i mean... seriously!!

this video could break my heart!!! nora has been learning animal sounds. so, i will ask her, "what does a dog say"... then, my last question is "what does a mommy say?" (mommies say "i love you", and nora will say that to me... in her own language) recently, we have been asking her who else loves her. every time, she says the same thing... "Jesus"! she is so cute!!!

she also is very intent about praying. if i say pray, or thank-you, Jesus, or fold hands, in ANY context (even telling a story to someone else), she folds her hands and bows her head, waiting for me to pray! i am so thankful for these little habits!!


so, several times this week, i have gone in to get nora up from bed. i let her play for awhile, sometimes not going in until she is whining a bit. (the other morning, that was over an hour!!!) i go in, and she'll smile and dance around, but then when i reach for her, she shakes her head "no". i can leave the room and do whatever i need to, until she is "ready" to get up from bed! it's the funniest thing!!! she will even hand me her pacifier and just play and chat. it's SO STINKING CUTE!!!

UPDATE: so, we sat nora down to dinner, and david started feeding her as i cooked. they prayed, she ate. i came to sit down, and nora looked up at me, folded her hands, and bowed her head! everytime i got up to get something, or check something, then sat back down, she got ready to pray again!!! cute baby!!!

thanksgiving...

so, we went to ohio for thanksgiving. it was such a fun trip! first of all, it was nice to finally not be braving 95* weather... and trade it for 32* weather. we very much enjoyed our week, and nora even got to play in the snow. however, the 20 minutes it took to get her ready were so not worth it from her point of view!!! we spent five minutes outside, and she didn't really enjoy it. way too overdressed and she couldn't move! so, every time she fell, her face landed ended up in the snow, and she couldn't get up! and she kept falling off the sled! but, there is hope for another time!

nora is a joy to be around right now. she is so fun, and learning and saying new things all the time. she has learned many animal sounds. my two favorites are gorilla (making a noise and pounding chest), and sea lion (again, making the noise, but also clapping hands together!!!). it's so cute. i am going to try to get the video to load!

today, i had a doctor's appointment... just the weight, blood pressure and baby's heartbeat kind. but, nora had to come with me. as we walked from the parking garage to the building, we must have passed some 20-30 people. nora said hi and waved to EACH PERSON!! it was so cute. the same for the way back to the car. then, i was sitting at a stoplight, realizing the two 30-something men in the car next to me are waving. i hear nora in the back saying hi!!! what a friendly little girl!!

another new development... HUGS!! nora loves to give them. and they are tight! she will wrap her arms around your neck and just squeeze! it could melt my heart. i would give her just about anything for one of those hugs!!!

alright, more pics to come!!

another haile weekend

what you don't see here is that she was climbing with her cup in her mouth!

our sweet friend, moira!! nora enjoys playing with her, and moira thinks david is about the funniest thing in the world!

a break from playing... in 90* weather!

sweet girls....




cheese!!

two pictures of me pregnant... the first one is with nora, around the same time as this one!!! what fun!!!

this weekend, david and i had a date!! it was very nice. some friends volunteered to babysit (as practice for their impending child!!!), so we got to go see a movie! nora was an angel, and loves them. then, nora and i went to the park on saturday morning with some friends. nora had a great time. have i mentioned how she will pose and almost say "cheese" for pictures? she does. you can see that in some of these pictures! last week, david was off on tuesday and he took nora to the zoo while i had Bible study and lunch with a friend. they had a great time! nora thought she looked so cool in her sunglasses!!

her hair is getting long, and i am considering getting it cut. she loves her new chair, especially standing up in it. it is posing problems, however, because she stands in defiance to her parents! and you can tell she knows it is wrong and she is testing us!!!

so, the santa anas have kicked up again this weekend. for those of you who don't know, they are winds that come from the desert. they are usually the driving force in our wildfires. (and proving to cause problems throughout the state again this time.) last night, we had a gamenight at some friends house. they live about 20 minutes east, and a slightly higher elevation. i thought i might blow away from the winds! driving home, we saw tumbleweed blowing down the street. david and i just laughed. but, i don't ever remember the santa ana's being this bad. it's 94* today... and mid-november!!! our eyes are dry, and everyone (even me without allergies) have colds and stuffy noses. it's so dry and hot.

alright, that's my complaining. we go to colder weather for thanskgiving!!!

a nora chair!!!

i know it's a lot of video, but i keep forgetting to add them! so, here they are. the first one (in purple jammies) is of nora, maybe a month ago? she was showing off her new words. i forget that she can "talk", so i have to pay attention, because some of the "words" just sound like sounds she is making. but they are intentional! like, "alk (silent l)"... meaning she wants to walk on her own, not be carried. also used when she hears me talking about going on a walk. if you make it a slight "r" instead of silent l, you get "park" (also known as "ark). "sssss" (like a snake) can mean juice or shoes.

she has also picked up the sign for help. she gets frantic about it, because it usually is preceeded by the frantic sign for please, and when that isn't heeded, help comes next! at least her intentions are right.

tonight, we sat down for dinner, and nora folded her hands to wait for us to pray! what an angel!!! she picked up david's shoes off the floor the other day, and i said "are those daddy's shoes?". to which she replied "dada sssss". how fun!!!

she is a drama queen... probably aided by us, because it's so cute to see her yawn or sneeze! the second video includes these, as well as the new chair we finally bought her. (don't tell her, but it's her christmas present!!!) she loves to climb in and out of it! i think she just feels like a big girl. she also has happy feet. but, you have to watch the WHOLE video to see happy feet at the end! it's quite cute!!

she will hand me her pluggy in the mornings, because she knows that she can't have it out of bed. when i ask if she wants nummies (food), she runs to her high chair and waits to be put into it. when she wants up, she says "up". this is such a fun age, watching her learn new things all the time. she is quite repetitive of me... she will copy all done and other words! i am trying to be VERY careful what i say!!!

as for james... nothing new on that front, but i will keep everyone updated. we don't expect to learn anything new for the next two months or so. but, i do feel him move quite a bit! and i will try to get some more pictures on here soon!!! tonight, i was nesting and rearranging!! (david loves when i do this... i just remind him that it's cheaper than buying all new things, and the same effect is accomplished! a new living space!)

halloween... and other fun!

david reading a story to nora and everett... his sister, moira, came to join the kids on david's lap soon after this pic!!

jeffrey and nora felt like such big kids sitting on the couch together!! nora was all dressed up in her dalmation costume, and jeffrey was all festive in orange!!!

you can't tell, but my cake is in the shape of a pumpkin! it was SO good!!! and the beautiful leaves on the counter were hand crafted for us by alyssa!!! (way better than williams sonoma!!)

a family picture... you can just see the top of my belly!!!

so, this was thursday. nora didn't want to eat off of a spoon. and i didn't have the energy to fight with her! so, she ate her oatmeal with her fingers, and when she was done, this was her attempt to finish off the rest!! at least it was BEFORE i dressed her for the day!!

on tuesday, we found out that we are having a boy. we are going to name him james patrick haile. the doctors had some concerns on tuesday, so we went back on thursday for a bigger and better ultrasound with more specialized doctors. what we found out is this... james is still a boy!! (whew!!) he also has club feet and a shortened femur. otherwise, he is structurally and physically fine, as far as they can tell. this all means that there is a slightly higher risk of a chromosomal abnormality, but as david put it... "i would go to vegas with those odds!!!" the odds are still in our favor! either way, his heart, etc seem to be functioning just fine! and we are THRILLED about that. plus... many awesome people have had club feet!! troy aikman, kristi yamaguchi, mia hamm (although david doesn't really want his boy to be a figure skater!!)... and more who have emailed me about it! (but for their privacy, i will decline from commenting... but i think they are pretty awesome people who have done awesome things) all this makes us very confident that james patrick is in pretty good company.

david lobbied pretty hard for the name lebron james haile. james patrick seemed to be a good compromise. and, if james isn't going to start out being the best basketball player, david then decided that tiger woods haile might be a better name! either way, david is VERY excited to have a boy in the house!

it hit me on saturday. i was walking through babies r us, and i usually avoid the boy section all together. i had to walk through it to get to something, and realized... "i'm having a boy!!!" ha ha... no more pink!!

on a more serious note... it's been a fantastic week. david and i picked the name james because we LOVE that book of the Bible. i haven't gone through it recently, and stef called this morning to remind me of a verse in James... 1:2-4- "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance. Perserverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." that pretty much sums up our week. it was an incredible test on our faith, and God was faithful. He always is! david and i both felt a peace that passes all understanding, in the midst of not knowing what was wrong and what the doctors would find. we both really understood that God is GOOD, ALL THE TIME!! His goodness is not dependent on our circumstances. (and, we came to this conclusion before the appointment on thursday!!) it is amazing knowing that HE is in control and is forming this baby to be EXACTLY how He wants james to be! i think the genetics counselor thought we were in utter denial, because we were so calm and peaceful about it all!!

on the upside, i didn't think about the upcoming election at all!! and, it reaffirmed my faith that God is in control of that, too!! no matter WHO wins!!

seattle

nora and i took a trip last week to seattle. we met pop-pop, mom-mom and aunt byssa. i also got to have lunch with a college roommate and her new baby! it was such a fun trip, and awesome to be back in fall again! plus, we had gorgeous weather and saw mt. rainier with snow on top! nora was quite the trooper in her stroller all over the city and on the plane! what a good girl!!

new things... today, she said park and walk. it sounded more like "ah", but it was in reference to those two things, respectively. she is an absolute joy to be around. i loved looking at some of these pics, and seeing her little personality... especially the one where she is standing with her foot cocked! she does that quite a bit. she is a feminine little girl. she still loves to read, and i find her doing that most of the time! she nods in agreement or disagreement if you ask her a question, and most of the time, i really think she is responding to what i asked! it's so fun to watch!

if i ask to put her bracelet on, she hands me her wrist. she only gets her pluggy in bed (or when mom really needs her to behave in public!!!). so, when she gets up in the morning, she will hand us her pluggy. and, if you go in to get her and she hasn't had enough awake play time in her crib, she just looks at you and shakes her head!! bless her heart!! at least she knows what she likes!!!

today, we took sadie for a walk around the lake, and all of david's fabulous dog training has paid off! sadie was such a joy to walk!! david has been working with sadie most nights to train her, and i could see such a difference today!!! go husband...

however, the NUMBER ONE reason i love my dog... i came home the other day, and there was a lizard in my kitchen!!! my sweet dog helped me chase the lizard back outside where it belonged!!! thank goodness for dogs and brooms!!! sadie got the lizard to where i could swat it outside! whew... it was not fun for me!!

dog beach... from colombus day

last weekend, we took the girls (nora and sadie) to dog beach. it was warm (thank-you santa ana winds...), but the water is always cold. for those of you who don't live here, i rarely go in the ocean. it's freezing in the middle of summer. and nora boycotts the pool if it's not warm enough. so, i didn't bring a swim diaper or a change of clothes. and neither of us brought a towel. nora, however, decided that she LOVED the ocean. thankfully, i was smart enough to at least get her sweatshirt off before her clothes got drenched. she went running towards the waves, and knocked over by a few! (thankfully, daddy was there to make sure she didn't drown!!) she had a blast. we only made her get out of the water because her teeth were chattering so hard david was afraid they would fall out! once all dried off, she wanted to go right back in and was a little disappointed when we wouldn't let her!

dog beach, by the way, is a designated area where dogs can be off their leashes and play. both she and sadie have been quite tired today!!! sadie barely moves, and nora took a fabulous nap!!