So hard to let go

As I am sure all the readers of this blog have gathered thus far, I DO NOT LIKE LEAVING MY DAUGHTER. However, at this point I am still working and when those school bells ring-I need to be there!
The past couple of years we were fortunate to have family and ladies we knew very well come to our house to watch Nora. For TJ and I, this was ideal. However, this year, we are bringing Nora to an in- home daycare until the baby comes. After taking quite a few visits with Nora and watching her play with the 4 other children, we decided this would be a safe and fun place for Nora a few days a week while we were both at work.
While I know Nora is well taken care of, and she is excited to go each morning, it remains SO hard for me to "let her go". I know she enjoys playing with the other kids, she loves all the fun toys, and is following directions well, but it is so hard not having her just under our care, or in our home.
I wanted to share this video though. I saw it the other day with some fellow teachers and all I could think about was Nora and how sometimes, although she is only 2, it's okay to give her a little "push".
It may seem a bit cheesy to some of you, but it is helping me get through the week. :)

And that's a wrap...

Well, that's it. Summer break for mama officially ends tonight. Waaaaa (tear). I realize being a teacher allows for such wonderful breaks over the hottest months of the year and for many families this is ideal. Believe me, I do realize this. However, Nora is obviously not school-age yet, and for me, leaving her no matter how much time I was just with her, still stinks! I certainly cannot complain much. I will be off in 8 short weeks again with a little peanut joining our family and could not be more excited!
We are getting very excited about the baby coming. Nora understands quite a bit about the baby. She currently believes there is a baby in her belly and tells me "it is kicking" often. Every morning, she kisses my belly and says "hi baby" or "ahhh, hi baby, love you". She also LOVES wearing the Big Sis shirt my mom bought her last week.
Although our summer together as a family of 3 is over, we are looking forward to the winter months snuggling as a family of 4. We did have fun this summer. We stayed quite busy at water parks, the library, play dates with friends, swimming in pools, going to the beach, traveling a bit, having many tea parties, shopping, and having Nora pretty much attached to me for almost 12 hours a day for 3 straight months!
This past weekend we wrapped up the summer with the following...

Nora joined some friends at the Cosley Zoo to visit the animals and enjoy a picnic lunch. Then, I had to go to school and finish setting up my classroom.
Nora has approached a new stage in her development of having NO FEAR and running from me while outside. If she sees something she wants...she GOES! We are working on this, but it scares the poop out of me and being 31 weeks pregnant, I am not as quick footed. This made our trip to the zoo even more eventful!We enjoyed a lovely tea party later in the afternoon with her 3 new favorite "friends". She calls them "the kids". You may know them as Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. She takes them everywhere in the house. They also have to watch her take her nap and go to bed at night. She lines them all up near her dresser. She is still a huge fan of Dr. Suess and now insists on wearing this over-sized shirt from her cousin's play (Suessical the Musical), any time she sees it.

On Friday we went to a new place that had a huge indoor play area with a yummy cafe. Nora loved the huge tree fort. Later that day, Clifford was at a neighborhood town square. Oh my goodness, it was madness! So many kids, so hot, but Nora was super excited to see Clifford!She gave him a huge hug as soon as she was able to get a turn after a massive crowd left.
We were the next people in line to get a photo with Clifford and we were told Clifford had to go so to take a group photo. What the heck? A group photo with people we didn't know-seriously???They sang a few songs and had all the kids dancing!HI Clifford!

Just a picture of Nora sporting her favorite hair style...Mini mouse ears. She also looks a bit like Red from Fraggle Rocks, don't you think?
Some of the lovely and wonderful woman I am fortunate to work with, had a "baby sprinkle" for us today. It was so nice and thoughtful. Days like this remind me how fortunate I am to work with such caring individuals.

And tonight, we had a lovely dinner with friends.
All in all, a busy, but wonderful summer. We cherish every moment with you Nora!

A great weekend!

We had a great weekend at our friends' lake house in Indiana! This is the second year we have made the trip and once again, it was a blast! We were able to relax, chase kids around, play in the sand, play in the water, ride a paddle boat, make bon fires and smores, play board games when the kiddos were sleeping, and did I say chase kids around? So much fun and a great way to spend one of the last weekends of the summer.
We forgot to take a picture of all the kiddos together, but I did get this shot of them eating dinner last night.
Nora had such a great time. She is at the age this summer where she is interacting more and actually playing with her friends. She LOVED the sand. We think the dads did too. With the help of the 5 kiddos, the dads built a canal from the top of the hill all the way down to the water. Then, countless trips were made from the water to the top of the hill to get water and watch it run down into the lake. I wish I took more pictures, but I was too busy having fun and chatting.
Thank you Waller Family!

Pretty sure Nora had a GREAT time! (thanks for these two pics. Laura)

And, thanks to Laura, a recent pregnancy photo...30 weeks!


These next pictures are from last week. My cousin came over to cut my hair and Nora wanted in on the action. After I got my hair cut, and straightened, TJ got his cut. Well, Nora hopped right in the chair when TJ got off and said "Nora cut too". So, Sara straightened her hair. So ridiculous that she sat there to get it done.

Feeling a bit confused, but loving it...
Feeling her hair and noticing it is a bit different.


The finished look...Nora and Mom with our hair "done".

Trip to Buffalo

We left for Buffalo Wednesday night right after a friend of ours finished putting our backsplash up in the kitchen. We figured, Nora would sleep most of the time, we would check in to the hotel in Toledo, and start off again in the morning. Everything pretty much worked towards the plan. Except, Nora didn't fall asleep until about 2hours into the trip (hence the crown project to keep her busy) and in the morning-we were locked IN our room. Quite scary. The lock was apparently broke and we had to call the front desk. No big deal in the end. Crashing on daddy after another 4.5 hours in the car. She was such a trooper. We stayed quite busy reading books, doing crafts, playing with her stuffed animals. And TJ did a lot of work on the road via the wonderful cell phone.

Nora was very excited to see "Gandma"(she says it without the r and it is quite cute) and "papa". She brought her "kids" as she calls them...Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Gandma had a tea set waiting for Nora and she played with it all weekend. Here she is staring at her work after setting up a nice tea party for the kids.
We were able to visit Great Gandma too. Nora even road on her lap for a long walk. Gram loved our visit and we were very happy we had the chance to see her.

We took a trip to the Zoo on Saturday. It was a lovely, little zoo. I loved that the exhibits were close to each other because it was hot out and this pregnant lady was cookin'.
Nora absolutely LOVED the carosal ride!
We ventured back home on Monday. The 9 hour trip took about 10.5 with 3 stops, some bad weather, and traffic. The ride back was a bit painful. Nora fell asleep for her "nap" about 30 minutes from home! Needless to say...it was a LONG 10 hours. She did well, just had to be quite entertained. And I was getting crabby. :)
But, this little girl didn't have 1 accident the entire time!!! I was so proud of her. However, today while we are at home, she had 2. What the heck? She gets so busy playing, she forgets to ask to go pee.
On our trip Nora also decided she was ready to start going to sleep on her own. This broke my heart a little. Since she was born, I have read her books and rocked her. Some nights, we would lay her down before she was asleep, but often times, I would fall asleep in the chair while I rocked her. Therefore, she would be out cold by the time I woke up and put her in the crib. Well, now she wants to go in the crib and have me cover her and her animals up and she goes to sleep. I knew this would happen, I suppose I just thought it would include a great deal of crying. But, no.
The sweetest part of all...I told her one night "Nora I am so proud of you honey, you are such a big girl". Her response..."Thank you mom..so much". I wanted to cry. She is such a sweet heart.