New Blog!!

I'm officially retiring Tales of Noah and Noelle!!!

For anyone who may see this, you may remember me complaining time and time again about not being able to arrange the layout of pictures when I uploaded them to this site. It became so annoying to me that I stopped 'blogging' altogether.

I really miss capturing Noah and Noelle this way, though. So, I decided to start a new one and see if I still had the same problems with pictures. I'm happy to report that I don't!!!

Lucky Mommy, Lucky Wife is the new blog and it's my goal this year to try to capture as much as possible here without stressing myself out. We'll see how it goes!

Happy 4th Birthday to my sweet, sweet, little boy!!

Four years ago today, Noah came into this world and changed my life forever. I always knew I wanted to be a Mommy but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined just how awesome it would be. I feel so incredibly blessed that God gave Rob and me our two precious children and can hardly put into words how much joy they bring us!

Every day with Noah is a day filled with laughter. He never ceases to amaze us with the things that come out of his mouth. At four, he is courteous, generous, hilarious, sensitive and so many other things. I am so proud of the young man that he is becoming and am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for him.

Here are a few small examples of why I'm such a proud Mommy...

- He has mastered Our Father
- He loves his sissy unconditionally
- He can write all upper and lower case letters
- He can count to 100, count by 10s to 100, count by 100s to 1,000, etc...
- He can say the Pledge of Allegiance
- He can tell you the three parts of an insect (head, thorax and abdomen...he taught me that)
- He can say more words than me in Spanish
- He proudly donated over 100 toys to Arnold Palmer (and only asked to keep a handful for himself!)

I could go on and on about him but don't want to brag :) As I tell him all day long, I love him to infinity and beyond...to the moon and back...to the sun and back...to the stars and back...all the way back to our house. I stole that line from him, actually! I used to always tell him that I loved him to the moon and back and one day he responded with that...how lucky am I?!

Happy 4th Birthday, Mr. Noah!!!

He flys; she stands!

It's been a long time since I've been able to find the time to upload pictures and take the time to post them. We are very good about taking pictures, so at least we're capturing the moments with photos even if my intention is to put words with the photos more regularly!

Everyone in our house is doing well :)

As you can see, Superman is flying high...



He LOVES to jump from the treadmill to the bed. It's quite scary for Mommy to watch and we've had a few near misses but the joy on this kid's face when he makes the leap is priceless. Today, I told him no more after about 30 jumps. So what does Noah do? He runs into his den, puts on his Batman mask, climbs up for another jump and, when I'm about to scold him, he tells me that I told NOAH he couldn't jump, not Batman. That about sums Noah up!

Some other recent highlights from Noah:

He thoroughly enjoyed Easter! He thinks the Easter Bunny is the coolest. I can't wait until the day that he puts 2 + 2 together and realizes his Mommy stayed up on Easter to mold him Superman chocolate because he was sure that is what the Easter Bunny was bringing him and his Daddy was outside in the middle of the night hiding eggs in the grass. We LOVE Easter in our house!

Preschool is going great and he continues to love it! I continue to be amazed at what they teach at this school. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I didn't learn how to decipher how many syllables are in a word in preschool. They send a 'week in review' sheet home at the end of the week that summarizes what they taught and I saw 'three syllable words' so I quizzed Noah to see what that was all about. I said "tell Mommy what a three syllable word is Noah". He thought for a few seconds and then said "Superman". Too funny, he knew exactly what it meant and went on to tell me several other words, methodically sounding out each syllable. This school rocks!


Then, we have the Princess...aka Miss Grabby Hands :) It is unreal how quickly time is flying. While I know it's only going to get more fun, it's sad at the same time because she is so sweet this small. Nine months already...crazy!

Her latest trick is standing up in her crib. Not cool. I about had a heart attack when Noah said "come here Mommy, Noelle is about to get out of her crib!". I thought to myself...oh crap...he jumped in and is about to throw her out (he's gone into the crib and picked her up before)...so I went running. Instead of finding Noah in the crib, I learned that Noelle now knows how to stand up. Lovely.

We went to the doctor on Thursday for her 9 month checkup. Here's where she's at:

Weight: 16 pounds, 12 ounces (10-25%)
Height: 27.5 inches (50%)

She's been on the same growth curve since birth which is apparently a good thing. She's doing really well except that we think she has a milk allergy :( So far she's had a reaction to mac and cheese (that was by accident...refer back to the grabby hands reference), teething biscuits (which have milk in them), yogurt melts (also have milk in them) and a fudgesicle (don't ask). Each reaction is getting worse and worse with the last one resulting in welts on her chest. I'm freaked out to try anything else with a milk product in it so I've started reading labels VERY carefully. It's amazing how many foods have milk products in them. I also had the pediatrician write an Rx for an Epi-pen since we'll be out of the country next week and the last place I'd like to be without a tool to stop a severe allergic reaction is in the middle of the Atlantic.

I have SO many pictures and other things I'd love to write about but it's almost 2 a.m. and I need to be up no later than 7 a.m. for church. I hope I'll get back into writing more often but it might be on another site. I am beyond frustrated with blogger and the way it uploads my pictures!!

Now I know my ABCs!

We definitely have a kid who loves learning on our hands. Thank God! Noah's idea of fun yesterday was writing his letters in order on his easel. That's almost as good as him saying to my mom and I last weekend as we were driving home from dinner, "let's do something fun...let's count by tens to one hundred!". We both looked at each other and burst out laughing.



This is the typical look I get when I ask him to smile:



Once in a while he comes through for me and gives me a real smile. Isn't it amazing how much he looks like his Uncle Kyle/Grandpa?!

It's so much fun being a big brother!

A few days ago, Noelle was sitting in her high chair playing while I was doing something in the kitchen (I can't even remember what it was...it certainly wasn't cooking!). Noah walked over to her, without any prompting, and said "I'm so glad you came out of Mommy's belly baby Noelle". This kid melts my heart several times a day. He always knows how to say the right thing...he's going to be dangerous if we don't channel that properly!

Having a baby sister means having a whole new set of toys and gadgets to play with. It amazes me how he uses his imagination to find a way to play with her toys. Yesterday, he asked me if he could use her Robeez (they're shoes for anyone who doesn't know!). I would normally tell him no but was intrigued to see what he would possibly do with a pair of baby shoes. Hide his superheroes in them, of course. Duh.

After I pulled Noelle out of her bathtub, he decided it would be fun to try to fit in it. Let's just say the bathroom floor got cleaned when I wasn't planning on cleaning it.



Noah decided yesterday that it was time to measure Noelle's head. He and I have a little game where I measure his head and he didn't want Noelle to miss out on the fun.

Unsuspecting of what's about to come:

Noelle being very tolerant:

See? It's so much fun having a little sister!

Pearly Whites :)

I am crossing my fingers that Noelle gets her 'teeth genes' from Rob and not me. After all we went through with Noah's baby teeth (our $2,500 out of pocket expenditure...that was fun), it would be nice to have one out of two without any problems! In Noah's defense, we're not convinced that all of the dental procedures he went through were necessary. We did get two different opinions with pediatric dentists but they both agreed. I'm pretty certain they're in cahoots with each other, though. Amazingly, since he's been seeing our regular family dentist, he's had no further problems. Go figure...

She loves to chew on the toothbrush...then again, what doesn't she like to chew on!?



We have to brush our teeth after we eat junk like popsicles (which she loves!!):

She goes straight for her two bottom teeth with the toothbrush:

Sleeping on the job

I'd fire the Friday nanny if she didn't work for free!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I intended for this to be the last picture but, yet again, I can't figure out how to manipulate the pictures to go where I want them to go (ERIN?!?! KYLE?!?!). I swear up and down that cut and paste does NOT work! Neither does trying to upload them in a certain order or using a different internet browser. It is so random and so frustrating! I can calculate pensions and code calculation engines but I can't figure out how to get pictures in the right flippin' order...agh!

I was pretty proud of this idea this morning. I didn't even see it in a magazine or anything. I was looking for a heart shaped cookie cutter at the same time as I was making Noah scrambled eggs and lo and behold we ended up with this:


Here is where I really wanted to start this post...

When Noelle was born, I heard from several people that my reign as princess was over. I didn't need to be told...the moment Rob saw her I knew it! Her continuous and infectious smile doesn't help me have any chance of getting my crown back. Oh well, I treasure her just as much and I had an extra three years of reign whereas Rob lost his title on 8/17/05 :)

In past years, I'd be showered with jewels. This year, Noelle was the only one who got a little sparkly something:








As always, the box was the biggest hit:

Noah was so precious helping her open it and explaining that boys buy for girls and girls buy for boys on Valentine's Day. We haven't taught him about the inequality in our house where the boys get shafted on Valentine's Day and he was quite pleased with a $2.99 heart balloon and a box of chocolate (which I must add he flipped over to make sure it was "Made is the USA"...that's my boy!) so no need to go there!

(Noah just came over to the computer and said "hey, that's a picture of me trying to take Noelle's gift from her"...that's a better caption than "Noah helping his sister open her gift"!)

By 8:00 a.m., we had already delivered a dozen roses and Valentine's gifts (since when did Valentine's Day become the new Christmas?) to Nana and Grams. We caused a big commotion at Grams' house because the animal farm went nuts when they heard us arrive. Oops. It was a covert operation at Nana's house because she was still sleeping and didn't hear the doorbell. I'm thinking she heard it and got scared to death because it was so early in the morning. Poor thing was probably freaked out when we let ourselves in and were whispering as to not wake her up. The goodies were left by the coffee pot so she'd be sure to find them first thing. I can't wait to hear if she was up and freaked out or if she was really able to sleep through all of the giggling!

Rob has to work today but he wanted to try and visit with the moms before he had to go open the park...unfortunately that meant that it had to all be accomplished before 8:00 a.m. I've always heard that the way that a guy treats his mother is a really good indication for how he will treat his wife and that is so true of my husband. This morning was a great illustration of that!

Hope everyone enjoys this Hallmark holiday :) I'm going to enjoy hanging out with the kids and Uncle Kyle/Aunt Erin are coming to visit for the day so I'm sure it'll be an adventure (for Noah, most of all!). We've had 3 offers for free babysitting so maybe Rob and I will sneak out tonight!

Two quick Noah 'funnies'

Noah and I were talking about God yesterday and I told him that he was one of the best gifts that God ever gave to me. To that, he responded "did I come in a box?".

Then, I was typing an email and I shouted to Rob "how do I spell 'clout'?" (Yes, I know that is an easy one but it just didn't look right...) Noah came running to me and said "It starts with letter 'c' Mommy". How precious is he?!

In unrelated news...Noelle has bronchitis (so does Aunt Jen...) so we're having a grand old time. Rob and I took her into the pediatrician this morning and he gave us lots of medicine which I detest giving her but I know she needs it this time around. The next few days should be a load of fun with the 4x/day breathing treatments. She's her happy little self, except when you go near her with the nasal aspirator :) Good times!

Siblings...

Noelle is really starting to look at Noah with adoring eyes. It's absolutely precious to watch the expressions on her face when she looks at him. It's pure love, for sure! He does such a wonderful job entertaining her (when he's asked) but mostly just tolerates her at this point. It won't be long before they really start interacting and we are anxiously awaiting it. I pray that they will always be close :)

She's going to have to learn to love video games in order to further their bond! She does enjoy watching him play as I witnessed today:



Who needs Disney World when you have your own character appearances at home?



Spiderman made another appearance sans the mask:

Just a quick update!

It's almost 9:30 on a Saturday morning and I feel totally in control, haha! That doesn't happen often these days.

I've already showered, given Noelle a bath, fed both kids breakfast, eaten breakfast myself, gotten Noah dressed and spent a fair amount of time playing with both kids. Amazing. When I can actually find the time to update this blog without feeling like it's at the detriment of something else, you know it's a good day! Let's see if the pattern can continue...I'm taking both kids out to lunch (Bene Breadstick...aka Olive Garden...does Noah like to go anywhere else?) with a friend and her two little ones who are the same age as Noah and Noelle. Should be a fun time! I remember thinking that our eating out days were over when Noelle came along. How naive I was!

I need to post pictures more often. I have about 300 on my camera right now so it was hard to narrow it down. Here are some random ones!

Noelle loves to play with this toy! It was Noah's and I'm glad we saved it as she is getting WAY more use out of it than he did.



Noelle loves her food! The only vegetable she isn't a fan of is peas and that's okay because Mommy thinks they're nasty too and would rather pass on feeding her them! Noah and Daddy could live on peas. Go figure. Her first tooth broke through so it won't be long until we're onto to bigger and better foods!



No, we've never hit or abused him! He manages these injuries all on his own. Let's see...the black eye was from running straight into the corner of the counter. We were just getting over being super sick and wham! I almost had a mental breakdown when it happened because it looked horrible and I thought for sure he did irreparable damage. The human body is amazing, though! The picture is a few weeks after the accident so the black eye looks much better. Rob likes to joke that he's glad these injuries always happen on my "shift" because I would never let him hear the end of it if it happened while I was away. Good thing for him, I'm with them 95% of the time.

Then, the "tape" looking thing on the side of his eye is a steri-strip with Dermabond over it where he should have had stitches. Unbelievable. It was a freak accident at Chick-Fil-A where he tripped running up rubber padded stairs. Only our child could manage to get a huge gash on rubber. We learned that we have a very nice Children's ER close by that we never knew about. It's the same hospital that Noah was born at and they built an ER there about two years ago. Good to know but I pray that was our last visit there. Thankfully, Mommy and Daddy were on "shift" when this one happened or else I might have finished off my mental breakdown!



And here are a few cutes ones of our little buddy!

Happy New Year!

Well, we started the new year off with a bang!

I wish it was an exciting bang but it really wasn't. Noah caught the virus that I had right before Christmas and it may very well have been the worst week of my life last week! My poor baby had a 103 degree fever for five straight days. He was such a trooper though. Took his medicine like a champ (well, the eye drops are excluded from that statement) and didn't really slow down. It's so scary when your kids are that sick. I'm so relieved that it was just a virus and his body was able to fight it. Now Grams has it and she can attest to the fact that it is an awful strain of virus. I distinctly remember her telling me to stop acting like a baby when she was bringing me to the ER a few weeks ago because I thought I was dying! She's no longer singing that tune...

Of course, Rob didn't get sick. His immune system continues to amaze me. It must be the bowl of Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream every night...

And, thank our good Lord, Noelle hasn't presented any symptoms. Mommy's milk does a body good!

We had a very relaxing Christmas and everyone was healthy at that point. When I have some free time, I will upload some pictures!

We wish everyone a blessed new year and hope that 2009 is the best one yet!

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!