Weekend Up North

We finally were able to get back up north to visit Grandmama and Grandpapa. Nora and Amelia both had a blast. Amelia had been talking about fishing for the entire week before and she had her Dora fishing line complete with a rubber fish for the hook and bait. When we were able to finally go out on the pontoon, I showed her how to troll. All was going great until we made a turn and the line got caught in the prop and snapped. Rubber fish was long gone and it took the rest of the weekend to convince her that losing your lures is just part of fishing. I think we were able to convince her, but I'll be making another trip to Toys R Us soon. (:

We also hit the Lake Michigan beach... twice. Much castle building and shell collecting. Nora had her first experience with trying to walk through the sand including scaling the huge craters that someone had left for us.

We also were able to break out the telescope and take a look at a really bright Venus. We took a tractor ride. Amelia made smores. Nora scaled an entire flight of stairs and took her first boat ride (kinda)

This was also the first big trip in the new minivan. All went well and we all love the immense amount of room that we now have. I was able to install the new floor mats just before we left and they got their first trial and passed by containing an entire McDonald's white milk.

Nora Walks

Just a quick note

On Sunday (Father's Day), Nora finally decided that she was going to show us that she too could utilize a bipedal mode of transportation. She still reverts to crawling when she gets lazy, but she's a walking baby now.

Also, today, while I was getting her pajamas on, she played peek-a-boo with her little angel baby doll.

Oh, and she says cheese anytime she sees a camera

Homo-Erectus baby

Nora Stands

Nora has been pulling herself up to her knees for weeks now to get what she wants on the table. Today, however, Nora made a B-Line for the coffee table when she saw that a stein (full of beer) was sitting on the far edge. Since it was out of her kneeling reach, she pulled herself right up to her feet and had a hand on it before we even realized what she was doing. Of course, when she saw that we were all clapping for her, she had to applaud along. So, all it took was a little liquid encouragement to bring enlightenment.... a good lesson to remember for all of us.

Tripod Baby

Nora, whilst crawling, occasionally sees something on the floor which she needs two hands to play with. Usually she'll sit down and play away, but every now and then, she'll plant her head to the ground, raise her butt in the air and form a baby bridge with said toy underneath. She will then play with it while upside down standing on her head. The most amusing act, was when she tried to drink from her sippy cup while in the tripod move. This seemed like a good idea until the formula ran up (down) from her mouth into her nose.

Poses at the princess party

At Elisia's/Juliana's birthday party, instead of playing with all the kids, Amelia proceeded to demonstrate all he ballet moves. This wouldn't be all the abnormal, until we realized that she was demonstrating to no one. In fact, when Lydia asked her what she was doing and she replied "I'm doing my poses". Then she turned to Kellie and said, "Mrs. Lauder, do you want to watch me do my poses?"

Piñata

What party would be complete without a bunch of kids with bats, blindfolded, swinging at a suspended, candy filled, papier mâché animal? Unfortunately, through the process of Darwinism, a new (improved?) piñata was invented where kids are not blindfolded, the bats are gone, and the kids pull streamers to release the bounty from within. This invention while more humane didn't take into account the feelings of an ultra sensitive 4 your old <cough>amelia</cough>. The first round all the girls lined up and grabbed a ribbon and, in the midst of the chaos, pulled away before Amelia got a chance to grab one. You'd think that with the cascade of candy all would be forgotten, but alas, our child wouldn't even consider a piece (or heaping handfulls) of candy for retribution. Lydia saved the day, however. She had another piñata for the boys and made sure Amelia was first in line to grab a ribbon.

Noraisms

Just a brief overview of Nora:

• She's crawling everywhere and wires are always the ultimate goal of the traveling
• She responds to her name and seems to know dada, mama, and nana. We're still working on Mia.
• She's trying to blow kisses, but instead of actually doing the kissy noise, she starts by making a boo-boo face and then says mwah.

I'm sure there's more, but I just wanted to make sure i got that down first..

Daddy Daughter Dance

I keep saying that I gotta start writing.. so.. here goes:

Last night was the daddy daughter dance. I can't believe it's been a whole year since the last time.

Last Year’s Dance

Last year, when we first got there, Amelia was super bummed that we weren't able to start dancing right away, but instead had to wait in line to get our picture taken. When we finally got to the front of the line, she was not in the mood for smiling, so, we have a wonderful souvenir photo of a happy daddy and a grumpy Mia.

We got to the dance floor and it was 30 minutes of nonstop spinning during every song. Fast, slow, rock, pop, country… everything involved me holding Amelia’s hand and her spinning around. Then the music stopped and we were served pizza. I need to define ‘We’ here. We did not include Amelia and I, but included Amelia and most of the rest of the people at the dance. They accidentally bought too little pizza and near the end the dads were giving up their own slices to the girls. After the pizza debacle, the music started up again and we had 30 more minutes of dancing. Again, dancing would be defined as nonstop spinning.

At this point, she was exhausted, I was exhausted and we called it a night.

This Year’s Dance

So, this year, we not only got to go to the dance again, but we were accompanied by the Briggs and the Lauders. This time Amelia knew that there was gonna be pictures, so all was well during the picture. We ended up sitting at a low numbered table (to avoid the potential pizza dearth) and got out to the dance floor right away. This time, Amelia’s repertoire was expanded to include Spinning, Dipping, Slide through the legs, windmills, and whatever else she saw everyone else doing. Unfortunately it was a short night for Juliana, but we all met up again at our house afterwards and all the girls got to hang out.

And there was oodles of pizza for all.

Pictures soon to follow