Norah's vocabulary

Well Norah just gets bigger and cuter every day.  It's really fun having a 14 month old wondering around the house. She surprises us every day with new skills she picks up.  The other day she started feeding herself with a spoon and fork and climbed up a slide! She is also learning new words all the time which is way fun.  Here is her vocabulary so far...

ahsy- (outside)
ahda- (all done)
da- (dog/ duck)
ma- (mom/more)
ba- (bath)
woof
quack
moo
eaze (cheese)

She still has a long way to come but we've been pretty impressed.  Here are some cute pictures...

Its that time

Yes its been almost 5 months since my last post so I figured its time.  Well a lot has happened in the last 5 months, here is a bullet list summary...

• Jordan got a new job working at vivint
• Norah started walking in May at 10 months
• We lost our job as RAs
• We moved apartments
• Jordan took the PCAT
• I enrolled as an evening student at BYU to take a ballet class
• We took Norah camping for the first time
• Norah turned 1 year old!!
• I got a job teaching ballet!

I'm sure a lot more happened but its not worth spending 10 more minutes trying to remember.  I do want to expound on the whole "we lost our RA job" thing.  As many of you know Jordan and I were working as RAs at the Branbury apartments since June 2010.  It was a pretty sweet set up, we would work as many hours as it would take to pay for our rent.  It was very flexible especially because both Jordan and I could do it separately and we could have Norah with us when we were working.  It had its disadvantages, it definitely made it so we never had down time.  At one point Jordan was going to school and working part time at the MTC.  I was working full time and teaching at 2 dance studios.  On top of all that we were working about 20 hrs a week at the Branbury. It payed our rent but we also never had down time.  We considered leaving the job many times because of the stress it was causing but we couldn't let go of having our rent covered.  It was actually because of our living situation that we realized it would be possible for us to afford to have a child.  But I always had a feeling like "this is too good to be true".  I knew eventually it would have to end and unfortunately it ended at a very inconvenient time.  At no fault of our own we were fired simply because our manager thought it would be better to have single people do the job (ridiculous I know!). We were given 6 weeks to find a new place to live and to figure out how to pay for rent. I went into panic mode and basically signed for the first apartment we found, and with lots of faith we moved forward.  We like our new place and we LOVE being free from the Branbury, but are also very stressed with money. Paying a deposit, having a major car repair, paying for my summer tuition, and buying furniture have depleted our savings.   Jordan will be starting school and having to cut back hours at work which means we will be making up for it with student loans.  We have been SO blessed to not have to go into debt for school until now but you've got to do what you gotta do.  It was a huge bummer that this happened, but it could always be worse!  Jordan and I are just so grateful for what we do have, which is more than we deserve.  We just look forward to the day when Jordan will be done with school and we can actually have a steady income, which will be in about 5 years :(.

Beach Baby!!

Well last week we were fortunate enough to visit my sister in Oceanside CA.  We had so much fun and we are convinced we will move there someday.   

Rockin her shades and new beach hat!!

Playing in the sand for the first time (notice the sandy mess).  And the cap on the swimsuit is to protect her bald head!

Matching hats!!

Touching the ocean for the first time!!

We dug a whole and stuck her in it.  It may sound mean but she loved it!!

Happy family in california!!

Home Decorating

So a few months before Norah was born I decided I was going to decorate my Apartment one room at a time.  I wanted to wait to do this post until I had all my rooms decorated with accompanying pictures.  Well I only have two rooms done and its been almost a year! So I thought I better go ahead and post the results so far...

This is the bedroom (you'll notice in the corner a bassinet that Norah refused to sleep in).  The Furniture was mine and Jordan's first big purchase, and we love it very much.  I chose a whit duvet cover because I change my mind so much I figured I could change things up easily with accent colors.

Here is the living room.  I don't exactly love the colors, but it all came about from mixing things that I already had and I guess it works.

The tree is removable so that is fun!

This was pinterest inspired and I am very proud of it!!

Well there you have it. Be looking forward for a post about the kitchen and Norah's room in the next few months hopefully!!

Videos

I finally figured how to upload videos!! So here are all the videos I've wanted to upload...

This is Norah in her earlier months complaining

We call this finger singing

She sure loves to walk around, I think she will skip crawling all together

We call this her poopie face

She loves bathtime!!

This is her magic trick

                                         

Update...

Well here is an update on life with the Barton's the last few months....
Norah...
She will be 7 months old in 3 days!
She has been pooping on the toilet for 3 weeks now!! its never too early to start potty training
She refuses to crawl and insists that we help her walk everywhere
For starting out so huge (100th percentile) she is now very average (50th percentile), except for her head is quite large for her age (75th percentile) it just means she has more brains
She sits up like a pro
She has her two bottom teeth already
She can successfully take her diaper off, I came in to get her from her nap one day and it was completely off

Jordan...
He just started another semester at UVU taking 13 credits, among them is Organic Chemistry II (yuck!)
He's been an awesome dad taking care of Norah while I work, she is definitely a daddy's girl
He's been doing the majority of the work for our Resident Assistant position, which has been very time consuming lately

Me...
After losing 70lbs I'm now back to my pre-pregnancy weight!
I've been pumping for 7 months so I can give Norah breast milk, I only have 5 more months to go!!

I'm working at Old Navy and loving it very much, it doesn't feel like I'm working it just feels like I'm shopping
In our spare time we love to play super Mario World on the Wii, we've almost beaten the game!!


Well there you have it, our lives aren't very exciting but somehow we stay quite busy! Jordan and I are loving every second of being parents, Norah has our hearts for sure.