The top picture is of Gabe and James in the hospital on Gabe's first day of orientation. Nanny and Grampy brought Noah and James a new stroller which Noah was very happy to help put together with his tool belt:) Noah loves to hold James and is still mostly very gentle with him, and James seems to enjoy being held by Noah.

6/13- Gabe's Graduation- Part 2

We were all able to attend Gabe's unofficial medical school graduation called "Class Day" where everyone is recognized and is hooded. It was fun to see everyone in their regalia! Noah did well to stay well dressed during the long ceremony too:)

6/12- Gabe's graduation- Part 1

The awards ceremony was the night before the Class Day celebration. Gabe received the "Saul Blatman Award for Excellence in Maternal and Child Health". Noah and his friend had lots of fun playing with each other's drawing books and toys... he also had fun playing on the tent ropes and most importantly he was a very patient boy through all of the awards.

6/6- Hillary's State Meet

Right after our move we were lucky enough to be able to travel to Bath to see Hillary compete at the state track & field meet... here are just a few pics. Oh and btw she did win first in both javelin and shot put and broke the school record in javelin and got invited to compete in the New England championships the following weekend... love you Hill... Congratulations!!:)

6/4- Cresent Beach

Ok, so there is a chance that I had forgotten how beautiful the coast of Maine can be (don't be fooled, the water was still about 50 degrees). Looking back this may have been the last day we saw the sun here:) It was about 70 degrees with bright sun and no wind, no bugs... Noah has officially gotten over his fear of sand. On this day he was rolling in it, driving his trucks on it and, as you can see building sandcastles... well let me be more specific... Gabe built them and Noah would immediately break them down and laugh.

5/29- Moving

For those of you who may not know Noah likes things to be neat. The first picture is of him trying to clean up his mess after dumping an entire paper bag full of shredded paper onto the floor... he kept repeating "mess, mess, pick up". The second picture is the reason that we were unable to pack anything while he was awake. He would constantly either be taking things out of boxes and putting them back "where they go" or he would get inside any sized box and pretend to nap. The bottom picture is of Noah's new big boy bed. We have yet to put the crib up in the new house, and he has made the transition very well. He was very excited about the bed and to date has only fallen out once. The cutest thing though is that during his nap times we often find him sitting in the rocking chair or lying in bed with one to 5 books "reading" them. What other 2 year old would bypass all of his toys to read books?!?!? It makes it hard to get mad:)

5/21- Last Montshire visit before the move!

I am finally getting caught up on all of the pictures from the last month! Noah just loves the Montshire and will miss it terribly I am sure. Luckily we were able to go for one last outdoor/playing in the water time just after they opened the outdoor part. The middle picture is of him trying to tell me that something is stinky... it wasn't of course:)

Welcome James Louis Civiello!

Over the past 2 and a half weeks we have bought a house, moved back to Maine, Gabe has graduated from Dartmouth and is now a MD, Jen has left her job in Vermont, we had to have Ozzie (our 14 yo cat) put to sleep, and now we have added another member to our family!  I have TONS of pictures from the past few weeks, but I thought I should get these up for everyone to meet James!  He was born on June 17th at 4:44am in Portland... 7lbs. 4oz. and 20 inches long.  Noah has been a very happy and loving big brother so far:)  We will post more pics of everything soon!!

Noah & Daddy Time:)

Gabe is officially done all of his course work for medical school!  As a result, his job over the past few weeks has been to play "Mr. Mom" as he calls it... watching Noah while I am at work.  They have been both LOVING their time together!  It has been really neat to watch their relationship change over the past few weeks:) I am very greatful that they area able to spend this time together before the big move, the new baby and Gabe starting his residency.

Noah has also really improved his speech in the past few weeks.  He is finally starting to initiate conversations with words we can somewhat understand... of course with that he now has strong opinions about what he wants and he has learned the word "NO"... I realize that we were lucky it took this long, but the time has come:)  Now that he is "talking" a bit more it is amazing to see how much he really does know... We read LOTS of books during the day (and I mean actual story books) and he can finish most of the sentences in them!  

The top 2 pics are of Noah and Gabe shaving... Noah with his "razor" is really fascinated with the whole process... the second picture is what we get these days when we ask Noah to smile... oh well.  The last picture is of Noah and Gabe pretending to take a nap.  It is so cute with Noah pretends to nap and closes his eyes:)

We close on our house 2 weeks from today!  Maine here we come!  Stay tuned...

Our New Home!

We were waiting to make sure we would actually get the house before sharing with everyone... We are checking off contingencies and etc. left and right and as our closing date approaches (May 29th) it is looking better and better for this to go through.  We are very excited to have found something so well maintained and in our price range!! It is a cute little ranch 3br, 2 ba in Portland in a great residential neighborhood, and only a 7 minute drive for Gabe to the hospital.  The yard is small, but plenty big enough for us and as an extra bonus it is completely fenced in... lots of space for Noah to play without running into the road:)  We can't wait for you all to visit... the last picture is of the finished basement aka. guest space:)

Easter 2009

We had a wonderful Easter this year.  Although we missed being with our families we very much enjoyed spending the day together finding eggs, playing with toys and reading.  The first picture is of Noah before Easter breakfast... he is a juice deprived kid (he only really gets it in his special cup on special occasions). I had filled the cup 1/2 full of OJ and needless to say he drank it all right away:)  The next few are of him in a coat that my grandmother made for J-me when he was little for Easter.  I was very excited that it still fit him and that he LOVED wearing it.  When I ask him to pose for pictures now this is what I get... he walks away and sits on the floor... I can't get him to stand up in one spot:)  He enjoyed all of his presents, especially his gardening tools.  The Easter Bunny came and hid eggs for him... he didn't get this concept initially, but once he figured out that each one contained 2 M & M's he quickly caught on.  He would find an egg and insist on opening it immediately and eating the M&M's right away before moving on the the next one... maybe the Easter bunny should have put only one M&M in each egg:)  

Goggles & Pizza

Noah's friend Suvi (pronounced- "Who-hee" by Noah... at least he is finally attempting to say it:)) celebrated her 2nd birthday and at the party Noah found her new swimming goggles... needless to say he didn't take them off for quite a while... they even fogged up and he couldn't see anything, even proceeding to walk into chairs and other things.  The other 2 pictures are of Gabe and Noah making english muffin pizzas.  He loves to cook and ate far less raw cheese than I thought he might:)

Outside Playing!

Today is absolutely beautiful outside!!  We finally got Noah outside to ride his tricycle and ride in his wagon.  We took a day trip to Portland yesterday to meet with a realtor and get some other parts of the home-buying process underway... there are certainly a lot to choose from!

Noah's 2nd Birthday Party!