Celebrations

I wanted Nora's birthday to be pretty awesome this year. Last year we had just gotten back from our Texas trip the day before, and went pretty much straight from the airport to the ER because I couldn't stop throwing up. After spending the whole night in the worst ER I've ever been to, you can imagine that we weren't up for too much celebrating that day. Nora didn't mind too much, she was happy to open her few presents and go to Chick-fil-a with her dad, but I felt so badly that she didn't get much fanfare for turning two.

SO we had big plans for turning three. Both girls have really wanted to go ice skating since seeing Frozen, so we were going to take them to a cute outdoor skating rink up here. Marc took the day off work and everything. Then, the night before Nora's birthday we got a huge snowstorm. It worked out pretty well, since she kept saying that Elsa (the queen from Frozen) had made it snow just for her.

When Marc was putting the girls to bed the night before he told Nora that the sooner she went to sleep the sooner it would be her birthday. Then T piped up "And Nora, there will be a big surprise downstairs for your birthday! There will be balloons and decorations and it will look so beautiful, just like it did for my birthday!". So, I was glad Marc told me that, because I actually didn't have too much planned in the decorations department, so we stepped it up at the last minute to meet those expectations.

                         

She was quite grumpy about the idea of turning three the morning of, before we went downstairs. She eventually admitted to not wanting to be three because of the deadline she had given herself to give up her pacis. We assured her that she could keep them for her actual birthday, so she finally agreed to be three.

She was so cute and excited to open presents. Teresa was so great the whole time, too, she kept saying "oh Nora, this is your best birthday ever!" and with each present Nora opened T would say "oh, I'm so happy for you!".

Yes, we already regret giving her that microphone. It doesn't amplify their voices too loudly, but it does play really loud, really horrendous music.

After presents and waffles and the birthday interview we got bundled up to go play in all that birthday snow. Nora was singularly focused on building a snowman. She was really hoping he would come to life like the Frozen snowman, and all day she would go check on him to see if he was alive yet. No luck there, poor thing.

Finn was a good sport about being in the cold. Luckily for him my coat zipped up over both of us. He even got to go sledding for the first time! He was indifferent for the first go, and very much not a fan of the second time we went. 

Nora had been asking for an Elsa cake - are you seeing the theme here? She is in love with Elsa and all things Frozen. My poor cake, I had big plans for it, but things just were not going my way. The motor on my hand mixer burned out half way through mixing up the frosting. You'd think paying eight bucks for something would mean it would last more than a year, right? Luckily our neighbors were able to loan us their Kitchenaid so we could get the job done. Then my icing bags kept clogging while I was trying to make the snowflakes, so I had to change all my plans half way through. Anyway, she wanted chocolate and lemon, so that's what she got. Both girls kept opening the fridge to peek at it all day, they were pretty excited.

Getting sung to:

Here's her first official birthday interview:

She definitely surprised me with some of her answers. I didn't know she had such strong feelings about watermelon, and I can't remember the last time we watched Yo Gabba Gabba. She usually only lists blue as her favorite color. Oh, and snowflakes = cornflakes. After her interview we took many, many pictures of our three-year-old. She was not interested in posing or smiling for the camera at first. I don't remember what we bribed her with in order for her to cooperate, but it definitely worked. Just fyi, there are A LOT of pictures below. 

  

  

Nora Borealis

This girl. We've had her for three whole years now. I originally had written that I couldn't believe she is already three, but really, I can. It feels like we've always had her, and in just the past few weeks she has really started to act a lot more like a big three-year-old and less like a little two-year-old.

Here's a little picture history of our Nora Bora.

Brand New:

Six Months Old:

One Year:

Two Years:

And Today:

                                                   

It's kinda funny, but three years ago when I was pregnant with her I was sooooo super anxious that there would be a big snowstorm that would keep us from getting to the hospital in time. It was definitely one of my main pregnancy worries with her! So we had to laugh when for her birthday today we had a big huge snowstorm that dropped 12 inches of snow on us. 

Nora is such a little firecracker. She has definite opinions about life and has no problem telling you about them. She is pretty hilarious. One of my favourite things is listening to Nora when she is playing with her toys. When Teresa is at school she spends a lot of time playing quietly by herself, and I love listening in on the little scenarios she comes up with for her dolls and animals. She is a wonderful little sister, and admires Teresa so, so much. Any time Teresa is hurt or crying Nora will usually cry as well. A few weeks ago T was having a particularly bad hair combing and poor Nora was just in tears begging me to stop combing T's hair. She is also a fabulous big sister to Finn. She will generously offer him the paci right out of her mouth when he is headed up for a nap. She just loves to hold him and show him toys, I can't wait until he is big enough to really play with her. She is so sweet and complimentary and is always telling the rest of us that we look beautiful. She can still shriek at pitches that would burst your ear drums and is stubborn as can be some days. She has been insisting for weeks that when she turns three she is giving up her pacifiers and is going to start using the potty. She came up with that deadline on her own, so we'll see how it plays out. She is still such a friendly little lass. She must wave at and say hi to and make friends with pretty much everyone she meets. I hope that she is always like that. 

And I have to give Finn a little shout out - he turned 5 months old today! Stay tuned for some video of him scooching himself around!

Finn is four months, and some videos

I took Finn in for his four month check up yesterday. He is a big giant baby, so I was pretty surprised when he only weighed 16 lbs 13 oz. Which is still in the 75% for his age, but at two months he was over the 95th percentile for weight, so I was thinking he would still be around there. Of course, T and Nora both had a big percentage drop about this age, so I guess it's par for the course. His height remained way off the charts, he's 28 1/4 inches currently. For reference, at SIX months T was 17 lbs and 27.5 inches and Nora was only 15.5 lbs and 25.5 inches. Four-month-old Finn only weighs 5 ounces less than our one-year-old Nora did.

A week or so ago he pretty much forced us to sleep train him. He wouldn't go to sleep nursing or rocking like he usually did one night, so finally I just put him down in his bed and he went right to sleep. Since then he pretty much won't go to sleep until we put him in bed. He will still usually fuss and cry a bit, but then goes off to sleep after five or ten minutes. And just a few days ago he started turning onto his belly to sleep, so we are finally getting some rest around here.

Teresa loves taking care of Finn, and trying to make him laugh. She's finally starting to figure out that he responds a lot better to her affections if she doesn't overwhelm him by getting completely up in his face. They were both having a lot of fun in these videos.





Five points if you can tell why I said "Seriously?". I had to stop the recording because I was laughing too much.

He recently started making lots of cute little noises.

It's a little hard to work the phone camera and tickle a baby at the same time.

He is so ready to be hitting some more milestones - he is always straining to sit up, and he gets so excited trying to grab for toys and stuff. His hands are still pretty clumsy, but he is getting there. Poor fellow has eczema, mostly on his legs and arms, and his poor little head, too, he has been scratching at his scalp a lot the past few days. Couple that with a thrush diagnosis from the doctor yesterday and we are pretty much constantly rubbing lotion or hydrocortisone cream on him or dosing him with nystatin (four times a day!). He is a bit more work than I was hoping for a third baby, but we love him so much, we don't mind.

He is very interested in anything we are eating. He perks up when he sees someone eating something, and if you are holding him he with start swiping for it. He'll have to be patient just a little bit longer. The girls are very, very excited for him to start eating stuff besides milk, so they can feed him. We've attempted bottles of pumped milk two times, but he has absolutely zero interest in them, and the girls were quite disappointed by that.

He loves to suck on his hands, and is always trying to cram as much of them in his mouth as he can. He's always trying to slip a finger or two in there when he's nursing, too. His little fingers are always so chapped thanks to that, since his skin is already so dry to begin with!

Anyway, that's a bit of a longer update than I had planned about Finn. We just love him so much, and are so glad to have him in our family. 

Just some pictures

Well, and a few words. But not that many, because I'm really tired. My brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders these days. Sometime in December all three of our children decided to quit sleeping. The worst week was when they woke us up 6 times in one night. And then the next night they woke us up nine times between the hours of 11pm and 5am. NINE times. Nine! And then the next night it was only a blessed five times. Luckily since then the girls have mostly returned to normal (ie: waking up hopefully only one time in the night and then getting up around 5). Finn is still trying to figure things out. We're crossing our fingers he gets there soon.

Anyway, here are a lot of pictures of four-month-old Finn.

He found his feet.

I took T out on a date a few weeks ago. We went to the mall because "Mom, I am a teenager". No, you're not, Teresa. "Well, I'm in highschool". Sigh. Anyway, she went in this dressing room by herself, and I looked like a major creeper taking pictures through the crack in the curtain. She was pretty much just admiring herself and playing with her hair.

We made some ice cream out of the freshly fallen snow we got a few weeks ago. Just snow and sweetened condensed milk. Oh, and some vanilla. It was surprisingly good.

Finn got a jumper. He likes it.

Technically obeying my instructions - "don't put anything over his face".