Norah's visit with Santa

A couple weeks ago, Santa came to our neighborhood for a quick visit.  Norah sat on his lap and told him she had been a very good girl all year.

Norah and Santa see eye-to-eye on a couple things.

Merry Christmas!

Just when you think she can't get any cuter...

...BAM!  Pigtails!

And then BAM! BAM!  Pigtails making these faces:

We love our little Norah Bean so much!

13 Months

This post got away from us for a week, but here it is!  At 13 months, Norah:

• is eating table foods almost exclusively.
• has a "reading spot" on the bottom step of our landing.  She likes to take books, but no other toys, here to "read."
• enjoys having lotion put on her.
• has a nap and bedtime routine and is learning to fall asleep on her own.
• is making better friends with Max & Phoebe (see below).
• plays all her musical toys at once.  By the time she gets the third or fourth one going she has to start all over again.  Sometimes she gets upset if she can't hear one over the noise of the others.
• loves her glow baby.  She can anticipate the end of a song and gets ready to make her sing again.
• drinks from a straw cup and looks very cute while doing it.

The best "official" picture we got this month. 

I come in peace.  Sometimes... 

I'm ready for my turkey! (on Thanksgiving)

For her birthday, Norah got this ball-popper toy.  She's since mastered turning it on, but still mostly knocks it over and spills all the balls.  She likes to feel the fan blow air in her face.  Here she is playing with it for the first time:

Cat toys: good for cats and good for babies when the cats lose interest.

The iPod

We don't typically let Norah play with the remotes, cell phones, and iPod that have moved from the coffee table to the ottoman to the couch as she's grown up and gotten more mobile.  We're about at the point where almost anything on the couch seat is within reach unless it's against the back cushion or if the ottoman is pushed up against the couch to make a larger "safe" zone.  So, if we get distracted talking to each other, stop playing with Norah long enough to pet the cats, or whatever, this is what we'll see after about two seconds:

Ooo, it lights up when I press this button!
She's got the thumbs of a texter already...

Busted!
Some of the time, as seen here, Norah uses one delicate finger out straight, flexing only the very tip to push the button.   

Back to figuring this thing out.

We downloaded a simple game called Make It Pop, which only needs one finger to touch the balloons or whatever else is on the screen to make them pop and play a sound.  After a quick look at the game, Norah thinks "I know how to play iPod!" (Ali's perfect description of what happens) and presses her finger exactly onto the home button and closes the game.

Norah is One!

Our baby girl is one year old, can you believe it!?  At one year old, Norah:

• pulls up to stand all the time and is successful nearly every time.  The breakables are getting moved upwards as we notice them within reach.
• loves to dance when she's standing and holding Mommy or Daddy's hands for balance.
• is very playful.  She likes to wrestle, be tickled, and be tossed in the air.
• has eight teeth, four on top and four on the bottom.  Well, the 8th actually came in at one year and two days, but it's close enough.
• loves books and likes to be read to while she's getting ready for bed.
• got her first taste of sweets (her birthday cake), but isn't quite sure how she likes it yet.

Here is her official one year picture:

Our one year old.

And here are a few of the festivities:

The banner Mom and Dad made for Norah.

One view of Norah's party. 

Unwrapping a new friend. 

Mmm, cheerios.
(we had to put them on the cake to get her to take bites of it)

And these show how we've been having fun this last month:

Wrestling with Daddy.
(we know it's out of focus, but you get the idea)

Mommy's Little Helper

Here is a picture of Norah "helping" me make a birthday present for her cousin Brooke.

Other things Norah likes to help me with:

-folding laundry

-texting daddy

-eating lunch

-this post

Norah's First Halloween

Norah making her best unicorn face. 

Unicorns never can stay still for too long. 

They also like to play with the laundry basket. 

A better shot of Norah and her Jack-O-Lantern. 

Norah out trick-or-treating with her friend Gavin. 

Unicorns can fly on Halloween.

We hope everyone had a happy Halloween, ours was great!

Norah's First Pumpkins

Norah is celebrating her first Halloween this year, so we took her to the pumpkin patch to pick out her own pumpkin.

She wasn't sure about pumpkins at first. 

She warmed up a little when she saw the big kitties (goats). 

Norah tasting the pumpkin she picked out. 

Norah helping scoop out the big pumpkin (Phoebe is supervising). 

The best shot we got of Norah with her first Jack-O-Lantern.

Stay tuned for more of Norah's first Halloween.

More new foods!

We forgot to include yogurt and blueberries in the list of new foods Norah has had this month.  Can you tell which is which?  The blueberries turn her teeth blue, but she loves to brush her teeth, so it's all good : )

Eleven months

Norah has not grown at all this month ; )

She is getting so expressive and full of personality.  At eleven months, Norah:

• has tried many new foods, including apricot, turkey, beef, cheese, cheerios, miso soup, salmon, and spicy tortilla soup (!!!).  She's loved everything we've tried giving her.
• pulls up to the couch and ottoman to get to cell phones, ipods, and remotes.  She even took a step or two once when we moved the cell phone across the couch.
• still loves baby signing time and has favorite songs in it.
• dances to music by wiggling forward and back or bouncing on her knees.
• has a mouth capacity of 3-4 cheerios, no matter how hard she tries to fit one more.
• has waved bye bye to Grandma, once.
• is getting playful and one of her favorite games is to chase us when we crawl around the ottoman.
• loves to laugh and tries to make us laugh, too.
• likes to help turn light switches on and off and gives a little satisfied smirk when she does.
• gives the sweetest hugs and kisses when she wants to.
• has even curlier hair than before.
• is so cute/sweet/wonderful/adorable we can hardly stand it.

Here's the official eleven month picture:

And here are a few more from the last month:

Norah got her first black eye this month, too.

Got it!

Melting our hearts.

Making us laugh.

Our giggling girl.

Norah's curly curly hair after a bath.

Norah after "feeding" herself.

Daddy's Girl

In more ways than one:

I'm getting her started young...

Playful Norah

Since we went a whole month with no pictures, here are a bunch from this past week.  See, we told you we'd do better....

Ten Months

Also known as the month we took no pictures.  In our defense, we were under construction for, like, six weeks... At ten months, Norah:

• has taken off crawling.  Seriously, we can't get her to sit still and she is into everything.
• has climbed the stairs leading to the front door.  It's scary to watch, but she's learning.
• is no longer a vegetarian.  She's only had chicken so far but she likes it a lot.  She also really likes the potato and leek combination we've been giving her lately.
• is getting her 3rd tooth, the first one on the top.
• will give kisses when she is in the mood (which doesn't happen very often).
• crawls after us when we leave a room.  Unfortunately for her, she always turns towards the bathroom whether we're in there or not, blabbering on about mamamama the whole way (even when she is crawling after Dad).
• is a perfect angel when Grandma changes her diaper but never fails to roll away from Mom or Dad.
• pulls herself to a standing position on anything chest height or lower.  The couch is still a little too high for her, but pulling up on Phoebe seems to be fair game.
• likes to help Mommy fill her water bottle at the refrigerator then take a drink.

Here is the closest thing we have to an official ten month picture:

Climbing the stairs.

Going for Nana's cell phone.  This remains the most reliable way to get her to crawl from Point A to Point B.

Victory!

Norah's there's-a-dog-coming face.  Despite what it looks like, she's really not afraid of dogs.  Even close up giant ones.

Laughing at Mommy tickling her.  

Getting into her toy box.

We are finally getting all our furniture moved back into the living room so we promise to do better with the pictures this coming month.