More Christmas Pictures

I never got around to posting other pictures last night, so here are some now:

Samuel with his Ben 10 watch - probably his favorite present:



Becca with her tea set:



Samuel and his transformer:



Becca's rocking horse:



Becca with one of her favorite things of the morning - a box full of packing peanuts:

We hope Christmas was merry at your house!

Merry Christmas

We'll post some more pictures later today, but for now we wanted to share this little video of Becca with her rocking horse:

Methinks thou dost protest too much

(Okay, so I know the meaning of the quote in the title is slightly different than what the video shows below, but they both concern someone protesting. In Samuel's case, protesting a LOT.)

The deal: eat all of your dinner before the timer goes off or you will not get to watch a TV show with your father afterwards. Apparently this was a completely insane request.

Thinking of having a 5 year old? We here at the Norwood family are happy to provide this free public service birth control announcement:

Christmas program

Samuel had a Christmas program at preschool last week. His class dressed as shepherds, in costumes they painted themselves:



Here he is with his friend Caitlyn, who he actually likes a lot in real life, even though it looks otherwise in this picture:



His class sang 2 songs. I tried to videotape them, but the quality is not the best since our seats were so far in the back (who knew you needed to get to the preschool Christmas program hours in advance to get good seats? Not us, apparently.) Here's one of the songs. You won't be able to see which kid is Samuel (he's on the left somewhere), but you can at least hear what his class sang.

Was a more appropriate t-shirt ever made?

(I realize we have not posted anything on our blog in quite a while. More to come this week!)

A shout-out to her Italian ancestors

Happy Halloween

We had a lot of fun this Halloween carving pumpkins, choosing costumes, and going trick-or-treating. Here are some pictures of the kids:





Samuel decided to be Ironman, and Becca had 2 costumes this year because I happened to find a lobster costume at a garage sale this summer for 25 cents, and the Meg let us borrow a bee costume that Lilly wore when she was 1. The bee costume was much warmer, so she wore that out trick-or-treating. I couldn't resist taking pictures of her in the lobster costume, though:

Here are both kids ready to go trick-or-treating. Samuel, of course, loved walking around getting candy from people, and Becca seemed to have a great time looking at all of the costumes. She also loved whenever we went to a house with a dog (she LOVES animals.)

What's That You Say?

What's that you say? Your dining room actually gets used for its intended purpose instead of being turned into Forts R Us on a daily basis?

What's that you say? Meetings of Masking Tape Wasters Anonymous do not happen in your house?

What's that you say? The toilet paper in your linen closet was not put away in this decorative manner?

What's that you say? The lights on your walkway are in some sort of line along the edge of your walkway and not all grouped together because clearly it is important to light this ONE SQUARE of walkway and leave the rest in the dark:

What's that you say? You have not had a box of donuts sitting on your counter for almost a week because someone refuses to let you throw them away even though they make an audible CRUNCHING sound when eaten?

What's that you say? You have never heard the words, "Mom! You may notice something different about me!" after naptime, and then looked upon this sight (that's a stamp all over his body):

What's that you say? You do not have a 5-year old boy at your house? Ah, everything makes perfect sense now.

12 months of Becca

If you click on this, you should be able to see a larger version.

Becca's stroller

Here's Becca with her birthday gift from Aunt Angie - a baby doll and stroller. She LOVES to push this around the house.

One Year Old

Becca had her 1st birthday last weekend! Here she is with the bear:

I'm working on a compilation of all 12 monthly photos of her with the bear and will post that when it is finished. It's neat to see all in one place how she has grown over the past year.

We had a small party for her because we were kind of partied out from Samuel's Buzz Lightyear party a few days before. Here are a few pictures of Becca opening presents:

Her cake (MUCH less frosting than Samuel's so we did not have a repeat of crack baby who will not go to sleep.)

Some of her favorite things at 1 year old:

• Food: mandarin oranges, popcorn, yogurt.
• Toys: baby dolls, books, stacking cups.
• Activities: swinging, going for walks, taking baths.

She has started imitating us and will do things like walk around with a toy phone up to her ear pretending to talk (this morning she walked around with the calculator to her ear, talking.) She also likes to put our shoes on her feet, try to eat with a spoon (a work in progress), and push her baby around in her toy stroller. It's very cute to see her do all those things.

12 month compilation picture coming soon!

To insanity and beyond

We had Samuel's 5th birthday party yesterday. He wanted a Buzz Lightyear party this year, so we made that the theme and did a bunch of activities related to outer space and Toy Story. We had 9 little kids here and it was completely crazy. Thank you Meg for taking most of these pictures, as things were so nuts I would not have any if you didn't.

Pin the eye on the alien:



Discovering what is inside their "moon rock" (a toy covered in a baking soda paste. To get it out, we added vinegar and let it dissolve the baking soda.)



The claw game:



Princess Lilly inside the rocket ship:



Each kid got their very own Buzz Lightyear shirt and wings. As you can see, the wings did not last very long (they were just paper towel tubes and foam), but hopefully the shirts will last longer.





The cake:



Samuel after blowing out the candles:

Becca tasting part of a cupcake. Afterwards she was so hopped up on sugar that she did not go to bed until an hour and a half past her usual bedtime. She had these crazy crack eyes and was FULL of energy. Samuel, on the other hand, actually SUGGESTED that he go to bed right after dinner since he was so exhausted from the party. I guess that means it was a successful day!

Spiderkids

Last weekend Samuel thought it would be fun to wear his Spiderman costume, and for Becca to wear the baby spiderman costume (Samuel wore this the Halloween he was 1.) He kept calling Becca his sidekick. Becca does not look like being a sidekick is her idea of fun.










Flashback: Here is Samuel wearing the baby spiderman costume back in 2006:

11 months old

Becca is 11 months old now. Here are 2 pictures of her with the bear:

It was pretty much impossible to get a picture where she was 1) sitting still, 2) looking at the camera, and 3) not trying to eat the paper with the 11 on it.

Her walking is getting better each day. She hardly crawls anywhere anymore. And, as evidenced by my last post, she is into everything.

She wants to do everything Samuel does. Here they are hanging out in baskets:

She tries any and all food that I give her, and if I try to eat something myself without giving her a bite, she makes a "uh, uh, uh" noise and points at my food until I share.

Favorite activities at the moment include: putting objects into containers and taking them out again, getting in the cozy coupe car and beeping the horn, trying her best to get to Bella's water dish if I don't move it in time, and walking around the house exploring. She also loves to be outside. We have a baby swing on our swingset, but she doesn't want to go in that anymore. She wants to go on a big swing just like Samuel. I put her in the sandbox yesterday for the first time and she really liked that (except that she kept trying to eat the sand.)

I can't believe she is going to be 1 in just a few weeks. This year has gone by so quickly!

Pleased to Meet You

The pantry meets Becca:



The laundry meets Becca:



A box of Kleenex meets Becca:



The fridge meets Becca:



Some butter meets Becca:

It appears she and the butter are on quite familiar terms and would be happy to meet again next time I neglect to remove it from her reach in the fridge.