The Shumway Family ~ משפחת שמווא: Nora Turned THREE!!!

My adorable Nora is now three! To be honest, it seems like she has been three forever and should be turning four. This girl definitely seems a lot older than she is. This past year I always had to keep reminding myself that she is only two. I love, love her smiles!! Nora is always so expressive and says things with such emotion and character. I enjoy watching her play. She is super imaginative and very creative. She has an imaginary friend named Woody that I almost stepped on the other day. Glad I didn't make that mistake ;-). When Fanny was in our group preschool, Nora did everything right along with the girls. She already knows her ABCs and all their sounds. Hope I don't sound like I'm bragging. I can't stand when moms do that :). I actually just want to record where Nora is at at this point in her life. Things have been a little crazy around here to keep a journal lately, so my blog is it. Anyway, I love this little love of mine. She is hilariously funny and says things everyday that make me laugh. She is super sharp and doesn't miss a thing. The girl sure can throw a tantrum, though. I can tell that she is getting better, but man! When she wants something and I say NO, Nora doesn't give up! She is super stubborn and can scream so loud that I'm sure all the neighbors can hear her. But, she can also be the sweetest thing, saying please and thank you without being asked to, randomly telling me she loves me, which melts my heart every time, and being willing to share and give things to others. She looks up to her big sister (who she is just about the same height as) and adores her baby brother. Everyday she asks to hold him and is always wanting to give him kisses and cuddles. She is so good to try to keep him entertained for a few minutes while I'm trying to get something done like make dinner. All I have to do is ask her to watch Anthon for me and she is right there ready to distract her little brother. Sometimes it turns into mauling, but she is getting better ;-).

Saba Rafe and Savta Carol came for a visit. Saba bought some cupcakes to celebrate Nora's birthday while he was with us. We had such a great time with them!! Miss them so much already!!!

Tada!!! The cake I made for Nora's birthday. Since I was too sick to make a Strawberry Shortcake cake on Fanny's birthday, I decided, since Nora loves Strawberry Shortcake just about as much as Fanny does, that I would make her a Strawberry Shortcake cake, too! OK, so I know you don't need three pictures of the cake to get the idea, but we only had a small party with just our little family that I needed to show it off to someone else ;-). Of course it is full of imperfection for this amateur cake decorator, but I was pleased with the outcome and the girls loved it, which was what mattered. I love any excuse to perfect my skills.

Nora requested homemade baked mac n' cheese for her birthday. I must admit, it sure was tasty!

The many expressions of my Nora Grace! She is so funny. She loves to dress up and be fancy, but is also the most daring and active little thing. Just today she insisted on wearing a dress up necklace and dress up shoes out while we ran some errands.

OK, so the rest of the pictures have nothing to do with Nora's birthday, but I thought I would include them in her birthday post. I'm just to lazy at the moment to start another post. Here are some pictures I took of Anthon on my cell phone. He is three months old tomorrow! I just love his smiles. he is such a sweetie. We all can't get enough of him. This little guy has recently started sleeping though the night. Just the other night he actually got up to 12 hours straight!!! Yeah, I'm totally loving it. It has been FOR-EV-ER since I've had a full night's rest. Ahh, this boy sure is great!

Caught his thumb in his mouth! Really trying to get him to take a binky, but he still won't have it. Wonder if he is going to turn into a thumb sucker?? Both of the girls never took a binky or sucked their thumbs. For both of them it was either nursing or the bottle until they got attached to their blankies. Not sure how to deal with thumb sucking, but I guess if it soothes him we will just have to go with it and figure out how to get him to stop when the time comes... Doesn't he look so cute?!

Nora loves to read to him and put things all around him. She got these cats for her birthday from my Dad, Stewart, who lives in Israel. Her and Fanny named them Mrs. Cat, Mr. Cat, Ziffle, Tober, and Afory (Afor means grey in Hebrew. I helped them with that one. I used to have a grey cat that I named Afory once.).

And, if you are still reading this post, you get to see a little preview of the family pictures we took in Wyoming this past weekend. We went up for the mission farewells of two of Joseph's siblings. Emily and Jacob are both leaving for their missions on the same day this month. They are serving full time missions for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Emily is going to Minnesota for a year and a half, and Jacob is going to Honduras for two years. Here he is with some of the grand-kids.

The girls loved this bouncy swing!

(From here on down the pictures are taken by Emily on her awesome camera)

All of the grand-kids together. It was pretty funny. They were really squished on that couch.

Fanny is making a funny face, but hopefully Heidi (the "official" photographer) got some good ones where we are all looking at the camera and smiling.

The kids were playing with these fun toy boats in the stream. I thought these pictures were cute.

Can't decide if I like this picture better in color or sepia. RaNell, Joseph's mother, made the shirts and skirts for the girls and the shirts for the little boys. They turned out so beautiful! The colors were great!

Some nice ones of Anthon.

These pictures were to die for!!!

The three cousins, Bryce, Sarah and Tenn's boy, Trevis, Alicia and Tyler's, and Anthon, mine and Joseph's baby. Can't wait to see these three grow up together. Aww, little babies are so dang cute!!