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.