Simpsons in Seattle

Evie has a few outfits that we have saved for Nora and unfortunately, here's one that I waited to long to trot out and put on baby Nora. Ooops!! Nora, at 3 months, 24 days Evie at 3 months, 22 days

We took advantage of the nice sunny day to make a day of it in downtown Seattle. First stop: the armory at Seattle Center where they put up a Christmas village every December that's always fun to look at. They also have a small stage where they do live entertainment, and we happen to get there in time to watch a local kids dance troupe perform scenes from Nutcracker. Evie LOVED watching the performances. I'm thinking we will definitely have to go watch the ballet next Christmas. There's 2 trains that go around the village.  After a few minutes of Daddy's shoulders, she decided she wanted to get closer so we grabbed seats right up front.  After a quick lunch at the food court, we took the monorail into Downtown to do some Christmas shopping. This was the first time on the monorail for Evie and she had fun exclaiming all the things we saw while on the ride - especially how we could look down on cars and look into people's apartments. All aboard!  Before

Happy 4 month birthday, Nora! At 4 months old, she is cooing up a storm and finding her voice. She first giggled when I was tickling her a few weeks ago. She sleeps for about 5-6 hour stretch at night still, but the second (and sometimes 3rd) leg have extended so that twice this past week she had woken up only once for a feeding. She's got a healthy appetite - today she took 4 ounces at a sitting. She's reaching and grabbing for things but have not yet rolled over. She still HATES her carseat, but loves smiling at big sister Evie, looking at the mirror and listening to the white noise machine. The actual day (yesterday) of her 4 month birthday turned out to be not so much fun. Both girls had been running a slight temperature the past few days and with the shots on Thursday, Nora just hasn't been feeling very well at all. Friday night was a rough night where she woke up more than usual and her cough in the morning sounded really scary - barky and deep. We were worried abou

There are times when Scott swears he wasn't sleeping. I guarantee this would have been one of those times but I got proof that he was asleep!  

Today was Nora's 4 month doctor checkup. She weighed in at 12 lbs 7 ounces and measured 23.5 inches, which is both at the 15th percentile. Her head was 50th percentile though, so while her proportions are great, she's got a big head. Evie tagged along to the appointment this time because she has had a temperature for a few days and we were worried she had a UTI. Good news is she's doing great - no UTI, thank goodness! This is the second time now she's gone in for the same issue and it boils down to she needs to wipe herself better after going to the bathroom. Last time we went in for this same problem, it took 45 minutes and a LOT of pleading to get her to go to the bathroom. This time around, she downed some water and then went right to business with giving them a urine sample. Peeing on queue is pretty big girl stuff!  Add caption As for Nora-bear, the vista started off great. She was her usual smiley self but then she got her 4 month immunization shots and

We took a very last minute overnight trip to Orcas Island on Sunday. Since we were last there in October with Grammie and Grandpa, Evie can't stop pretending to take a ferry boat ride to the island so she was very excited to be going back! This time around, it was a very quiet trip since it was the off season. In fact, just about all the restaurants in Eastsound were closed! Lucky for us though, the weather cooperated and we had patchy blue skies. It was still chilly out, but it was really pretty out on the water. We forgot to bring our camera so we had to make due with a few snaps from our phone. Daddy and his girls on the ferry. Surveying a piece of property that we are interested in. Waterfront, with nice view! Keeping baby warm Selfie taken waiting for the ferry ride back!

When we were in San Fran visiting Way and Kevin, Evie pleaded with them to move up to Seattle so we can see them all the time. She even recommended they move into the yellow house being built that we pass every day on our drive home from school. It's really funny that she came up with that on her own and we are secretly very proud she's taking up our case and trying to use her charms to get family to move up to Seattle. :) So, for those who are interested in living near us, here's the house  Evie is suggesting you buy. It's a cool $879k, over 3,000 square feet, brand new construction with 5 bedrooms. Best part is that you'd be less than 5 minutes from us!

It's so fun to see and hear Evie's imagination. While we were in Bend, she wanted us to go on the ferry with her to Orcas Island and we had to be careful not to sink in the water. Yesterday, she told us about how she was going to marry the Mermaid-man next door named Queeny. We also caught her pretending to snowshoe around the house: 

This little bear keeps getting bigger and stronger every day! Here's her latest tummy time shot, and her lying in my lap. She can't roll over yet, but she keeps trying!

Ever since moving to the Pacific Northwest, we've heard great things about Bend and it's been on our list of places to go explore. It's a bit of a trek to get there though - it's about 6 hours without any traffic or snowy/icy road conditions. Because it's more than just a weekend trip, we hadn't found a good time to go until now. We figured we'd make the most of my "vacation" and go someplace "far" for Thanksgiving this year. Luckily for us, Grammie and Grandpa were up to driving up from LA to meet us there.  We made good time on our way out. We drove straight through to Portland and decided to make a stop at the Children's Museum so Evie can get the wiggles out, we can grab lunch, and I could feed Nora since I'm still breastfeeding. The museum was a mixed bag - it was super crowded so some of the areas inside were very noisy and cramped. We had fun exploring outside though.  Climbing tree for our little monkey. The

There's lots to catch up on our blog, but here's a quickie update. It's tradition for us to get our tree the week of Thanksgiving so when we got home from Bend, Oregon, the first order of business was to start decorating for Christmas! Evie insisted on having lights on the house this year and Scott obliged by stringing lights on the tree outside since we didn't want to deal with getting up on an icy roof. Here's Scott, hard at work: Meanwhile, the girls were inside decorating the tree. I had to feed Nora so Evie had a good 20 minutes of decorating on her own, which is where you can see a great big cluster of ornaments in the left side there. I actually think that corner looks the best - she has quite the artistic eye! I promised her that this holiday shopping season, I'd be on the lookout for more ornaments to add to our tree.  She's very proud of her tree!

Quick pic of the little girl on her 3 month and 11 day birthday. I love mommy!

Nora has a ton of hair and it tickles me that it looks like she's got two crop circles at the back of her head! Most folks only has one but doesn't it look like she has two? 

We took advantage of being in SF to go see Dr. Yee Yee at her office and get our eyes checked. This was Evie's first checkup and she passed it with flying colors. She doesn't need glasses (yet!) but loved trying them on. Her favorite was this red pair. Doesn't she look so mature with them on? 

We celebrated Nora's 3 month birthday last week while we were in SF. This little girl is growing so so fast. At 3 months, Nora is still a sleeping and eating champ (compared to Evie). She still loves sleeping on me or Scott (especially in the baby Bjorn), but will also sleep about 6 hours on a good night in her crib. She's doing lots of cooing and winning people over with her smiles. She hates hates hates being in her car seat.  Here's her 3 month mugshot. Check out those that double chin and those delicious thighs!

After we hit up Sacramento, we drove over to the Bay Area to visit with Yee Yee, Uncle Kevin and Ian for the week. Scott had to travel to DC for the week so it was really nice being able to hang out in SF instead of braving the cold weather in Seattle, alone. We had so much fun in SF! This was Evie's first "sleepover" because she slept in Ian's room. The first night took a few trips into the room to tell the kids to quit giggling and talking and go to sleep, but sleep they did and everything worked out great. On Monday, we made our way to the Academy of Science Museum. We originally wanted to go to the zoo but it was too dreary and cold. I'm glad we changed plans to go to the museum because it was really neat! Next time I'd love to stay longer and check out some of the other exhibits we didn't get to see like the Earthquake zone. Albino alligator and giant turtle.  Inside the Rainforest area, there were butterflies galore! This photo doesn'

We took our first flight as a family last week to Sacramento to attend Scott's old roommate Greg's wedding. This was Nora's first flight and I'm happy to report she did really well. She was awake the entire time but barely made a peep. She spent the entire flight looking at everyone and everything. Daddy and his two girls. First order of business was to take advantage of being in California to have some In N Out! Surprisingly, I think this was Evie's first time having some. I know we've taken her in the past but I don't think she actually ate one before (she only ate the fries). This time, she chowed down and finished half the burger, which I think is quite a lot for her little tummy!  YUM! We stayed with Dave and Mary, friends from Scott's college days. They have 3 kids (Braden - 9, Hailey - 6, Aubrey - 2) which worked out great for Evie because it meant she had tons of friends and toys to play with. Evie especially took to Hailey right a