Mariel's New Computer
Mariel found a paper frame with princesses on it and decided to turn it into her very own princess laptop.  She designed the keyboard with a few special modifications. 

There are "sad" and "happy" buttons if you like or do not like something, a "no" for quick corrections, a macaroni and cheese button (top right, next to the happy button- because those two things clearly go together), and on the bottom row are buttons for: peas, bacon, "Mariel" (in case you need a shortcut to insert her name into a story), cake, soup, and cheese.

Patrick and I are interested in having her design some computers for us.  I think that I would be willing to pay quite a bit extra for an instant cake feature on my computer.

More Noella-isms

Flavrite = favorite.  Noella tells me "This is my flavrite song" every time a new song comes on the radio. 
The Grunch= Noella's flavrite movie.
Turgot= forgot.  As in, "Mom, you turgot to let me watch the Grunch today!"
Flamly= family.  She loves her flamly.  She is, however, a little concerned that we are about to embark on a 10 day trek across the country with only her immediate flamly in the car.  I have explained that we really cannot fit our friends in the car along with our luggage and the five of us, and I think that she understands.  She is very excited to visit our extended flamly across the northeast and has already tried to pack several times.  At the top of her list: cereal.  It is her flavrite.

7 months old

 Holden is 7 months old and, as you can see, very crafty.  This is his most recent project from school- a special jar of hot chocolate for Christmas.  The teachers are very creative with handprints and footprints!

Holden absolutely would not lay down for a full body shot, so we settled for a sitting up photo with Puffalump.  He is too busy for holding still these days!

Sitting, Standing and Crawling

 Holden is now a baby on the move.  He is sitting on his own and can crawl very well. He goes particularly fast if there is an electrical cord, dog, or dog dish nearby.  He can also now pull himself up to standing independently and is pretty steady on his feet.  

Of course, Holden is also not even 7 months old yet!  At least Noella was a good big sister and prepared us for an early mover.

Noella-isms
pommagramma juice= pomegranate juice.  She doesn't like it, but she finds the name amusing.
kajamies= pajamas.  She loves kajamies, or at least half of them.  Nearly every morning (and most evenings, actually) she takes off her top and just sleeps with the pants.
spicy water= sparkling water.  She LOVES spicy water.  Which is sort of funny, because she does not like anything that is actually spicy.
alcrohol= what mommy and daddy drink.  Alcrohol apparently smells terrible, and whenever she gets a whiff of something that she does not like she wrinkles up her nose and says "Ew!  Alcrohol."
(more to come later...)