The Huffman Family: April 2008

skunk face

Sorry to you frequent blog checkers... I know I just don't keep up the news like some other bloggers. Frankly, I wouldn't have enough to write about if I write every day. And, I'm lazy. :)

Here are some pictures from Easter weekend. Nora started waking up with crazy hair that weekend, and it's been non-stop since then. When I say crazy, I don't mean a little messy -- I used the description that she looked a lot like that mug shot of Nick Nolte from a few years ago, and I still think that's the best parallel yet. We spent the weekend visiting Brett's family, Saturday with his Dad and Diane, and Saturday night/ Sunday at his Mom and Chris's house. Nora had a blast, and a special treat was that her Aunt Amanda was in town (Nora started calling her Aunt Panda that weekend, and laughing, so I think she's trying to be funny! Today, though, she called her Anda Panda... we're getting further from the name rather than closer to it). We were also able to visit with Brett's Grand-pa Riggs, his Aunt Pam, Uncle Warren, and cousin Josh, as well as Beth and Chris's good friends Fred, Nancy, and their daughter Kelsey -- we had one wound up kid on our hands Saturday night with all that visiting!

Crazy hair on Easter morning and a new instrument from the Easter Bunny

Tamed hair and her Easter dress, playing with more new stuff

Finally thought to get a picture of the three of us taken

Our biggest news lately is that Nora is officially sleeping in her big girl bed. On Sunday March 30th, we put her down for her first nap in there. She was, to say the least, confused. She would sit up and cry every time Brett tried to leave the room, and I heard several exclamations of "Snooze CRIB!?!" After several attempts, I went in and convinced her that this was a special day, so she got to sleep in her bed. All sounded quiet after that, so I left the house. When I came home, Brett told me he'd gone into the basement (right below her new room) and could hear little footsteps up above him! He got her to settle down for her nap and she finally went to sleep. When she woke up, we greeted her with great fanfare, hugging, high fiving, and all around big-deal-making. That was the trick. After that, no more disagreements about where to take a nap. She then started on a short stretch of falling out of her bed every other day, but has successfully stayed in bed at naptime for almost a whole week now.

Last Sunday night, we started her sleeping in there at nighttime. So far, so good. She tumbled out of bed sometime in the middle of the night Sunday, and again at about 7:15am Tuesday morning, but the last couple of nights she's made it all the way through the night and stayed in the bed. To be clear, she's in a twin bed w/o a boxspring, so it's low to the ground. In addition to that, we have a queen sized featherbed doubled up on the ground next to her as a landing pad. When she does tumble out, she doesn't get hurt and is actually game to get back into bed and continue the sleeping. Like I said, so far, so good. It seems she has made a clean break with her nursery!

In other kid news, the baby is still growing right on schedule. We had a checkup yesterday and the doctor said everything looked good. Nora came with me and heard the doctor mention he'd seen a couple of kicks when he was measuring my belly. To hear her tell the story now, though, "guy said KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK!!!" [complete with vigorous kicking action]. Later last evening, she also added "baby brother says BANG BOOM BING BAHM BOOM!" (I assume from all the kicking he's doing!)

In other Huffman family member news, Brett ran a half marathon last weekend! It was called the Martian Marathon, apparently they just wanted a theme. You should see the t-shirt he got... it's the most creative/ involved race shirt design I've ever seen. I'll have to post a picture... it's wild. There is a martian-man on the back that Nora just calls "funny guy!" Anyhow, he got great weather for the run and ran a very respectable 1:44, about 8 minute miles. Whoo hoo! I was hoping to figure out a way to get down to cheer/ watch him finish, but Nora was still in sleep-in mode (we'd let her stay up a little later the night before because her aunt "Genny-veeve" was in town and we were visiting with her, Uncle Andy and my mom and dad), so he was done before we would really have gotten out the door. Maybe next time!