Nora Kate is 10 Months!

As of last Saturday we have a ten month old!  Nora Kate is such a sweet baby!  She still loves to cuddle and be held, but she is getting more and more to where she likes her independence-meaning if you're holding her, she will probably start pushing against you to get down.  She LOVES to be on the floor playing these days which is great since that's exactly where we already spend most of our time with Dawson and Carter!  Nora Kate has had so much entertainment with two brothers constantly moving around her that she's been content to sit and watch for so long...but she's not crawling yet!  She still does her little "booty scoot" as Dawson likes to call it, and she can get to what she wants...but no official hand-knee crawl just yet.  As I mentioned Nora Kate's very favorite spot right now is on the floor scooting around, but thankfully she is still entertained by her Johnny Jumper and walker.  She's hit or miss on the exersaucer-sometimes she enjoys it more than others-I think it is entirely dependent upon what her brothers are doing.  If they are being entertaining enough she's happy to bounce and play while watching them from the exersaucer!

She's trying and trying to pull up and can almost do it!  Some days it seems like she might just pull all the way up and cruise before she crawls!  Nora Kate LOVES to stand and hold your hands!  She gets so excited about this that she bounces her knees up and down!

We are very blessed that Nora Kate is such a happy easy going baby girl!  She's so good to ride along in the stroller or wherever our outing is for the day, and she's usually very happy!!

The big change this month has been in baby food.  Nora Kate is basically done with baby food!  She doesn't want much of anything you feed her from a spoon.  All Nora Kate wants is what she can pick up and feed herself!  She does really well.  A lot of times I think she ends up eating more than Carter!  With ALL the food she's eating, she has started nursing less but still nurses about 4 times in a 24 hour period of time.  Nora Kate is still getting up about 2 times a night, but I have high hopes that this will change over the next two months.

Nora Kate has been saying "DaDa" for a while.  It's so sweet, as soon as John gets home from work the first glimpse she gets of her Daddy, she starts saying "Dada!"  Nora Kate has started saying "Nana" this month too!  And she knows who her Nana is.  She has yet to say Mama...yes, that's right she says Dada and Nana before Mama even though I say Mama to her at least 500 times a day! haha!  She's also been saying hi and bye!  She's started waving some too.  When John asks her where Mama is she always quickly looks at me and smiles, but she just won't say it!

Nora Kate has started dancing to music this month, and I love it!  She gets a big grin and then starts bouncing up and down!

The big "first" for this month was Nora Kate's first trip to the beach, which I blogged about (scroll down) in a separate post.  She was a dream in the van on the way there and back, and she enjoyed all the attention she got from everyone on vacation too!  The sand wasn't her favorite-but if you're trying to learn to crawl are you really going to love sand?!  She did like the pool and riding on the golf cart from the beach house to the beach!  She also LOVED swinging on the front porch swing with her Nana in the afternoons.

One more special thing I want to remember from this month was that Nora Kate got to spend some special one-on-one time with her grandparents.  Not only did she get a lot of time with Nana and Grandad on vacation, when we got back from our trip for 6 nights in a row I had to be at church for VBS!  Thankfully Nana and Grandad and Lolly and Pop took turns keeping Nora Kate at our house those evenings so she wouldn't be up TOO late by tagging along with us at church.  It was nice for Nora Kate to get a little special time with them this month!

Here are Nora Kate's 10 month pictures!  She's SOOO wiggly now that these pictures are becoming increasingly difficult!

 

Nora Kate absolutely couldn't leave her "10 month old" card sitting beside her!  It was way to interesting!

 

"Oh look! Mommy tried to hid it behind me! BUT I still found it!"

Oh, I forgot to mention...this girl LOVES to play peek-a-boo!  She grabbed that 10 month old card and started playing peek-a-boo behind it while I was taking her pictures!  Such a sweet grin!

10 months

Sweet siblings.  Carter 2, Nora Kate 10 months, Dawson 5.

SO active!

Nora Kate is 10 months!!

 

May Part 2: VACATION

So I typed this blog post way back on June 2nd, and apparently I forgot to ever hit "post."  Clearly my mind was still on vacation.  So here it is, finally!

We just got back from an AWESOME vacation!  On Friday, May 23rd John and I loaded the kids (and what seemed like everything we owned!) in the van and drove to Clanton, AL where we spent the night.  The next morning we got up and completed the drive to SEACREST BEACH, FLORIDA!  John's parents (Nana and Grandad), Emily, Eric, Drew, and Hailey all met us there!  We stayed in a perfect house to accommodate all ELEVEN of us!  There were plenty of beds, bedrooms, baths, etc.  It was spread out over three levels which was perfect so that the sleeping little ones never got woken up during naps or early bedtimes!  This area was like something out of a storybook-everyone rides their bicycles around.  In fact, John and I commented that the area is WAAAY more bicycle and pedestrian friendly than car friendly.  There were little shops, restuarants, candy shops, ice cream stores, etc within walking distance.  There was an awesome pool that went on and on and on that the kids LOVED.  The beach was beautiful with white, white sand!  I don't think I've ever stayed anywhere that was SO family oriented!  Everyone there seemed to have young kids!

We were very fortunate to get to spend a lot of time with family while we were there!  It was so nice to have all the helping hands with Dawson, Carter, and Nora Kate.  Dawson had so much fun getting to play with Hailey ALL week!  We usually got up and went straight to the beach (golf carts would pick you up in front of your house and drive you to and from the beach-this was a highlight for Dawson and Carter!!) and stayed at the beach until naptime.  Then we would ride the golf carts back to our house, bath the kids, get them a little bit more lunch (they ate a picnic lunch on the beach but were starving again by the time we got back to the house everyday!), then put the kids in bed for nap.  Many afternoons others helped listen for our napping kids so John and I could enjoy some more time in the sun and sand or by the pool!  After the kids got up we took them to the pools to play until dinner.  Nana cooked delicious food for us every night!  There was a local fish market where we got fresh seafood like red snapper, crab, and shrimp, and she cooked it for us! It was SO good!  One evening we left the kids, and John and I had a date night at a nearby restaurant where we enjoyed seafood!  Usually after dinner we would take the kids back to the pool or back to the beach.  Then back to the house and got them in bed.  After the kids were settled, we played rook!  It was SUCH a fun, fun week!  We were so sad to leave! 

 

 

Leaving our house to head to the beach!

Nora Kate is ready to get to the beach!

Beach baby!

Dawson and Grandad loved "riding the waves" and "getting washed up" (as Dawson referred to it)!

Carter and Hailey

This vacation was Nora Kate's first time at the beach!

BEAUTIFUL

 

One day we were out in the ocean and John caught a crab!!!

We were at the beach for Memorial Day!  Here we are in our red, white, and blue in front of our beach house!

John's swim trunks matched Nora Kate's swim suit!

On our way home from the beach we decided to break up the drive by stopping for several hours at Zoo Atlanta!  The kids LOVED it!  here are the boys riding the train at the zoo!

Mommy and Nora Kate on the train!

This zoo had kangaroos!

Our future farmer loved the petting zoo, of course!

 

Carter liked to look the goats right in the eye! SO funny!

The highlight of this zoo visit was that Zoo Atlanta has pandas!!!

These pandas were the boys favorites!

Daddy and the three at the zoo!

The boys got the special privilege of getting to give this big bird a new toy.  They got to pick the toy and help the zoo keeper lower it by a pulley into the bird's cage!

Mommy and the three!