4 months!

Here are a few pictures from the last week or so of our big 4 month old little girl. It's absolutely amazing to me to just sit and watch her learn how to use her hands, or find her feet, and then figure out how to get her feet in her mouth!

Yesterday I had to call in to work because I've been a little under the weather for the last few days, but it must have been a blessing in disguise because I was home for the first time Norah rolled over!!! It was a pretty big day for all of us, and for a few minutes I forgot how sick I felt!

So anyways, here's a few pictures...

And yes, that's pink nail polish on my baby girls toes... Obviously I wasn't around when this all happened.

Special Dresses

Norah has gotten a lot of clothes since she's been around (no... I mean a LOT) and there've been a lot of outfits that are special to us, but two of her dresses were a little extra special.

The first one, from Mr and Mrs Hart is about the girliest dress you'll ever find, It just screams "I'm the cutest little girl ever, in all of this pink ruffley splendor"!

I know you can't really see all the ruffles and stuff on the dress in this picture, but I just thought it was so darn cute.
The second dress we got from my Uncle David and Karl. It's an antique type of dress that he had cleaned up and prepared just for Norah. This dress is quite different from the first one, but equally beautiful in its simplicity. The stitching and design is really something to see. I hope to get more shots of these dresses (maybe under Papa's studio lights), but we need to make that happen pretty quickly as Norah is very close to being a 4 month old girl!!! Yikes.

FINALLY!

We got our new computer a week or so ago now, and have steadily been getting it up and running with the basics. So now we have a few different occassions to blog about so I'll do each one with it's own post. Back towards the end of June, Lauri, Norah, and I took a trip out to Cedar Springs, MI to visit with Lauri's sister (Lindsey) her Fiance (ryan) and her step-son-to-be (Braiden). Joan Conrad made the trip out with Cosmo too, so we had a full house. Here are a few snapshots from our weekend.

Oh and the biggest thing since my last blog post has been that Norah is now a big 3 month old girl. She's definitely keeping Mom and Dad on their toes.

Our little Jackie O

Thanks again for putting up with us Lindsey, Ryan, and Braiden.

Bad Daddy

Well it seems that my computer has seen better days. It's taking longer and longer to put pictures on it and editing them is a nightmare, which is why there haven't been any blog updates in a while. The pictures haven't stopped, just the postings. And I'm kind of in a holding pattern on purchasing a new computer until my parents get back from vacation, as I'd like to get my Dad's input on some minimum requirements (size and speed) for the photo editing..

Norah's doing very well, we think she's starting to work on some teeth now, so there should be some fun nights ahead. Her and Mom are spending lots of time together now because Mom is home for summer vacation now. So here's a picture that Lauri had sent to me from her cell phone the other day. Norah loves to play with her jungle gym during the day with Mom.

I love getting these pictures during the day, it's like a little ray of sunshine in a crazy day at work.

Norah

So while I'm putzing around trying to edit the pictures I took on Saturday (they're not even on my computer yet), from the baby shower that Lauri's Dad and Step-Mom threw for us, my Dad has posted some pictures for everyone to see over on his blog (click here). He watched Norah for us yesterday, so I'm not too surprised that there was a photoshoot. Now be very careful when viewing these pictures, when I looked at them I literally laughed out loud. So if your employer doesn't appreciate you looking at Super-Duper-Ultra-Cute Baby pictures while you're "on the clock", you may want to wait till you get home because you're probably going to get caught. :)

Thanks for the great shots Dad!

Enjoy.
John

2 Months!

I've been trying to take some 2 month pictures of Norah for the last 6 days, and for one reason or another it never happened after I got home from work. Either she was fussy, or we were too busy. So to start off the holiday weekend we had a mini photo shoot this morning after her bottle. You'll see how she gets a little sleepy afterwards too, so cute.

These are some shots I took to show how much she loves her bouncy chair, from the animals on it to the lights and music that it plays, it keeps us occupied for a while. the first shot is from a few weeks before hand to show what she's looking at in the next two. While I love the shots of her laughing, the expression on her face in the second shot is great too. It's like you can watch her learn something! P.S. I included both color and Black and White shots here because I like the Black and White but everyone else likes the color shots.

And last but certainly not least, here's Norah's first "Someone who loves went to (insert your favorite city here) and all I got was this T-shirt" T-shirt. It's from her Uncle Jim and Aunt Jen from their trip to Scottsdale, AZ. A trip that taught us all the valuable lesson of why you should never accidentally drop your cell phone in a taxi cab. Thank you Jim.

A little bit more Norah

This past week has been quite an experience, let me tell you. Poor little Norah has been really fussy most of this past week (also known as gassy in the baby world), and Lauri and I couldn't figure it out. For the most part she'd been a picture perfect baby up until then. Then Lauri decided to try a different type of bottle to feed her with, and VOILA! We have our perfect little angel back!

If Lauri and I had to pick one word to describe parenting for this past week, I think it would have to be "humbling", hands down...

I got home a little earlier today so, with the weather being as nice as it was, we headed to the new local outdoor mall and went for a family walk. Well Lauri and I walked, Norah slept. We even managed to go out for our first family dinner at a restaurant!!! Lauri and I have never been that excited to go to Max and Erma's! And wouldn't you know it, Norah slept through that too, even with a screaming toddler right next to us for half our meal.

And how fitting, this transformation came just in time for her to model a recent gift she received from one of my former college roomates. Norah would like to thank you for the personalized onesie Aunt Kacy! In fact it's so pretty she couldn't wait to try it on, even if it is a size or two too big for now. We're very thankful for all of the clothes that Norah has gotten, but I wanted to post a picture of what Kacy made for Norah.

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It's a....

Meet Norah Grace Shields. She's perfect, Mom and Dad are tired but extremely happy!

Click here for a slideshow

10 months and counting

So here we are, 10 months later and we're still waiting. Today is Baby Shields' due date and there's nothing new to report. Lauri has a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, where I think they'll begin to talk about inducing her. But I don't think they'll start that process until next Saturday (1 week after the due date). So for now, we sit here knowing that this is all in God's plan, but also very anxious to meet our little one.

That's it for now.
John

Nothing Yet...

Just thought I'd post a baby update, we got a couple of phonecalls and a number of comments this weekend from people who thought Lauri was in labor because we didn't answer a phonecall. Nothing has happened yet, however Lauri is very anxious.

Update:
03.03.08 - Sorry folks, We're still in a holding pattern. Lauri went back to work today, so maybe that'll help things along. No promises though. I can say that we've been going for lots of walks lately, we're getting to know the two local malls quite well. We also - almost - got lost on a walk through the new neighborhood last week (that was fun). They don't make neighborhoods like they used to (long straight streets).

Special Delivery

Today, Lauri and I received a very special delivery. Lauri's Dad (check out some of his other work here)has been working very hard on hand crafting an absolutely beautiful cradle for the baby. Ever since we'd first talked with him about the design, we both knew that it was going to be beautiful. But when we saw it today for the first time, it was more than words could describe. And listening to him describe the modifications he'd made to the plans, as he'd received them, showed just how much love went into creating this cradle. Thank you again, this is going to be one photographed cradle. Probably even more so once the baby arrives...

From Left to Right: Ebony, Mahogany, Walnut, Mahogany, and Maple

The first 3 spindles in each corner have 1/8" dowels through them to add rigidity to the overall structure. I tried to get a close up shot, but it didn't turn out with my equipment, may need to borrow some of my Dad's lenses. All of the corners use dowels through the end grain of the perpindicular rails rather than screws.

Cross members are mortised into the end stands with a wedged dovetail type of joint. The wedges are made of Ebony to accent the construction.

P.S. sorry that the shots are so noisy, that's another reason I'll need to borrow some better equipment. I was really trying to use natural light so I had to bump my ISO way up. Maybe I'll use more flash next time.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Catching Up, Happy B-Day again Tony!

So here I am playing catch up, once again. Although this time I have my reasons (see my last post).

I forgot to mention that Saturday night we'd gone out to celebrate Tony's 30th Birthday at Bath City Bistro in Downtown Mt. Clemens to do some feather bowling (for those still wondering, Tony is my brother-in-law). Here are a few pictures from both the shower, and Tony's party. If you'd like to see more pictures from the shower, head over to my Dad's Blog where he has a slideshow of "a few" of the images he shot.
I'm not sure who picked out all the baby books that went on the tables, but this one really caught my eye as my Grandparents just had to put their old little dog, "Sparky", to sleep a few weeks ago. They'd only adopted Sparky a few years ago, but he quickly stole everyone's hearts and we thank God for the joy he brought to both of my Grandparents. I think they'll be on the lookout for another small dog to keep them company very soon, but it's going to be hard to replace Sparky.I'm sure it won't be too hard to find the outfit I picked out... Thanks again to Joan, Lindsey for throwing a great shower.Then it was off to light up Downtown Mt. Clemens, one wooden disc at a time!

What exactly was in the Birthday boy's glass?


Some were better at the feather bowling than others...
She's the some, I'm the others...

If he were to take that hat off, most of you wouldn't believe your eyes... For many years, my brother had let his hair grow out, But over the last few years the haircuts have been getting shorter and shorter. When this picture was taken, his hair was shorter than mine! We're twins again!
He really is quite shy...

Well now we know who NOT to let show our child how to get dressed... Now we know what was in the glass.