24 Month Update - 2 Years Old!

This past month Pampers sent me an email saying that Nora has been upgraded from "Toddler" to "Preschooler". I wanted to bawl my eyes out!

Here are Nora's 2 Year Old "Stats":
*Tall for her age
*almost 30 pounds exactly
*Still only 8 teeth - two on top, two on bottom, and four molars.

She goes to the doctor for her check-up mid-September, so we will have full stats then. We will also find out if she needs to visit a pediatric dentist to discover what is up with her teeth. I think she just doesn't have the buds for baby teeth. We shall see!

Nora just talks so well about everything. The other day, I was explaining to her how we were going to a birthday party that was NOT for her. I told her "You turned two, and -L- is three . . . " Her response? "And Daddy's four!" :) What a character. She also told me this month that she had to take her baby to the hospital because "she broke her head." She got that from watching TV, I'm sure! Also from TV: "Hola, I'm baby!"

Nora got a good lesson in sharing this past month. After a few weeks of it just being us, I have started babysitting and Nora has had to re-learn sharing all her toys. It was a tough process, but she's getting it faster than I hoped she would, so that's good. If she does attack one of her friends with a yell of "MINE!" I tell her to instead say "Happy to share!" Most of the time she repeats it back to me like sharing is the most miserable form of punishment I could have devised. :) But - she is doing it!

For her birthday she got some great new toys, including a child's MP3 player from her Nana. She loves instruments and also got a lot of those as well. Her Papa Don and BeBe got her another harmonica, and she loves to play it! In fact, one night when I thought Nora was asleep in bed, I heard the sound of it coming from her room. :)

Her hair is starting to get pretty long again, and I am torn over whether or not to go get it cut. I told her she didn't have to get it cut as long as she lets me do it in the mornings, and so far, so good! Her hair is thinner than I thought it would be, so maybe she won't have thick hair like her momma! Who knows.

Here are some photos of Nora this past month:
Coloring while her daddy worked on the 9-11 Memorial Garden:


Holy moly, she looks so old in this picture we took for Papa Don!!


Cheese! Nice eyes Nora!


Until next time . . .

PS - In case anyone is interested, a wreath I made via this tutorial was featured today on another blog called Gluesticks! I was so shocked to see that this morning. Kind of a neat thing for me, that has never happened before!! :) Thanks for the mention!

"Make a Mess Party" - Nora's 2nd Birthday Party

For Nora's 2nd birthday we did something a little different!

The invitations arrived saying "Messes will be made!" THEY WERE!! :)

This was such a fun party. Nora had a blast! She spent most of her time squeezing glue out of the bottles. :)

She did get to paint like I promised she would! She was begging to paint all month long.

She loved eating cupcakes . . .

. . . blowing out candles (she practiced for this - and actually got one out!) . . .

. . . and opening gifts.

And even though there was a little bit of rain at the end, the mud-pie making, shaving cream, painting, tissue paper art, sand, markers, tattoos, and water play "clean-up" was fun for all. :)


Until next time! . . .

I love magnets.

Have I ever told you all how much I love magnets? I seriously wish every surface was magnetic. Truly. I experimented lately with magnetic primer, but it didn't work out as well as I hoped with my overly textured walls. It was the biggest disappointment!

The other day I noticed I was writing a lot of notes to tape on my door to let people who stop by know where we are at. They all say the same thing: "we're downstairs, come on in", "we're playing at the neighbor's house", etc. So, to save some paper I decided to use up these business card magnets that I had on hand and make some magnetic, reusable signs for the door. Check it out:


The good thing about these is that I am already sticking paperwork for my babysitting kids to the door with magnets. So when a parent shows up they are already looking for it, and I can just place the magnets underneath. You cannot see them unless you open the storm door, so no unwanted people will automatically see them and know where we are. I also made a couple of blank ones to write on with a pencil if needed.

What do you think? Works well for us so far!

Until next time . . . (birthday post! Yay!)

The cat

There has been a pretty female cat hanging around our house lately:

If you have ever met Nora - you know, the girl who totes around FOUR stuffed kitties everywhere she goes - then you know what a big deal this is. Also I have another two year old hanging out at my house now (-E-) and so they were arguing over which one of them would feed the kitty a stick first (which it DID actually chew on, by the way.)

I have been asking around the neighborhood kids to see if the know whose cat it is, but no luck. When I ask the neighborhood kids they say it belongs to "animal control - because that's what it says on the tag!". Huh. At least it is up to date on it's shots so that means someone is probably taking care of it. It definitely doesn't look starved for food - maybe just attention. Which it gets a lot of at my house!

The first night it hung around, Cory chased it out of the garage. The next day Nora kept yelling "Out garage!" at it. But, she totally let the cat stay there. :)

Until next time . . .

Ch-Ch-Changes . . .

Well, change is on the horizon here at the Whitaker house in the month of August. After a very busy summer, school is about to begin around here in a few days, and that means that I "go back to work".

First of all, I am gong to start watching two new kids this month. I have another two year old little girl -E- who will be here daily (and is also an absolute DOLL, by the way). I also will have an 8 week-old infant that will start at the end of the month for three half days. Also, we are still trying to figure out if I will continue to watch -L-, the little girl I have been watching for a very long time now. The school district around here has seriously cut bus stops and we are trying to figure out how I will get her to her much-further-away bus stop every day - when I will have three other kids (ages 2 and under) in tow and I drive a little Dodge Neon! I have no idea how i can get her there, but we are making an effort to figure it out. Any ideas blogland? :) I wish I had room in the car to just throw everyone in there, but no such luck.

Also, Kelsey's room is DONE, she is partially moved in, and she will be officially living here as of this week. Here are some photos of how the basement looks now:

Kelsey's room, partially moved in.

Dining/entertainment area. Looks pretty "dorm-y" to me. :)

And of course the messy playroom is still here. :)


Cory is busy lately with the 9-11 Memorial Garden that his fire department is creating in honor of the ten year anniversary coming up. This past Saturday he went to work on it and Nora came out to "help":


She's such a good helper. :)

We are also preparing for Nora's birthday party which is already almost here! I cannot believe she is almost two. It's almost too much for me to stand. We are planning a really neat birthday party, so stay tuned for that post!! :)

Until next time . . .

23 month upate (LATE!)

Oh, by the way, Nora is 23 months!! :) She has the longest legs, and talks so much about the funniest things. We could listen to her talk and sing all day long! She still loves to sing and dance, and also loves any opportunity to get wet or messy. She's doing great on the potty, and will go days without accidents before having 2 or 3 on the same day. We think she might have had a growth spurt this month. She slept a lot and ate a lot!

Common Nora-isms:

"Toe-a-wee!" (Totally!)
"It's be-youuuuuuuuuuu-tee-ful! I wuv it!" (It's beautiful! I love it!)
"Watch tee-bee?" (Watch TV?)
"Put on my jammie-jams!" (Pajamas)
"Jumpy-jumpy!"
"I deenk milky." (I drink milk.)
"I woose it!" (I loose it.)
"Mower-sickle!" (Motorcycle)
She is famous for saying words with a p-sound to make them cuter, like "pa-na-na" (banana) and my favorite: "pock-a-dile" (crocodile).
Plus her Nana has taught her to say "I'm a mess!"


Her favorite thing to do lately is play "birthday party" with her pretend birthday cake and party hat. She also likes to make mommy lay down and put me to "sleep" by covering me up and patting my back. :) It's really nice to watch her play pretend lately. She also still loves to read books and right now her favorites are the "Knuffle Bunny" series. She has the first two books, and will be getting the third very soon (but don't tell her, OK?) :) We read all. the. time!!

Nora has been taking a Mom/Tot Gymnastics class this month. Besides being hilarious for mom, it's also been a lot of fun for Nora! We get Nora's nametag from the teacher, then we come in and stand on one of the dots that they have in a big circle on the performance floor area. Nora, however, never stands on her dot for very long because the first part of class is singing songs with the teacher - and Nora HAS to go dance in the middle of the circle instead of doing the hand movements and standing on her dot. (Which is funny, but at the same time I feel bad having THAT kid, lol. Luckily the teachers tell me it's OK because they want her to get moving anyway.) After about 2-3 minutes of this, they have free play - they can walk on the balance beams, jump on the trampolines, jump into this big foam pit, climb all over special mats set up for them, etc. Assistance is provided if needed. Then we go sing "Ring Around the Rosie" (Nora's new favorite song), get a stamp on their hand or foot, and then we are done. It's been a great class so far!

Here are some pics from gymnastics:








Until next time . . .