Norah and the Easter Bunny

Well, it turns out that Norah is not a big fan of the Easter Bunny! Yesterday we were at the mall letting Jason shop around for some non-black t-shirts with his birthday money when I noticed that the Easter Bunny was all set up in his little hut with no line to speak of. Thankful that Norah was decked out in a precious little spring dress (thank you Taren!), we headed over to have a quick photo taken.

Norah started clutching me desperately as soon as she saw the bunny approaching. We warmed up with one where she sat on my lap near the bunny. She wasn't terribly thrilled about it, but she did not actively protest... yet.





Then I handed her over to the bunny for one on her own, and she acted like I had cut her foot off! (Which I didn't but the camera lady kind of did!)





I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Norah about jumped out of her high chair when a nice man smiled at her at Penguin Ed's the other day, so it only makes sense that she would react poorly when I abandoned her in the arms of a giant rodent! : )

YouTube Stars!

I've never really noticed how many videos we have on YouTube... We just upload one here and one there, and then to tell you the truth, I tend to kind of forget all about them. Then Jason made a blog post about some YouTube clips he had posted of Norah walking, and I clicked over into our YouTube channel. It was so fun to see what all was on there! It made me really really glad that we have been taking videos of the kids.

I know that one day it will be absolutely priceless to see Autumn singing her classic "There's No Reason To Cry," or to watch Bear ask us if we have our tickets to the gun show or to see Norah playing peek-a-boo for the first time. The Gray Family Singers is also one that will long be treasured!

Go take some videos of your kids! You'll be glad you did!

16 weeks!

I am now 16 weeks pregnant! Wow! Baby Shiloh is approximately the size of a can of soda, my uterus is about the size of a cantaloupe, and my handy dandy iPhone app says that I'm 40% done. Unfortunately, it also says I am fat. *sigh

Anyway, I am now entering my very favorite part of pregnancy! I can feel little Shiloh wiggling around in there, I have enough of a little belly that I'm starting to actually look pregnant, and I feel fantastic! From now until about 32 weeks is the pregnancy honeymoon stage as far as I'm concerned, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it!

I feel like this is the actual week I have officially "popped." I think it happened somewhere between the jambalaya at Acme Oyster House, the crawfish pasta and bread pudding at the Chartres House Cafe and the beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe Du Monde... Wow, I love New Orleans! Anyway, here is a Photo Booth snapshot of my newly minted prego belly!





I can't believe that I'm already over halfway to where I was when Norah was born. It's all starting to seem very, very real to me! I think I may have Jason set up Shiloh's crib some time this week. I need to get started working on the bedding! I'm going to see if I can manage to make it myself this time around. They have several textured white fabrics at my favorite fabric store in Springdale that I think would work beautifully. I just need to finally get around to getting started!

Weaning

I have so enjoyed the past 18 months of breastfeeding my sweet baby Norah! From the very first time she tried, she loved nursing with every fiber of her precious little being. It has been such a special time, and something we both enjoyed so much, that it was really, really hard for me to think about weaning her. However, given that I am now 4 months pregnant with her little brother or sister, and now that she is 1 and a half, the time had finally come for this wonderful and rewarding chapter of our relationship to close.

It is making me tear up just to type this!

Jason photographed one of our last pre-naptime nursing sessions last week, before we left for our trip.






We were gone to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast for 4 days, and Norah stayed with my parents to give her a chance to try to forget about nursing. Well, that didn't exactly work, but it was a great break for me and Jason nonetheless! Unfortunately, the first thing she did once we walked in the door was try to nurse! We managed to distract her, and once we got home, we've been trying to change her routine up a little to make it easier on her.

She still asks, but I just tell her that the milk is all gone and then distract her with another activity. It seems like as long as we avoid our usual spots and change up the bedtime routines a little, it's not quite as hard. For example, she used to nurse to sleep in my desk chair and then nap on the mattress up here in the office. Now I'm letting her lay down in her "big girl bed" and fall asleep on her own. She fusses a little at first, but this is 2 days in a row that she has managed to fall asleep and nap in her own bed. It feels like a miracle!





Jason lays by her at night instead of me now, and in the morning we just take her straight to her high chair for breakfast. I think we're in the home stretch now! It's a bittersweet time, but I think we will all get better sleep, and I think it will be good for my body to have a little break before Shiloh shows up!

Oh no, now I'm crying again. Silly hormones!!

I think if we can just stay strong for a few more days, weaning will be behind us and a whole new chapter of our mother/daughter relationship can unfold. Wish us luck!

Spring Cleaning... The Refrigerator Edition

I have a list going for my spring cleaning, and believe it or not, I hadn't even thought to put the refrigerator on it! Well, that changed in a hurry when I went to put up groceries today! All of a sudden I noticed that it was in rather a state of disaster, so I set aside the rest of my list temporarily to tackle the fridge!

I read the other day that as much as 40% of food produced in America is not eaten, and I realized as I was cleaning out the fridge how guilty of wastefulness I am myself! I had to throw out several yogurts, a mango, a package of pork chops, some lunch meat, assorted cheeses, half a bag of onions, 4 apples, 3 mandarin oranges, a half-eaten carton of cottage cheese and assorted leftovers. What a ridiculous waste!

To try to help with this, I decided to re-organize the fridge once I was done with a full clean-out. I started off by completely emptying the refrigerator, and then I removed all of the shelves and drawers to give them a good scrubbing in the sink. I then wiped out the interior, replaced the shelves and started trying to figure out where my biggest food-wasting problems are.

Part of the problem is that Norah's homemade baby foods and single-serve fruits, veggies and yogurts tend to just get stashed around the fridge wherever they happen to fit. Then they get forgotten until I run across them much later and have to toss them out. To try to help with this problem, I put 2 bins from Target on the top shelf of the fridge to store loose items. I put all of her baby foods, fruits, etc., in one and all of the assorted condiments (which were taking over the drawer shelves) in the other.





I think that alone is going to make a big difference! Then I set aside the small shelf below that for fresh meats and items such as leftovers, etc., that need eaten in short order.





One other thing that drives me crazy is that all of the jelly, salad dressing, croutons, bacon bits, etc., are all scattered out in the shelves so that it is always a pain to find everything I need when I want to serve a salad. Solution? A salad basket! Then all I have to do is pull it out and set it on the table, and the salad accompaniments are ready to go!





Then I put all my veggies and fruits in their own little drawers:







On a side note, go buy some Cuties while you have the chance... They're yummy and super-easy to peel, so they make a perfect healthy snack! The last batch we had was particularly delicious, and they were on sale at Wal-Mart this morning!

Once I figured out a place to keep the yogurt, all the dairy fit in its assigned drawer:




And then there's my personal favorite fridge shelf! : )





I wish I had thought to take a before picture to show you how much better it looks now than it did, but here is the after anyway!





I love spring cleaning!

Baby Bookworms

The Fayetteville Public Library offers many fun and entertaining activities for kids of all ages. One of these activities is "Baby Bookworms," where parents bring their infants and toddlers together for a time of singing, dancing, bubbles and books. Sounds great, right? Apparently Norah begs to differ. She hated it!

She buried her head in my lap when people tried to talk to her, hid behind me when the librarian offered her a bell, and she ran away from the bubble machine in complete terror! Thankfully, she didn't find the library itself quite as objectionable. After storytime was over, my friend Sarah, her son Kru, Norah and I spent some time playing in the children's section. These babies are so precious!!

Norah's World

While I was stalking the birds through the window, Norah decided to take over the kitchen. She pulled out all of her favorite foods, such as the Jiffy cornbread and the canned salmon (both of which she tried to wash in the dishwasher earlier this week) and brought them over by her little kitchen to play with. Then she found a Twizzler of unknown origins (probably in Bear's room would be my guess) and wandered over to see what I was up to. This little girl cracks me up!

We love spring!

We've had a couple more pretty (if still a bit chilly) days this week, so we've tried to get outdoors as much as possible! On Tuesday, while Autumn was at cheerleading, Bear and Norah and I decided to finally hang up the bird feeders! We also re-potted Bear's poor sad little pumpkins in the hopes that they won't die before they get strong enough (and it gets warm enough) to plant them outside. Cross your fingers!










Yesterday I noticed that the bird feeders seem to actually be working! I noticed a beautiful cardinal out there as I was getting Norah out of her high chair from lunch, but by the time I grabbed my camera, he had flown away. I waited very patiently, and eventually this little guy came around. He's not quite as photogenic as a cardinal, but I thought it was neat that he was there anyway!

Norah says "Cheese"

Although she wasn't there to have her picture made, Norah kept running in front of the camera during Noah's photo shoot. I think she was a little jealous that another baby was getting all the attention!





Also, on a side note, despite our best efforts, Norah has somehow learned to say "Cheese."





Heaven help us!

Noah - March 2010

My friend Kara brought her precious 6-month-old son Noah to the studio for a quick photo session. He's so cute!