Memorial Day

We partied all weekend.  Saturday night we went to Kati and Jason’s house for tacos and board games.  We had a blast!  Sunday night we went to the zoo.  And last night we went to Stephen and Kim’s for a cookout.  I failed to take pictures at Kati and Jason’s, but pictures from the zoo can be seen on Claire’s blog. Here are a few pictures from last night.

Our girl is ready to go!

Claire and Elie “shymming”

playing with sand

swinging

We had a great time with our friends this weekend!  Hope you enjoyed your holiday!

Falling In Love Again

I had an ultrasound on Sunday.  Here’s a picture of my latest love.  (This is a profile.  The head is on the right.  The baby is face-up.)

Our pastor’s daughter is a good friend of ours.  She works at St. Jude’s as an ultrasound tech.  She’s leaving on Saturday for a medical missions trip to El Salvador and has a portable ultrasound on-loan for that trip.  She’ll be doing primarily OB ultrasounds while in El Salvador and wanted someone to practice on before the trip so that she could get used to the portable machine.  It just so happens that we were willing “guinea pigs.”  And Pastor Jeff was kind enough to let us use his office.

Claire, of course, had to be up in the middle of it all.  (Me, Claire and Patti – Steve took the pictures.)

The baby is now lying face-down.  You can see the spine at the top.  The head is on the right.

We were unable to determine if the baby is a girl or a boy.  (It’s still a little early.)  The baby was very wiggly and kept crossing its legs.  (For my brother, Matt – I asked for a gender prediction based on the heartbeat.  Patti said she doesn’t believe any of that, so she doesn’t know what the threshold is.  However, Pastor Jeff came in during the ultrasound; and he said that if the heartbeat sounded like the hoof beats of a horse, it’s a boy.  If the heartbeat sounded like drops of water in a bucket, it’s a girl.  He said that he heard hoof beats.  Patti told him she thought it was all hogwash.  The Chinese Gender Predictor says it’s a girl.  We’ll just have to wait a little longer to find out.)

We’re having another ultrasound Thursday night.  I’ll post more pictures this weekend.

Additionally, we were able to determine that the heart and lungs look good.  The kidneys are functioning properly.  The brain looks good.  Every single part is formed perfectly.  Our baby is healthy and growing.

All three of us (Claire included) are so in love with this baby.  We’re really looking forward to finding out if we’re having a boy or a girl so that we can start preparing for his or her arrival.

Mother’s Day

I realize Mother’s Day was two weeks ago, but I am just now finding time to blog about it.

We spent Mother’s Day at my parents’ house.  It was a wonderful day!  Steve let me catch up on some much-needed sleep and played with Claire while I slept until around 10:00 a.m.  When I woke up, Steve brought me breakfast in bed – chocolate chip pancakes and sausage – Yummy!!!  I spent the remainder of the day with my family and my baby girl.  It was a perfect Mother’s Day!

Me, MiMi, Nanny and Claire

PopPop, Me, GiGi and Claire

Claire had a blast playing with Analise and Aunt Shannon.  Silly girls!

Steve and I have decided to redecorate when we relocate to Houston.  We’ll be getting all new furniture!  For Mother’s Day, Steve and Claire bought me some new lamps to go with our new decor.  They are beautiful!  I’ll post pictures once we unpack them in our new apartment.

I LOVE being a mommy!  Claire is such a joy!  I am totally in love with her!  And I am so excited about the new baby that will be joining our family in just about six months!  God has truly blessed me more than I could have ever asked, thought or even imagined!!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Claire Elise!!

Check out Claire’s birthday video on her blog.  Click here.

Birthday Party

We were in Tulsa last weekend to celebrate PopPop’s birthday, Claire’s birthday and Allie’s birthday.  (PopPop and Claire share the same birthday.  Allie was born the day after Claire’s first birthday.)  We had so much fun!

For lunch we had salad and pizza.  Yummy!  (Pictured: McKenzie, Reagan, Claire and Analise)

Claire’s party

Waiting to open presents

Presents!

Getting good at opening presents

So excited!

Time for cake!

She blew out the candle on the first try!!

Mmm…  Good!

Allie’s party

Allie’s favorite gift – a rocking horse

What’s this?!

Yummers!

I love this stuff!

PopPop’s birthday

My daddy

Analise and PopPop

Claire gets in on the fun

“Helping” PopPop

Me and my daddy

Party Goers

Christian (Shannon’s brother), Alicia (Shannon’s sister-in-law), GG, Barb (Shannon’s mom), PopPop, MiMi, Arnold (Shannon’s dad) and Nanny (Fran was there too, but she was sitting off to the side of Nanny; and I couldn’t get her into the picture.  Sorry, Fran.)

GG, MiMi and Nanny

Adam

Outdoor fun

Steve and Adam

Analise, Claire, Steve, Josie and Jenny

Allie riding her worm

A great time was had by all!!

(There are more pictures of Claire on her blog  http://claire-elise-norton.blogspot.com/)

A Little Taste of Everything

It seems that I am a bit behind in my posting.  Here are several pictures to get you all caught up on the life of the Nortons.

First – Easter pictures (We didn’t take many, but we had a great day!  We spent the day at our friend Patti’s house along with many of our friends.  It was so much fun!!)

We also took pictures in the red clover that is blooming all over Memphis (or at least it was when we took the pictures – it seems to be gone now).

Yesterday, we helped our friends Dan and Kelsie with some yard work.  It was great fun to be outside and to play in the dirt.  Claire even got to ride in the wheelbarrow.

Today we went back to Patti’s house to watch the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Oklahoma City Thunder.  (I realize that being an Okie girl I should have probably been rooting for the Thunder; but when in Memphis…)  It was a great game, and it’s a lot of fun rooting for the winning team with a group of friends.

Lauren and Claire had their own ball game going on.

Kelsie has some great games on her phone that she always shares with Claire.

I’m not really sure what Claire was doing here, but it’s a great picture of Claire and Patti.

Petting Digit, Dan and Kelsie’s dog

After the game, we headed outside for a little fun with the dogs – the smaller dog is Digit (Dan and Kelsie’s dog) and the larger dog is a great dane named Solomon (Patti’s dog).  Claire loves them both, and they love her.  So much fun!

Claire and Solomon both love bubbles.

We had a wonderful day!

Today is also the first day of the birthday month!  Again, Claire will receive a gift a day for the month of May.  Please check out her blog daily to keep up with this and to see more pictures of her.

We’ll be traveling again this week, so we should have more travel pictures coming up as well.