Brooke & Co!

My college roommate and MTC companion Brooke and her family came to visit us for a day on their way to Hawaii. We were really happy to have them and I was really glad to meet her new baby Mason in person. He's a cutie.
Nora immediately took to him and wanted to show him and tell him all sorts of things. I hope she is just as excited for the arrival of baby Ike in a few months!Sometimes I think she gets it. Like the other day she was sitting on my lap and without any prompting she leaned into my belly and gave it a hug, saying "hi baby Ike." Then other times we ask her where baby Ike is and she says "in Mommy's tummy." But then she goes on to point to Daddy's or her tummy and say "baby." Hmmm. Anyway it was great to see Brooke and Justin and their adorable baby!

Three Pregos!

My sister Lindsay had a baby shower before she took off for Virginia. My aunt Wendy was there and is just a few weeks behind us in her pregnancy. My sister Briana is also with child :) and as my sister Stephanie just had a baby in May, Briana calculated that all of us sisters were pregnant together for four days! Wish I had a picture of that!

A Day at the Lake

My uncle Layne and his family invited us up for a day of skiing and tubing at Bullard's Bar this week. I don't know how I managed to convince Branden to take a full day off of studying, but I'm really glad he came and spent the day relaxing with us. Nora had her first (and second and third) tube ride behind a boat and loved it - especially the "bumpy" parts. She is so brave and adventurous!


She also had fun hanging out with some second cousins (like Thomas and George and Tommy) and just playing around in the water.


On the ride to the lake, I was helping Nora to get excited about the day by telling her we were going to play in water with other kids. As soon as we got out of the car and saw her cousins, she ran down toward the dock excitedly yelling "Kids! I'm coming!" It's not too hard to get her psyched up!


We thought after no nap and a long, hard day of play in the hot sun, Nora would totally crash on the way home. No such luck! For the two and a half hour drive home she sang, read books, jabbered and generally made sure we all knew she was no where near being ready to fall asleep!

Nora Turns Two!

For her second birthday, Nora had the time of her life with four friends and a Curious George-themed party.





We started out by reading a book about Curious George and his birthday surprise, then moved outside for a "monkey hunt" where the kids all searched for candy-stuffed "bananas."



Then we played "George Says" (red light, green light)followed by Curious George bingo.


The party wrapped up with cake and presents. Nora's friends gave her some fantastic and thoughtful gifts and she has been playing with them nonstop since then. Thank you friends, for helping make her big day so fun!




The whole day (and for many weeks before) Nora often excitedly shouted "happy birthday!" and sang the happy birthday song to herself. Surprisingly, after her birthday ended she hasn't really done that. I guess she figured out it was a one-time event. And I am very proud of her for not having any melt-downs during the party as I had been warned might happen. Way to go birthday girl!

It's a Boy!

We had our 20-week ultrasound and it looks like we were right - it's a boy! We kinda had a feeling. Branden attributed my almost lack of morning sickness to this pregnancy being a boy. :) My sister Lindsay is due with a boy just three weeks after my due date, so that makes things doubly exciting!

The Dixon May Fair

Mom, Dad, Lindsay, Todd, Branden and I exposed Nora to her first county fair in May. While she thought some of the livestock exhibits were cool, her favorite things by far were her pony ride and the little golf cart train that drove us around the fair. I couldn't believe how natural she was getting on the horse. Never looked scared or nervous a bit! Just got on, picked up the reins and was hot to trot!

Last week in Santa Rosa

After a long day of packing, we took decided to let Nora stretch her legs by running through the downtown waterpark. It wasn't particularly warm, but she still loved it!