march & april madness + nora update

ready for a mass update, since i am so good at neglecting this blog?
settle in, folks!

march:
the month of march turned out to be quite a pleasant one.
although it started out kind of miserable- what with more sicknesses and freezing weather and chris working extremely long, late hours.
but then somewhere in the middle of the month we had st. patty's day and an abundance of birthdays (nora's included), which meant that there was awesome food plus ridiculous treats everywhere for days and days. hooray! and then things started to look up for us.
and since chris quit being plagued by colds, flus, and other sicknesses, he was also able to work out in an uninterrupted fashion the whole time and is now progressing just wonderfully with his P90X2 exercise program. he's pretty pleased about it. also, my family finds it quite entertaining to sit around and watch him do his thing in the middle of the living room; whether it be yoga or weight-lifting or plyometrics or whatever he does for the day. i'm secretly jealous of his spry in-shape-ness. there's nothing that makes a pregnant woman feel more blob-enly than sitting around watching her ridiculously athletic husband be all ridiculously athletic in the living room.

at nora's birthday party

april:
uneventful as far as events go, but very productive as far as accomplishing menial tasks- i think i got a case of spring fever, amplified by nesting. :) the most energetic i've felt in months!
but of the events that we had, we had a nice easter and christopher had a nice birthday.
we're currently waiting it out for the new little miss to be born and for the house construction to be completed. we're thinking the baby will come before the house is done though... which is quite alright with me- it's getting a little too crowded in the mama hotel!

easter sunday

nora:

is basically grown up already. she prefers to walk now, and is starting to say more words, such as "up" and "side" for 'outside'. she is also starting to learn the difference between dogs, frogs, and ducks; although saying the words is still slightly confusing for her when we're talking about all of them at one sitting. she's also starting to prefer daddy over mommy now because daddy has boundless energy to spend on her, and we're making slight progress with accepting more solid foods into her diet. we're also thinking that two more teeth are in the works... who wants to bet she cuts them right about the time the new little one comes home from the hospital? :)

next month we'll have pictures and stories of her little sister to share!

we have a toddler!

little nora is one year old! such a big girl!
she's a relatively tall one for her age- in the 82nd percentile for height (at 30.25inches); but rather thin as she's only in the 38th percentile for weight (20lbs).
i promise we're not starving her. she's just a picky eater. cheerios and oatmeal are the two things she doesn't reject on a regular basis.
however, if i fed her cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner i could probably guarantee we'd have an obese child in no time- she's a champ at eating sweets (just like her mother).

her new skills include:

• walking! although after a pretty rough tumble on the concrete she's pretty cautious about just toddling around on her own. she prefers a helping hand for security purposes. but when she does venture out on her own, it's usually accompanied by her shouting "go! go! go! go!" until she loses her balance and falls on her bum.
• knowing the word "dog", and applying the term not only to dogs, but to frogs, ducks, pigs, and horses.
• knowing where her tummy, eyes, and nose are. she also knows how to say "eye".
• nodding her head in the affirmative.
• knowing the hand signs to patty-cake and the itsy-bitsy spider.
• singing. it's cute.
• smiling to show off her two new front teeth! (that makes four of them. i'm proud of my little late bloomer!)

i got teeth!

nora's also becoming a little social butterfly- she loves waving and saying "hi" to all of the children she sees at the store. we're also trying to get her used to newborns... but she doesn't seem as interested in them as she does older kids (she might be in for a rude awakening here in a couple weeks... we'll see!)