Colin, who recently sprouted a pair of lovely new bottom teeth, has been enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of his labors in the form of rice cereal (seen here), bananas, avocados, rice, cheerios, mushed up peas, etc. It’s a bold new world (and we need the number of a reputable carpet cleaner).
Earlier today I found myself trying to explain to Aunt Colleen that Nora couldn’t possibly go swimming today because while, yes, it was indeed 72° it was a rather chilly 72°! Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
Yes, we continue to enjoy the lovely wintertime weather here in Houston. Here you see us all down at the park getting in a little cross-country skiing and sledding. We had to dart into the car a few times and run the motor –as much to make sure the car would still be able to get us home as
to warm up our imperiled limbs. Afterward we headed to Panera for hot cocoa.
For my birthday, Kevin and Nora made me a beautiful (and delicious!) cake. It was a modified pound cake with fluffy chocolate frosting, decorated with some very fancy sprinkles.
Everything in this series was taken by Nora –generally without her mom and me knowing.
The primary lesson we learned at the Houston Zoo’s Zoo Lights display is that our digital camera is just about worthless in low light. Sadly, we already knew this.
We weren’t able to head home for Christmas this year, but we made the best of it by getting a tree! The last time we had a tree it involved trudging through a blizzard with a saw to cut down my own tree and drag it back to a tiny cashier’s shed that only took cash. This year, I wore shorts and Nora and I bought the tree from the produce section of our local Kroger. Not quite the same, really.
For Nora’s birthday, we gave her two tickets to see the Main Street Theater’s production of “A Little House Christmas”. She’s read (or listened to, actually) all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and has been to two other plays at this theater (Pinkalicious and Duck for President), so she was very excited. She decided to share the other ticket with Mommy but Colin and I got to walk them there (it’s about a 2 minute walk from our apartment).
Nora’s the only kid on our block and the neighbors got really excited about her trick-or-treating this year. A few people stopped by in the days leading up to Halloween to make sure we knew they had candy and would be waiting for Nora. Our immediate neighbors, Jay and Stacey, made a special little bag stuffed with treats just for her (the little bag with eyes on it visible on the left side of the candy picture). It was incredibly sweet & touching. Then we headed across the street to the embarrassingly wealthy neighborhood (exotic sports cars parked at the curb) and visited a decent-without-being-greedy number of houses.
Thanks again to Grandma for making the wonderful witch costume (back in the late 70′s) and for saving it, finding it, and shipping it to us. Nora ran around all evening yelling, “I’m the Wicked Witch of the West and I’ll put a spell on you!!!!” We walked through a dry ice fog at one point and Nora crumbled theatrically to the ground yelling, “I’MM MEEEEELLLLTINNG!”
Back on October 26th, Nora’s school threw a really wonderful Fall festival. The kids and teachers all dressed up and there were games, a haunted play house, cotton candy, a cake walk, popcorn, ice cream sundaes, and loads of fun…
Aunt Colleen left gorgeous, Michigan, Fall weather (and apple cider!), flew down to visit with Nora, meet Colin, and spend some time with us. She happened to arrive on our 14th wedding anniversary (also Nora’s 4 year and 10 monthaversary)! She and Nora planned a menu, went shopping, bought us flowers, made us a lovely dinner, and then helped us enjoy it. Thanks, Aunt Colleen!
p.s. Colleen, Nora has finally finished the chocolate milk.