S'mores

We were very thankful to be able to have so many of our family come and see us for a BBQ at my parents house on our recent trip home. The boys loved spending time with everyone, especially playing with cousin Maria. Noah very much enjoyed his very first (and second) s'mores, I figured he made it to 3 without one, so why not... the second was a double decker s'more (thank you jacob & holly).... as you can see, he loved every bite!

Noah the animal trainer

Noah and James spent some time at Uncle Jon's barn with all of the animals on a recent trip north. Noah loved feeding the bunnies & llamas/alpacas and laughing at the chickens following us. James also enjoyed watching the animals, but more so enjoyed eating the grass and leaves...

Noah the Budding Photographer

My parents gave Noah a kids camera as a gift when James was born. At that time it was difficult for him to use, thus only haphazardly played with it. Well... over the past month or two he has become Photography King in our house. He is so good at using the camera now and has gone through several sets of batteries (I really need to remember to pick up the rechargeable ones at the store!). I have found it SO COOL to look at al of the pictures he has taken himself. I was sitting at the computer with him looking at them and he totally remembers and gets excited about every one of them! He is getting much better at centering things... has a few great still life pics. of his cowboy boot, his train, his toys, James' sock & a toy block, and his english muffin with peanut butter. The "self portraits" make me laugh. The quality isn't great, but I think you will get the picture:)

It is currently just a link on the right side of the page, but if anyone knows how to put a slideshow in an actual post could you please share? It took me forever just to figure out how to get what I have now:) I believe if you click somewhere on the slideshow it self it should take you to the link so you can look at them all a bit bigger. I will plan to add the pics to this slide show as he takes them... Enjoy the pics from the perspective of a 3 year old!!!

The Sweetest Gift

I have started letting Noah go into the yard by himself (it is fully fenced) for a few minutes at a time... he knows that he is not allowed to open the gate into the driveway. Well, last weekend he was playing, I couldn't see him so I asked Gabe to eyeball him and make sure he was ok. Gabe went to the door and there was Noah standing with this flower that "I pick this for Mommy"... Now to be completely honest my first thought was, where did that come from? Did he pick the neighbors tulips? He showed me a small clump of tulips growing amongst the shrubs in our front yard, "I pick for you". It was very sweet...

Easter Egg Hunt 2010

Ok, so for those of you hoping for some classic Easter pictures, I was a bad mom and didn't take any. We did an Easter egg hunt outside on Saturday, which as you can see from the pictures, both kids really enjoyed. This year Noah did collect all of the eggs without opening any of them until the end (at which point he did sit, open and eat them all).

We were very fortunate this year to be able to spend a wonderful family day together with beautiful weather. We woke up Sunday morning and did the Easter Bunny thing, no egg hunt though, we didn't want to bring Noah to church on a chocolate high. When we asked Noah what the eater bunny did he said, "bring chocolate". Church was a lovely and exciting Easter service, both kids sat through the whole thing without us, even once, having to tell them to use a quite voice. I think Noah was most entranced by the trumpet, trombone, and drums they had to play the music. After church the boys played outside with Gabe while I made lunch, what a beautiful day, 78 and sunny!! After nap time we took both kids and went to a Portland Pirates hockey game. Noah brought his binoculars (he has been wearing them everywhere since Sunday) and thought the game was very exciting. All and all a wonderful day together:)

Easter Picnic

Nannie, Grampa, and Aunt Amy all came for a quick day trip last Saturday. It was a warm day, but very windy so a picnic at the playground on the Eastern Prom may not have been the best choice... Regardless, Noah really enjoyed playing on the playground and was on day 4 with no nap, so he was daring enough to play, climb and even slid down the slides which is a shocking improvement over most trips to the playground.

Underwear and Cowboy Boots

Noah has shown little to no interest in potty training, but every once in a while he has one of these days. I think he chooses underwear over diapers simply b/c he doesn't want to lay on the changing table while I put a diaper on him. It only lasts about 2 hours at the most until he "has an accident" despite my coaxing to use the potty b/c he has his big boy underwear on. Anyhow, on this day it was all I could do to make him put any clothes on (he even played with his BBQ set on our porch in 45 degree weather naked for a bit). He insisted that I take a picture of his lightning macqueen underwear and woody boots... it was his idea to turn around and show me the backside... I am sure he will appreciate these pictures in 10 years:)

James at 9 months!

James is now 9 months old and growing well. He is not crawling officially, but has a pretty good military crawl to get him where he needs to go. I had yet to see him pull himself to the standing position until a few nights ago. I was home by myself bathing the kids, which proves a bit tricky since James can't yet sit up on his own in the tub reliably. I sit James on the floor while I bathe Noah, but on this day he was much too excited to get in the tub so he crawled over, pulled himself up on the side of the tub, and would have attempted his first dive if I had not been there to stop him.

Interestingly we are seeing more similarities in both kids' personalities than differences, which presents a whole different set of challenges. Almost every trip out I take strangers come up to me and say things like "you can tell they are brothers" or "they look exactly a like, huh?". Just for fun I found this picture of Noah around the same age as James climbing under the exersaucer... apparently in our house one of our gages of development is when the kids start to "crawl" under the exersaucer.

Noah Turns Three!!

Well, we officially have a 3 year old! Noah is definitely three and all that goes along with it:) He is talking much more than a year ago and is having far more spontaneous speech which is so cool to see how his little mind really works. He had an absolute blast at his birthday party this year. This was his first birthday where he was really excited for it to come. He chose a train birthday which he has talked about for about 2 months. The top picture is of Noah with his new baby stroller (Gabe was less than impressed that it was pink with flowers, but they just don't make baby strollers for boys;)). My goal here was to let him walk his baby so I could push James without Noah running him onto our neighbors' lawns. The second picture was Noah's face when Gabe brought the balloons in, not sure if you will be able to see his expression, but it was pure excitement. The third picture was Noah in his conductor hat with his ticket badge (everyone who came to the party had to have a badge too). Noah started asking to eat lunch at 10:30 and since it was his birthday (and he knew it) we let him, also why he is eating alone. He really had a wonderful birthday and, I am sure, can't wait to do it again next year!

When Noah watched this video he sat and waved at James each time he looked up to the camera:) You will have to pause the music at the bottom of the page in order to hear the sound in the video clip.

Conversations with Kitty

James is such a funny kid sometimes. I will often sit him down on the floor to play with his picnic basket while I change Noah or if I need to do something else in their room. On this day he had also found kitty. This is a little stuffed kitty that he got from our visit to great grammy and grampy Day in Florida... he really likes to talk to it (and chew on it's tail). He was having a lengthy conversation with kitty and these pics capture his thoughts, with facial expressions and all. I have some video of this I will try to put up later.

Quick Trip North

The boys and I recently made a brief (less than 48 hours I think) trip to East Millinocket to get our car fixed. The trip to Stanley's actually saved us over $300 so it was well worth it!! Anyhow, here are some pictures of Noah and James riding in the sled, which didn't last long... I think Noah was having flashbacks to the last time he and James did this when they fell out and James got a face full of snow:) The second pic was from when Noah was being very quite playing and when I walked into the living room this is what I saw. He just started laughing and saying, "I wear grampa's glasses".

James at 8 months

I love these pics of James b/c I think it really shows his personality. The first two were while Noah was playing with him and sitting on his back... he is a good sport:)

Gabe's Birthday (aka Valentine's Day)

Noah is really starting to get the concept of birthdays, so when Gabe's came around he was really ready to have a party for him. He had been talking non-stop about making daddy a cake and getting him a brown balloon. Noah is also a very funny shopper... I took him, by himself, to Marden's where he purchased a pair of baby blue crocks for James ($2) and a Sponge Bob Squarepants cake stand ($2) for daddy's birthday cake. We then went to Big Lots where he picked out an entire package of American flags ($1) to decorate the cake with. We had so much fun as we then had to go to purchase a brown balloon to go with the Handy Manny balloon he picked out. I think the balloon lady thought we were crazy;) I didn't get a picture of the balloons, but I think these pictures portray the proud boy well.

January 2010