Fun in the Sun!

May 27, 2010

It was really hot here yesterday and for the first time it really felt like summer outside. I got Noah a little baby pool for his birthday but I couldn't resist getting it out yesterday. I figured he doesn't know the difference yet and he was bored inside. We hooked up the hose to it and played for a good hour outside. The water was COLD and he loved it! I could barely get my feet in it but he sat there and played forever. He loves water and this pool is perfect for him since it really doesn't fill up with much water. Just enough for him to splash in. He really loved the little slide that came with it and cracked up every time down it. I thought he may be scared of it since he's afraid of swings but he was into it.

Noah is doing a few new things this week. He is making new sounds. His favorite are me me me and na na na. He's still saying a ton of other gibberish that cracks me up. The sounds that come out of his mouth are hilarious. He's yelling mama all the time now and that makes it harder for me to leave him when he's not happy. He laughs really hard now when someone laughs at him and will keep doing something over and over just to get a laugh out of us. He has actually started to clap some when I do. I've seen him do it a couple of times now so that's a huge improvement. His problem solving skills are crazy good and he can figure something out now in a matter of minutes. His favorite is to try to figure out how to do something even though I won't let him. He really understands "No" now and listens to me very well when I tell him no. He still tests the waters some and tries to see if he can get away with it anyway but if I still tell him no then he moves on. I've told him no so much with the dog bowl that I don't even have to worry about him going over there anymore. He pretty much ignores it. Although...yesterday I did have to pull of piece of dog food out of his mouth. But, in all fairness, it wasn't in the bowl, it was on the floor so I guess it was fair game.

First time eating sushi! (don't worry - no raw fish)

Noah dressed up in Kelsey's T-shirt because he pooped all over his clothes at her house

Abby trying to feed Noah - A little example of his determination when he doesn't want to do something...

Getting closer...

May 25, 2010

I'm finally getting caught up with my blog and just in time too. Noah's birthday is right around the corner now and we are in full party planning mode. I'm sure that I'll have a ton of pictures and videos to post so I'm glad that we're back on track now.

We've had a really busy last couple of weeks. It seems like there's always something to do. We went to Shawnee for my cousins high school graduation early this week. I was really worried about taking Noah since he's so loud, but he did really well. There was a little boy sitting behind us so they entertained each other for most of it. We also took Noah out to Remington Park a couple of nights ago for Matt's work. We had fun but Noah was all over the place. All of the tables were glass so I had to watch him like a hawk. I didn't really get to do much but it was still fun.

Noah still isn't walking at all. He hasn't even remotely come close to taking that first step. We finally got him to stand on his own the other day at my Dad's office. He stood there for a good 10 - 15 seconds before he realized what he was doing. I guess he was distracted enough by all the people there that he forgot to throw a fit. I tried to get him to do it again at home but he just screams. Maybe next week...

Other things --- He is now officially off baby food. No more of that, but I sort of miss it because meal times are a disaster. He loves his big boy food and feeds himself really well but a lot of it ends up all over him and all over the floor. Zoe gets a lot of treats, but the carpet is nasty! He's really into using the spoon to feed himself right now. I let him even though he can't actually get food on it and into his mouth. He holds it correctly and turns it around if he picks up the wrong end. He dips it into the bowl or whatever and right into his mouth. The only problem is that there usually isn't anything on the spoon. He still uses his fingers for that. He won't really let me feed him much anymore so I'm glad he's a pretty quick eater. I starting the think about weaning him. I'll post more on that later when I figure out how I'm going to do it.

He is also making some really funny faces now. It's hard to explain...I'll try to get some pictures because it's really cute!

I love all these pictures so I couldn't resist putting them all on here

My First Mother's Day

May 17, 2010

Okay, so I know this is late but I have to say something about my first official Mother's Day. Last year sort of counted but this year was really special. I had a really great day thanks to Matt and Noah. It started off with Matt cooking me breakfast, getting me flowers, and some chocolate. Noah took his nap while we ate so we had a nice peaceful meal. Not something that happens very often. Then we just relaxed the rest of the day and spent some time together as a family. I got two really special cards. One from Matt and one from Noah. Noah scribbled on his and Matt traced his hand on it. I am so so blessed to have these two guys in my life and couldn't ask for more. I love you both so much!

11 Months Old!

May 17, 2010

Well, this is the last monthly post before Noah is a year old. This past year has been so fast and so fun and so indescribably awesome that words just don't quite do it justice. Life has gotten more joyful, more worrisome, more hectic, more tiring, and more blessed than I could have ever imagined and I would do it all again in a second. Noah is such a blessing to us and our families. He is becoming quite the little man and he is so his own person now. I love his personality and his quirks. I even love his temper because it is so funny (sometimes). I already see so much of Matt and I in him and have never been prouder of anything else I have ever done.

He isn't really doing anything new lately, just working on walking and talking. We are a little further along in the talking department since he now refuses to walk. He won't walk with us holding his hands anymore or while pushing his train. I guess he figured out how fast he is at crawling and has no interest in walking, or standing for that matter. Every time I try to get him to stand up he screams, throws his arms up (he figured out that I can't hold him up if his arms are up), and kicks his legs as hard as he can. I've said this before - very determined baby. If he doesn't want to do it, he's not doing it. But, I guess that's okay because I already have my hands full with a crawler. He's into everything already, so I'm not too excited about him being able to climb up on stuff.

He's doing great with other skills though. Talking is a big one. He now says Mama, Dada, and baby (I think). He says, "baba" and gets really excited when I say, "baby Noah" in response. He also says a ton of other stuff, just no English. He's very very conversational and will have a complete conversation with me and anyone else that will talk to him. He says something, then he waits for you to talk back, then he talks, and so on. It's really awesome to see this little tiny thing that a few months ago didn't understand anything to be able to do that. He also understands me very well. I can tell him something in a full sentence and he knows what I'm saying. I don't really know how many words he officially understands because I try to talk to him in sentences instead of one word labels. He gets it and I'm really proud of him.

We've had a lot of really terrible weather lately. One tornado was actually visible from my back yard. Kelsey was on her way over to my house since I freak out during storms and Matt was at work. The sirens were going off and she was driving through my neighborhood. I called her because I was in a panic and told her that they just said there was a tornado on the ground in Yukon and she calmly said, "Yeah I think that's the one I just saw. It's right next to your house." Hmm, not a good thing to say to someone who is scared to death of storms. Not to mention that there is NOWHERE in our house that is safe. In the end, we had 1 cat, 3 dogs, 1 baby, and 2 adults under a mattress. Not very fun or safe. The next house will have a cellar.

Visiting my Mum Mum in Stillwater for Mother's Day

Learning how to color - He actually did really well this time and I'd say it was officially his first time coloring because he picked up the crayon and drew on the page quite a bit. He ate the crayons a lot too and threw them. We've still got some practice to do on that.

Fun at the Zoo!

May 13, 2010

I am still a little behind on the blogging. I apologize! We actually took Noah to the Zoo for the first time the week before last but I'm just now getting around to posting it.

We love the Zoo! We always have. We try to go every year at least once so we were really looking forward to Noah's first trip to the Zoo. We were hoping to take him before it got too hot so when Matt was off for a few days last week we made an impromptu trip out there to see the animals.

Noah really loved it (as much as an 11 month old can love something). He really really likes animals and always notices them and tries to play with them. And by play I mean pull their hair or tails. I guess it's because we have two animals in the house and he really loves them.

He saw all the animals and went to the new children's petting zoo. He wasn't scared in the slightest. He marched right up to the goats and pulled their hair. They didn't seem to mind and I didn't have to worry about the goats biting him like Zoe. It was really cute!

He liked the fish and sea lions. He watched a peacock and a big train. We saw a jaguar eating a rabbit. Very disturbing but the boys liked it, and one little girl standing there was almost in tears.

And, the final anecdote. Noah fell out of his stroller while Matt was pushing it and Matt ran over him. Very fun! The best part was that a nice family of four witnessed the whole thing and looked absolutely horrified! I was horrified! But, Noah was just fine and didn't even have a scratch on him.

All in all, we had a ton of fun and will definitely be going back soon!

Noah throwing fit because he wanted the camera

Petting the goats. So brave!

Playtime

May 6, 2010

Noah is really into playing right now and loves to play with others. We have some neighbor girls that come over all the time and he has a lot of fun with them. Here's a cute picture of them hanging out the other day:

He has been acting not so great lately so I decided that it's time to do something about it. I went and bought Pre-Toddler Wise from the BabyWise series (which I LOVE and it saved me when Noah was a newborn) and read it as fast as I could. It had tons of great tips and ideas. I have already started to use them and have seen big improvements already in the few days since. We have set a lot of boundaries for Noah instead of just letting him play with whatever entertained him at the moment. I have always kept him contained to the living room but since he started crawling so much he was just into everything in there and a lot of it was not baby friendly. So he's doing all his meals and snacks in the highchair now with no exceptions, playpen time up to 30 minutes 3 times a day, no "adult" toys, and we're working on blanket time. That's where you train them to stay on a blanket for playtime up to 30 minutes. It's a tough one and he does really good with it as long as I sit there with him but if I try to get up he's off. Also, WHAT he plays with is now very controlled. I used to just throw a bunch of toys on the ground and let him have at it but now he does one set of toys at a time in the playpen or on the blanket. He's doing great with that! He learned to stack his rings on the pin (in almost the right order every time) in a matter of minutes once I took away the other toys. He's just picking things up so much faster now that he's not overwhelmed with his environment. He is also very calm while playing now and doesn't throw as many fits (still working on that a little but it's better). Those little changes made a HUGE difference.

Everything else is going very smoothly. No problems with transitional objects...he couldn't care less about the pacifier, bottle, or baby food. We've eliminated the bottle completely and now only use the sippy. He's been done with the pacifier since he was 5 months old and never sucked his thumb or anything so that's been nice. He's also done with baby food and has completely moved to the real stuff. He's a great eater and I haven't found anything he refuses to eat. He feeds himself very well and has shown interest in using the spoon himself. He gets the concept and knows what goes where but doesn't really have the coordination for it yet so we're slowly working on that.

Hanging out at RedPin for Mommy's Birthday

Haircuts, Hugs, and Kisses

May 2, 2010

I am having to backtrack a little because I fell behind on the blogging last week. I'm planning on doing a little series of blogs from the last couple of weeks instead of one big blog. Too much typing at once for me. So let's see...

Noah has been really into giving kisses and hugs lately which is really really sweet and I love it since he's not a snuggler AT ALL. He's never snuggled up to me or anyone since the day he was born. He just likes to wiggle too much. I can't even rock him because he wiggles the entire time and wants down. So now that he hugs me I get a little bit of that sweet baby love. His kisses are sweet but very slobbery and about half the time he ends up biting me (or someone else) on the face. That's just Noah though... He's a little rough but very very sweet.

He finally got his first haircut the other day and I'd like to say it went very well and he was a perfect angel but that wasn't the case. He started out really good so I thought, "oh good this is going well. He's so good." I should've known better since it's Noah. I took him about 30 seconds to figure out what was happening then he freaked out. She did get the front cut before the flip out so at least that part was straight. The entire thing lasted about 3 minutes and 2 1/2 of that was me holding his head still while he screamed as loud as he could. Not very fun! But now his hair is cut and it looks really cute!

A little treat after the haircut experience