Norah's 2nd Birthday

Yesterday was Norah's 2nd birthday. She was pretty cute about it being her birthday. We couldn't find ANYWHERE that had helium balloons, so we just got a pack of balloons and blew them up for her. Adeline and Norah had a blast playing with them. Adeline helped me make some cupcakes for Norah and was possibly more excited about Norah's birthday than Norah. Anytime Adeline started acting out of control and I would start to get mad, she would say "I'm just really excited!" It was really hard for Norah to wait until after dinner for a cupcake. I feel like that is all I hear her ask for throughout the day. We thought it would be fun to go to an indoor play area here that we heard about from a friend for something fun for the girls to do and to "celebrate" her birthday. We got the girls all ready and when we got there, it was closed! I know it is New Year's Eve, but in the States everything is still open during the day! As we started to drive around to find something else to do, all we found were ghost towns and EVERYTHING was closed. Apparently everyone rests and sleeps all day so they can party all night long. As we were driving home from accomplishing nothing Norah said, "Are we almost there? I want to go to the play place!" I felt so bad. Luckily she is easily distracted and didn't know what she was missing out on. We just hung out at the house all day, ate dinner, cupcakes and then opened presents. She loved everything and it was fun to watch her open them. We luckily didn't buy her that much, because she ended up getting way too many presents between grandparents and friends too. The past month Norah has become a little attached to a my little pony doll that Adeline has. Adeline has been pretty good at sharing, but they fight about it ALL THE TIME. So Adeline ended up getting Norah her own and she was so excited about it. The only problem now is that Adeline want's Norah's pony! Ah, the joys of having two girls!


























Abe had to work a 24 hour shift yesterday but since there were no scheduled flights or anything going on, him and the other guy were able to trade of being at the command post. Abe went in first thing in the morning for a handful of hours, but was back by 10:30am and didn't have to go back until 9:30pm. So we were able to spend all day with him. The only bummer is that I was alone on New Years (which Abe reminded me that we never do anything anyway!) I stayed up and watched a movie and did a blog post and by that time it was already midnight. I had heard from another spouse that lives in our town that New Year's is crazy loud, but didn't know if it would be like that in our neighborhood. People were lighting off fireworks and such all day, but just loud booms here and there... nothing too crazy. Well, AS SOON as it hit midnight, it sounded like a war was going on right outside my house. Chloe was going CRAZY. I looked outside and could see fireworks all over the sky being shot off from surrounding areas and also all the houses right around our house. It seemed like every neighbor possible was out in the streets celebrating. I have never seen anything like it, or heard anything so loud. Of course Adeline woke up pretty quickly and ended up looking out the window with me until 1:30am! It was still a little loud at that point, but mostly music from a party that was going on and occasional booms here and there. Of course when I went to lay down, Norah woke up. So let's just say I didn't have any early night last night!

We have had a great year this year and look forward to 2012!

As far as a baby update, baby is growing and doing great. I keep getting asked for a belly shot, but REALLY am not wanting my belly in any pictures! I took this the other day to have one picture to document this pregnancy :) This is at 37 weeks 3 days. I gained a whooping 5 pounds just last week and am definitely bigger with this one than the other two.