The rest of Christmas

Well.....our poor Nora got sick....on Christmas Day.  She had a rough night of sleep, but I didn't think too much of it because she has had a stuffy nose and it was a long Christmas Eve, just busy and off her normal routine.  She woke up quite a bit and slept until 9:45 Christmas morning.  Once she was up she was her normal Nora self.  We opened gifts, ate breakfast, opened more gifts, took a bath and then went down for a nap.  She woke up from her nap and was not our normal Nora.  She was crying and wanted to be held then didn't want to be held and it kept going in that circle.  She didn't want to eat or play.  I finally convinced her to lay on the couch and watch her new Shrek movie.  She did that, but was still sad and crying and then she started the ear tugging.  We looked to see if there were any Walgreens take care clinics open, but there were not.  We waited a little longer and the poor girl was miserable!!!  No one tells you that a piece of you heart breaks when your child is in pain.  I could hardly stand it she was so sad and hurting.  So Grandma found a clinic/immediate care that was open until 5:00 and we flew out the door, it was 3:50.  We got to the clinic, saw the dr. and had a script in our hands in under an hour.  She has a double ear infection!  This is our first time taking antibiotics for being sick.  We are so lucky, I know. I am so thankful for the dr. and nurses that were working in that clinic to make my daughter better!!!  She got some motrin in her and then her first dose of antibiotics and WOW, within 15 minutes she was back to her normal Nora self.  We continued on with the rest of Christmas and went to the Harrigan side of the family and had a great time.  Nora is feeling much better today! 

Merry Christmas Eve and Morning

Nora had a great time on Christmas Eve last night visiting with the Reid Family.  I did her hair with the curlers and made her take her nap in them and oh it turned out so cute!  She got a new baby with a potty that she just loves...it is actually pretty funny...the baby really goes to the bathroom on the potty...hours of entertainment for young and old alike.
This morning was great!  We opened presents from Santa and then had Reid family chistmas.  We are so blessed.  Nora loves her new Ariel doll and all the princess stuff she got.  So fun to have a little one.  Merry Christmas!

The Big Man

 So we went to see the "Big Man" as we have been calling him so Nora doesn't freak out.  She really does not like to get too close to Santa Claus.  As you can see in the picture above she was as happy as could be waiting in line.  She had no clue who was right around the corner!

 So it was our turn and I picked her up and walked over toward Santa and she flipped out, like I knew should would and clutched on to me for dear life.  She would not even look at Santa.  I set her down to turn towards him and she darted away from me. 

 She was not a happy camper by any means.  We even offered her a candy cane and she just did not want to be by him.  Santa was no help either.  He just sat there and stared at us, you think he would be a little used to this and tried to help or talk to her, but oh no.  He just watched as she cried.  I finally got her to stand in front of Santa and we got a couple of picks with her crying.  These pics on here are the best because grandma got them as the action was happening! 

After we were done she was back to her normal Nora self and as happy as could be.  She really enjoyed the candy cane too!  Here's to hoping for better next year....I have my doubts though!

St. Louis Christmas

 We celebrated Christmas in St. Louis on Monday and Tuesday.  Monday we celebrated with my mom and Tuesday we celebrated with my dad.  Monday we had breakfast for dinner and then opened gifts.  It was definately the Nora show!  Nora was in a smiling mood and was willing to take some pictures beforehand.  That phase of not even looking at the camera is beginning to end!  Thank goodness, because I couldn't handle much more of it!

 We had so much fun opening gifts and about half way through Nora said she was done.  It was pretty funny.  Jalen was so patient because he only had a couple of gifts to open since everyone else was going to be seeing him on Christmas.  He helped me open a few and Uncle Peter and when he asked Nora if he could help her she said, NO!  He patiently waited until it was his turn and he had been keeping his eye on the one gift that was from us.  It was a DS game and when he opened it he was sooooo excited.  It just made my night and he put his hands in the air and exclaimed, "I love Christmas".  All over one tiny gift!!!!  I can't even imagine what he is going to do when Santa comes.

Nora was spoiled once again and some of her favorites included her Barbie, barbie & Cinderella dress ups and her beanbag chair!  On Tuesday we had dinner with my dad and Nora got a gift card to Toys R Us, which will be used after christmas!  I was super excited because I got a gift card to Creve Couer Camera to get a new flash for my camera!!!  We are so blessed and so lucky to have such great parents!  Can't wait for round two!

Merry Christmas!

Curls!

So I decided to go ahead and buy some curlers to see what would happen when we put them in Nora's hair. I had been talking with my mom about it and finally did it! She was very patient while I put them in. At first she said, "no mom", but then let me do it anyway. I am lucky that I don't have a kid that throws tantrums about much! Her protest of no was next to nothing. So while we talked with Grandma and Grandpa I rolled her hair! Isn't she cute?!

I only had them in for about an hour. I wasn't going to make her sleep in them because she has been sick so I used the cool setting on my hair dryer, but they still were not all the way dry when I took them out. I think if I let her hair air dry and did this a couple of hours before we went somewhere it would actually be pretty cute.

So here are her bouncy little curls! It was pretty curly for only being half way dry and in her hair for an hour. Of course this morning there was no curl left, but that is okay. I think we are going to give it a go for Christmas Eve to see what we get. It was funny because after I took them out she kept touching her hair and then looking at me like, "what did you do?"

Success!!!

I can successfully say that Nora is definately on her way to being completely potty trained!!!  I am so glad that I pushed through the beginning of the week.  Thanks so much to those who gave me encouraging words along the way...I definately needed them.  She is now telling us when she has to go potty and doesn't even want to use her potty chair.  She wants to use the big potty!  It is great.  She has not had an accident since Thursday, which is wonderful.  I really thought that we were not going to make it through the beginning of the week and we did!  She is so proud of herself.  We are still going to be doing the pull-ups at night and during nap time, but my daughter is potty trained!  So exciting!  No more diapers for Nora!!!

stand off

So I guess I spoke too soon when I said the potty training was going well.  Yesterday we hit a wall and I don't like it at all!  The weekend was great and Monday came around and of course I had to wake her up to go to Rebecca's and asked her to potty and she did not want to.  The last two mornings were "okay mommy" and she would run into the bathroom.  I am not sure what changed, but it has.  She had a rough day on the potty Monday and Peter was the one to pick her up since I had class and she had just had an accident and then went again in the pull-up right when they got home.  Needless to say she didn't go again for the rest of the night.
Yesterday I didn't even attempt when she woke up and waited until we got to the sitter.  She did end up going for her around 8:00 am and they decided she was going to be in charge and held it ALL day.  She still had not gone when I picked her up at 4:30....she was not going to "pee pee on the potty"!  We got home and I made her sit on it in front of the tv, offered pudding, ice cream and a movie, no potty.  We then moved to all the potty's in the house to try, no go....I finally got tired of the whining and crying and put a diaper on and she said, "I not pee pee in my diaper".  Okay, whatever Nora...about 20 minutes later she asked for a pull up, which I thought was a step in the right direction...NO!  Not 2 minutes later she went in the pull up!  Seriously child of mine! 
This morning she woke up at 6:00 am, which is very unusual for my child, because she was wet.  She stayed up and I put her princess underwear on and thanks to a good idea from a friend, on the way to the sitter we stopped and got a huge bag of M&M's.  Still not sure how I feel using candy as a reward, but I am desperate.  So, we shall see how the standoff goes today at the sitters house.  I hope she goes!!!

Braids & potty training

Cheese!! Look at me! I was trying to take a picture of the back of her head and she kept turning and smiling at me. Of course this is the same girl who would not even smile for me a month and a half ago at the park!!

So this was my first attempt at french braiding Nora's hair. I felt like something different today and she does so well when i do her hair that she actually held still. I did not part her hair very well, but she did good while I tried and braided her hair...I think it actually looked pretty darn cute! She was too funny. She kept touching it and asking me was in her hair.

Well my sitter decided that we were going to start potty training and Nora has done great!!! It was four months ago that we tried to do it on our own and it didn't take. So I was a little nervous, but she has been waking up dry in the morning and as soon as she goes she is asking to be changed. So we got out the potty again and underwear and it has been good. She has had a couple of accidents, but nothing like before. We have set times that we try and it is working. Before she was always going sporadically, but now she is actually going about the same time everyday and that actually helps so that is when we put her on the chair. She just lights up when she actually goes...it is funny. She has been telling everyone too! Our little girl is getting so big!!!

Jewels by Park Lane

So any of you know that my mom has started selling Jewels by Park Lane. She started on September 9th of this year and I could not be more proud of her! I am the one who pushed her to take on this new adventure and she is soaring with it. I had gone to a Park Lane event and wanted to start selling the jewelry myself, but decided my photography was more important, even though i would make WAY more doing JBPL.

Well last night they had a huge event here in St. Louis and the CEO of the company, Scott Levin, was here. It was held at Windows off Washington, a very nice banquet place. They had drinks and appetizers, a fashion show and jewelry raffle. We had known about this event for almost a month and as it got closer we were more excited. Well on Monday my mom found out that she was #1, yes you read that right, #1 in the country for the past week!!! The Senior VP of St. Louis emailed her and asked her to speak at the event, where over 300 people were going to be! With a little convincing from me and Mary Grace, she said yes. She was sooo nervous and I didn't even talk to her yesterday during the day because I didn't want to make her more nervous.

The event came and Susie, Katie, Aunt Janet, Yvette, Diane and Bitsy were all there. Some of them were interested in joining, and they had NO idea that mom was going to be speaking. So Mary Grace introduced by saying..."this person is very nervous and has never spoken in front of this many people before....she has only been with the company 10 weeks and has been in the top 25 three times, please welcome Kathy Bromeier". I thought Katie was going to die!!! Her speech was great! She did a fantastic job and even made people cry! It was sooo awesome! She did it and I am just so proud of her that she did. There were 300 people in that room and she gave an excellent speech!!!

After she was done the CEO took the stage and started handing out free jewelry!!! It was crazy and I got a beautiful necklace and earrings handed to me!!! He only handed out 10 sets of jewelry and I got one!!!! I can't wait to wear it. Then came the raffle and there were maybe 20 sets of jewelry given away and we had all bought raffle tickets and put them in the ones we wanted. Katie made us each put tickets in one of the blingy necklace and earring combo b/c she said she would wear it for the wedding. Yvette, won one of the ones that she had put in for and then number after number was called and no one at our table was winning until they called Susie's number for the blingy necklace and earrings!!! We couldn't believe it. It is valued at over $500!! Aunt Janet won a signature bracelet for signing up!

It was an amazing night and I am so glad that I was there to support my mom in her new business. Thanks to my friends and family who have had parties and I hope for those of you who haven't had a party you will!!! If you hold a show between now and March I am giving a free photo session to those who do. So if you want free photos or know someone who does have a show and you will get free pics and jewelry. It is an awesome thing and the deals are unbelieveable.