ISR Swim, Blanket Time & Norah's 1st Beach Day

Norah starts her ISR Swim Lessons

Monday, Norah started her first ISR swim lesson and it went so well. She will have a 10 minute lesson every day for 3 weeks, excluding weekends. I can only take pictures and video on Fridays so I am going to get some footage this Friday and post it next week hopefully. Norah is doing amazing, it is a lot of work for them and she is exhausted after the 10 minutes and their is a lot of crying involved initially, but I know it is the best thing for her. I am so proud of her!! 

I encourage every parent out there who has a young child between 6 months and 4 years old to put their child in this course, it will literally save your baby's life if they were to ever fall in without you seeing. Ever since I put Norah in this class and have been doing research I can't believe the stories I read about, and all of them never thought it would happen to them. So many wonderful stories are shared as well of their children going through ISR and then later their children encounter a situation where ISR skills saved their baby's life. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children under 4 years old. I encourage you to find your local instructor and sign your child up because it is worth every penny. I know my friend asked her parents and in-laws help pay for her son's lessons instead of buying toys for their child's birthday and they were all for it and paid for her son's lessons, another great way to pay for it if cost is an issue! ISR's website is here if you want to learn more about what ISR swim is and if your area has a certified instructor. You can also check out videos on YouTube about "back floating" and "ISR." Here is a great video I found on Vimeo, check it out! 

You can read more about how we got started with ISR, from an early post back in May, here.

Blanket Time

I have begun "Blanket Time" with Norah. Blanket time is a concept from Babywise and other books I have read, I first heard about the concept from the Duggar Family, they do it with all their younger children. The concept is basically to teach them to sit still and play quietly without having to have physical boundaries around them. GrowingKids.org explains it all really well here. This concept becomes so valuable for a mom who needs their little one to sit quietly while she is helping an older sibling with homework or when you may be out at a get together or church or wherever you need your little one to sit quietly for a short period of time. You start out with only 3-5 minutes of blanket time and build it up to about 45 minutes. I know eventually the Duggars said they no longer needed a blanket as they got older. It was such a great training tool that as they got older it helped them to sit quietly at church or at the dinner table without the use of a blanket or toy, the exercise eventually just produced a well behaved child for occasions where you need your child to sit patiently. 

Norah did great the first time I tried it with her. I chose a toy she doesn't see all the time and I had to correct her a few times to sit back down and not get off the blanket, but overall she is understanding the concept already and I only have done it 3 times so far. I started out doing 3 minutes with her and now we are already at 6 minutes. I really make a point when we are all done to praise her and she gets all excited and helps me clean up and then runs off to play!

Norah's 1st Beach Day
Last Monday we got to enjoy a family beach day at a beautiful beach that is a little over an hour away. It was Norah's 1st trip to the beach and I was excited to see how she would like it. She was so funny because she wasn't sure about the sand at all and would not leave the beach blanket. I was kinda of relieved because I thought for sure we were going to be chasing her all day like we do at home, but she was happy to hang out on the blanket and check everything out from there. It turned out to be a beautiful day after the fog rolled away and we later enjoyed a nice dinner at our favorite fish taco place in Sausalito and had yummy ice cream cones down by the water's edge overlooking San Francisco, what a wonderful day!

4th of July & More

4th of July

Me and Norah enjoyed a wonderful 4th hanging with family at our town's local park where they do concerts in the summer on Friday nights. For the 4th they have a huge turn out and there was between 15,000 to 20,000 people hanging out enjoying the music and waiting for the fireworks. Norah enjoyed playing with her cousins and having fun with glow sticks and Nerds. When the time came for the fireworks to go off we all sat around ready to enjoy the spectacular show. Norah at first seemed interested, but soon started to cry and so I cuddled her up in my arms and put a blanket over her and she fell asleep. She slept through the rest of the show and we walked back to the car and she fell asleep again on the way home. We were sad to not have Casey with us, he had to work, but I am so happy to have my family to share it with too!

Father's Day

I also wanted to post a pic of Norah and her daddy on Father's Day, we enjoyed a wonderful day with Casey's brother's family down in Concord at a Beer Festival/Flea Market. Casey's brother brews his own beer at home and Casey wanted to take him there for Father's Day. It was a wonderful day and after the festival we drove to this great restaurant and had a wonderful dinner together, such a great day!

What's New with Norah

Norah has 4 new teeth, I realized the 4 new teeth were the culprit of some interrupted sleep lately. Once they broke through she was back to her old self and her sleep has actually been even longer these days. She goes to bed around 8 and wakes up around 7 and sleeps for at least 3 hrs for her afternoon nap, sometimes more, which is usually around 12:30 or so. Norah also tried her first ice cream cone this week at our Baskin Robbin's $1 scoop night. She has had ice cream before, but never a cone to herself to devour. We let her at it and was actually surprised how clean she was, she had it on her mouth, but otherwise did really well. 

Norah loves drinking out of cups with straws, she has for awhile, but it crakes me up when she drinks out of my huge Starbucks cup, she manages it so well for such a huge cup and such a small girl :) 

She also loves helping daddy juice and then sharing mommy's juice when daddy is all done. I love that she loves the fresh juice so much, I really want to teach her a healthy lifestyle so she learns by example, not just us telling her, but really living it. Casey's old juicer recently broke and we have been wanting to get the juicer my dad has had for awhile so we were kinda excited that it broke because that meant we could get the one we have been wanting. Its called the Omega 8004 and we ordered it from Amazon for $285 with free shipping and no tax. We got it a couple days later and Casey was so excited he immediately took it out and started juicing with it! It is such an amazing juicer, so easy to clean and it has multiple functions, not just juicing. Casey already made fresh guacamole with garlic and onion and you can make pasta and baby food too (can't wait to use it when we have more kids). Some people may say its pricey for just a juicer but it is one of the best on the market for the price and the quality. It has a 15 year warranty which is crazy and it is so quiet and sooooo easy to clean, which is one of the biggest pains if you are familiar with cleaning juicers. 

My Love of Pinterest

I just love Pinterest, I get so many great ideas from it and I have been doing so many lately that I thought I would share a couple that I used with Norah.

1. Make homemade play dough using Jello-Norah had fun using the cookie cutters and watching daddy make little balls with her play dough. I loved this idea because it was so easy to make and they smell so divine! I made one with lemon flavor Jello and one with raspberry Jello.

2. Use pipe cleaners and a strainer and let your toddler put the pipe cleaners through the holes (such a great fine motor skill activity)-Norah loved this, she had so much fun when she got one through the hole and we would clap for her. 

More Norah Pics

Norah loved her slide I got her for $7 at our local thrift store.

Norah loves her pool, lately when its super hot we just give her a bath outside.

Norah and her Juno

Busy playing and getting into things

The look of "oh no you caught me"

 Norah being silly, love this girl so much :)