Happy Halloween!

Well Halloween finally got here! We had a great time. The week was full of fun halloween events and Nora really knows the meaning of candy now! We made caramel apples, carved pumpkins and went trick or treating. We started Halloween day by just relaxing and taking a nice long nap before all the trick or treating began. Nora and I headed to my mom's house first and started from there. We went and visited many friends before our final destination of the Kountzman's house.





We went and saw our friends Tom and Rose, Pappy and some of his friends at a party, Grandma's friend Peggy and her mom and Great Gran and Uncle Ken. Each stop had wonderful treats for Nora and Jalen! They got cupcakes, treat bags and Nora's new favorite M&M's!! Here is our pic with Great Gran. Nora did a great job in her costume, she just didn't really want anyone touching her while she was in it.




We got to the Kountzman's house around 5:15 and had our traditional chili dinner and waited for the sun to go down before we started trick or treating. Now in St. Louis the thing is to tell a joke for your candy. You have to actually work for your treat. So all day long I had been practicing with Nora on saying "boo". She did an excellent job! Aunt Boo, Aunt Kiki, Zach, Peter and I took Nora and Jalen trick or treating, well some of them started with us. She was such a trooper walking around from house to house and saying boo. She had no problem once she realized that everytime she said it she was going to get a piece of candy for it! She was too funny. I had given her a big tootsie roll and that lasted like 10 houses and she was content. We walked around with Jalen and Aunt Boo for a little over and hour and then headed back to the Kountzman household.

When we got back to the house Nora walked up to the door and said boo and Grandma gave her a piece of candy and she turned around and walked right back out the door. She was ready to keep going to get more candy!! It was too funny. She kept saying more, more, more. Our little piglet did a great job and made a haul! This last picture is of her and all of her candy. She had that pumpkin filled to the top!! Peter has really been enjoying Nora's candy. She saw the pumpkin this morning and said "boo, more, more". I guess she really wanted more candy!

We had a great Halloween and first trick or treating experience. Can't wait for many more Halloween's!!!!

Pumpkin Carving

So we had our annual pumpkin carving night. We had 6 pumpkins to carve this year. Peter, Katie, Zach and myself all carved pumpkins. I carved 3 pumpkins this year. One for me, one for Nora and one for our friend Natalie. We had pizza and then had our carving party.
We had a fun time carving the pumpkins. Katie and Zach decided they were going to do intricate designs. Zach ended up scratching his original design and Katie made some modifications. Peter went with another original design this year that as you can see fits him well!!
We have decided that next year we are going to try to grow our own pumpkins up on our hill. We are going to plant enough seeds for 10 pumpkins and hope we get at least 3 out of that. We won't plant the seeds until July so we have a while yet. Happy Halloween!!!!

Apple Picking and Pumpkin Patch

Grandma and Grandpa came into town this weekend for our monthly visit. We decided on Saturday to go to Eckerts and do some apple picking and pick out our pumpkins for carving for halloween. We totally lucked out and had a beautiful day to go to Eckerts. The weather ended up being around 60 degrees and sunny. Such a change from the last few days we had seen in St. Louis.

We walked around and a lot of the stuff they had to do was for bigger kids, but we did get to see some animals. Nora LOVES animals! She wanted to pet the camel and goats. She ended up feeding the goats and grandma and grandpa's hands got all spitty from the silly goats. Nora loved it and wanted more!

We got onto the tractor and they took us to where the apples were. We got to pick honeycrisp apples. They were really sweet and yummy! Nora enjoyed picking the apples, but really enjoyed eating the apples. She was too funny. After I let her have a bit she kept signing and saying more. Grandpa helped her pick some apples that were high up! We got a lot of apples and can't wait to make candied apples with great gran tomorrow!

Nora made daddy share some of his apple with her. She was too cute walking around looking and watching all of us pick apples.



After the apple picking we went back to the main part of Eckerts and picked out our pumpkins! Nora had a great time posing for pictures for mommy. Well at least I think she did. She looked so darn cute sitting in front of all those pumpkins. She kept touching them all. We should have an interesting time carving them this year. Check back later in the week for new pics of that!

Of course we couldn't leave without getting a shot of the family. We had a great day with grandma and grandpa!

16 months old

Nora is 16 months old now and I can hardly believe it. We have been having so much fun with her lately. She had a virus last weekend, but this weekend she has been in the best mood! I have to say I love this age. She is interacting with us more and more. I got out my camera this afternoon and captured some of her today. She got really inquisitive and this first pic she was in my face. I really like it because it really shows off her baby blue eyes! I wish her little fingers wouldn't have been on the lens though!


She loves clapping and running and singing and marching. She kept marching across the living room today and cracking me up. She has been playing peek a boo with Staley too, which is hysterical. She will run at him and turn around and run out of the room and he will run after her like "where did she go?" and she just laughs and thinks it is soooo funny. The things that make them laugh.




She has also figured out that if she uses her little stool that she can climb on the couch all by herself. This has been a major achievement. I am just waiting for her to figure out that she can use it to climb on other things as well, but I am hoping that is not figured out for a while! She is just so proud of herself once she gets onto the couch. She is also talking a lot more. She officially says ma-ma and dada without any problems. She will even say it if I ask her too. It is the best when I here her yell Ma-ma! out when I leave the room. I will probably curse myself later, but I love it right now. I think she likes to say it because I answer her back too.



Her hair is getting long and she has a mouthful of teeth too! We started to brush her teeth at night and that is a job. At first it wasn't so bad, but now she wants to do it herself and just sucks on the toothbrush. At least we are trying to teach good hygeine.





Nora and I are headed to Chicago next weekend on the bus all by ourselves! I am going to see my favorite bands, Dave Matthews Band, with a friend of mine and I couldn't come to Chicago without Nora. So it should be an interesting trip! Keep your fingers crossed for us that it goes okay. Hope everyone is doing well!

Half Marathon

Well I completed my first half marathon today. Right now it is about 3 hours after the race and I am hurting! I have been training since May for this event and I finally did it! The race was a lot harder than I thought it would be and I completely give compliments to those of my friends who do full marathons. I really don't know how they do it!

This first pic is right around the 6 mile marker. Peter, Nora, Mom, Katie and Zach were there waiting for me. I started to cry when I saw them and some guys was like it's okay, you can do this. It made me laugh because he didn't know I had family standing there. After he realized why I was starting to cry he said, that is cool, you can still do this! The people running were very nice.



Katie joined me around 8.25. I was really starting to struggle by then. I went and got a knee brace yesterday and that really took the pain away, but my foot was starting to hurt. It didn't start to hurt until around 6.5-7 miles. it was around 6.5 that we started our trek up 370 over the bridge. Let me tell you that is what took it out of me. Now I have trained in hilly areas, but my hills are steep and then down, so it is hard for maybe 1-2 minutes and then okay. This was a steady incline for 1.25 miles. It really killed me. I was not expecting to see my family again at 8.25. Again, I started to get choked up and Peter said they could tell I had hit a wall. I did take some free GU that they were handing out at mile marker 8. It wasn't too bad and I thought I might need it. So I got to 8.25 and my family was there and Katie was ready to start running with me. I am so glad that she did. I really needed a boost and she gave it to me. There were not many people along the race route. So when you saw and heard people it was nice. It ended up getting pretty hot too. I think that effected me more than I would have thought. I have been so used to running before the sun comes up that running after the sun was up was hard. It wasn't a very shaddy run either. But we made it. I started to really break down after mile 12. I thought I would have gotten an adrenaline rush or something, but my body was hurting so bad by that point. I did get excited again once I could see the tent and more people were lined up on the street. Katie was right next to me cheering me on thank goodness. She kept saying, "We are almost there! You can do it! Look how far you've come!" I love my sister! My goal for this race was to finish in under 2 and a half hours and I did it. We ran across the finish line in 2 hours and 28 minutes!

I started crying and she started crying and it was awesome! We forgot to get a picture there with Katie and I so I made Peter take one once we got home. I am proud of myself and all the hard work I have put towards this. I really can't believe I, Debbie Reid, ran a half marathon! It's a little crazy if you ask me! But I did it. Don't know if I will do this again, but we will see. Maybe it is like childbirth and you forget after a while. Now I am going to take it easy the rest of the day and relax and hope my body starts to feel better soon! Thanks to all the people who have supported me through this, by encouraging me and/or running with me. I couldn't have done it without all of you!

15 months

Well I cannot believe that our baby girl is now 15 months old!! It is amazing how fast time flies. We had our 15 month check up yesterday and she is a healthy little girl. Nora weighed in at 25 lbs. 10 oz. and is 31 1/2 inches tall. She is in the 87th % for height and weight. So at least she is proportioned right!

Nora is doing so much right now. She is walking all over the place and is starting to try to run. She has figured out how to walk backwards and will do this for a few steps at a time. She is learning how to climb up onto things and knows that she can use her "og" dog as a step ladder to help her get onto the couch. She is starting to talk, slowly, but surely. Some of the words she says is

"ello" hello

"up"

"hi"

"uh oh"

"ala" Nala

"a one" all done

"ore" more

"og" dog

Of course being the worrier that I am is worried that she isn't saying enough right now, but she is definately taking everything in. She still loves books and would prefer books to other toys. She is loving baby dolls too. She has three of them now and loves to take care of them and feed them and wrap them up in blankets. She is a little mother to those babies!

Next week I officially start back to work. How lucky I am to have been able to be home this summer with my baby and watch her grow. I cannot believe how fast it has gone and I wish I had more time. Nora is lucky enough to have a wonderful sitter who cannot wait to have her back full time. She will have new friends joining her at Rebecca's house two days a week so Nora will not be the only one at her house. Poor girl is going to have to get used to getting up early again. Again, we have a great little girl and she is used to sleeping 13 hours a night and taking a 2-3 hour nap during the day. Gosh for her to get 13 hours we would have to put her to bed at 6! Needless to say that is not going to happen so we all will have some adjusting to get used to. We are all still trying to figure out how it is all going to work in the mornings with me running, getting her up and Peter off to work. Busy times! Happy end of summer everyone!!

1 year and Family Pics

Well we had Nora's 1 year pics done, a little late I know, but better late than never right?! We went to Portrait Innovations again, but I was a little disappointed with them. They were running a 1/2 hour behind and we missed out on Nora being her great self. The photographer we had was just okay too. This is the first time that I have not been that satisfied with them. We had some family pics done as well and they did not turn out that great. He kept putting us in the same pose and it was not a good one. We did get a few great pics, but usually we get more than just a few and this time they only took 60 and normally it is more like 100. Overall it was fine. So here are the good ones.

Peter was trying to get her to laugh in this one and he caught her doing her piggy face!

Not a bad family shot, but Nora is not smiling.

This is the one that we got the most pics of. She does look pretty cute if I do say so myself!

This is the other family one we got. Her shirt was too big so it kept getting all bunched up and Peter's shirt wasn't laying right. At least she was smiling in this one.