Teaching Swimming!

Living in the Denver area has its perks...almost every neighborhood around here has its own pool! Fortunately for me, our new neighborhood in Littleton isn't an exception. Even with another little one coming along in just a few weeks, I've decided to take advantage of our situation and teach swim lessons again during July and August. I'm hoping to get a little better business out of it this year than I did last, so I thought I'd be ambitious and make a separate blog to advertise. Check it out!:

http://swimwithtiff.blogspot.com/

Hopefully my chubby preggo belly will be mostly gone by the time my first lessons begin. Should be fun! :)

Hooray!

My fabulous husband took our iMac to the Apple store today and we discovered the few small kinks that have been keeping me from being able to upload photos and videos to this blog. Thanks to him and "Jon the Genius," our blog is saved! (And not a moment too soon...baby #2 will be here in three weeks or less. I'd hate to miss blogging about that!)

With great pleasure, I will now share with you some of the fun that our family has been having over March and April:
We celebrated our fourth anniversary by treating ourselves to an incredible restaurant in downtown Denver, called "The Oceanaire." It was Andrew's first experience with lobster! Delicious.

As part of prep for his new baby brother or sister, we asked Taylor to graduate to a "big boy" bed.

(Holy cow, talk about stressful on his mommy!) We hoped to ease the transition by surprising him with new car bed sheets and a Lightning McQueen bed pillow--gifts that he enjoyed. Training Taylor to sleep in a different bed was something of a nightmare, but after one horrible week of dealing with a nasty toddler and poor sleep for everyone, he adjusted. And now, after an entire month of sleeping in the new bed, Taylor completely associates it with as much comfort at bedtime as he did with his crib. I am so grateful...that'll be one less thing to worry about when the time comes to put two kids into one bedroom!

We celebrated General Conference/Easter weekend just the three of us...even my grandparents and aunt and uncle's family were out of town. It made for fun memories: we took Taylor to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt, and I made a nice homemade cinnamon roll (yeah, you read that right! ) breakfast. Having General Conference as part of our Easter made it great too.

I canned for the first time! When strawberries went on sale out here for $1.00/lb., a gal in my ward invited me to her home to learn how to can sugar-free strawberry jam. It was a time-consuming process, but surprisingly simple...and it'll save me money over time for sure (with the cost of jars, I ended-up spending about $1.80 per pint of jam--not too shabby, especially for sugar-free!). When peach season comes, I think I'll take a stab at this again and can fresh peach slices for my kids.

Taylor playing outside

Baby Bump

I'm having a hard time getting pictures online--but I got lucky today!

Here's me showing off my "baby bump" for the first time this pregnancy. This picture was taken early last week, when I was 31 weeks along. Since I'm scheduled to be induced on May 28th, that means that at most, I have only seven more weeks to go! Two kids? I don't feel ready for this...

Back from the Dead!

To all of you who either let out a courtesy laugh or a sigh of frustration when checking this blog over the past nine months, I send my sincere apologies (especially to my sister Mindi, who candidly reminded me at Christmas time what a pain-in-the neck blogger I've been!)

It's been so long since I've posted now, I'm sure that many of you have chosen to spare yourselves the agony of checking this blog and have given up on me altogether. Well I have news for you: Happy days are here again. I am back from the dead!

August 2009- March 2010 Recap

Mildly put, let's just say that 2009 was NOT my year for journaling! I have some serious repenting to do.

Many of you have kept tabs with us and know what we've been up to, but for those of you who haven't, here's a run-through of what August 2009-March 2010 brought our way:

August 2009: I enjoyed teaching swim lessons to good friends in our neighborhood and watching little Jonathan (my good friend, MariLouise's little boy) a couple times each week. We had a blast joining my family in Grand Lake, CO for a short mountain vacation. And Andrew got his long-time wish: owning an iPhone! I'm sure anyone who has seen him with it would agree with me...it's definitely his favorite toy.

September 2009:Andrew and I took Taylor into the mountains for a small Labor Day getaway in Evergreen. We stayed at a cute bed & breakfast there and hiked nearby the next day. Later in the month when I began feeling sick, we learned that we were expecting again!

October 2009: Unfortunately, life during this month mostly revolved around my extreme morning sickness. For starters, I sadly had to stop watching Jonathan during the week. It was a real bummer for Taylor especially. Andrew's parents came for a long weekend to visit, and after seeing how sick I was, his mom stayed longer than planned to help take care of us. Later, my mom drove from Utah and stayed for a week to help too! Andrew managed to celebrate Halloween a little by dressing Taylor up in a cute dragon outfit, thank goodness. Here are pictures to prove it!

November 2009: More extreme morning sickness for me, not to mention wife/mom-sickness for Andrew and Taylor too. It was rough on all of us. Continuing October's trend, There were several unplanned trips to the doctor and many prescriptions filled, a suffering husband and son, and sleepless nights for everyone. Whew! I'm now SO glad that part of pregnancy is over (it only took 5 1/2 months--ha!). Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the handfuls of friends and family who came to our aid while I was sick. I don't know how we would've managed without you!

With the help of Jeff and Donna (my aunt and uncle who live here in Denver), our fam drove to Utah for Thanksgiving. Andrew had fun running the "Turkey Trot" in Orem with Larz, Kyle, Devin, and Uncle Mitch that day. We were spoiled when we celebrated a little Macfarlane family Christmas while there too!

December 2009: Morning sickness tapered down to a manageable degree, and our family flew to Alabama for Christmas. We stayed for a full ten days! As we generally travel south only once or twice a year, this was a real treat for us. We felt especially honored to be with family in the Birmingham Temple a few days before Christmas, when Cindy and Cameron (Andrew's sister) were sealed to their newly adopted son, Davis.

We also invested $700 in a "new" 1984 Toyota Tercel this month. Big step for us...ownership of two cars!

January 2010: Began packing for another move. We felt happy to find a slightly larger place to make room for baby that was also closer to Jeff and Donna and my grandparents, and better yet, to Andrew's work in Golden too.

We had the "big" 20-week ultrasound for our baby at the beginning of the month. We've decided to make the baby's gender a surprise this time. So if you think you know if it's a boy or a girl from looking at these pictures, keep your guesses to yourself! :)

February 2010: Moved. Again. It was tiring process! When we felt moved-in, we had fun painting walls and hanging curtains for our first time (ever). The place really feels like home to us now. Please come visit us any time at our townhouse in Littleton!

I hate to even mention it--our "Champ" Toyota totally died. I'm still feeling the pain! :(

We also celebrated my birthday on the 21st...Andrew surprised me with a date to the Cheesecake Factory and a movie night at home without Taylor, and family came over to share cake with us the following day. I made great memories.

A week after my birthday, my mom had a hemorrhagic stroke. Yes, my mom. She's only 46! It was a scary thing for the whole family to say the least. Taylor and I flew to Utah to help take care of her and housekeep for a week after she left the hospital. We hear that she's doing a lot better now, although she still has a long road ahead of her. We feel SO grateful that her prognosis improved from very grim at first to predictions of a full recovery now. We love you, Mom! Get well soon!

March 2010: Our home feels put together now. Life has finally slowed down a little too (does it ever totally slow down though?!). Poor Taylor, who had to put up with a sick mom and a crazy move for so many months, is getting to go outside much more regularly now. I'm so sorry, Sweet Little Boy!

Andrew and I are going to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary on the 25th. Wow. I am married to the best man in the world. Each year, I have to pinch myself that I got so lucky. Thank you, Sweetheart for choosing to share of this crazy life of mine with me--forever! I'm so grateful you did.

Well if you are still reading this, there must be hope for me and the future of this blog. I hope you'll check back again soon and see what's going on in the eventful lives of these Norrises! I promise to update more often than every nine months. :) Bye for now!

Terry Reunion in St. George

It's been a long time since we've posted...take a look at just what's happened in JUNE for us!

We had a family reunion in St. George, UT at the end of that month and had a blast while there. It was so fun to see some of Andrew's family, who we don't get to spend nearly enough time with these days. Among some of the activities we did at the reunion were: Andrew and his brother Don hiked Angels Landing (part of Zions National Park, not far from St. George), Tiffany climbed a rock wall--HUGE feat for her, because she's so afraid of heights, and Taylor got to play with cousins--another real treat and we think, the "trick" that really seemed to help him take-off with walking! We enjoyed every minute.

Birthday Baby!

That is right...Taylor is 1! He had his first birthday on June 2nd and is growing up so fast. For his birthday we went to the pool...

and then let him swim in his cake.

We are so lucky to have him in our family! He started walking ten days after his birthday; something that really opened his world, and ours too. He is everywhere now: tearing the kitchen apart for dishes and food, climbing stairs, emptying the trash (although not in the traditional way), hiding his mommy's keys and wedding ring...

...our hearts are beating faster with him around, that's for sure. I'm guessing that either means that we're at higher risk for heart attack, or that Taylor's the one of the best exercise regimens we've ever had!

Here's a video of his first steps:

Triathlon

Tiff, Tiff's aunt Donna and I completed a triathlon in mid-June! The distances of our adventure were: a 500 meter swim, a 13 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run at the end (5K). It was a lot of fun...exhausting, but a lot of fun. We want to do another one together this year! Probably sometime near the end of the summer or early Fall.

Andrew

Happy Birthday, Andrew--today he is 25!

The day is almost over now, and it was a fun one.  After going to church, we had some friends over for a once-in -a-blue-moon kind of feast: pork ribs, grilled potato salad, Andrew's favorite strawberry cake, and Jim n' Nick's cheese biscuits (yes, it's true...I found a fabulous recipe online that duplicated them perfectly!).  My grandparents in Littleton came over in the evening and watched Andrew open a few gifts (thank you to my and Andrew's parents!) as we had a second helping of strawberry cake and ice cream...I shouldn't remind myself of that part...and now Andrew, having gone into Taylor's room to wear our little guy out before bedtime, has instead worn himself out!  I have been spying on my boys: my big boy is sound asleep on the floor, while my very little boy is creating chaos (while squealing with delight about it) all around him.  I wonder, how in the world can Andrew sleep through all that??

I love both of those boys so much; they enrich and bless my life beyond words and have brought me joy that I never understood until I became a wife and mother.  Today I feel especially grateful for that "bigger boy" of mine: my sweet husband and best friend, Andrew.  It was so easy to fall in-love with him: when we first met, I was so attracted to his easy-going attitude, genuine concern for others, listening ear, and silly sense of humor.  And those were just my first impressions of him--as I got to know him better, I realized that those strengths in him were actually weaknesses in me, weaknesses that seemed to diminish a little whenever I was around him.  I wish that I could be more like Andrew; more layed-back, more optimistic, and laugh more like he does.  He makes this world a great place to be, and makes me want to be a better person.  

Sometimes I just have to pinch myself when I remember that Andrew married me!  Our first three years together have flown by so quickly; filled with wonderful memories that make me eager to make more in our years to come...I'm so glad that we chose to marry in the temple so that we may enjoy the blessings of a marriage that can last for eternity.  

So before Andrew's birthday is officially over, I want to say once more: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sweetheart!  I'm so glad that you were born today; you have blessed my life more than you know.  I love you!!

P.S.

Jim 'n Nick's Cheese Biscuits

For all my Norris family members in the south (and family & friends in the west who want to give these a try!):

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups milk (2% works best)
2 eggs, beaten well
1 stick butter (8 tablespoons), softened
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together in medium sized bowl. Pour into generously greased muffin pan and bake at 400 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes. 

This recipe makes about 24 muffins.