Archive for December, 2007

this is a stick up

Monday, December 31st, 2007

I apologize for the long break from posting new pictures. We were crushed under the weight of the holidays. These so-called vacations will soon be my death.

Here we have a picture of Nora — fast asleep and, as far as we can tell, dreaming of being mugged*.

take my diaper, please.

* the cute (but odd) bib is a gift from our good friends Jill & Peter; it’s nearly as big as she is which means it can nearly protect her clothing.

(alternatively, she was celebrating her exciting new 529 account and suddenly-impressive stock portfolio and fell asleep while raising the roof. actually, maybe it’s both.)

one month of nora

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Nora’s been kicking around this old planet for exactly one month now. I admit that her bacon has been saved a few times by e-bay’s “no babies for sale” policy but all-in-all I think we’ll keep her (there’s a 90 day return policy on these, right?).

To celebrate her one-month-a-versary she gave us a surprisingly restful night last night and then, stunning everyone, is suddenly able to fit (more or less) into the nice cloth diapers we bought. We still have a few newborn disposables left — hopefully just enough for all three of us to learn how real diapers work.

This is also the first of what will end up being a series of Christmas-related posts. Shown here are Nora sporting the amusing onesie* given us by Sylvia in the Linguistics department main office and the three of us together at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Both of the genuinely clever people in our family are still in their pajamas.

silent night
the mcgowans

*Honestly, my first thought was “huh, when did that proper noun get uncapitalized?” My second thought was “ooh, is there a hidden message spelled out by the different colored letters? no? perhaps it’s scrambled? no. they wouldn’t actually encrypt something within the text of an infant’s onesie, would they?” My third thought was “oh, I see, because she wakes us up a lot. quite amusing.”

nora: behind the scenes

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

she’s a maniac, maniac

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

and she’s dancin’ like she’s never danced before!

she works hard for the money

extreme closeup

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

auntie carrots!

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

Nora (and therefore everyone here at ruggles end) was having a pretty miserable week until Auntie Carrots* came over and calmed us all down. Now we have our happy baby back, everyone got a good night sleep, and the world looks rosy and calm again. Thanks, Auntie Carrots!

amy

* Actually Jen’s colleague Amy — no carrots were harmed in the taking of this picture.

our little founding father

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Maybe most babies look like Winston Churchill but we noticed that the nice, white outfit Granny knitted for Nora kind of made her look astonishingly like John Quincy Adams. Here we see her practicing her oratory before her adoring public.

my fellow americans!

(more…)

cookiefest ’07

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Yesterday was Kusnir-McGowan CookieFest ’07 and Nora’s first experience with festive baking (and her first trip to Livonia). Here we see her calmly helping mommy decorate cookies. The blur in the background is a furiously cookie-cutting grandma.

c is for cookie

and here we find her terribly excited about something we don’t know what it is.

ooooooooh!

les cousines

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Nora’s now been visited by both of her female cousins. Note that there is something of an age difference. :)

erin
beffy

them’s the brakes

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

I fully support anyone who gets this excited about Nora. I just wish I knew what cool thing she was doing that got them both so excited. Thanks for the company and the piles of yummy food, Jeff & Amy.

the brakes