy off of it almost everyday....

Thankgiving 2009

UMMMM yes, it is the end of January 2010 and I am finally adding pictures from November. Life is busy and blogger is darn slow. We enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving at my parent's house. The food and company was great. The pictures are below. Enjoy.
Nora loves to dance. Look at the air she caught.
Lissie, Nora, Uncle Arden and Vicki
David

Alex, Nora and Lissie
Nora and Lissie getting their groove on.

Sampling the yummy mashed potatoes

Nora is turning 3 soon

WOW... I started this post back in February and never finished it. Now that Nora is 3, I will just post it as it is........

How is it possible that Nora will be 3 years old in 1 month? I feel like my mom when I use this phrase "where did the time go?" It bring tears to my eyes that we are so blessed with such a healthy (knock on wood), happy, beautiful, funny, smart, goofy, loving, caring, silly, witty and the list could go on little girl....

Each day Nora surprises us with a new "thing." Whether knowing the words to a song, using phrases we do, telling us stories that are either fiction or non fiction, playing mommy, pretending she is a doctor, reenacting real life situations.... It is incredible. She talks all of the time. She has a huge vocabulary and has for several months. We are often asked by strangers if she is 4....

A few highlights of the past few months and prior:

• She can dress herself


• She is fully potty trained (since about September) with the exception of night time


• She has an opinion about clothes.. She will say "OMG, I love that outfit." She also will not wear certain things....


• She LOVES tank tops


• She still is a dancing machine


• She adores Dora
  

In December Nora was diagnosed with her first ear infection since she had her tubes put in last February. We are blessed that it took that long for one to come on... Bad thing is that the infection would not go away. Her ear canal was inflamed and bloody. Her tube had moved and was sitting on her ear drum. On Wednesday we brought her back to the ENT for the 4th time since the infection came on and he removed the tube. The thing was nasty..... She screamed and cried while he removed it but right afterwards she was golden. She didn't complain or anything. She is such a trooper.

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009! We had a piggy at our house. She was a cute little pig too. Her oinks and her trick or treats won her lots of candy. We had a lot of activities surrounding Halloween. We carved pumpkins, went to the Chanhassen Halloween Party, attended the parade at Nora's school & went trick or treating! Girlfriend wore her costume 3 times!
All revved up and ready to go out trick or treating!

Keeping her fingers warm.

Trying to capture some cute pre trick or treat photos.

Pete carved Nora a pig pumpkin in honor of her costume. He did a great job in my opinion

Bumpa & Piggy

Lissie's pumpkin creation

Spider (Noah), Monster (Owen), Dora (Ellie) and Piggy (Nora) already to go out trick or treating

Auntie Lissie and Nora carving pumpkins

Pre Channy party!

This was her first time in her costume. She was so excited to wear it. The day we received it in the mail, she slept with the pig hood at nap time. AWWW, she is so sweet.

As you can tell, the weather was nicer the night of the party than on Halloween hence the tights vs. sweats

The party and parade at school

Some of the kiddos in her room

Get your dance on!

Nora, Ellie, Anna and I took a "Fairy Princess Mommy and Me" dance class. The class was two 30 minute classes. Ellie seemed to enjoy the class a little more than Nora. Nora is not a ballerina...My girl likes to shake her booty! Nora was so excited to go to the class however once we got there she could have cared less about the whole thing. She was in her own little world. Typically Nora takes direction from people fairly well. This teacher at the dance place could not capture her attention so.... I had the kid who was clowning around the whole time.

First day... Before the class started.

The teacher told us that she had a big blow up princess house that all the girls could play in after the last class. I about peed my pants when I saw the princess house she blew up......

"Want to sit in my lap, Ellie?"

Nora kept asking Ellie if she wanted to sit in her lap. Ellie said "no", so Nora took it upon herself to sit in Ellie's lap....