Happy Valentine's Day

At last, here are the pictures I promised last week. Nothing big is going on, and it's chilly outside, so these are all of Nora playing in the house. We have been going to a storytime program at the library that she seems to like, but no photos from that. She helps me with the shopping, and when she can get her hands on a "baby cart" at the market, I noticed her practice with the toy shopping cart has really paid off. It used to be like shopping with a tiny drunk person since she was more interested in watching the little shopping cart move rather than watching out for people/ displays in the store.

We're getting Nora's "Big Girl" room ready and hoping to have her practice sleeping in the bed (generously lent to us by Grandma and Grandpa Longton!) in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, laying in the bed is one of her favorite activities:

In the vein of working on all things "big girl," we're planting the seeds of potty training, and to support her practicing hand-washing, I bought that Kandoo foaming soap for kids. She was totally enamored with the "two soaps," carried them all around the grocery store, wouldn't let me put them on the belt in the checkout lane (the cashier was nice enough to scan them quickly and give them straight back to Nora), and she played with them all day yesterday (ALL DAY). The best, though -- she asked me to take a picture of herself with the soaps:

We've been brushing her teeth for a long time, but recently started having her practice "rinsing" and spitting afterwards. If she just doesn't swallow the water and spits it back out (or lets it dribble back out of her mouth, which is the more accurate description), it's a good session. Needless to say, we'll be using the fluoride-free toothpaste (swallow-safe) for the forseeable future. This is her making the "monster teeth" face so I can scrub the fronts of her teeth.

Backwards cowboy hat:

Fork mustache:

We're reading lots of books about new babies coming home, and so far that's going well... Nora likes the stories and also likes babies. I think that will translate into 1.7% less resistance to a new baby in the house. The baby continues to grow well and we're scheduled for our big ultrasound a week from tomorrow. If we get any good pictures, we'll post them on the blog.

Thanks again for checking in!
Love,

Sarah, Brett & Nora

PS: We're already preparing to move onto the next holiday... Brett showed Nora a leprechaun today and taught her the word. Somehow, though, she is pronouncing it "SAH-puh-KAH-KAHN" instead. Pretty funny.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Quiz

Whoa- it's been a long time since that last post. We just wanted to give you plenty of time to read all of that! :) I'll try to post again immediately with some new pictures of you-know-who, but in the meantime, here's a quick quiz to see how well you can interpret and translate Noranese, the language of two-year-olds (to her credit, her talking is coming along very well, she just has some random words that are way out there):

1) "Hepacocker"
2) "Hosh"
3) "Hep-hup"
4) "Cake Yong"
5) "Yo-E-Yo"
6) "Ree-rup"
7) "Ning Nyong"

Answers: (Don't cheat!)
1) Helicopter
2) Turtle... though she's starting to correct herself and say "turtle." We have absolutely no idea where this came from or why "hosh" became the word for turtle for so long! Give yourself 5 bonus points if you got this one right
3) Ketchup
4) Cake Song -- give yourself some bonus points if you figured out that this is the Birthday Song by the Beatles ("You say it's your birthday!...") It is far and away her favorite song, and she cannot hear it enough. When we play it I just put the CD on repeat, but have convinced her that I am magic. When the song is ending, we wiggle our fingers towards the radio, say "MORE CAKE SONG -- KAZAAAM!" and -- tadaahhh!-- it starts over from the beginning. Every time this happens Nora says "It works!" and keeps dancing.
5) Radio
6) Syrup -- yep, she gets some with her waffles, but she eats a ton so I don't feel too guilty about it.
7) 1000 points if you figured this one out: Dirty Laundry. Again, no clues where this came from or why it has stuck. Nora's job after a meal is to throw the bib into her dirty clothes hamper, and then we give high fives all around for a job well done. For a while now, she has referred to this job and the dirty clothes as "ning nyong." Is she bilingual?

If you got any of these right, write to me and let me know (or post a comment). We'll be calling you the next time Nora is crying and talking unintelligibly and you can translate for all of us. :)