Happy Birthday, Daddy!!

Today is Daddy's 37th birthday :) Unfortunately, Daddy has to work today so we celebrated his birthday with Nana and Aunt Nikki last night. We'll continue the festivities tonight since Noah woke up asking for more "Bat cake".

The "Bat cake" that Noah picked out himself for Daddy (before it got attacked by Noah):


Noah helping himself to some icing:


(Sorry, I didn't upload these in the right order and am too tied up with Noelle to go back and redo the upload!!) If you look REALLY closely, you may be able to see the balloon that Nana brought for Daddy ;) Noah was not very happy that it got away but Nana promised another one tonight:


Daddy and Noah blowing out the candle (Noah decided that Daddy needed help!):


We did some other fun stuff yesterday (Universal and Noelle's first professional pictures) but that will have to wait for another post because Noelle is awake now!

Happy Birthday to the best Daddy ever! I've always sung this little jingle to Noah about he and I having something in common - perfect daddies - and boy is that the truth! We love you, Daddy!

Two Months!

It's hard to believe but Noelle is already two months old today! At the risk of sounding too cliche, boy how time flies when you're having fun! I guess the having fun part is debatable unless you consider two straight months of minimal sleep fun :)

Yesterday, Noelle and I visited Dr. Yarckin for her two month appointment. Daddy was conveniently busy. I'm just giving him a hard time - in his defense, he did offer to meet me at the doctor's office but I sucked it up and when at it alone. It's funny how much easier these kind of things are the second time around. She took her shots like a champ! We had a little bit of a rough night last night with a low-grade fever but we firmly believe that the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term side effects of vaccinations so we just muscled our way through it. She's back to herself this morning!

Here are her stats...

10 lbs, 7 oz (50th percentile)
22 1/2 in (50th percentile)

She's growing perfectly and caught up on the growth charts as she started out a little on the small side. It's always reassuring to me to see the growth charted out since you have no idea how much they're getting when you breastfeed. Even though I am MUCH less neurotic this time around, it's still reassuring!

Noah Boa

...and to give equal airtime to Noah...here are a few pictures of him from last week:

Noah decided that he was done with baths a few months ago so he now takes showers in our shower. Our routine is that one of us washes him at the beginning of his shower and makes sure he's all cleaned up and then he gets play time by himself in the shower for a few minutes. It's really cute to watch him from outside the door and see what he's doing. The other day I caught him combing his hair...too cute!


Noah had a Teddy Bear Picnic/Parade at preschool last week. They painted shoeboxes and pulled them around as demonstrated below :) Thankfully, I sent in a shoebox (courtesy of the Queen of Shoes...Grams) that was small enough so he can't try to fit his sister in there and pull her around!


One of Noah's most favorite daily activities is Hide and "Sneak". We used to correct him and tell him it was Hide and SEEK but it has become a joke for him now and he always refers to it as Hide and Sneak so we gave up. It's similar to the laundry room which he started calling the laundaundaunry room when he was about a year. We gave up trying to correct it and now find ourselves referring to it in the same manner :) Anyway, he hides in Noelle's bedroom closet about 99% of the time but found a new spot under the dining room chair last week so I had to capture it.


Here is Noah with his growing collection of "Puffy Paint". One of his greatest pleasures is squeezing the puffy paint onto a paper plate. Whatever makes him happy :) In the picture below, he decided to line up all of his puffy paint and go through the line saying the colors really fast. It was precious and at least we know he knows all of his colors!


Another thing we do every day is play with PlayDoh. This is about the only activity (besides video games, which I have almost completely taken away and replaced with a Leapster 2...yay!) that can hold his attention for more than 5 minutes.

Noelle at 7 weeks

Here are a few recent pictures of Noelle :) Enjoy!

I cannot WAIT until Noelle has developed enough to use the Bumbo! She's obviously too little to sit in it alone just yet but we're getting there. It's one "tool" that I didn't have with Noah and always regretted it. It's very hard to keep Noah out of it now :)


Definitely a Daddy's Girl! And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that...it was one of my favorite roles :)


Another thing we can't wait for is more smiles! She looks so darn mean in most pictures. She is starting to smile more but it's usually at Daddy and Mommy is the photographer :)


When she sleeps, she is so peaceful. When she's awake, it's a different story! The arms above the head is a well-known pose in our house. This is how both Noah and Noelle usually sleep...strange!

Discrimination During An Innocent Game Of Chutes And Ladders

While playing our very first game of Chutes and Ladders with Mr. Noah, I (Rob) was assembling the game pieces when Mr. Noah gladly handed me my player token or should I say "playa" token?! The game comes with 2 boy tokens and 2 girl tokens. Well Mr. Noah then proceeded to inform me that I was to be this boy token (shown) because my "hair looks like him!"

Naturally, I did what anyone else would have done being put in such a situation. Angered, I simply put the game away and called the ACLU immediately to file discrimination charges! :) For those keeping score, Mr. Noah won. Go Figure, huh?! He WILL be hearing from my attorney, Jose Baez, in the near future!

Welcome September!

It's so hard to believe that it's already September 1st! Time has been *flying* by for us and we have been keeping very busy. It's hard for me to sit down long enough to type anything of substance so I have been putting off updating this site. I read an article today about this lady who writes down three things she wants to accomplish at the beginning of the day so she feels a sense of accomplishment each day. I am going to try to adopt this tactic as I thrive on checking things off a list! I can't believe I never thought of something so simple.

So, my three things today were:

1. Go to Michael's
2. BBQ at Gram's
3. Update Blog

One could argue that I really didn't do anything today - and I would tend to agree. The beauty of my "3 thing list" is that I can still feel like I was productive :)

Noah and I went to Michael's and made a side trip to Walmart to spend a gift card that Noah got for his birthday. It's always an adventure taking Noah out and we're guaranteed a few tales from each outing. He didn't disappoint! You sort of had to be there but there were these kids outside of Walmart asking for donations for their church. I saw them ahead of time and took a dollar out of my purse so Noah could give it to them. He's usually a very generous spirit so I didn't think much of it and handed him the dollar to give to the kids. Well, we got up to them and I told Noah to give them the dollar for their church and he flat out refused! I was so embarrassed! Score for me though...the kids had M&Ms to give in return so they were able to bribe the dollar out of him ;) Thank God he doesn't look for anything in return when he tithes!

This afternoon we went to Gram's house for a BBQ with Grams and Aunt Jen. Noah adores Aunt Jen so this was quite an exciting afternoon for him. Aunt Jen thought it was cute to teach him the "beans" song since we were eating baked beans. You know, "beans, beans they're good for your heart...". Hopefully, he won't bust out with that song in preschool this week...

Now that I am updating this blog, I can check off my last task! What a productive day ;) Perhaps I should make my "3 things" chores around the house tomorrow!

P.S.
Tomorrow, Noelle will be six weeks old! Crazy!

Need a Photographer?

Several of my friends are in the market for a wedding photographer. I thought I would offer up Noah's services, seeing how well he captures images:


(Imagine dozens of these images every time I go to upload pictures from the camera to the laptop...one of the many joys of having a 3 year old!)