Homer

Willi brought Nora a Homer from his conference adventures at Dave & Busters.

Nora loves him.

He's also the same size as she.

I Got Flowers!

Jerm and Marlene sent me roses for my birthday! Check these babies out!




Thank you, Jerm and Marlene! You didn't have to do that, but they sure are pretty!

Trip Eights

It's 8.8.08 today. That's kind-of fun. Some stuff has happened since the last time I posted. I'll just list it below:

1. I forgot to mention that I got sushi from the grocery store and ate it every night Willi was gone. It was glorious. (I finally got my stinkin' sushi!)
2. Nora didn't want to sleep the night before/morning of my birthday (Wednesday). I'm not sure if it was because Willi was gone or because she's teething. It was a rough night/morning. There was lots of crying and nursing.
3. My birthday happened. I turned 27 on August 6th (tree years shy of tirty).
4. On my birthday, my phone would not stop ringing, and it was mostly people calling from work (and they weren't calling to chit chat or anything like that). I about went nuts like I did when I was at my due date with Nora still in my belly.
5. Luckily, my mother-in-law, Mary, was here during all of that, and she was taking care of Nora for me while I ran around like a chicken with my head removed.
6. I actually was able to do a couple of housework things while Mary watched Nora. I did a load of diapers and I vacuumed part of the house.
7. Mary brought me a birthday cake.  It is tasty.
8. I got some awesome news from my good friend, Lena.
9. I went to the dentist later that day, and I had a better experience this time since I no longer have pregnancy gingivitis. (No cavities!)
10. Willi came home while I was at the dentist (the dentist was a half hour behind, and I had intended to be back before Willi got home).
11. Willi and I went out to eat while Mary watched Nora for us. I got a free slice of cheesecake!
12. Nora took a three-hour nap yesterday morning.
13. Someone from Freecycle offered to come pick up our sand on Saturday morning. I really hope they do.
14. I got a library card at my local library, and I had no idea what I wanted to read. So, I picked up the first book that caught my eye. It was called This Book Will Save Your Life. I read the first two pages, and I hated it. I absolutely hated it. I'll be taking that back, and Willi handed me The Hobbit to read instead. I do intend to use the library for other things, though. It's a really sweet library. Maybe I'll do some research and figure out what's good to read these days.
15. Nora figured out how to take off her diaper cover. This is why it's a good thing she's not in disposables at the moment.
16. She's not quite crawling yet, but she's thinking about it very seriously.
17. That's about it.

And now, it's time for a cute photo of Nora from today.

Sersly.

For now, Dilly out.

Miracle

As a last resort (and I had basically given up at this point), I shut down my computer, let it sit for awhile (I had already done this a few times this morning), and then, I reset my internet connection. I turned my computer back on, and tried to synchronize again, unsuccessfully. I figured it didn't work, but when I went to open up my project, all of my changes were actually there.

I can't explain it—it doesn't even make sense that it worked this time. All I can say is, "Thank God."

Back to work!

Bouncin' Babies

Susanna came over yesterday with her little Thomas. He and Nora played together, and it was serious cuteness. Susanna and I enjoyed ourselves, too! Thanks for coming to visit, Susanna! I'd probably be in bad shape today if I didn't have happy memories from yesterday to make me feel better.

Photos from yesterday:

Videos from yesterday:

Good times.

Puke

I worked for abut 5.75 hours yesterday on a major project for work (and I got a serious amount of work done), and all of that work is gone. I think HQ lost power while I was saving last night when the storm came. So, my changes didn't get updated on the server before I shut down.

I want to puke and cry at the same time, but I'm doing neither. I'm just sitting here stunned, basically (and maybe clinging to a little bit of hope that the files will synchronize when I try one last time here in just a minute).

In other news, both of the storms we had were pretty serious last night. Frank told me this morning that someone died in Michigan City when a tree fell on their car, and someone spotted a funnel cloud above the hospital last night. (The hospital is less than a half a mile almost due North from here.)

I heard sirens a few different times last night, which was a bit unnerving. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I should wake Nora up and set up camp in the basement. I never did, but I really thought about it.

Our front door blew open at one point last night, which caused a big, loud crashing sound. The thunder crashes all through the night were enough to rock my bed—a lot. Somehow, Nora never awoke. I sure didn't sleep very well.

I ran out in the middle of a lot of wind and rain to flip our patio furniture over onto the cushions and to take the Purdue flag off of the front of the house. My heart was racing! I haven't been that frightened (in that way) in awhile.

Since this post is a bit of a downer, I'll save my happy time from yesterday for a second, independent post. I don't want to ruin my happy memories of yesterday with this post.

Wah-wah. *muted trumpet sound*

Jeepers Creepers

This baby girl is growing so fast. I can't stand it!

There's something I forgot to mention about this little rat's development. She's been doing this for a good, long while now. I think it's been at least a month. Whenever I change her shirt and she's playing with a toy, she always switches hands with the toy as I pull each arm through the sleeves. I thought that was pretty cool the first time I saw her doing it. It amazes me that she would think to do that. It would seem that there's a bit of object permanence realization going on there.

Have I mentioned before that she's a ninja when it comes to glasses? Oh, yeah. She whips glasses off of people's faces and slimes them all up before they even realize they're gone. I think I'm going to get some contacts at my next eye appointment this year.

Nora's been doing really well with solid foods lately. I think since the banana introduction, she's been willing to try more foods.

I looked for a splat mat at Wal-Mart yesterday. (Nora's been winging things at feeding time.) Would you believe they don't have them? Instead, I bought a one-dollar, plastic, table cloth, and I cut it into two pieces: one for the chair, and one for the floor. That should do the trick, I'd say.

I picked up a phone for my office at Wal-Mart yesterday, as well. This one has speaker phone capabilities (which I'll be needing in the near future). After a small battle with said phone in my office, I now have a sweet office phone hooked up on the wall near my computer. It's nice to have a third phone in the house. We were always running to find a phone somewhere. This oughtta help with that.

As usual, I have some photos:

She knows what to do for that camera!


Nora can touch the animals on her bouncy seat now.


I bought her a ball yesterday. It's the first toy I've ever bought for her. She loves it. 
What's sad: Hobbes thought the ball was for him. Poor dog.

I got some larger diaper covers (size medium) from my sister, Jody, this week. Oh, man. That makes a serious difference. She's not blasting up her back and into her shirt anymore. Thanks, Jody!

Also, thank you both Jody and Julie for the baby clothes you've given us. Nora has been wearing lots of them! It's neat to put something on her and vaguely remember seeing it on a niece.

Back to work!