Alice is 8 months old today

My cute as can be Alice waved to me today. I think Norah had just ran past her out of the kitchen and Alice was busy trekking after her when she heard me walk in from the garage. She sat up, turned around and waved. It was a deliberate, unmistakable wave and I was so surprised and flattered that I got very excited and then she got excited and laughed and we just had a moment together. One of those, I feel like my life is a movie moments.

Norah went to bed a little before her tonight and we were able to have some rare, quality, 2 parents focused on Alice time in which we tried to get her to wave to us over and over again so we could film it. She waved several more times but we just couldn't manage to record it.  We'll keep trying.

I am always feeling bad I have not documented Alice's babyhood as well as I did with Norah. I wanted to post some pictures of her but I've been up late working on a talk and I really need to sleep so this will just have to do. One more quick Alice story - yesterday I was in a vacuum shop and she was crawling around on the super soft (and freshly vacuumed) carpet and she actually drew a crowd! Five women (I think they were together, but still) stopped to look, smile and wave to her. Maybe that's where she picked up the wave.

Mimi Visits Dallas

We just hosted our first visitor to Dallas and it was a great success – at least while she was in Dallas. She did get stranded in Cincinnati over night on her way back to VA but DFW wasn’t at fault. It was wonderful to give Susan a glimpse of our day to day life here in Dallas. We took her to our neighborhood frozen yogurt place, introduced her to the twin 4 year old girls across the street that Norah plays with, walked around nearby White Rock Lake, and met up with Bryan downtown for lunch so we could see his office. We also went to IKEA and the Galleria (the biggest mall I personally have ever been to) where Susan served as my personal decorator and fashion consultant respectively. I couldn’t believe how fast the trip went. Sometimes a day with the kids can seem pretty long but they breezed by with Susan’s company and of course shopping with her was sooooo much fun. We were at the Galleria for 5 hours. 5!!!! I can’t believe the kids lasted that long – it was only possible because they were getting attention from Mimi. Norah went to the bathroom 6 times during that shopping trip and I reeeally appreciated having another adult with me each time Norah needed an emergency escort across the mall. I came home with several great outfits and I couldn’t have done it without her.

Mimi and Alice at the arboretum – we live just 5 minutes away from the arboretum so it is in our weekly circuit of outingsI forgot to mention that it was also a huge help to have another person to take turns carrying Alice around. That girl is HEAVY! Look at those rolls!! We lovingly call her the “Hippo baby”  . . . . you know, because I’m carrying her around on my hip . . . . obviously.Norah playing in a splash fountain at the ArboretumMimi and Norah made pancakes together before churchA walk around White Rock Lake – despite the expression on Norah’s face in this picture she did enjoy herself

Personal Shopper

I went to Nordstrom rack about two weeks ago to spend birthday money and Norah tried to get me to buy some heels. She was disappointed when I went with some practical beige flats instead. Can you tell she is trying to get me to try on these black heels? They were at least 4 inches!! No can do.

Independence Day

We went to our Ward’s pancake breakfast on the 4th of July and afterwards all the children paraded around in their decorated bikes. It was pretty cute.This is Norah warming up very seriously for the parade

Tour of the new place

The living room has built in shelves – Win! I think I was standing in the doorway or near the doorway in this picture. The door opens so that you’re facing that that first arm chair and then if you turned right you’d face a hallway to the bedrooms. We keep those French doors open all the time and they lead into the dining room which connects to the playroom through the other French doors.This is the dining area – took this at night (after the kiddos were in bed so it would be neat and tidy) so its very dark. You can see in this picture how it connects to the living room. Through that cut out you can kind of see where the first bedroom is. All three bedrooms are in a row behind the living room, kitchen and playroom.The kitchen, I took this from the table so you could see how it connects - the teal door goes to the garageThe first bedroomThe second bedroom which Norah and Alice are sharingOur 1950’s original pink tiled bathroom. Perfect for the girls:)And our bedroom is not quite photo ready

The Kids' New Playroom

Lindsey and I have been working furiously since we got here to fix up this sunroom as a playroom. It started off in pretty bad shape. Huge cracks, ugly paint, no A/C.
Here is an example of the cracks we were dealing with.

I patched them up with drywall joint compound.

After all of that we put a couple of coats of yellow paint, a couple coats of white paint and then presto.

Norah's New Tree Swing

Lowes had a handy little tutorial on making a tree swing and since Ikea is discontinuing their tree swing I decided to make my own. It was pretty easy and inexpensive except for the power sander I got to buy.