MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This is my first attempt at blogging on the "information superhighway" and I'm hoping this works. As most everyone reading this knows, Nora is turning the big 03 this Sunday. In honor of this milestone, I've whipped up a little video that some of you may enjoy.

- BRETT

Bedtime

The Bubzinator

We (Nora and I) took John for his four month checkup today, and got the green light to drop the hammer on his bad habit of waking up to eat every three hours at night. It should be ugly for a few nights but I'm told he'll get on board sooner rather than later! Wish us luck! He measured 26.5" long ("top of his class," according to Martha, our nurse practitioner) and weighed 18lb 14oz, which she said was off the chart (for reference, Nora weighed 18lb 12oz at six months). Oy, he's a hefty baby, and the nurse practitioner said we have no worries that he'll waste away while we try to help him consolidate his feedings! Earplugs at the ready... here we go.

John with his first bowl of rice cereal... he was not this enthused when I was trying to get it into his mouth!

Nora was great at the appointment, I just had to remind her once that I needed her to be quiet while I talked with Martha. As soon as we were done and Martha addressed her directly, it turned out that Nora had been absolutely bursting at the seams to tell her that "WE SAW THE LEAF SCOOPER TODAY and he scooped up the leaves and then 'beep beep beep' he backed up and then he went forward and he put the leaves in the GARBAGE TRUCK and we also saw a BLACK GARBAGE TRUCK!" >whew<

We've been calling John variations on Bubs for a while now, "the Bubzinator" being one that I didn't realize was as popular as it apparently has become. This afternoon, when John was waking up from his nap, Nora turned to me and stated very matter-of-factly, "Mom, the bubz'nator is awake." We might need to work on just calling him his regular old name for a while!

Zoo - Take 2

We tried to take Nora to the Zoo Saturday, (Nov 1) only to discover that they started their new, shorter hours that day. She took the blow surprisingly well, in part b/c Brett immediately promised we'd come back the next day. It was considerably chillier, but she didn't care.

just smile naturally... good!

John was unimpressed with his first visit, but he didn't have much of a view! Both days we were able to visit with my dad's family -- they'd come into town for Uncle Bob's surprise birthday dinner. I, of course, have no pictures, though the camera was in the diaper bag.

John at the zoo

Also, this fall I've just about finished what may be the longest furniture refinishing project ever. My Grandma Kenrick gave me this desk in 1996, when I was still in college. It was painted pink, and I decided I would refinish it. In the stripping process, I discovered that besides pink, it had also been canary yellow, lime green, teal, red, black, and maybe a couple of other colors too, before I spotted the original, but damaged, dark finish. The original top was damaged, so my Grandpa Yavello made me a new solid mahogany top in his workshop several years ago. That top was slightly damaged when we got water in our basement, but I was able to sand that out, and a few weeks ago, spent the weekend staining and sealing this sucker. I still have to attach the top to the base and decide on pulls for the drawers, but this project is pretty much done! Time to look for a new one! (just kidding... Brett will drop the hammer on me if I show up with another piece of furniture to refinish, unless it will somehow turn into a 52" flat screen tv when I'm done).

Halloweenies - updated

We took the risk and used our "good" weekend to go to the cider mill, so by the time we went to get pumpkins the next weekend, it was very chilly! They only had big pumpkins left, so we got two and did team carving. Brett and Nora went with the classic happy face, while John and I went for surprised. We also had a two-faced small pumpkin from a few weeks ago... I helped Nora make a happy face, but first she wanted Brett to help her make a sad face, complete with about a hundred tears -- the end result was actually more scary than any of our other halloween decorations!

Nora showing me the tears on her sad pumpkin

Nora was all about helping with the pumpkins. When we were cleaning them out, she would reach in, take out one seed, put it on her spoon, and carry it to the garbage can saying "I LIKE helping!" Then she fed the carved pieces and additional seeds to my pumpkin's mouth while I was working on the eyes because he was, apparently, hungry.

This is about as excited as John got about pumpkin carving!

In an effort to go green, we recycled Nora's black cat halloween costume from last year, and John wore her pumpkin sweatshirt from her first halloween. Nora was happily on board with the repeat costume, this year calling herself "Big Fil" as opposed to her favorite guy, Little Fil (who she has lately taken to calling her "old friend, Filly Boy.") (Little Fil, by the way, is named after a real cat, who is named for the street/ President Filmore... I'm not just consistently misspelling it!) Trick or treating was a huge hit, though she never quite got the hang of the lingo, yelling out "Take Your Treating!" at each house. After she and Brett made the rounds, she hung out on the porch helping me hand out candy, which may have been even more fun for her! She kept asking where the kids were, and if she saw a group on the corner she would call out "hey kids! Come over here! I have candy for you!"

Fall catchup

Nora "going crazy."

I know, I've been delinquent in posting new pics... and have already heard about it from some of our fans! So here is a whole new batch, and I'll get our Halloween pictures up asap, if not tonight.

Fall's been great. John is growing like a weed, or more like a pumpkin. He's rounder every day! Brett kept saying he thought John was bigger at his age than Nora at the same age, but I could never tell. Today, I got out her old records to check -- he's much bigger! At his 2 month appt, he weighed close to 14.5 lbs, but Nora weighed a mere 11 lb 12 oz! I did the notoriously inaccurate weigh myself w/ John then w/o John two days ago, and the difference was 18.5 lbs. We'll have an official weigh in later this month for his 4 mo checkup, but putting on weight is not a problem for this little guy!

He's been very smiley, laughing a lot -- and Nora's warmed right up to him and now thinks he's just the greatest (whew!) He's also very vocal -- usually more so when I'm trying to leave a voicemail message for someone!

He hates to be down low in a bouncer seat when we're eating dinner, and I remembered that our high chair reclines, so now he sits up at table level with us when we eat (he drools and watches our every eating motion... he's so ready to eat, but I'm afraid will be sorely disappointed in the rice cereal when he finally gets the green light!)

We took the kids to the cider mill, where Nora scored a huge bag of day old doughnuts to feed the ducks (who were surprisingly lean for a likely non-stop diet of doughnuts, though Brett said their cholesterol was probably sky high!) Cider and doughnuts for us, always a big hit.

And last but not least, John was baptized! We were so fortunate to have so much of his family and so many friends join us for the celebration.

And here's a picture for Great-Grandpa Riggs, who requested (on John's behalf, I'm sure!) that John get in some quality overalls time after having to spend the day in his baptismal gown. :)

Wedding Dance

A few weekends ago (the weekend it rained like crazy around here) we went to Brett's cousin's wedding. Nora prepped for this for WEEKS with a lot of dance practice. It paid off... she was the queen of the dance floor before dinner. We initially tried to convince her to stay off the dance floor because we thought maybe it was bad form to let your kids dance out there before the bride and groom officially open up the floor with their first dance? But, good luck keeping a two year old off a perfectly good dance floor for three hours! So she and the kids of one of Brett's other cousins ran around and shook their booties.

Nora initially would not let me try dresses on her to see what would fit her for the wedding (she hates trying on clothes... just like her mama!). Since one of her favorite book characters is Fancy Nancy, and Nancy says her favorite color is fuschia (a fancy word for purple!), I had told Nora it was too bad she didn't want to try on this dress, because it was fuschia, but I would just put it back into the closet. She looked at dress, looked at me , looked back at the dress and said "Ok, you can put that fuschia dress on me for the wedding." I thought about a trying different dress too, but the decision was FINALIZED as far as Nora was concerned!


Shall we dance?


Nora leading Cole and Ashlynn around the dance floor at full speed


Dancing with dad (at the end of the night... getting sleepy!)


John with Grandma


The party's over!


Brett, me, Nora, Brett's Uncle Steve, Grandma Beth, John, Aunt Alison, Uncle Erick, Grandpa Chris


Cole and Nora


Nora and another young guest... she was introducing herself and inviting other kids to come onto the dance floor too

The wedding was very nice, and I don't have a single picture of the bride and groom! It was fun to see Brett's family, and particularly to spend time with Alison and Erick, who made a long roadtrip to be there for the weekend. Both kids did great, especially Nora with skipping a nap and having a long night (for her). I'll have to track down a good picture of John in his "little man" get-up to post... he looked so funny in a button down white shirt and khaki pants -- not to mention his socks with little loafers on them! Thanks to the Jameses for lending us his spiffy clothes -- he was a sharp-dressed man. :)

New photos, at last

Not much to write... I really need to get to bed. But until I can post a more complete update, here are some of the 180 pictures I just uploaded from the camera tonight!













Noteworthy news: John had his 2 month checkup- 14lbs 6.5oz (~90th percentile), and Nora weighs 30 1/2 lb (she got weighed too). Both are healthy and happy. :)

Nora got a "real" haircut at Snipits (kid's hair salon/ barber shop) and called it 'Nipits for a few weeks. She was all business when she was getting her haircut... very good at following directions!



John's cord FINALLY fell off this past week (almost 10 weeks after he was born) and so got to take his first real bath tonight.