Nora

Here is the update on our Nora Gracie Girl! 

Nora spends most of her waking hours outside if she has a choice! The minute she is home from school she has a snack and heads outside either with her butterfly net and jars or her jump rope or skip-it. Or she climbs up the pine tree in the backyard or roller skates in the driveway. She does her homework after dinner....  or all on Saturday :)

She is a sweetheart. At parent teacher conference her teacher said Nora is kind and a great student and friend. Nora loves school and playing with friends. She, unlike Sophie, doesn't cling to one friend but plays with different people all the time. Or she'll play by herself with no problem. Sometimes I'll ask who she played with at recess and she'll say, "No one. Just me." She has always been this way, she can be outside playing and exploring for hours just by herself. Cute. Funny thing though, she hates being in the house alone. She won't go downstairs without someone,  or stay inside alone!

Nora needs loves and cuddles every day. (Which is kind of a contrast to being able to be alone so much - but maybe that's why she does!) Nora loves to snuggle and rub her face on my face and have her back tickled, etc. She is a very lovey girl. 

Nora could probably be a famous gymnast if we sent her off to Romania to a professional coach. :) She climbs and swings on and off of anything and everything. I am often saying, "Nora, our house is not the playground!" This started right when she turned two and could already go down the fireman poles at the playground and climb over and through the dome shaped monkey bars. But there was no stopping her so we embraced the idea, "Since we can't stop her - lets teach her to do it well!" And she has yet to have an injury from her climbing adventures.... although there's no doubt it will come. Her current favorite is to swing from the bars on our porch overhang thing. If people are here they always tell her to get down or be careful.

There is a nursery rhyme that goes like this, "There once was a girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad she was horrid!" Well, this is definitely Nora. She is usually very, very good. But when she isn't - she really, really isn't! Luckily it isn't often, but she can throw a temper tantrum! Her little body goes completely rigid and she shakes with anger. I have yet found a way to de-escalate her before she goes in to full blown tantrum mode. I have a few ideas from pinterest though....

If Nora can't be outside, she will be making something out of paper, glue, staples, tape, fabric, ribbon, pipe cleaners or whatever. She can sit at the kitchen table and create stuff endlessly! 

You may see Nora on a future episode of Hoarders. She keeps everything! Currently on her special shelf (aka: the only shelf where she can do whatever she wants to do with it - inside her closet) is the tops of all the easter eggs she colored, rocks, pictures she's colored and cut out and taped to her shelf, a rubber ducky, a tiny tea set, crayons, money and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. And I clean this shelf off probably once a month. I put everything in a bag and organize her shelf and when she comes home from school if she can remember anything I took off she can have it back :) But she hardly ever remembers. She has a huge sack of pine cones in the garage that she is saving and I am always finding containers and boxes and bags full of rocks she has collected.

Nora loves money! Nora loves spending money! She loves going to the store with me and buying stuff with her own money. She pretty much spends it as fast as she can earn it, besides her tithing. This is definitely something Brian and I want to help her overcome and learn how to save. But she is also very generous. If we are out and the other kids want something, Nora will offer to buy it for them. I usually don't let her do this, though. She truly seems to experience some sort of adrenaline rush when she buys stuff, she gets so excited and her face is all lit up and happy.... maybe kind of how I feel after I go to Target? 

Nora is a giver and a peacemaker. She is almost always the one in our home who will give in to keep the peace. Even if it brings her to tears after she does it. The other day she was crying on the couch and I asked what was wrong and she had let Miles have something she was playing with because he really wanted it. 

I have a bowl in my laundry room that is for Nora's "treasures." Meaning that is where I put all the junk that comes out of Nora's clothes in the wash!! It has all kinds of stuff in it, rocks, glass, beads, money and stuff I'm not sure what it is.  She has an eye for finding stuff on the ground!

Nora always has jars of various bugs around the house. I let them go regularly so she can refill them. She found a caterpillar the other day and put it in a jar and he made a cocoon and she was thrilled about it!

How we love this one-of-a-kind girl!