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!