Week Eight

Knoxville has not only thawed, but this week, we saw some serious flip flop weather. We decided to take advantage and get Nora over to the Northwest Middle School/Victor Ashe green way for a walk.

And walk she did.

Nora walking running along the green way

Water stop

Something I could stand to learn from Nora is to slow down and really enjoy my surroundings. She stopped at every leaf, stick, rock, stream, and puddle to admire.

Here she and Brad are in a mad dash. I think Nora won the race by a hair.

She waved and said hello to every passer-by, and she (with permission) greeted every dog she met along the way. Such a sweet girl we have.

This week was also Winter Olympics week, and in true Canadian fashion, both the men and women won the gold medals for hockey. Go Team Canada! In celebration, Nora and I wore our Canada jerseys about town. And by town, I mean Target and McAlisters Deli.

Here's Nora at Target rockin' out to some Kelly Clarkson.

We got some smiles, nice comments, and only one noticeable glare/eye roll. Haters gonna hate! (By the time Nora reads this blog, I assume that expression is going to be incredibly outdated- it probably already is. I'm 100% certain that I'm not nearly cool enough to say it out loud.)

It was so pretty outside that once we got home from our excursion, which also included the playground, Nora insisted on playing in the backyard with our pups.

Not surprisingly, after such a busy morning and early afternoon, Nora was pooped. She crawled up on the foot of my recliner to watch Sesame Street, and before I knew it, she was snoring. Nora never falls asleep in a random spot, so I was kind of shocked. About 15-20 minutes later, she woke up and groggily crawled up on me where she slept for close to another hour.

Moments like these are to be cherished, even when there is a house to clean and school work to be done.

Finally, more house pictures!!

The sign goes on the front lawn tomorrow at 6:30 P.M.  I am so excited/nervous.

Week Seven

This past week was a busy one. So busy that I'm a couple of days late putting this post together. The week started with the threat of a snowpocalypse, and sure enough, by Wednesday, school was cancelled, and that's how it stayed for the remainder of the week.

Depending on where you were in Knoxville, you saw anywhere from 4-7 inches of snow. In our neighborhood, we only saw 4.

It was the wet and sticky snow, so it was perfect for building snowmen. As a matter of fact, my entire Facebook feed was filled with pictures of snowmen. We were no exception. Once I convinced Nora, my southern belle, to play in the snow, we joined in on the fun.

Brad even had fun building a snowman of his own. He was pretty proud, even if I did think it was a little creepy looking. Really, rocks for eyes and a tree branch for a nose??

Once Knoxville thawed out, we were ready to celebrate Valentine's Day. Even though I didn't have school on Friday, I let Nora go to Ms. Tracy's for their party. She kept calling it the "Valentine's Birthday Party". I guess all parties are of the birthday variety? Before she left that morning for Tracy's, Brad kept with his tradition of presenting his littlest Valentine with a single red rose. This year, she was very excited to play with her pretty flower. This made it harder to get a good picture of her with her Daddy, and within minutes, her lovely long-stemmed rose was short stemmed.

Look at my pretty flower!

So proud of her short-stemmed rose in a vase.

Daddy and his littlest Valentine.

That evening, Hannah came over to baby sit so Brad and I could enjoy dinner and some adult conversation at Chop House. I wish I had thought to get a picture of us together, but I forgot. I did get this picture of our lovely Valentine's display complete with Nora's rose, my flowers, and the cards we gave to each other.

Can you feel the love?

The last thing we did as the week came to a close was take one step closer to putting our house on the market. We've started taking pictures of the interior for the listing. We've signed all the papers, and we should go "live" on the realtor websites by the time I publish my next entry. We have so many mixed feelings about moving. Mostly, we're ready, but we will feel some sadness when the day comes that we walk away from 1504 Bradshaw Garden Dr. for good. It's sad to think that Nora probably won't have any real memories of this house- the one she came home to for the first time.

Here are some of the pictures we took for our listing.

Master bedroom:

Nora's bedroom:

Kitchen:

I will share more next week!

Week Six

Let's call this the week of blurry cell phone pictures, shall we?

It's been a typical week with work and school and such ordinary things. Nora was excited to go to the gym yesterday. She talks all week about seeing "Ameeyah" and "Elatee" (Penelope) and Miss Sarah. This week, after class was over, we joined Allison, Hugh, and Amelia for lunch at Q'doba Mexican Grill, which was a new spot for us. We've eaten at Salsaritas, which is pretty well the same restaurant, but it was our first time at Q'doba. Kids meals were $1- score! This was even more of a score since Nora didn't touch her quesadilla. She only wanted to eat my chicken tortilla soup. She did eat most of her apple sauce, so that was something, I guess.

While we were there, Nora and Amelia got the sillies, of course. Amelia would lean over and kiss her Daddy on the cheek and giggle, so Nora decided to follow suit also kissing Hugh on the cheek. He got about a dozen kisses from each girl, and they thought it was sooooo funny.

Once they noticed that Allison had pulled out her phone to take pictures, they turned on the cheese.

When we were leaving, neither wanted to go separate ways, but they settled for some last minute hugs goodbye.

Today, we followed our regular Sunday routine, and while Brad was out picking up groceries, Nora and I took some silly selfies.

Weeks Four and Five

These past 2 weeks have been kind of a blur. We have spent a lot of time inside because SNOW!

School was actually called off for 3.5 days due to this snowfall. We were sent home early on Tuesday, which was a bit chaotic. We ended up leaving my car at school overnight because Brad was nervous for me to drive home in the midst of the "storm". We had lots of quality family time, which I loved because quite honestly, Nora is a blast right now. Here she is watching clips from her favorite movie, Frozen.

Nora has informed me many times this week that she is Queen Elsa and I am Princess Anna. She's say, "I'm Queen Elsa. Who are you?" and I'll respond, "I'm Sarah Lyle." She is quick to tell me, "No, you're Princess Anna!" and then she'll ask again to make sure I know who I am.

She sings a mean version of "Let It Go!" sometimes with her own special hand gestures and dance moves. I'll have to get it on video soon.

With school being out, we spent some time with Jessica and Kaitlyn. One afternoon, we went to their house and spent some quality time. This was kind of a sad visit for me because it was our last visit with sweet Nova the golden lab.

Nova has since crossed over Rainbow Bridge. I'm going to miss this sweet girl so much. Nora loved giving her big hugs, and Nova didn't mind one bit. She was the world's biggest lap dog.

Another afternoon, Jess and Kaity came to our house for lunch (along with Nhyle), and after the kids wore themselves out playing in the backyard, we took Nora for her first trip to the library. Nora has been begging for a library card due to a certain episode of Bubble Guppies.

In the end, though, Nora wasn't interested in taking any of the books home with us, so I didn't get her a card just yet. I think we'll make a few more visits first and see if her interest grows. I'm glad we went, though, because she was incredibly excited when she saw shelves upon shelves of books, and that made ME incredibly happy.

The latter part of this week was spent getting our house as ready as possible before our realtor, Marcia, came by to talk about getting it listed on the market. We got some both encouraging and discouraging information, but we think we're still on track to get the house listed by the end of February. More about that soon!

Finally, tonight was Superbowl Sunday. UT's own Peyton Manning was leading the Denver Broncos against the Seattle Seahawks. Denver was probably the safe bet, and if nothing else, it should have been a close game, but sadly, Denver lost to Seattle 43-8. Thank goodness for some great commercials. Nora, watching Superbowl commercials will likely become a favorite tradition in our house as you grow.

I think this was when Seattle scored for the first of many times during the game. Brad's face looked like this for the majority of the game. As for Nora? Tonight, she was just in it for the snacks.

So after almost a full week's unexpected vacation, we all head back to the grind tomorrow.