She's Here!

Autumn Nadalia Norby was born Saturday December 24th at 11:11 am. Weighing in at 7 lbs 4 ozs and 20 inches long. She is just about perfect. It took us a while to settle on a name, but we knew we wanted a name that started with an "A" so her initials would be A.N.N which is for a couple of Evan's relatives as well as mine. Her middle name means "born on Christmas day" in Portuguese. Evan served his church mission in Portugal so it was only fitting that we went with Nadalia opposed to Noel or Natalie.

First photo

She is obsessed with her tongue. Some volunteers gave us a stocking full of things for the baby as well as the stocking she is snuggled in.

New dad!

First visitor, Grandma Norby Check out all that hair...almost time for a hair cut! Next set of visitors. Kallie was so excited that there wasn't an RSV restriction so that she could come visit the "mortuary ward"

Our forever family

Christmas Eve Eve

December 23rd activities included: Hobby Lobby run, softball at the park (I ran to first base then Klinton was my base runner), Costco trip, pizza dinner, Home Alone, Evan's family tradition of Christmas Caroling, and going into labor...more on that later

Chaga Chaga Choo Choo

Evan has been SO excited for Christmas this year, particularly for his train! Evan bought a train set and tracks the Christmas before he left on his mission. He hasn't been able to use it in 11 years. His parents drove here for Christmas so Evan and his train track were finally reunited. And let me tell you-these boys have been talking about it for weeks. Evan even went and purchased more track to expand it and made grids and charts for the track layout.

Look at those giddy faces!
The little boys were so patient while it took Evan and his brother several hours to set up the track plus a couple extra hours at the train store and hardware store.
Test run! They even made a tunnel and a mini-train station out of cardboard boxes.
After dinner we met up with Evan's Dad's cousin and her family at the Mesa temple and looked at the light display and manger scene.

Happy 5 year anniversary

Tuesday December 20 was Evan and my 5th anniversary of our first date, and subsequently our 4th anniversary from the day Evan proposed. I spent all day baking and cooking for the arrival of Evan's family and in the afternoon I got my hair cut. While I was getting my hair cut the lady of course starts some "small talk" and asks me about my plans for the evening (after she asks me, "oh you must hate your hair cuz it's so straight?") so I told her my husband and I were celebrating our 5th anniversary of our first date, by going out to ice cream, which is what we did on our first date. She wasn't too impressed-she thought it was cheesy or corny or perhaps both. Well I love to celebrate non-holidays, and any excuse to have Magnetic Mint from Sub Zero is good enough for me. I tried to get a picture at the ice creme place, but the lighting was awful, so here we are in the bathroom at home.

oh yeah, it was also my due date! Happy 40 weeks. I'm still not very uncomfortable, and with my huge torso, I think the baby is comfortable too so I suspect we'll meet her next week!

Evan's first pay check

Friday was my last day of work. As you could imagine it was a little biter-sweet. I really enjoyed this job and I loved my coworkers, however leaving work means I'm just a little closer to becoming a mom-which I can't wait for. (My "due date" is Tuesday, but I have a feeling this little one is going to wait until after Christmas)Friday was also "Holiday Dress Up day." I've always loved dress up days. Can you guess who I am? The Virgin Mary! There are a lot of Jewish kids at the club I worked at, so the kids kept asking me if I was a dradle! I did however learn how to play dradle with a first grader.
Evan has now been in medical school for 3.5 years. Which means he has not had a paycheck in that time frame....until last night. Evan's sister Sara is involved with a local theater company which also carols around Christmas time. The carolers were in need of another male voice so they asked Evan if he would join. They sang last night at a retirement community's dinning hall-and got paid for it! I found Evan's "costume" hanging in our closet and thought they mistakenly wanted him to dress as a pimp, but it appears that the holly on the side of the hat distinguishes him from a pimp and makes him a caroler!

The Coper Star Carolers!

Baby it's cold outside

Evan had an interview for a residency today. So he told baby before he left that she must wait to arrive until Wednesday. Well he's home now so we are ready for her anytime! I'm 39 weeks today. My coworkers have a poll going so my boss keeps reminding me NOT to have the baby when I leave each night (she picked Dec 24). I still feel pretty good, so I'm ok waiting for her to be ready, but we sure are excited to meet her.

The nursery is not quite done yet. I still want a dresser and book shelf, but for now it's done.

GO COUGARS!!

Yes that is my Christmas bear swaddled in the crib! And yes that is a beautiful quilt Grandma Pattie made for baby Norby (yup still no name, but we're getting closer to picking one).

I love Christmas

I love Christmas. I love trying out new things and going on new adventures. I love Christmas Traditions. I just love almost everything about this time of year! Evan and I tagged along with Evan's sister and her kids to a "train display." It was held at this man's backyard. Apparently he is a train collector and shows off his trains for a couple nights during the holiday season. It was almost like an amusement park. There were tons of people, lots of old people and little kids. It was fun to try something new.

Our nephew made Evan close his eyes while we were waiting in line to get to the backyard. They were so excited to show uncle Evan all the cool trains.

After our train adventure we went to a friend of Evan's Christmas party. It was fun to go to an "adult only" Christmas party. The next night we went to a Messiah Sing-a-long with Evan's sister and her kids. Her kids were really well behaved (mostly because they ALL fell asleep). It was really fun to hear the soloists and Evan and Sara each both their own scores and belted out the sing-a-long parts (I just tried not to make a fool of myself;)