Aqua Tot

June is turning out to be a great month, full of fun stuff! Two weekends ago we celebrated Brett's second Father's Day. We spent the weekend in Mendon and Portage visiting Brett's parents. We spent a lot of Saturday with Grandpa Lon and Grandma Di in Mendon, where Nora had a blast feeding the baby dolls bottles... pretty good for a kid who never really took a bottle herself! Saturday we also had a chance to visit and eat pizza with Brett's grandparents/ Nora's Great-Grandparents. Sunday we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Longton and even got to play in the lake! When Chris and Brett took Nora out into the lake, she was a little nervous until everyone else got in the water too and showed her how much fun it was! We have tons of photos, thanks to the Longtons (we left our camera in the house). As a bonus, Nora's Uncle Casey came over and tried to convince us to let her take her first ride on the jet ski! Though that didn't happen, we had a great visit and Casey cooked up a feast. If you didn't know yet, Casey is one class shy of having his culinary degree (he'll be done August 9th, hooray!), and it shows! The dinner was excellent. Here are some pictures from the lake:

This rock 'n roll look was achieved with sunblock


Uncle Casey and Grandpa L show Nora the waverunner... she looks like she'll be a natural, as soon as she can see up over the front.

Nora and Grandma L

Last week Brett took a day trip to Chicago for work, so Nora and I had dinner at my mom and dad's. Andy came too -- a huge treat for Nora. She loves her uncles! As with Casey, she spent a lot of time trying to get his attention/ making silly faces. Next time I'll try to remember my camera so I can get some more pictures with our local family members.

This past weekend, we all travelled to Chicago for a visit with Genevieve and a friend's wedding. Everything was great, in spite of the fact that Nora does not sleep in the car... at A L L. Saturday we took Nora to the Lincoln Park Zoo, even though it was rainy early on. $4 for two rain ponchos solved the problem for Nora and Brett and we were on our way. It was great weather for the animals... they were all out and active since it wasn't oppressively hot. We saw lions, monkeys, gorillas (including a baby gorilla!), zebras, flamingos, penguins and assorted sea birds, warthogs, wild dogs, ostriches, giraffes and two storks! Nora seemed to like them all, and said "meow meow!" when we saw the lions. I was hoping the other animals would be making noise so we'd know how to represent them correctly when we read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?," but no luck. I really needed the zebra braying and the flamingo fluting, but all I got was some sort of buzzing noise from the flamingos. Oh well! To top off all of the awesomeness of the zoo, we ate lunch there, and were surprised to find that they had pretty decent food for a zoo!

One of the gorillas is to the left of Nora and Brett in this picture.

One of the puffins swam right up to the window to say hi! So did a penguin in the exhibit next to this one, but we couldn't get a picture to turn out.

Genny, Nora and Brett check out the zebras.

Getting in touch with her inner monkey.

Saturday night we headed off to Gretchen and Justin's wedding, which was just beautiful. We haven't been to a wedding in two years, so it was extra fun to go! I didn't take my camera, so we have no pictures. Nora stayed home with Genny for ladies night, and had a blast at the park. I'll have to get pictures from Gen, but apparently Nora's little dog accompanied her everywhere at the park. There she is on the swing, with the dog... on the slide, with the dog... running through a field, with the dog... helping to push the stroller, with the dog... ... you get the picture! Meanwhile, at the wedding, Brett and I got to meet Nora's future pen pal, Baby Eve Parker -- what a peanut! She's two weeks old and was a champion at the wedding, as were her parents. :)

Sunday we headed home after church, brunch and a short nap, and Nora definitely missed her aunt right away. We had a "scenic" drive right through the heart of the city due to a miscalculation/ foggy memory on my part and that distracted her some. It'd been a while since I drove right straight down Michigan Avenue so I should have enjoyed it more instead of being ticked that I missed getting onto Lake Shore Drive. If you're in Chicago, you CANNOT get onto LSD from North Avenue... just a friendly tip.

And finally to today -- Aqua Tot. Today was our first baby swim class. Nora LOVED it. As soon as we came out of the locker room and into the pool area, she was totally over the moon... and we hadn't even gotten into the water yet! She had a blast playing in the water and was only slightly put off when she accidentally plunged her face into the water while trying to pick a ring up off the bottom of the very, very shallow part of the pool. The only downside is she HATES the locker room. Hopefully over the next 2 weeks she'll come to realize that the locker room is just something to get through to get into and out of her adored pool.

As always, thanks for checking in with us. We hope you are well and would love to hear from you!

Where did May go?

Wow! It's been a while since we posted anything, so I'll load you up with pictures. May was a fun month for all of us... our neighbor and friend, Little Mama the Robin, welcomed four babies the weekend of mother's day. Nora learned to call the robin (and all robins) "mama" and learned to say "baby" after watching the babies pop their heads up out of the nest for worms. It was great to see them getting bigger all the time, and then Memorial Day weekend we spent a night elsewhere. When we came home, the nest had been vacated. I've been worried, but there were no signs of foul play. Today, Nora and I came home from a dinner out with friends and saw a baby robin waiting for us on our front windowsill! I'd like to think it's one of the four babies from "our" nest and he/ she wanted to let us know they were all ok. Nora got a kick out of seeing the baby robin and even got a book to read to it through the window! Here's the picture... kind of hard to see the baby robin because of the flash, but he/ she's right on the other side of the window. If you're wondering, Nora selected "The Runaway Bunny" for the bird!

Early in May, we got to hang out with my cousins Dan and Evan, first at my mom and dad's and then at our house. Nora had a blast with them and they were so good to her! Here they are eating lunch (big kid style -- Nora's first time not sitting in a high chair) at my parents' house:

Mother's Day was fun... we visited Brett's mom in Portage for the weekend, we even got to go out on a nice long boat ride. Once she got used to being on the pontoon, Nora got a big kick out of walking around and looking over the sides! The ride home was a long one for some reason, so our pics of mother and daughter on mother's day are of a very sleepy girl:

Our friend Ethan turned 1 on May 19th, so we went to his birthday party! It was a ton of fun, he did a great job entertaining all of his guests and sharing his swingset with Nora. She was obsessed with it! It also appears that Nora is over her "I'm scared of other kids" phase because she was fine at the party and has been happy to see Ethan on the occasions we've had to visit with him since then.

My friend Beth came over the following Monday for the finale of Heroes (I just knew Syler would slither away in the end) and I think Nora thought they were going to hang out... she was pretty bummed when I put her to bed!

Memorial Day weekend was a lot of fun too, because we were part of the crew throwing a surprise party for my Dad's 60th birthday! It was a lot of fun to put together, especially with everyone participating. The night of the party, the guests hid in the garage with lit candles with the plan to open the garage door and sing happy birthday as Dad pulled up in the driveway. The garage door, however, did not cooperate. For anyone there, I'm vouching for Genny on two counts right here: 1) she did not keep pushing the button. In spite of everyone yelling "push it again!! push it again!" she was trying to be patient and get the garage to open at the right moment AND 2) while I just started laughing and laughing, Genny kept thinking, and the moment before the garage door finally started going up, she yelled "Everyone out onto the front lawn!" Kudos to her for initiating a plan B!! In spite of the jammed garage door going up and down, up and down, Dad says he was surprised and he had a really nice time. For the surprise within the surprise, my mom informed him (and everyone else) that they'll be taking a trip to the Holy Lands this September!!! I found out last week that they also signed up for the extension trip to Egypt -- so great. I can't wait to hear all about it!

Also over Memorial Day weekend, Brett did a TON of work on our house. He tore out the cummy bushes that were in the front, shoveled in 7 yards of top soil and laid 2 tons of Michigan sandstone to build a little wall in the front. A lot of this work he did in the rain [he just busted out an old rain coat that I've tried to give away a few times already... now we'll never get rid of it ever because we'll always "remember that time I was able to work on the front of the house in the rain!?" It's the first time he's worn it since we were married, and even if it's the last, the raincoat will remain! Let us know if you need to borrow one. :) ] Anyhow, the front is looking good -- several neighbors have told him how nice it's looking. That must mean it looked REALLY bad before, because right now, it's just dirt! Over the previous several weekends, we cut down a small fruit tree in the middle of the back yard and transplanted a bunch of plants. Slowly but surely, it's starting to look more like the yard we envisioned when we bought this house!

ALSO over Memorial Day weekend, Brett and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary! This year, it fell back on Friday, just like the year we were married. I laughed at the difference in our lives from that Friday to this one as I left the house with Nora to go grocery shopping for Dad's party and said good-bye to Brett, who was already covered in topsoil! Later on, though, we were able to go out to dinner and a movie, which was a great treat!

Otherwise, Nora's just learning new things all the time. She learned how to climb onto and sit on a little chair, but still prefers to stand them.

She takes unbelievably good care of her "guys," giving them drinks from her sippy cup and feeding them snacks. We don't even know where she learned this since neither Brett nor I ever suggested she give them a drink... she just started doing it on her own. This week, she started giving them naptime... she puts a pillow or blanket on the ground, lays some of the guys on it and then puts her finger to her mouth and says "shh! shh!" But she thinks the "shh! shh!" is pretty funny so then she just ends up laughing. Her favorites are still all her dogs but her number one guy is Little Fil, her little black cat. He even came with us to the store today.

Aside from her ever-more-amusing behaviors, she just keeps getting bigger. Her baby mullet is long enough now to squeeze out two tiny pigtails (which she sported for the first time last week):

And I think the last of six new teeth is coming in right now:

Thanks for checking in on us! We hope you're doing well... here's to a great June!

PS: Here's one more picture of Nora playing with Brett (for equal representation of both parents on the blog!):