Nora Turns FOUR

This little lady turned four on February 13th.

I feel like she has been three forevvvvver. She is so ready to be a four-year-old. 

Here goes our traditional stroll down memory lane.

Brand new Nora

One.

Two-year-old cuteness. That pink dress definitely still fits her.

Three-year-old silliness.

Nora is delightful. And challenging. She's very stubborn. She is Finn's champion in every way. Any perceived injustice against Finn will not be stood for. We had some friends over once and Finn was upset that they were playing with his toys so Nora was rubbing his back saying "Finn, you are a kind and generous boy" over and over. She adores her big sister Teresa and wants to be like her in every way. She is seriously hilarious. Just a funny, funny girl. She is very thoughtful about everything she does. I'll see her watching me sometimes and if I stop and smile at her she will say something like "you are a good Mama" or one time when she was observing both of us playing with Finn she said "I really like you grown ups". She has very much grown out of her tantrum-ing this year, though she still has her moments, of course. Nora is very particular in what she wears. She loves shoes. We are often all waiting for her to be ready because she is deciding which shoes she wants to wear based on her clothes. She typically wears them on the wrong feet. She claims it is a fashion choice, but it might also because she doesn't want to admit that she got it wrong. I love everything about her and am grateful every day that she is in our family.

I took her for her four-year-old check up a few days after her birthday. She was annoyed about getting shots so deliberately failed the color vision and hearing tests, little stinker. She was excited to learn that she had a good growth spurt this year! She is up to the 50th percentile for height (she was 30th last year). Maybe she will stay taller than Finn for a bit longer after all. 

We went to Chevy's a few weeks ago when Marc's dad was here and when we saw the wait staff singing happy birthday to someone Nora immediately said "I want to eat here on my birthday!". So that's what we did. She was so excited to get her hat and ice cream, as soon as we ordered she asked when they were going to come sing. We told her it wouldn't be until the end of the meal. Poor thing, about half way through our meal all the waiters came out clapping and singing and carrying a birthday hat and she got so excited as they headed right towards us....and then they stopped at the table right next to us instead. Her little face totally crumpled and it was the saddest/cutest thing ever. I reassured her that she would definitely be getting sung to and she was so excited when her turn came. She's worn that hat just about every day since.

The girls have both had their hearts set on getting a bitty twin doll for their birthdays, thanks to our library having so many American Girl books for them to check out (over and over and over again). They were so sure it was happening, I would over hear conversations like "Oh, Nora, I can't believe you only have to wait another month until you get your bitty doll! I have to wait until May!" etc. I kind of felt like if we didn't get them dolls the disappointment would just be too epic to handle. Nora had the perfect reaction to opening her doll, she was gasping and saying "ooooh my goodness! ooooh my goodness!" as she was unwrapping it.

The day after her birthday we had a little party to celebrate with some friends. My photographer was doubling as the game master, so we didn't get too many pictures of the party. Nora had such a blast. 

And of course we did a birthday interview, and of course I can't get the darn thing to load.