Great Wall, Rockets, Cheese, and Belly Buttons.

Glen found this "Great Wall of China" cardboard coloring contraption on sale at Hobby Lobby (craft store). It took both of us to put the thing together. Norah thought it was neat though and had her Princess and the Frog doll playing on it for a few days.

We recently got a decent snow storm. Norah was not real big on snow last year but this year she actually went outside for a little while and even rode around on a sled for about 20 minutes, then she was done and ready to go back inside.

Notice the hands on the hips posture. Notice the disapproving look on her face. Hahahaha! Glen had no idea what he was in for. To funny! This is her new stance and facial expression. She uses it often and she IS NOT joking.

It has been quite cold here lately so we have been having to find things to do inside. See above about how Norah is not real big on cold weather. We made a rocket from one of her many craft books and then tied up fishing line from the top of the front door to the table leg in the kitchen. The rocket is attached to the fishing line by pipe cleaners. Norah tied an extra long piece of fishing line to the bottom of the rocket so that she could pull it all the way back up to the top part of the string on the front door. When she would let go of her end of the string the rocket would zoom back down the line to the kitchen. She played with that for a while and then went and got a whole lot of ribbon out of the craft bin and began tying it everywhere. It made it almost impossible to get through the living room BUT entertained her for almost 4 hours so it was well worth it. We just went throught the next morning and cut it all down.

Yet another thing to do inside on a cold day. We tried or hand at making cheese. Glen and I saw a little blurb in the How To section of the Google home page and thought hmmmm I wonder if it will work. It was really easy, didn't take long, and Norah even liked the cheese. I think we will most likely do it again and maybe even try and expand on the types of cheese. I tried making orange marmalade too but it tastes really bad. I will have to try it again sometime with a different receipe

We were going to suspend the dish towel from the hanger over night to let the remainder of the whey drip out but we are very impatient around here so I just squeezed it out.

Cheese burgers for lunch! Yum!

Norah's outfit for Tuesday. I hope she never loses her quirky fashion sense.

On a side note: I realize that if you come in to the hospital with an emergency you might be dirty from working or whatever. Totally expected and acceptable. No problem I will wash you down before surgery without a word. However, for the love of pete people wash out your belly button once in a while. I can not tell you the number of times I have had to dig out with tweezers something that looks like a small, stinky mouse out of someones belly button. Your bathing anyway right? (Hopefully) Just stick your finger in there and twirl it around. Who knows you might like it. Just saying. This ends my public service announcement for today. (Disclaimer: Obviously I am not talking about anyone in particular. It is just an overall observation.) Cut your toenails too!

January 15

Happy Birthday Dr. King!

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is to great a burden to bear."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

2010 - Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Lori's year (2010)....illustrated with the help of Norah and Ariel.

My year started out like this. (See above picture.) Then during the last half of the year went from that to what can only be best described by Ariel's perdicament in the bottom picture. There were bright spots here and there yet on the whole 2010 was a big sack load of to much stress, zero alone time, many many trips to way to many medical establishments, minimal sleep and even less .....ummmm...... adult alone time (see post about how Norah doesn't ever sleep or like it when Glen hugs me). We are sooooo ready for 2011.

No mermaids were harmed during the making of this post. At least she didn't say she was being harmed. (insert evil laugh here)

Here's to an easy, less stressed new year with much more sleep and lovins' for Mama and Daddy.

Christmas for Norah 2010

When Norah first wakes up she is this loveable, cuddly little girl. Just look at that sweet face! I usually miss out on this part of the day with Norah because I am already gone to work before she wakes up. She has an attitude that takes about 45 minutes to kick in after she wakes up, then hold on to your hat! This is only Norah's second Christmas with us so we broke the cardinal parenting rule and woke her up. I think we were more excited than she was at first.

You can see it start to dawn on her. Glen and Norah have been glueing cottonballs on a picture of Santa Claus, each day they glued on 1 cottonball for that day and signed and talked about Christmas. So on Christmas morning we had Norah glue on that last precious cottonball before she could open her gifts.

Norah was able to tell which packages were hers. She has become very good at recognizing her written name since the presents started appearing under the tree. She would go from package to package looking for her name and then get all excited when she found it.

This was the biggest hit! It goes up really quick and comes down really quick. Norah has bounced off a lot of energy in this thing just over the past few days.

There were also many dress up outfits. My Mom also found Norah some awesome hats that she embelished (one of the hats has my Grandmothers Abby's pin on it) and she found her some gloves. Norah loves playing dressup! This sequin number was the first one she had to try on.

After we finished opening presents at our house we loaded up and headed over to my Mom and Dad's house. Boo is staying over there right now and we wanted to make sure that we got to see him and give him his vegan treats in his stocking. He has been trying really hard to be healthier and mentioned something about possibly going vegan so Glen and I took a trip to Whole Foods and filled his stocking up with whatever we could find. We also picked up some Kiss My Face products for Jessica (Boo's girlfriend) and got her some vegan treats as well.

Norah cleaned up and got a new DVD player. She has been without her own since around May of 2010 because she broke it to the point that you couldn't see the screen. Tile, portable DVD players and five year olds do not mix. You can only drop them so many times. The DVD player that is.
She got 5 different little cats this year. Her own litter to play with. They were all lined up watching Toy Story 3.

There was lots of good food and company. We all sat around and talked and really enjoyed ourselves. Boo took to my Dad's Jazzy scooter like a duck to water. In fact he buzzed all over the house in it. I told Dad that he may have to fight Boo just to ride in his own scooter. Norah thought the scooter was for her when we went to pick it up and started crying when we told her it was for Popi (Grandpa). She has managed to scam many rides from Popi though, so she is satisfied to share .... for now.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas....Channukkah......Solstice (Yule) or just a plain good December. May the New Year be kind to all of us.