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...)

Updated Pictures...

We've been so busy the last few weeks that I haven't had a chance to update! I just removed almost 600 pictures from our camera's memory stick and transferred them to a hard drive so now it won't be such an arduous process to post pictures. Maybe that will help me update this more often!

Here are a few pictures from the last few days. I'll have to come back and add some pictures from a few family visits (but, of course, those pictures aren't on the camera anymore so that will require a little more effort on my part...).

Noah and Noelle are beginning to interact a lot more these days! They both get a kick out of each other in totally different ways. Noelle looks at Noah with adoring eyes. Noah looks at Noelle like a little toy that he can play with. He is forever trying to teach her different things - very cute to watch!

Smiling at brother:


Noah teaching Noelle his 'Rainbow Song':


Noah trying to get Noelle to do the motions of his 'Rainbow Song':


Maybe one day we'll get both of them smiling in the same picture:


See? I smile when I want to!



Noelle playing with one of Noah's old toys. She loves to kick her feet on the 'pedals' and hear the different sounds!


We got "BOO'ed" last night (I bet most who are reading have never heard of this as it was new to me last year. It's this little game that neighbors play around Halloween time where they secretly leave a bucket of goodies on the door step and put a sign on the door that says "We've Been BOO'ed". Then, it's up to the family who got "BOO'ed" to do the same to two more neighbors. I was a bad neighbor last year and didn't pass it on. We will play along this year since it'll be something fun for Noah.).

Here he is enjoying one of the treats that was in the bucket:


He looked so cute in his pirate PJs last night but would NOT stand still for a picture. Imagine that, Aunt Jen was at the house and Noah wouldn't sit still. Anyway, I managed to snap a picture as he was running by:


We're on our way to find a Halloween costume for Noah. I have a feeling we will be buying two as he flip flops between Batman and Superman...we'll see!

A Significant Day!

I was just reading my sister-in-law to be's blog and saw this:



How cool is that?! One year, one month, and one day until the big wedding day!

An Uneventful Weekend :) Yay!

Well, after our eventful start to the weekend, we ended up having a pretty low key rest of the weekend.

On Saturday, I was brave and took both kids on a bunch of errands. We went to the bank, Dollar Tree (Noah HAD to have these rubber band planes that Uncle Kyle introduced him to...I'm still trying to figure out why normal people don't go into that store...the strangest people were in there and I was honestly scared for our safety), JoAnn, Target and Publix. Noelle is not fun to have in the car so this wasn't exactly a fun outing. It was a productive one, nonetheless!

We got Noelle yet another set of bottles at Target. This will be the third type of bottle that we are trying to get her to take. She just needs to SEE a bottle and she starts screaming bloody murder. I have to go into the office at least one day a week so she needs to start cooperating. I feel terrible for anyone who has to stay with her and try to give her a bottle. Poor Rob suffered my wrath when I came home from work last week and she had only consumed an ounce. We've tried Avent, BornFree, and now Playtex. She was a tad more receptive to the Playtex but still refused to drink more that a few gulps. It's a painful process but we're trying a little bit each day. Have I mentioned what an easy baby Noah was? We keep joking that if she was first, she would have been an only child! She has been very smiley lately, though. That makes up for the rest!

Noah couldn't take a shower yesterday so he insisted on taking a bath at Grams. I'm not sure what's so different about her bathtub but he always wants to take a bath there. It probably has something to do with the fact that she lets him stay in there a long time and he has "special" toys there (who cares if it's an old Tide measuring cup...it makes him happy!). My mom thought she could run to the store and I would bathe him but Noah insisted that Grams do the honor so I got a break! I ran home and Noelle went right to sleep. That meant I had an hour to do whatever I wanted! So, I folded a load of laundry and went through all of Noah's clothes and removed the ones he had outgrown. Exciting, huh?

Today we finally ALL made it to church. Noelle screamed most of the 45 minute drive there (which we fully anticipated). At this point, it's a chore to take Noelle but we need to make the effort each week because it's important for Noah to go to Sunday school. We have been watching it on the Internet, which works for right now, and a few times I have just stayed home with Noelle. The new church building has a nice nursing lounge so I took her in there during the sermon. There's a big flat panel TV in there so it was as if I was watching it from home! A little old lady was sitting in there (?) and fell in love with Noelle. She was quite the performer for this lady and one would think she was an angelic child. The lady said that I made her day by allowing her the opportunity to enjoy such a delightful child. She also said that Pastor Joel took second place to Noelle today. That made me feel like I had a purpose in being where I was and I needed that because it wasn't an easy morning with her!

We had a nice Sunday dinner with Grams and Aunt Jen. We're two for two with our family Sunday dinners that we've reinstated! Noah enjoyed harassing Aunt Jen's dogs and generally being himself. The rest of the day was spent watching football and a nice long nap for me and Noelle. Yay!

Here are a few pictures of the kids...


Noelle enjoying her new bouncer that a friend handed down to me:


Noah practicing his handwriting on the easel:


Noelle playing in her Exersaucer:


Noah enjoying his first bowl of Spaghettios (I've never had these and wasn't about to try them but we got this book called "Eat This, Not That For Kids" and this was one of the healthier processed foods - believe it or not! We had already eaten a big dinner mid-day so he needed a little snack before he went to bed. He polished off the whole bowl so I guess I'll have to keep these on hand for a quick option!):


The best part of the weekend was tonight! BOTH kids fell asleep by 7:30! Noah is pretending that he sleeps in his own bed in the first picture. He lasted there until about 9:30 and then wanted to go into Mommy and Daddy's room...at least we tried. And, Noelle is pretending that she likes to sleep. She's getting up now so my timing worked out perfectly!

Noah's First "Real" Injury

Poor Noah.

We were having a great afternoon playing! Noah and I were in the process of organizing "his den" as he likes to call it. He was amazed at how many toys we found by simply straightening up. I admit that we're not sticklers for making him pick up after himself. We definitely need to get better about that but I basically spend all day picking up after him and Rob tends to pick up at the end of the night after he goes to sleep. This keeps the main living area fairly clean. Lately, I've just been closing the den doors and letting the mountain of toys pile up. I really should have taken a picture of it because, by the time I decided to tackle it today, I could barely see the floor. Oops. Anyway, not the point of this post :)

We took a break to allow Noelle to nurse and I sat in the dining room like I usually do. Noah was sitting near my chair and got up really suddenly. My poor little baby smacked his forehead on the corner of the glass table. Owwwwww. I swear I felt the pain in my own body (which I know sounds weird but I always get this painful feeling in my gut when he gets hurt or is about to whack into something!). The amount of blood that came gushing out of his forehead was unreal. I went into pure panic mode but was focused on just stopping the bleeding. I grabbed the phone and told Rob to race home from work. Then, I called my mom, who was just sitting down to dinner in a restaurant, and told her to get over to our house quickly. I was able to stop the gushing within a few minutes and he let me put ice on it for a little while. That is, he allowed me to put ice on it after negotiating which icepack he would let me use. Grams got here within a few minutes (thanks for racing home so quickly, Mom!) and made it all better by giving him a fudgesicle (I don't know if that's how it's spelled...).

Somewhere along the line, I called his pediatrician who was already gone for the day. He is wonderful and called me back almost immediately. He told me to take him to Nite Light Pediatriacs, which is a pediatric urgent care fairly close to the house. I was happy to not have to make a trip to the emergency room. We had never been to this place but they were fairly decent. There was no one waiting which made me happy since I took Noelle with us instead of waiting for Rob to get home. I did wish we were already in their system as I had to fill out five full pages of information (thanks, HIPPA!). Totally annoying when you have a cranky two month old and a rambunctious three year old with a head injury. After that fun, the nurse took Noah's vitals. First, he had to tell her that the blood pressure cuff was a sphigmomanometer. This became the talk of the office and was the first thing the doctor asked him about when he walked into the exam room. Daddy came while we were waiting and saved the day by bringing PSP (and a drink...such a good Daddy...I didn't even think to grab one as we were rushing out the door).
The doctor decided that he couldn't stitch it because it was a puncture wound and not a laceration. He did put some Dermabond on it so, hopefully, it will heal a little nicer than nothing at all. It's pretty close to his hairline so, as long as he doesn't have the Johnsen receding hairline, it should be covered by bangs :)

There was no home cooked meal tonight. Nope, it was McDonald's. I'm happy to say that our little trooper is doing great! We just tucked him into bed, after giving him a dose of Motrin. He did say that his head hurt as he was settling down for the night and they told us we may want to give him something. All the boy needs to hear is "Motrin" and his tail starts wagging. I don't know what they put in that stuff but all of my friends with kids say their kiddos love it too. Weird.

Here are a few pictures from after we returned home.

He wasn't feeling bad enough to not play drums with his sister's feet (she is SO tolerant of him!):


And, he was well enough to get into his old walker that Noelle is going to inherit when she grows about two more inches (he knew he could get away with just about anything tonight...including trying to pick Noelle up by her onesie...):



I'm exhausted so I'm going to try to go rest (ha ha...Noelle will wake up within a few minutes of me falling asleep). I'd like to say that I handled the emergency well but I'd be lying. When it's your own baby, it's a different level of panic. I didn't pass out but I was pretty close to tears. Thank God Noah is one tough cookie (and that God gave him a nice, thick skull!). I pray for an uneventful day tomorrow.

Playground Negotiations

Me: "Noah, it's time to go home and put dinner in the oven."

Noah: "I just have to show you something."

Me: "OK, one more thing."

Noah: "How about some more things?"

Me: "No, one more thing and then we have to leave."

Noah: "Three more things."

Me: "One more thing. Now, get moving."

Noah: "Two more things and then that's it."

This confrontation ended with me walking home with Noah continuing to negotiate all the way through the front door. We think he has a future as an attorney.

Happy Birthday, Nana!!

Nana - we are sorry this is a few days late. We chalk it up to Mommy returning to work on your birthday :( At least we were able to celebrate with you on the actual day!

Poor Nana had to work on her birthday. After work though, Nana, Aunt Nikki and Grams came over to have some cake with us. Noah was very proud of the cake that he picked out for Nana! It was HUGE and had these gigantic balloons made out of icing on it. I think we all agreed after trying it that we'll skip the Costco cakes going forward and stick to the tried and true...Publix!

Here are a few pictures from the big day:

Mammoth cake...we still have 3/4 of it left and Noah and I have snacked on it several times over the last two days:


Nana blowing out her candles with a little help from Noah (and Noelle who she's holding!):


Aunt Nikki patiently walking around a very angry Noelle (note the drool all over Aunt Nikki!):


Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We love you very much!!