About a month ago, I was at the library with Nora and she randomly pulled a book off the shelf and said “Take this book home!” so we did. It was called Our Stars, and as it turned out, Jonah was immediately interested. He read it many times and had a lot more questions about space, so the next week I picked up some more astronomy books. And the next week some more. And then some more. He just loves reading about planets!

He falls asleep reading these books.

He wakes up reading these books.

He draws pictures of planets (and the asteroid belt).

He labels and arranges planets.

(The long cardboard thing is his spaceship control panel that we made.)

He made a rocket.

And flies it around.

He drew a bunch of stars, glued on eyes, and painted them with glow-in-the-dark paint. Then we taped them on his ceiling.

He wrote me a mystery planet clue.

When he rides his bike, he’s a planet traveling in orbit, trying to avoid crashing into the meteors (Nora).

Then he took a break to draw a few planets.

And then the whole solar system.

I printed him a star chart and he wandered around in the backyard, mumbling star names, rotating the paper, and pointing, even though it was still daytime. He said he was “practicing.”

Sadly, in the month he’s been interested in stars, he’s only gotten to see a clear night sky twice. This weekend (maybe) looks promising. Keep your fingers crossed for him. ;) It sure has been fun watching him be so excited about learning new stuff!

I am so behind in my postings… Anyway, oh, about two weeks ago, Lisa, Jonathan, and Phoebe came down from Seattle to spend several days visiting us. Nora was so excited for weeks about Phoebe coming and kept talking about things she wanted Phoebe to do. And although Jonah didn’t seem all that interested before she came, once Phoebe was through the door, he was talking to her very sweetly, doing little tickly things and trying to bring her things he thought she’d like. Very sweet. The cousins had a fun time playing lots of things together, and Phoebe seemed so happily interested in watching everything the big kids were doing.

I will start with my personal favorite photo from the visit. Me and my loving niece. Hahaha…

And moving on to the kids playing together…

One of the things Nora was most excited about was showing Phoebe her bouncing Rody horse. And Nora was right, Phoebe loved it.

The other thing she kept talking about was showing Phoebe how she drives the red car, and maybe Phoebe could drive it, too.

Jonah liked showing off his riding skills, and Phoebe had a great time pointing out the fast bike as he rode past.

And Phoebe was soooo close to walking by herself while she was here, and Jonah took a turn holding her hand while she took some steps across the driveway. Very very very sweet. :)

Fun at parks

And off they go…

What a fun visit! I can’t wait to see what they all do together next time we see our little cousin! :)

As I mentioned earlier, we got Nora a balance bike for her birthday. Although I thought she might be just a bit too small for it now, by spring/summer, it will be a great thing for her to have. In the meantime, Jonah has really done a lot of practicing on it. He started out just walking it slowly up and down the hallway, then got brave enough to start lifting up his feet for a few seconds at a time. After about two weeks, he was too good to be riding it in the house at all, and the weather has warmed enough at times in the past week or so that we’ve spent some nice chunks of time, watching him ride up and down the sidewalk. Since our road slopes very slightly downward, he can get some pretty good coasting going on, and can even ride the bike the length of the whole block without touching his feet to the ground. Also just in the past few days, he’s been practicing turning off into the driveway and trying to circle around without putting his feet down.

While all that has been going on, Nora has been enjoying Jonah’s Christmas gift of a Plasmacar. The idea with this car is that you can power it along just by turning the steering wheel repeatedly left and right, while your feet are resting up on it (you’ll see her do this in the video). Most of the time, she likes to push it along with her legs, and she is getting very good at the whole steering thing, even when backing up.

And the video…

After watching Nora in her crib on Saturday, Sean and I both had the thought that she was looking perilously close to being able to bounce/fling herself over the side if she wanted to (or just got too excited about jumping). So we decided that Sunday morning would be the time to disassemble the crib and move the trundle bed from Jonah’s room over for her. Our thinking was that she probably wouldn’t stay in the bed, would miss her nap, but would then be tired enough to eventually fall asleep that night sometime before midnight.

She followed us around while we took the crib apart, saying “Why take a crib apart? Why sleep a different bed?” in a somewhat concerned voice, but once it was set up, she could not have been more excited.

She napped great it in the first day, and fell asleep fine that night. She doesn’t seem to get out at all on her own, and calls for us to get her when she wakes up. Well done, Nora! :)

And the greatest side-effect of the new bed is that Jonah has decided it’s a great place to hang out with his sister. On several occasions, he’s called her in, “Hey Nora! Come in and I’ll read you a book on your bed!” One day, they even did this for a half hour!! They play funny pretend sleeping games and all sorts of other things. The whole transition could not have gone any better.

Other random Nora pictures… Nora took her baby for a walk one morning at her request. “Nora walk stroller outside. Baby in stroller outside!” So off we went. She wanted to take the baby to see the beans in the garden down the block.

And Nora in the “snail dress” I made her last weekend. What a cute face!