Hoping for a Good Week

It always helps the morale to post photos of Nora, so I thought I'd start with that. In one of those basket pictures (from today), you can see that her nose is totally running. It's awesome. She blew a bubble out her nose earlier today, and it was just about as gross as possible.

In the photo where she's semi-sitting up on her knees in her crib, I had just missed catching her full-out on her knees. A day or two later, she was definitely standing all the way up in the crib. So, that mattress is now at its lowest level as of last Monday.

This kid crawls EVERYWHERE. I'm not kidding. I installed baby gates at exactly the right time, 'cause she totally just started exploring this whole house. I am constantly having to find her. One second goes by, it gets quiet, and I'm panicking and saying, "Where did she go!?"

I typically will find her chasing after the dog. She moves so fast, though. So fast. My house seems so big right now: I can lose her in it so easily.

She still has a cold. She's still managed to be cheerful despite it. I've just been chasing her down and wiping her nose a lot. Daddy's done his share of nose-wiping, too, and he may very well be coming down with Nora's cold, as well.

I made homemade pasta sauce with our tomatoes over the weekend, and I canned them. I only got three cans out of what I found that wasn't rotten or half-eaten by chipmunks in our garden, but I also got two cans of tomato juice. So, that's pretty cool. I'm just amazed that I could do it and nothing exploded. I'm a bit wary of canning since my grandma about blew herself up doing that last year. They were using a pressure canner, though, from what I understand. I'm pretty proud of myself.

I also made chocolate-covered pretzels. Willi took most of those in for a "Chocolate Day" at work.

Ma and Pa stopped by on Saturday evening. We fed them bratwurst and potato salad. They got to see Nora in her snotty glory, and then they went on home. It was a good little visit.

I did some serious yard work yesterday while Nora and Willi had some time together, and our yard is looking fabulous. Our patio is pretty sweet, too. We had two fires on it over the weekend, and it was just what the doctor ordered.

I forgot to mention this, but I definitely changed the oil in our lawnmower a week ago. I was supposed to do it after the first five hours of operation. I might have been close. Might. I did learn, however, that there is no easy way to change the oil on a lawnmower. No, ma'am. I did it, though, and I think that makes me pretty cool. Willis says it's pretty sexy. That helps me feel better about things, of course.

Work seems to have picked up a bit for me, so that helps, too.

It's time for me to feed Nora her dinner, so I'm gonna peel out on a happy note. Catch you kids later.