March Madness

So the past couple of weeks have been a blur. We're getting ready to put the house on the market (we'll be moving to Fort Worth this year. Hopefully.), meaning that we've had to spend lots of time packing up clutter, and lots of days out while contractors got our house in selling shape. Add in Spring Break (i.e. no Mother's Day Out) and a trip to the Hill Country this past weekend for Karen's cousin's wedding, and it's been hard to get into any sort of rythym. Of course, that doesn't mean we haven't been having fun.

It has become evident over the past few weeks that Norah likes to play, and play hard. Or as she says it, "LAY!" Exhibit A is her newest no-no, hitting. For example, at a park a few weeks ago she took a mighty swipe at an older boy who was a bit hesitant in going down a slide. Fortunately, she missed. No photos were captured of this, but this did worry us a bit, given that her Daddy has been known to demonstrate some anger-management issues on the golf course. And indeed, the next time she did not miss. During an intense play session at the Galleria with Josh last week, Norah stood atop the foam play area and smacked a poor boy right on the head. This understandably caused the boy's mother to give us quite a dirty look. On a brighter note, Josh defended Norah when an older girl twice tackled Norah to keep her away from a toy. Thank you, Josh. Chivalry is not dead. Here are some happy pictures from the Galleria, not involving hitting or tackling.

The next day, it was 85 degrees and Karen's best friend from high school was in town with her little one, so Karen took off work early and we headed out to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens for an awesome picnic. Norah and Kenzie spent about 10 minutes eating, and about 80 minutes running around the trees, gazebos, and open spaces. It must be nice to have such energy. On a potentially related note, Norah had her first sip of Coke that day. It went over quite well.

We finished our busy week by heading to Comfort, Texas on Thursday for Karen's cousin's wedding. The weather was great and the scenery was awesome, and Norah loved meeting Jennifer for the first time and spending time with family. And of course both Karen and Norah looked great in their wedding weekend outfits. Dressy casual for the rehearsal dinner, and Hill Country dressy for the wedding. And Norah lived up to her Monkey Girl title at the reception, as she exhibited a random series of dances, jumps, sprints, laughs, and spins for almost 3 hours at the reception. Sadly, the camera battery died just after the wedding. But honestly, pictures couldn't have captured how much she enjoyed herself.

The weekend ended where it began - the car. We dropped the happy wedding couple off at the San Antonio airport, joined our friends Lizzy and Travis and their adorable son Henry for lunch in San Antonio (see Norah showing her affection for Henry below), and then spent over 7 hours driving home. SEVEN. Spring break traffic is fun! But fortunately, Norah was awesome, throwing only one short (but loud) tantrum during the entire drive. I myself had at least two tantrums, so her performance was pretty impressive. This picture of her in her car seat says it all.

Anyhoo, we will be listing our house on Friday, so things are about to get very crazy. Here's to hoping a buyer comes soon. Come on, who wouldn't want to live next to Jerry World?! Any tips from parents who have had to sell (and show) a house with a toddler are welcome.