Solid Food!! Already?!

I'm a little overwhelmed with life right now and have been neglecting posting to this blog but tonight I have to stay up to take my antibiotic so I have some forced time on my hand! Of course, there are a million other things I should be doing but for a change I'm going to do something I actually want to do.

As I was looking through the pictures on the camera and deciding what I wanted to write about tonight, I realized that I had the following pictures/events that I intended to post and haven't gotten around to yet:

Uncle Kyle's November visit (maybe I'll just combine it with December since he'll be here this weekend!)
Thanksgiving
Playground outing with cousins Brady and Brooks
My poor attempt at some posed outdoor photos
Santa photos at Millenia Mall

My memory is so awful these days that I have to do the above and list everything out or I forget. Now I'll have a starting point when I attempt to catch up :)

So, Noelle is way more interested in food than Noah ever was at this age. She watches everything we eat and grabs at anything she can get her fingers on. We weren't overly anxious to start her on solids since her weight is fine, she's a great nurser and it just adds one more task to the list each day. She was clearly interested though so it felt selfish not to let her in on the yummy world of rice cereal (yuck! it reminds me of oatmeal or grits and I don't care for either!).

We got a bunch of cute shots but I only had the patience to upload a few!

Here she is demonstrating that she is already in control. We had to give her another spoon to hold so she didn't immediately grab the one with the cereal on it. She was hilarious, guiding the spoon into her mouth. Most of the cereal was pushed right back out with her tongue but she did a lot better in the days following.


This was from today. AUNT ERIN - YOU BETTER SHOW ME HOW TO REARRANGE PHOTOS WHEN YOU'RE HERE FOR CHRISTMAS!!!


She just wanted to eat but we were being mean making her take lots of pictures. She was pretty cooperative though - just happy to finally be eating solid food!


In the end, she decided that the tray would suffice! Poor little angel is teething like crazy. Her bottom two teeth are pretty close to erupting so hopefully that will happen soon and she'll be a little more comfortable.

Tomorrow, the plan is to attempt Christmas pictures at the portrait studio but it's up in the air with me being so sick. So far, neither of the kids have any symptoms but I am scared it will catch them. I've managed to keep a distance until today which is almost a week since the onset of my symptoms. However, the first few days of antibiotics were useless so I've only been on medication that is actually helping relieve some of my ailments since yesterday. I obviously had to feed Noelle so I wasn't that distant but that was really the extent of my contact with her. It sucks being a sick mom...the two just don't jive! Thankfully, they have a wonderful, hands on dad who has had to play all roles the past few days. He's so awesome but I felt terrible when the poor guy passed out at 9:00 tonight! That actually works out to my advantage though - I won't feel too bad when I wake him up to go get me Noelle when she wakes up to eat overnight! She's such a Daddy's Girl though that I can predict what will happen. She'll sleep through the night tonight!

I hope everyone is enjoying getting ready for Christmas :) I think I will pull the sick card this year when none of the out-of-town gifts get mailed...kidding! Somehow, it will all get done. I used to be so organized...now birth announcements get mailed when the kid is almost five months old...Lord only knows when Christmas cards will go out, haha! I did strategically create address labels for Noelle's announcements so I could use them for Christmas cards. I prefer to write them out but I know at this point in my life that Christmas cards just wouldn't happen this year if I had to address them too. Now, we just have to get the pictures done tomorrow and I can potentially have them out in the mail by Wednesday. Now, THAT would be a miracle for me! Wish us luck (and a good night's sleep for me to help my body fight this horrible bug!)

Noelle's Four Month Appointment

Today we had Noelle's four month appointment/shots. We had originally planned to do this two weeks ago (when she was just getting to four months) but her pediatrician had other plans. We forgive him though because he cancelled to go to Boston and we love Boston :)

Her growth is right on target:
Height: 24 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 12 pounds, 11 ounces (25th percentile) - maybe she'll be skinny like her mom, HAHA!

It's a darn good thing you get a paper with all of this information at the end of the appointment because I can't remember my name these days!

We decided to pierce her ears this appointment because we wanted to do it before she had any memory of the event and wasn't at a stage where she would be constantly grabbing at her ears. She's just now starting to grab objects so we should be safe. She screamed bloody murder while getting it done and the nurse immediately gave her two shots in her thigh as to not let her calm down only to get worked up again a few minutes later. That didn't help matters but we appreciated the gesture. It didn't take her long to calm down and she was right back to being our HAPPY baby! Thankfully, half of the vaccines are given orally now so she didn't have to have as many shots as Noah did at this age. It's a short term pain for a long term gain. I read somewhere that there were 156 measles outbreaks in children in the U.S. last year. We haven't seen numbers like that in decades. It's really sickening.

The picture above is my attempt to get a nice picture of her with her new earrings but her hands tasted too good to be bothered with posing for a picture. She is an EARLY teether, poor thing! As long as the fist is in the mouth, she doesn't seem to be too bothered. Let's hope it stays like that!

Made in Texas

I have so many things I've been meaning to write about but things are so hectic between work and getting ready for the holidays that I have not been able to find the time.

I had a good laugh today, though, and wanted to share it...

Noah came to me with this Snoopy container filled with little candies.

Now, I have been on a major kick with him lately about how we don't eat any candy that is made in China. The whole melamine scare totally freaks me out, not to mention all of the other scandals (i.e. lead paint). It is next to impossible to find toys that aren't made in China but I digress.

Anyway, I have trained him to look for 'Made in China' and he knows that if he sees those words on candy he has to put it back. He's really good about it! So, he didn't see 'Made in China' anywhere on this Snoopy container and got all excited. I took it from him, confident that it was made in China because ALL of the toys filled with candy are. Sure enough, I couldn't find it anywhere!

So what does Noah declare?

"It was made in Texas, Mommy."

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for but our most special blessings are, without a doubt, our children!!

And, as I sit here, I kid you not...Noah just said to me, "I know what I'm thankful for Mommy. I'm thankful for baby Noelle, Mommy and Daddy." Now you know why he has me so wrapped around his finger...

Daddy's Little Girl:


One of our sweet little turkeys:


And again :)


Our other sweet little turkey:

And this is Mr. Noah on his first Thanksgiving:

We wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! We are very thankful for all of our family and friends and love you all very much!

O Christmas Tree!

Today we went and bought our first real Christmas tree since we moved into our house. For the first five Christmases, we had artificial tree(s) and it's just not the same. I don't even know why we never got a real tree...neither of us could think of a reason. We probably have at least three or four artificial trees in the garage or attic and a gazillion Christmas tree scented candles (by the way, Gold Canyon Candle's Holiday Wreath or Yankee Candle's Balsam and Cedar are the closest I've found). This year, the spirit moved us and we decided enough of the attempt to create the image and smell of a real tree and headed to buy a real one!

It took us all of about 30 seconds to find our tree :) It's a good thing because we left the house around noon and the Patriots game started at 1:00. Noah spent the afternoon at Grams' house so we were able to get the tree upright and positioned (that was fun...) while Noelle took her afternoon nap.

Noah is going to help us decorate it this week. Hopefully, we can track down all of the ornaments. By the grace of God, I found a bag of lights that were easily accessible in the garage and about half of them even worked! So, the tree has lights - that's a start! It kind of reminds me of Noah's second Christmas where we only decorated with lights because who knows what he would have done with ornaments. Oh wait, I do know what he would have done. Grams didn't believe me that year that she shouldn't put too many ornaments on her tree and he broke quite a few :) Uncle Kyle will be home tomorrow night so maybe I'll send him up in the attic to search for all of the Christmas stuff. Just kidding, UK!

Here is the tree that you can't really tell has lights on it because I haven't mastered the new camera:



And, here's a chuckle for those who know me well...

We took my nice, shiny "new" car (Rob had it detailed for my birthday and it looks like brand new - I am so happy!) to get the tree. We didn't have far to get it home which was a good thing because it wasn't really secured too well. I had the hood of the car in the garage when Rob looked at me and said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! THERE IS NO WAY THAT TREE IS GOING TO MAKE IT IN THE GARAGE!". Oops. Somehow, in the ten minutes it took us to get home, I forgot we had the tree on top of the car. Darn pregnancy brain seems like it's here to stay. Rob had a good laugh and couldn't resist running inside to get the camera.

Never again will we put up artificial trees!! It smells soooooo good :)

Not to rush Thanksgiving, but, I am so happy it's almost Christmas!

A Visit from Down Under

Mick came to visit a few weeks ago and Aunt Jen took us all to Outback so we could reminisce :) Noah coined the name "Aunt Jen's man friend" for Mick, which we all got a good laugh out of. While he enjoyed having another person to interact with, his highlight was sitting next to Aunt Jen and harassing her. She really brings out the best in him... His favorite thing to do to her is pull individual hairs on her arms so she screams "ow!". He has never tried to do it to anyone else. Go figure. She enjoyed making him eat all of his broccoli without cutting it up so he had mouthfuls. He thought that was quite funny. It's always so much fun eating out when Noah and Aunt Jen are together!

Here are a few pictures from our visit with Mick.

Our little angel who slept through the entire meal:


Noah horsing around with Mick (no pun intended...):


The two toddlers hard at play:


Awwwwww!

Doesn't he look like he's sitting on Santa's lap reasoning with him? I have no idea what he was trying to explain to Mick but I think this is such a precious picture!

Frustration...

I'm frustrated! I can get wonderful pictures of Noah and Noelle individually but I can't for the life of me get a decent one of them together! Here are a few pictures to demonstrate...

Cooperating:

Not cooperating:

It's time to head to the portrait studio and see if a real photographer can get the job done!

Happy Halloween!

I know I am several weeks late in posting Halloween pictures but that's just the way it goes these days. I need to come up with a better system of organizing all of our pictures!

Halloween was an adventure. Many have heard my tale of Noah's costume(s). For those who haven't, here is how it went.

I dropped the ball and didn't order a costume for Noah ahead of time. He said he wanted to be Batman or Superman. Easy enough, I thought.

I went to Party City about a week before Halloween and the costumes were so cheap looking. The Superman costume was ridiculous. Superman is blue and red, not blue and burgundy. All I kept thinking was someone overseas was making this costume and saw "red" and thought burgundy looked close enough. No dice.

A few days went by and I realized he still didn't have a costume so I went out to Target. The costumes were even worse there. I did find the most adorable candy corn costume, though! So, that went in the cart. I happened to find a Batman dress-up costume in the toy aisle so I also snatched that up. It said it would fit kids from 4 - 10. Hmmm...that's a wide range, I thought. I was hoping there was something adjustable on it. Ummmm, no. It literally looked like a garbage bag to me when we opened it up. I'm getting ahead of myself. I came home with the candy corn costume and showed it to Noah. His response? "I asked for Batman or Superman. I don't want to be a candy corn." I redeemed myself with the Batman costume but there was no way I could send him to school in it.

We hyped the candy corn all night and Halloween morning and convinced him to wear it to school. Well, I dropped him off and EVERY little boy in his class was a Superhero. Boy did I feel like the.worst.mom.ever! I walked out of the classroom in tears because he looked so sad in his candy corn costume. Thankfully, Party City is very close to his school. I raced over there and, by the grace of God, found a really cute Spiderman costume. I ran back to his school and changed him into Spiderman and felt so much better. The ironic part is that a few days later he said to Rob, "Why did Mommy come and change me out of my candy corn costume? I liked being a candy corn." Go figure.

Next year, Rob is in charge of costumes.

We had fun trick-or-treating at Grams' and Nana's houses and Noah enjoyed passing out candy to the neighborhood kids. Noelle hated her pumpkin costume and I didn't get a decent picture of her in it. It will be fun to dress her up next year, though!

Here are a few pictures from our Halloween:

Noah's Batman costume (the mask is the only part that fit)!


Here is Noelle after she ditched her costume. I dug through the eight crates of Noah's baby clothes until I found his Halloween sleeper from when he was a baby! We haven't been able to use many of his clothes for Noelle, obviously, so it was exciting to be able to reuse something. I really need to go through everything and weed out what I want to give to family/friends and donate the rest. It is such a daunting task though...

Our precious Spiderman (boy was it painful teaching him the Spidey Signal...his little hands couldn't quite get it right!):

I'm not really sure what my adorable little family was doing with Nana's laptop but they look like they were having a good time. I'm guessing Noah was playing Nana's slot machine game. Noelle even looks pretty interested!

Here's another random picture but it tells a story. We bought a ton of candy but we also put out a box of Welch's fruit snacks because there are a lot of really young kids in our neighborhood and we thought the parents might appreciate that instead of candy. We were shocked at how many of the kids bypassed the candy and went straight for the fruit snacks. Good thing we buy them in bulk!

Happy Halloween...a few weeks late!!!

Happy Baby!

Noelle at 15 weeks

Rob got me the SLR camera that I had been wanting for my birthday so I pretty much take pictures all day long now. Poor kids have the camera flashing at them non-stop. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at capturing the moments but at least the quality of the pictures is there so some of them turn out okay. I'm also lacking the skills to reduce the size of the images so they take a year and a day to upload which makes posting pictures here or to any photo sharing website a really long time. Kyle will be home for Thanksgiving so maybe he can bestow some of his skills onto me and teach me a few shortcuts!

These were two of my favorite shots of Noelle from today...

She is starting to love all of the toys on her ExerSaucer (this was Noah's and he loved it so I'm glad she seems to share those sentiments!). Today was the first day that she intentionally went around from toy to toy to see what each one did. It was so precious to watch her try to figure out how to "work" each of the toys. Big brother came to the rescue whenever she looked like she didn't understand what to do ;)

The face says it all (and the drool is an added bonus)! She was like "What the hell are you doing, Mom?!". We went to the playground this afternoon so Noah could burn off some of his energy in a positive way. I like to "wear" her in the Baby Bjorn so both hands are free but that's no fun for taking pictures. I probably took a dozen before I got one that didn't have part of her head chopped off and/or any of my face showing!

"Test Car"

It's official! Noah has hit the 40" mark and can now ride the "real" rides at Disney! On Thursday night, we headed over to EPCOT in order for him to ride Test Track, which we had been hyping to him. Somehow, it become Test Car so that's what we now call it...

Here he is getting measured (note the completely fake smile!):


Here are my boys before they rode:

I was petrified waiting at the exit with Noelle because I wasn't sure how he'd react. He's a pretty tough cookie but he wasn't a fan of the Cat in the Hat ride at Universal because he didn't like the spinning. That had me scratching my head because the kid loves to be spun around. He hasn't been on too many other rides so this was a test.

Test track is a much different kind of ride though so I was hoping he'd really enjoy it. This is what Disney's website has to say about it:

Enter the hair-raising world of auto testing on one of the longest, fastest rides in Disney history! Strap yourself in to race up bumpy terrain, roar through hair-pin turns, speed into freezing cold chambers, and rush on to 50-degree banked curves at 60 miles an hour.

We've been on it many times so I knew it wasn't too harsh and thought he'd get a kick out of it because it's sort of like some of his video games. I am neurotic by nature so it was only fitting that I was shaking waiting for him to come off the ride! I was so relieved when I saw him walking toward me smiling. They had given us a pass to return so we could swap out kids and I could go with him if he liked it. The verdict? Noah and I got to ride it together because he wanted to go again!

Next up is Maelstrom! This is the Norwegian ride at EPCOT that is very sentimental to me. Noah affectionately calls it Mommy's Troll Ride. Hopefully, we'll get to do that before the weekend is over but it may have to wait until some time next week. I can't wait to take him on it!

Out of the mouth of Noah

In the last five minutes, Noah has made me laugh hysterically several times. I thought I'd share a few of his one-liners.

First, he came to me carrying a stack of construction paper and asked me to get him a piece of red paper. Red is his favorite color so there isn't much red paper left in the ream. I asked him if it would be okay if he used blue paper this time. His reply? "No silly mama, I don't like azul." "Star School" is doing wonders for his Spanish speaking skills!

Then, he grabbed my glass of juice off the counter. I went running to get it from him as it was filled to the top and I spent my precious time washing the floors earlier so the last thing I wanted was a huge mess on the floor (as if there is ever a good time for that but it's so much worse when it has JUST been cleaned!). Thankfully, I got to him in time and told him "thank you for getting me my drink". His reply? "It was no problem, mama."

Boy does he crack me up :)

Grandpa's Legacy...

I had to share these pictures with everyone. Noah looks more and more like my Daddy every single day, especially when he gets a haircut! On one hand, I am so sad that he won't grow up with his Grandpa but on the other hand I am so comforted by how much he looks like him! It's those strong Norwegian genes ;)

Happy Birthday, Grams!

Happy Birthday, Grams!

Today was Grams' special day and we celebrated in usual Johnsen fashion with dinner at Benihana and a Publix cake...doesn't get much better in our opinion!

Here is Grams' cake that Noah designed. I was too cheap to spring for the real Princess cake (with the overpriced toy) so the bakery girl and Noah came up with this:


I think it turned out really cute!

We had some relatives visiting who joined us for dinner. This is a picture of Kristen (my cousin -Grams' sister's daughter), Ben (Kristen's husband) and their daughter, Dayna. Their son, Devin, was also there but he was busy entertaining Noah :)


Noah was thrilled to see a new maze on the kids' menu and spent some quality time with Daddy:


The obligatory fried-rice-in-the-shape-of-Mickey's-head shot:

Grams, Aunt Jen, and Kristen toasting Grams' birthday (right before Dayna knocked over the glasses of wine!!):

Truc (Our favorite!! Boy do we wish we could take him home!!) cleaning up the big mess that the spilled wine caused:

After dinner, we headed home for cake but Noah couldn't stay awake for the ride. We're only about fifteen minutes from the restaurant but the poor kid was so exhausted. He was so proud of the cake he got for Grams that I had to wake him up and break the cardinal rule (never wake a sleeping child!). He barely opened his eyes to help Grams blow out her candles and I doubt he'll even remember it in the morning. We'll have to have a do over tomorrow!

Grams' showing off her perfume/lotion...Aunt Jen and I agree that Grams has way too expensive taste ;):

Noelle is noticeably absent from all of the festivities. Thanks to Nana, we were able to sneak out to Benihana without her and she was sleeping when we came home. Nana said she was well behaved so that was a relief to Mommy and Daddy. It was almost as if it were my special day today - I had Grams to babysit so I could run errands while Noah was in preschool this morning and Nana to babysit tonight so we could enjoy dinner - lucky me!

Happy Birthday, Grams! We love you and thank you for everything you do for all of us...especially all of the gratis babysitting!

Noah's Sliding Adventure

I dug into the "archives" to look for a picture of Noah when he was younger and came across this little video. It was shot by the camera so it's not the same quality as our camcorder but it made me laugh so hard that I thought I'd share it with everyone who reads this!

Noah was just about two when this was shot and he was going through a phase where he only liked to go down the slide on his stomach. This was his compromise of sliding on his bum:

Three Months Old!

It's hard to believe but Noelle turned three months old yesterday! She is growing so quickly and it is so much fun to watch her develop. I think she's going to hit all of her milestones sooner than Noah because she has him coaching her along. He has been pretty good with her so far in terms of not trying to hurt her but we learned this morning that we have to watch his EVERY single move around her.

Here is her reaction to the Sour Patch candy that he put to her lips (where is my brother when I need him? I tried so many times to get this picture rotated...when I view it in another application it is fine...so frustrating!!!):

And here are a few shots of her using a teether for the first time today (I swear she's already teething...)