Norah Explores the Cinema

Yesterday Norah hit a new milestone: Her first movie. Her friend Graham invited her to escape the rain and see The Lion King in 3D. She was amazed by the big theater and seemed to understand that this was a special privilege. We walked in during the previews and Norah, instead of charging fearlessly ahead of me as she usually does, quietly held my hand and observed the two other children in the theater sitting quietly in their seats. She was completely surprised to see Graham there and thrilled that he had not only saved her a seat next to him but was prepared with goldfish, capri –suns and m&m’s. They were both excellent audience members and sat contentedly in their seats for at least half of the movie and were really only slightly disruptive during the second half. I had forgotten what a great movie The Lion King is and it was fun to watch Norah enjoy it. She loved all the animals and was excited every time she saw one she recognized.  She’d point and say “a giraffe, a giraffe” with such urgency like she was worried we were going to miss it. However, I don’t think 3D is the best idea for a kids movie --they can’t keep their hands off those glasses and it turns out they are less effective when smudged with peanut butter.

Hair Bows

Norah and I stayed home while Lindsey and Lindsey went to RS conference this evening.  At about 9pm Norah was starting to lose it.  I asked her if she wanted to put 2 bows in her hair to make her feel better.  Apparently she was feeling quite lousy because she decided that she needed all of her bows in her hair.You can see that she’s getting tired here because she’s trying to rub her eyes.Norah actually insisted on sleeping with all of these bows in her hair even though it was pretty obvious it wasn’t very comfortable.

Indian Creek Apple Picking

Fall is my favorite season and Ithaca has so much to offer in the fall. This past Saturday we took Norah apple picking at Indian Creek Farm. We have never picked there before and it is probably the closest U-pick farm to us so we thought we should give it a go. I think I prefer both Little Tree Orchards and Grisamore Farm to Indian Creek. Click Here if you want to compare last year’s apple picking pictures to see how much Norah has grown.The trees we were supposed to pick from were already picked pretty bare so it was hard to find low hanging fruit for Norah to pick. Norah was incredibly patient and obedient as we looked for apples she could reach and she didn’t pick any fruit from the heavy laden trees (such as below) that were not ready for picking. She really was in a great mood and such a sport – singing to herself and asking us questions about the apples.Maybe she was so content because she always had an apple in her hand to eat.We also picked some perfectly ripe pears which were incredibleThe highlight of the morning for Norah was seeing and hearing a rooster crow. I would have taken a picture but the rooster was hanging out by the clotheslines and it seemed a little too personal for pictures.

Insane Rain

We have had so so SO much rain this week. The Tompkins county sheriff closed all the roads until further notice because of flooding. That means Cornell is closed as well. Bryan doesn’t have class till 3 so he might not escape any work but it is fun to have him work from home today. We had a nice leisurely pancake breakfast this morning.

It is actually not raining right now but it poured all day yesterday and all through the night. Last night Norah had a melt down from being cooped up so Bryan asked her if she wanted to go outside and she sobbed “yeah, outside” so they went outside in the dark, in the midst of a downpour to play on the swing set. And what was she wearing? A sundress! Norah will only wear the same 3 or 4 sundresses lately (basically the last two months). She did have a raincoat on over it at least. When they came back in she was totally soaked and much happier.

My friend Lindsey took this picture of Norah and Graham yesterday while we did laundry. It was quite the challenge to get 4 large laundry baskets, 3 kids and 2 big jugs of detergent in and out of the car between the 2 of us while it was pouring. We had planned to let the kids play at a nearby playground during laundry cycles but that obviously didn’t happen. We went to Target for free popcorn instead. We were all soaked by the time we were done.

Cornell Branch Opening Social

Last Friday our student branch had its annual opening social. I love it when everyone (well, not everyone sniff sniff) comes back from their summer internships – it was a lonely summer. Norah had a blast running around and being totally crazy with Ellie and Graham. These three kids couldn’t have been cuter together Friday. Our branch doesn’t have a primary program so new student families moving in with two year olds usually opt to go to the ward to avoid having to switch midway through their programs. Thus as Norah gets older her peer group shrinks but what a great group it is!

Our Branch Pres. has a few apple trees and they had this big bucket of apples sitting on their porch. Since the kids were quietly entertaining themselves we weren’t paying attention to them and by the time I started taking pictures they had taken exactly one bite out of probably a quarter of the apples. Notice that Graham and Ellie have swapped shoesHow cute is this? Ellie tries to hand Norah an appleBut then drops itNorah returns it and Graham puts back the apple he was working on and reaches for a fresh oneAnd we’re back to eating Running around giggling hystericallyNorah sharing. I’m so glad I had a camera.

New Apartment: Bedroom

Our bedroom isn’t as cute at Norah’s but we did get a new quilt like her.I started this quilt a year and a half ago and but got bored of working on it and took a very long break. I don’t think my attention span is big enough for queen size quilts. I finally got around to finishing it this summer.

New Apartment: Living Room and Kitchen

New Apartment: Norah’s Room

We moved into a new apartment a month ago and are loving it. It is so so nice to have a living room and kitchen again after two years of sorority living. We feel like grown ups again! There are lots of families with kids in this complex so whenever we go outside there is someone for Norah to play with.

When we moved in we switched Norah from her crib to twin bed. The transition couldn’t have been easier. She was so excited about having a big girl bed that she took right to it. This picture is of a random day when she insisted on napping with a package of straws.I just finished this strawberry quilt for Norah this week. I was hoping she would be just as excited about it as she was about her big girl bed but no such luck. She told me several times “no like it” and tried to pull it off her bed. I think she just really doesn’t like anyone messing with her stuff.Since not using the quilt was clearly not an option after laboring over it all summer I launched a PR campaign which included me playing with her stuffed animals and feeding them strawberries from the quiltAs well as making a coordinating doll quilt for Molly the Dolly to use It seems to have helped because I left Norah napping with my friend Ashley while I got my hair cut the other day and I guess when Norah woke up she was very happy about the quilt (she was very unhappy about having it on her bed when she went down for her nap) and showed it off to Ashley saying “look, strawberry blanket. So beautiful.” She has been happy to have it on her bed since. Success!

Hicks Family Beach Trip

Bryan’s parents rented a beautiful house on the Outer Banks for a family reunion during the last full week of August. We had a great time and I’ve been dying to post about it except that I’m mourning how few pictures I took. This always happens at the beach. It is just a pain to take a camera to the beach with all that sand. And who wants their picture taken when they are in their swimsuit, post swim / pre shower and have just gotten to a good part in their book? Alas, I have realized that waiting will not make more pictures materialize and have resolved to make up for it during Christmas break when we will see Bryan’s family again.

Beach Trip Highlights:

- Norah flying a kite for the first time

- Getting texts and emails from family and friends asking about / informing us of the DC earthquake

- Lamenting as a family that missed out on earthquake stories and then (in the case of Susan and Kelsey only) celebrating that we did in fact feel the earthquake only attributed it to Kimball shaking beach chairs

- Endless ice cream sandwiches

- Beating the beach traffic both on the way there and on the way back to VA (thanks to Guy’s foresight in predicting the evacuation schedule)

- Pool Party complete with brats and Beach Boys music

- Family Tennis matches

- Spotting Octagons on walks. Norah has suddenly become obsessed with stop signs (due to a sesame street segment on octagons with Jack Black) and wanted nothing more than to find octagons. One night at bedtime I was asking her what she wanted to do the next day and if she wanted to put more sea shells in the bucket and she said quietly “yeah. Sea shells in the bucket.” and then after a pause she excitedly asked “octagons?”

- Morning walks on the beach

- Seeing a live soft shell blue crab with a big barnacle on the beach

I loved walking on the beach in the morning because it was so empty and beautiful.This is Norah running as fast as she can away from the water. I don’t know what her deal was but she was absolutely against ocean. We couldn’t bribe her to swim with us. Norah never backed down on her decision to not swim in the ocean but she took advantage of the pool every day. We were in the pool before 8am one day!Hot-tubbers L to R: Kimball, Kelsey, Susan, Courtney, BryanNorah with Grandpa Guy in her Jammies.