Baby is Growing

Such cute girls.

My little Anna is growing fast and can now ride on Grandpa's horse. She can also say, "All done!" after eating and climb up and down the stairs. Great!

She still won't say mama, let alone any, 'mmmmm' sounds though. Argh!

Nora's Paint Party

This was the most laid back party that I have put on yet. I'm still trying to figure out why. Possibly because we had just come off of Aubrey's party of 10 kids under the age of 3. Whatever it was we had fun, ate cake, and best of all painted. Even I got to paint those cute little faces!

Pictures are in no particular order.

Nora's First Day of Kindergarten

This is late coming.

I can't believe we have a child in school already! She loved it and still does. I hope that lasts for 13 more years!

Reading the Paper

Do the Comics count? In our family they most difinitely do! Love this shot.

Nora Showing Some Sass

Nora has memorized some of the Article's of Faith. We try to refresh her memory every now and then. Today, I thought I would record it. I was expecting the norm but here's what she had to say.

More From the Blessing Day

Some more pictures I got from Amy, my sister-in-law/budding photographer. Thanks Amy!

Nora and the Nutcracker

Nora had another successful session of dancing, ending with a very sweet Nutcracker themed parent open house. Doesn't she look so precious in her Clara costume?

Nora's Fancy Birthday

This year we decided we were only going to do a small party for Nora so she was only allowed to invite her two cousins in town. We thought it would save on cost which I'm sure it did but it still felt like a pretty penny.

She wanted a fancy tea party based off the Fancy Nancy books. It turned out very cute and very 'fancy' according to what little girls find fancy. I usually love making homemade cakes or cupcakes but again was not as ambitious (because I'm pregnant), as I usually am so we opted for The Cupcakery here in Vegas. I love how their frosting has edible glitter to top it off.

All Fairytales End

Nora's ballet classes have come to an end this session and it has been so fun and magical. These are the pictures from Aladdin week, which was one of my favorites. Take note at Nora's perfect form. I can't help but be a proud mama. Now we are getting ready for swim lessons. Wish us luck!
















Aubrey rubbing the magic genie lamp just like her older sister.
















Nora's sweet dance teachers, one who played Aladdin.

Easter Beauties

My girls were decked out in the same attire for Easter, thanks to an amazingly talented Aunt Amy. Thanks Amy!

Feeling Easter

The holidays are definitely getting more fun as my children grow older. At Nora's dance class they dressed up like bunnies and read Peter Rabbit as well as danced to Peter Cottontail. It was adorable and fun.

I'm looking forward to hearing General Conference and getting more in the true feeling of Easter. Have a great weekend!

This is My Ballet . . .

For our ward talent show Nora performed one of her many freestyle ballets. Enjoy!

St. Patty Food and Fun

What cool green food have you been making today? We made the St. Patrick's Day version of this recipe and both girls loved it. I heard that a leprechan left his pot of gold in my backyard too! Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Clown Ballet

We started Nora up in dance classes again. This time around we went with a place my friend Mindy told me about. This was our second time there. Before we went Nora asked me about 15 times if it was time to go to dance yet.

She really likes to dance.

The students get to dress up every week in something corresponding with that weeks theme. This week was Olivia Saves the Circus, hence the abnoxiously huge bow tie. Nora looked so cute sassing up the ballet floor with her form of clown dance.

"Nora, show me how you point your toe!"

Nora's Equation

Nora getting dressed up in princess jewels and such instead of napping = Nora sleeping through her favorite Barbie Nutcracker movie.

Yes, she still takes a nap and yes she still needs it.

Grandma's Wisdom

My girls and I love to visit Grandma. We usually get to experience something domestically wonderful and most often tasty. Today, it was juicing oranges. Nora loved it. She is always trying to use my manual juicer (I don't even know what to call it), and will give up a second into it because it's too hard for her to use. The whole time I watched Nora pressing down on those oranges I was thinking, "man, I need to get me a juicer." I could get Nora to make us freshly squeezed OJ every week!

Beauty and the Beast

Nora and I went to Disney's Beauty and the Beast play this past weekend. I was truly impressed in the production considering it was done at a local library in a small theater. Nora liked most of it but there were some scary parts that she had to nuzzle her head into my shoulder and I would plug her ears (wolves and Beast roaring). We got to take a few pictures with the cast. Stephen, my brother, came with us. He is actually dating the extra in the bottom left corner pic. Cute, huh? Sadly the pic with Stephen is not so cute. It's your own fault (he loves making faces for my camera).

Ride on Cowgirl

I'd like to brag about Nora, did I tell you she is reading books now? It has been fun reading stories with her, now that she can sound out words. Sometimes, I get this feeling that she just knows certain things even though we haven't taught her out right. A couple of weeks ago she recited from memory the first five Articles of Faith to the older Primary kids, she's only in Nursery. The kids were great to her, cheered, gave high fives, even came up to her after church to tell her how cool it was that she knew them. All the attention didn't even phase her. She wanted to go back to Nursery and play with her friends. She just learned the sixth a few days ago.

Along with her amazing mental ability to retain information, she loves to dance. I recently was having a conversation with her when mid-sentence she stopped, looked at me and said, "Mom, I gotta dance." Then proceeded to run into the family room and began to dance. It was a priceless moment, she has some pretty awesome moves.

Forever ago we taught her a lesson on modesty during family home evening (the reason why is a whole other story). Since then that topic comes up in conversation with her often. Sometimes she talks about it in public. Like the time we were in Target and the whole family next to us in the isle, including the mom, was dressed immodestly. So, Nora turns to me and asks, "Mama why are they not dressed modest?" We were right next to them, RIGHT next to them, within inches. We have had a few of those incidents and we'll be teaching in FHE a lesson on being kind to other's feelings soon.

I just love how she marches to the beat of her own drummer. Wow, this turned out to be long. I guess I am one of those parents. Oh well. Yeehaw, ride on cowgirl.

Love

These beautiful girls have been given to me on loan from Heavenly Father. Lucky me. Sometimes it just hits me hard how blessed I am. In this crazy world - at this crazy time, I feel blessed.

Costumes

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, visited Grandma's house on Halloween. Some may find it cruel that I dressed up my baby girl as a wolf but I thought she looked pretty cute, even if people couldn't tell whether she was a girl or a boy. I wish although, I would have made her a snout so others would have been able to guess what she was ("Is she a bear?"), there would have been no way she would have kept that on though.

Before taking these pictures, Nora, had a blue popsicle and stained her mouth and lips. We rubbed all we could but to no avail. So, we ended up putting lipstick on her 3 year-old lips. In her toothy smile you can still see blue. She had such fun since she was finally understanding the concept of Halloween. Now, if only she understood that the holiday was over. I would not feel so bombarded with questions like, "Mom, will you make me a blue Cinderella gown?" or, "Mom, will you make me a blue gown?" and, "Oh, you can't make me one? Well, then can you make me a green and pink gown instead?"

I wanted to show you a picture of Nora's pointed hood and vest. I loved the end result. I felt like she popped right out of the fairy tale's pages.