Calendar Shoot

Nonnie is in California for Christmas, and we are working on another calendar of the girls.  This is just a preview of what's to come!

We Just Love the Sea Center

One really nice thing about living in Camarillo is being halfway between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.  Other than that, there are lots of other nice things to do, as long as you have no desire to do them after 10pm, which is when our entire town shuts down -- a fact that bothered us a lot more before we had kids, now, however, it's comforting to know we're not missing a thing.

Because of our proximity -- and the fact that we have our sweet Smith cousins in Santa Barbara -- we make it up there at least once a week.  Last week, we managed to make it to the Sea Center with our good friends, the Fraziers.

 Nola has been to the Sea Center often enough to guide a tour...

 One critical stop on her tour would, of course, be the puppet theater.

 Payton and Nola's best buddy, Nate, think Nola's puppeteering skills are whaley cool
(okay, that was a reach...)

Little Miss Payton just being precious & delighted to get to hang out with the big kids, instead of lugged around by mommy.

The Second Child

Very recently Nola discovered "her website," which is a fair nickname for our family's blog, especially since I have been neglectful -- to say the least. When I take a picture of the girls that I want to share with someone, I now have the ability to just text it to Nick, my mom, and my sisters -- generally, people who I know won't mind being texted in the middle of the day with giggly videos (apologies to Aunt Jaimee, who always seems to get these on days when she has to work with her boss.)

Honestly, until Nola rediscovered the blog, I kind of thought of it as a relic of the past.  Yet another online social media outlet that had been bowled over by Facebook & company.  Yet another new mommy novelty pushed to the back burner for the sake of just getting through another day. However, it is kind of a really cool multi-media baby book.  Nola loved finding her videos and pictures in the same place that she finds Dora, which is why I've decided to not shelf the blog entirely.  Payton deserves her moment in the sun, and she's just as funny and charming... and even if it is only my girls watching their videos and pictures, that should be all that matters.

I will do some patchwork catch-up sort of blogging -- to make things appear more filled in than they are, so bear with us over here at Nola's website as we make room for Payton.

Here, Nola took it on herself to feed Payton -- as "Payton finishing her snack," was the last thing that we had to do before we could decorate the Christmas tree.  

Cheerio!

We've been away for sometime, and I mainly have my newfangled iPad to blame, as it doesn't support various endeavors, blogposting included; however, when Nick captured this moment at Costco, I had to dust off the laptop to post it. 

2 Years Old

We had Nola's sweet little cousins over for tea and dress-ups. What fun!

Nola's Chores

Nick and I have been beside ourselves with pride and exhaustion, as Nola clearly sees the crib as something that is "so last year." For the past two weeks, she's been "sleeping" in a bed, which means we (alright, I'll just admit it, it's Nick whose been carrying the load in this one, as anyone who's ever known me knows that I simply won't wake up for anything. Not even my own child. I'm awful, I know...) Anyhow, "we" have been waking up at 12, 2, 4, 6 and just about anytime in between that Nola deems necessary, as she has a whole new world opened up to her without the barrier of the four-sides of the crib. This, compounded by her new door-knob turning skills, has opened up a whole new nighttime world to her, and a whole new world of hurt for her parents.

Instead of taking a step backward, and averting the meltdown that returning to the crib would cause, we've decided to make a giant leap forward, and make this whole "bed thing" work for us.

Last night, before supper, we made a chart of "Nola's Chores," which pretty much just entailed sleeping in until 7 (the "Going on the potty" chore is thrown in just to make us look extra precocious). Note that there's an addendum that we had to tape to the bottom this morning... to the average layperson (read: those sane enough to not invite a toddler into their house) this little addendum may seem redundant, but sleeping through the night is not the same as sleeping until 7:00 (which is honestly just an arbitrary time that mommy selected, as it's only 3 hours earlier than mommy would prefer to wake up. Sadly, that's "so last year" for me too).

Nola slept in last night until 5:45, which is a vast improvement, and deserving a sticker. We have yet to determine what the stickers will earn our diligent little (almost) 2-year old, but her reward for today was to get to listen to mommy sing some Roberta Flack on the old karaoke machine. Oh, the things that are possible when you have a full night's sleep!

6-months old!

We just got back from our pediatrician's, and he confirmed our belief that Payton is just about the sweetest little thing in the world. Nonetheless, she still had to get her shots.