Party Pictures

Norah's Birthday Party

Norah's 1st birthday party was a Princess theme to go along with her nursery (just like Amelya had a fairy theme and Molly had a mermaid theme).  I know all three girls will have fond memories of their first birthdays!! :)  We kept the party to just family members this time.  Grammy and Grampy, Grandma, Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy & Uncle Paul, and Aunt Lesley and Katie all flew in for the festivities.  

Norah received lots of great gifts and toys.  She LOVED smashing into her cake - no hesitation!  At one point, she must have felt like she wasn't getting ALL of the cake, because she decided to pick up the cardboard bakery "plate" the cake was on and lick the cake off.  Too funny.

We assume she had a delightful day!!  We sure did!

Norah's Birthday Pictures

Norah's 1st Birthday

It's official - our baby has turned One!  It was an exciting day, yet I must say that I'm sad.  Her first year seems to have flown by.  It seemed like she stayed a baby for so long - since she was content to lie on her back to play all day long.  If she needed to see something, she just did a tummy crunch and lifted her head up off the floor - abs of steel.  She didn't roll around until almost 9 1/2 months; literally, she was completely immobile.  Shortly after mastering the roll, she'd roll over to the couch or a table, hook her feet underneath and do a sit up.  Really, abs of steel.  Then, at 10 months, she started crawling, 2 days later, she was pulling herself to stand.  And, now she's walking.  She did the monkey arm walk at first, but now she's cruising along pretty steadily.  It all happened so fast; she's trying to keep up with her sisters, and she already tries to play dress-up with them.  She loves big beaded necklaces and sunglasses.  

Anyway, her actual birthday was a success.  We gave her cake on the 22nd, but saved the big "dig in" for her party that weekend.  I'll try to get to those pictures up soon; there are a ton!  She seems to know that her new toys are actually hers and that they never belonged to one of her sisters.  She's not saying words yet, but like her big sister Molly, somehow you know what she wants.  Our sweet Norah Jane...    

Apple Picking Pics

Apple Picking

So, for those of you who don't know, we decided (for several reasons) to homeschool Amelya for Kindergarten.  Crazy...you ask?  Perhaps, but what would my life be like if I wasn't up to my eyebrows in stuff?  Molly also enjoys doing her "school work," and wants to join in, so I'm trying to incorporate Preschool as well.  Anyway, we are going to take it one year at a time to see how it goes.  I can't screw them up too bad this early, right?  I mean, how hard can it be to teach reading, writing and arithmetic (ask me at the end of the year!)?

That being said, this week we prepared for our "field trip" to an apple orchard with other homeschoolers (we joined a "group").  We studied about apples, learned their five parts, learned a few apple songs (yes, there are apple songs), learned about orchards and apple blossoms.  We were totally ready for our outing and fortunately, the weather cooperated.  The girls picked tons of apples and had a blast.  Even Norah enjoyed trying to bite into a little apple.    

I'll let you know how the apple crisp and fresh, hot apple pie turns out!  Enjoy the photos!

Birthday Pics