Norah's Advice

One night last spring, Eric kicked the wall in his sleep; Norah heard it, and thought he had bumped his head on the wall. Since then, practically every night, when she tells him goodnight, she'll say "Don't bonk your head!" I don't know if she picked up on how cute we found it, or just decided to start dispensing advice, but that is what she has been doing -- usually when saying goodbye to someone. I wish I could recall each bit of advice she has given, but I have written some down, mostly when my sister, Suzanne, and her daughter, Rachel, were visiting:

To my mom and Rachel as they were leaving our house: "Don't let any bugs in the car!"
To my mom and Suzanne as they were leaving: "Don't run into anything!"
To Mom, Suzanne and Rachel: "Don't let any dog bite you!"
To Mom: "Don't be hurt by any bad guys!"

It might seem that N is a tad on the nervous side, but she really isn't -- I think she just feels like she should come up with something to advise, and I find it very cute.

Nine candles!

Is it even possible?

G was lucky enough to have three days of birthday fun this year. On August 31, exactly a week prior to the big day, we had a party with four of his friends (and their siblings) at the spray park. That was the last day that the spray park was open, so we got as close as we could. It was just a low-stress get-together, with cupcakes and juice, and was lots of fun!

On the eve of the big day (Saturday night), we had Ripley and Afton over for dancing and cake. Then on the actual birthday, the four of us went to Journey to the Center of the Earth, and, of course, worked some more on that cake.

He got, among other things, a very cool Wall-E arm.

So many candles!

A cake-y smile...

A particularly prized gift, an elasmosaurus from Aunt Suzanne.

Snippet of Griffin and Norah's conversation...

Here's a good starter post:

The kids were having a great time playing downstairs, and Griffin came to get me, saying he had to show me something on the couch. I came down and was instructed to look at a hatching egg -- a pile of pillows was the egg, and Norah was the hatching chick. It was very cute. A few minutes later, after more of the same, Griffin informed Norah that he was ready to go on to something else, and she implored him to continue...

G: Okay, but only one more time.
N: No! A bunch of times!
G: Okay, but only for a bunch of times.