Dancing Bear

I got this very nice Baby Gap bear costume at a yard sale last summer for $3.  It was too big for Noah last Halloween, and will be too small this Halloween, but it has been well worth the 3 dollars:)  Noah has always liked music, but in the past few weeks it has become an obsession.  When we are at home the music ALWAYS has to be on, as you can also see he has learned how to use the volume and turn on the stereo, even though he knows he isn't allowed to.  When he hears the music or anything that resembles music (eg. the washing machine agitating, the scrubbing of a sponge, or Gabe playing the train whistle) he dances with a huge smile on his face.  He comes up with the funniest moves that leave us to laugh and wonder where in the world he came up with them.  Thanks goodness the local library is close and had CDs for loan... we can at least have a variety of the music we hear over and over again:)  I have some video that I will try to post if I can figure it out:)

Great Grandparents Visit

Noah's grandmother and great grandparents came to visit for the weekend.  I unfortunately didn't get pictures b/c we were so busy, but here are a few of their visit.  Noah had a wonderful time and enjoyed all the attention, especially since he was well spoiled for the weekend:)  The middle two pictures are of the outfit they brought which he kept insisting on carrying around and making the sign for "frog" since there is a frog on the front of the jumper.

Noah's New Friend

My mom came to visit last weekend as we kept Noah busy taking him to yard sales and Raspberry picking (I, of course, didn't get pictures of either of those things!).  Noah is turning in to a pretty good berry picker.  By the end of our hour there he was picking the bright red berries off the bush and popping them into his mouth without hesitation!  On the last day of the visit we went to the Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock, VT.  Among other things there was this cow.... Noah was not scared one bit, but fascinated as I hope the pictures show.  On several occasions the cow licked Noah's face (I only got one on camera) to which he smiled and laughed.  At one point we thought the cow was licking Noah's arm, but he actually started chewing on his shirt sleeve:)  At the end, we actually had to coax him to leave and let other kids have a chance to pet poor animal...

Storyland!

We took Noah for his first visit to Storyland.  Gabe can't recall going their as a child, so his first trip too... I can't tell who had more fun:)  The top picture is of Noah when we started the day with his snacks.  Noah and Gabe with Miss Muffet's spider, Noah in the ball house, and Noah in his life jacket for the Swan boat ride... he definitely didn't enjoy this one as much as Gabe:)  The last picture is of Noah and Gabe visiting the "water park" portion of the park... I just think this is a really cute picture of the two of them.

July 4th

Gabe, Noah & I took an impromptu visit to North Conway, NH for the 4th of July.  We were sad about missing the parade, but I had to work so we were not going to be able to make any... we didn't think.  We were driving through Woodstock, NH and noticed lots of people gathered on the main street waiting for a parade.  We stopped, got out and 10 minutes later the parade started.  It was an impressive parade that lasted much longer than we had expected.  We also came to the realization that a rural area is a rural area no matter what part of the country you are in.  They had everything from bagpipes, to babies riding 4-wheelers, to the race cars of local racers.  The top picture is Noah clapping before the parade even began.  The bottom picture is of him stealing Gabe's strawberry shortcake on the green in North Conway.

Strawberry Picking

Noah is a great strawberry picker!  We went yesterday morning at a local U-pick and were there for about a hour without any complaints.  It is late in the season and there has been a ton of rain so the picking was slow, but Noah was a trooper.  He enjoyed watching the people and playing with the straw and rotting strawberries:)  By far his favorite part was picking all of the good strawberries out of the container and throwing them on the ground.

Noah & Bonnie

Noah and Bonnie have become good friends, they love patting and rubbing on one another.  I love the top 2 pics of Bonnie rubbing her head on Noah, then Noah rubbing his head on Bonnie....

Noah's New Boots

Noah makes us laugh a lot... I bought these boots for him at a yard sale last year for $1.  He discovered them the other day (luckily they fit him now) and needs to wear them constantly.  He can barely walk in them, when he falls down he can't get back up, and they make him terribly hot (thus no clothes with them), but whenever he sees them he insists on wearing them:)  The middle picture is him trying to sweep the carpet and the bottom picture is of him dancing in them.

Dad Time

The day after we arrived home from Maine Gabe and Noah got to spend some time together playing in the sand box and sprinkler.  This is one of my favorite pictures of the two of them, Gabe is so good with him, loves to get down and play, and Noah loves spending this with him... I hope the picture captures this:)

Our Trip to Maine

Gabe had a week vacation recently so we went home to Maine.  I wasn't great at remembering to take pictures while we were there... the grandmas did a much better job, so I can try to post their pics later on.  These pics are from our trip to Bar Harbor, we had beautiful weather!  The hotel we stayed in advertised a "sand beach" which turned out to be a patio (concrete slab) with sand dumped onto it.  What they didn't really advertise was the beautiful rocky beach (who goes to Maine to see sand beaches anyhow?) which Noah was eager to explore.  He walked right up and started splashing in the cold ocean.  I have many cute pictures of him here...

We went to the Jordan Pond House for lunch and Noah kept doing this funny thing with his hand to his nose/mouth.  When he walked over to the flowers and started sniffing them we realized that he was doing the sign for "flower".  I had been working on this with him, but not a lot, and I am quite sure I hadn't done it in the previous few days... he is such a smart boy sometimes:)  

Noah loves ice cream, just incase it hasn't been apparent thus far... the reality is that it is pretty much the only "junk food" we let him have:)  He is not one for sharing things, especially ice cream, so here he is eating his cone in downtown Bar Harbor.  His ice cream tactic is to put the cone to his mouth and not remove it until the ice cream and cone have been eaten... you should be able to see the pre-frostbite on his upper lip in this picture.  We had to ditch the clothes and wipe him down in the bathroom leaving him to wear his blankie back to the car.  

Let Him Eat Cake

On our way back to New Hampshire we were able to stop for a short visit with Noah's great grandparents who were on their way up to the northern part of the state.  Yes, he did eat most of this piece of chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting... and the wheat thin... he didn't fall asleep that night until 10:45... it could have been the long car ride too:)  The bottom picture is one of him with his two new favorite toys... cup and ball.

Quechee Balloon Festival

Last weekend Heli and I took Noah & Suvi to the hot air balloon festival held in Quechee, VT.  We went on Saturday, but it rained and thundered so we didn't get to see the balloons make their ascent, so we went back the next night.  Sunday night was BEAUTIFUL.  In fact, it was so sunny and hot that we all got burned, eventhough we didn't get there until 5:30pm.  Noah and Suvi got to play and watch all of the other kids run around.  They are so cute b/c they really do seem to enjoy each others company.  At one point Suvi was feeding Noah her dinner of peas... it was very cute (I was a bit afraid that Noah was going to bite her fingers!).  Noah also enjoyed some of my ice cream in the heat.  Watching the balloons ascend was quite remarkable, this is an event we will try to attend next year too!

Busy Saturday

One of the great things about living in this area is there is always something going on.  Saturday I worked in the morning, then we set out with Noah.  Our first stop was the Lebanon Alumni Day festivities.  We walked up to the green and watched the parade and people, and ate cheeseburgers.  I then had to do some grocery shopping so we all went up to the Co-op for "dairy day".  This was actually pretty interesting... tons of local farms and businesses that sell any and all types of dairy products sold at the Co-op were there.  Had we known this we wouldn't have had lunch... we had everything from ice cream (3 different companies) to root beer floats, to cheese and yogurt.  The picture with Noah is him with the water buffalo from the company that makes great water buffalo milk yogurt and mozzarella cheese (we usually buy from them at the Lebanon farmers market).  We went home after this for Noah to have his afternoon nap, then Heli and I took the kids to the Quechee hot air balloon festival in the evening.  It was rainy/thunderstorms, so the balloons didn't ascend... maybe Sunday will have better weather.

Blankie

Noah has finally chosen a "blankie".  I wasn't quite sure this would ever happen since he has a clear preference for his shirt sleeves or other article of clothing while he sucks his thumb... who knows, maybe this warm weather and lack of clothes has pushed him to choose something else.  This morning, after he had gotten out of his crib I was doing some laundry, he went over to his crib and pulled this blanket out, which was not the closest one to the edge.  I turned around to see him standing, holding his blanket, and sucking his thumb. He then took off into the kitchen and living room with it... we'll see where this leads:)