Last Day of August

My sweet boy the 31st day of August 2009

It's the last day of August, so I thought we should celebrate with a popsicle...one of Noah's favorite things right now. He's so amazing... just brightens my day like nothing else. I'm now at 878 pictures for the month of August 2009!

A Few August Pictures

I just looked to see how many pictures I took in August 2009. The total? Exactly 800 pictures! A nice even number, right? :) Here's just a few moments from August. Bring on September! Noah running through the back yard naked. AHHHH, freedom!

Noah & Mommy at the beach

Daddy chasing Noah at the beach during beach pictures

I think Michael got a good workout!

Noah's Grammie and his Great Uncle Lawrence

Mommy & Noah

My dancing angel

In the ocean water for the 1st time

A long week

This is Noah's cheek after his battle with the chair. The black all over his chin isn't a bruise...it's cookies-n-cream Blue Bell ice cream. As soon as he got the ice cream, his crying stopped and he was his happy-go-lucky self again.
My favorite longhorn

Dancing around and being a ham

Inspecting the pumpkins

Purple tongue after freeze pops

It has been a long week at our house. Michael's back is just now starting to show signs of improvement, but he is still not able to do much. Last Sunday night Noah climbed on back of a chair and it flipped over and the chair pinned him on the floor. I was literally picking the chair up off him. It was awful. Luckily my neighbor is an ER doctor and said it would just bruise, and he was right. (Of course, I had to set the alarm for every 2 hours throughout the night to make sure he didn't have a concussion...ugh!) The bruise is just gone today, a week later! I did some furniture re-arranging since then so hopefully that was a one-time incident! I've continued my double duty of wife and husband chores and let me just say that I am in awe of single mothers! I don't know how they do it. They must be less OCD than me! (That's a good thing!)

Enough of that. Onto better things. Let's see. Michael's mom is coming this weekend and we love when she visits! I wish she'd just move in and live with us. (If anyone ever comments about my decorating, it's all because I've seen HER house through the years! She's incredible with making all things beautiful.) Other noteworthy news; Noah saw his Aunt Rebekah's picture in a photo book this week and said, "Beh-Uh." (With no prompting, by the way!) SO cute. He loves his family. Speaking of "Beh-Uh," she is going to make me one happy lady because she's bringing her family here the weekend of the 12th and keeping Noah and letting us have some R&R. I haven't had one day away since Noah was born, and I could use just a little replenishment. THANK YOU REBEKAH! Noah has been so good this week, especially with less Daddy time. He's been reading lots of books, playing outside a lot, climbing on everything, enjoying freeze pops, and dancing up a storm. I'm hopeful that this week will bring healing to Michael's back and that we can get back to somewhat of a normal routine. Other interesting information...Tyler's half marathon is this October. I just decided to do it. That's just over a month away, and a lot of training to do! The last time I did a half marathon was pre-baby with several months of training, so I'm anxious about this for sure. All I can do is the best I can do. I ran about 32 miles this week, but I'm sore. I'm rarely sore from running, but it's been an unusually hard week with Michael out of commission, so I'm hoping that things will get easier. Key word...HOPING!

A rough weekend

Michael went to the doctor yesterday because he somehow hurt his back. For him to go to the doctor, I knew it was bad. By the time he got home, he could barely walk and began yelling out in pain. He literally got STUCK after he sat down and couldn't get up! I tried to push him in the chair to the couch but he didn't want to scratch the floors. He just kept hollering and hollering in pain with every move he tried (unsuccessfully) to make. It sounds awful, but I started laughing, and so did he (but that hurt him more so we stopped.) It was like those old commercials with the old lady that said, "I've fallen and I can't get up," except he "sat down and couldn't get up. Call Life Alert!" I got in the piggyback position and said, "Just lean over on me and I'll drag you to the couch." Thank goodness he got some pain killers, muscle relaxers, and steroids, so he eventually got to the couch. I had a funeral to go to at noon today and that's the only break I've had from double duty taking care of my boys. Oh, before I knew about Michael's Dr.'s appointment, I went into the attic and got out the Halloween decorating stuff. I'm over summer and ready for Fall, so in the midst of all this chaos, there's pumpkins, scarecrows, and Halloween stuff strung over the house. I'll get it decorated though! At least that'll be fun, right?

Here Noah is having his 1st Oreo cookie.

Tickle time with Mommy & Noah

I'm going to get Noah's tickle spot! I love this boy's laugh!

Noah's Hair

I just love Noah's hair. I love the color. I love the texture. I love his little curls. I love running my fingers through his hair. His hair is just now getting long enough to have bed head hair after sleeping. This was his hair after his nap today. Precious!

Teething

Noah has been teething and chewing on almost everything...including his pacifiers. He calls his pacifier "pubba," and this morning he literally chewed his pubba in half. (I'm just glad I was there when he did it so he didn't choke!) Here's the picture.

Michael's Big Fish

I told Michael to go fish tonight for stress relief. I was putting Noah to bed and heard him in his room saying "Dadd'N." I opened the door to see that he pulled the curtain into his bed and was watching Michael through the window. It looks like we'll be investing in shutters soon! Here's a picture of Michael's Big Fish.

Filling Daddy's Shoes

I've mentioned a few times that Noah loves shoes. (Don't know where he gets that!) Tonight, he had a great time putting on Daddy's shoes. I just love the pictures. It's so metaphorical, filling Daddy's shoes.

Off to a bad start

Michael and I discussed planning our menus for the week out in advance so that we could grocery shop and then have a plan for our healthy eating. (Evidently people do that?) Well, last night, my sister called & we ended up talking for a while. Meanwhile, Michael fell asleep on the couch, so no menus or shopping was done! We decided on a healthy meal for dinner tonight, but got home to find that we didn't have the ingredients we needed. Another oops! Michael opened a box of trans-fatty acid, butter-baked croutons against my pleading him to put the croutons down! He then fed them to Noah! I called Michael's sister to plead my case since she has influence and is a healthy eater and cook! She's such a good sport. Luckily, I had some leftover Kashi organic pizza in the fridge, so at least I ate healthy! It's pretty bad when the first day of your family cooking -health kick is already foiled! I did get on the treadmill and ran 5 miles (slowly!) so it wasn't a total loss. Michael is at the store now. Better luck tomorrow! By the way, thank you Mary Beth for the ideas for what I can try to cook! I need all the help I can get as evidenced by tonight's fiasco.

Help With Cooking

Spending time on vacation with my sister-in-law, Rebekah, reminded me how great it is for a mom to cook for her family. She cooks for her family regularly. My mom was the same way. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of cooking. It takes so much time and preparation and work....just for some food. I'd so much rather spend my time digging in the dirt! However, I'm TRYING to make an effort to cook more...minus hating it! To add insult to injury, I'm very picky about what I eat. I only eat very little meat, some chicken (organic) and turkey every now and then. I eat no type of seafood, no cow, no pig. Noah doesn't like meat, and he & I eat pretty much alike. Poor Michael. Michael says that he's now going to try to eat healthier, so we're going to make a concerted effort to cook healthy meals at home. Anyone with healthy recipes, please send them! WE NEED ALL THE HELP WE CAN GET!

Noah & Daddy

Hot August days are spent in the pools; Noah's little kiddie pool or the big pool with Daddy. Noah LOVES his Daddy. He has several names for Daddy. He can say "Daddy," but he prefers the following:

Dee Dah

Dadd'N

Dia Wuh

Splish Splash
Dee Dah & Noah

Dadd'N & Noah

Dia Wuh & Noah

Aunt Rebekah & Uncle "Bry"

Aunt Rebekah & Uncle "Bry" just pulled out of the driveway and I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on our visit. They didn't get here until late last night because Sam, Lucas, & Alice were spending the night at Paw Paw's place. We didn't do anything "special," but it turned out to be such a nice visit. We stayed up until 1 am (which for sleep deprived parents is really late!) talking, telling old stories, and laughing a lot! This morning, when Noah heard the stair gate open, he was so happy to see Aunt Rebekah. He couldn't wait to give her sugars. He told Aunt Rebekah, "play" and then proceeded to take her to his play room where they played. A few minutes later "Bry" came down and joined the fun. Noah had so much fun playing with his aunt and uncle. Seeing them drive away this morning made me a little bit sad, because it's so special having them here. But I try to focus on the blessing that it is to have such a wonderful family. Love you Rebekah & Bry.

Our ATEMPT at beach pictures

My sister-in-law & brother-in-law (Rebekah & Brian) were so generous to invite us to stay at their condo in Florida. I wanted to contribute something, so, of course, I thought, "What better way to commemorate our trip than with a big family photo of all of us on the beach?" Of course, I didn't have this thought until about a week before our vacation, in which I spent several hours looking at pictures online and seeing which of the photographers I liked wasn't already booked. Miraculously, I found a photographer that could do the pictures the Friday before we left at sunset. We checked with the family to see if everybody could do it. We thought it was a go. Thought being the key word! Poor Brian was only notified well after he'd been in Florida that he needed to be at the rehersal dinner for his little sister's wedding...the Friday before we left. The day we scheduled pictures. We still held out hope, though, because his family didn't tell him exactly what time to be there...until Friday afternoon. (Let's just say that Brian is very happily married & was not exactly sure about this wedding in the first place.) So, our 1st bummer is that our big family picture was without a big part of our family...Brian. This was a bad start. My boys wore white shirts & khaki and I found a lovely white Calvin Klein dress. Very picturesque....of course not for long, right? Just before we left I felt my hand get whacked by my dress. What? Oh, no they didn't......yes they did. THE BIG HONKIN' SECURITY TAG WAS LEFT ON MY CALVIN KLEIN DRESS! We didn't have time to do anything, but try to brush it out of the way! I'm sure the pictures will have a big, ugly plastic tag sticking out of them! SERIOUSLY! Then we get to the beach...Grayton Beach State Park, late, of course. The photographer was NOT the girl I talked to on the phone, but some guy instead. Another oops. He first had us stand in some area on the way to the beach. He pointed out some grass burs and said, "Oh, those are stickers. They'll hurt. Don't step on those." We've got 4 kids. Seriously?!? Sure enough, the stickers are embedded in the "safe" area as well. People are getting stuck. Noah melts down just because he's tired and hot. So I pop a blue M&M in his mouth. Big mistake. He spits the M&M into his hand after wiping it all over his face, and proceeds to smear it on his shirt & then Michael's shirt. We got out of the stickers & tried to take a few pictures near the beach but I'm pretty sure Noah was misreable and that my big, plastic tag on my dress was sticking out. Michael was livid, cursing under his breath. Alice started crying and refused to sit with the group. Noah melted down some more. Just a lovely time! We eventually found a sandcastle that was pretty cool. It looked like a birthday cake and had real sand dollars in it. Needless to say, our photo session did NOT go as planned. Maybe by some miracle something will have turned out. These are just a few of the snapshots I took throughout the mayhem. Sorry you don't get to see the lovely tag! Grammie with Lucas, Alice(not happy), Noah (jumping away), and Sam

Noah with the sand castle

The kids play with the sand castle

A pretty picture of Alice & Grammie

Noah & Daddy walk on the beach

Lucas, Alice, & Sam watch the water

Rebekah tries to appease Alice. Noah is eating Grammie's bracelet.

Now Noah is hitting Alice in the head with Grammie's bracelet.

Lucas & Sam. Sweet boys.

Daddy & Noah

Celebrating Noah turning 18 Months Old

Noah turned 18 months old on August 4th, 2009. We left for our beach vacation that day, so we didn't celebrate the momentous occasion. So today, I bought Noah some new toys (a longhorn, gorilla, animal magnets, and animal blocks) and we had a special pizza dinner & cake for dessert. He had a great time! I can't believe my baby boy is 18 months old!

Things Noah loves right now: Animals, balls, riding the lawn mower, playing in the water, books, watching "shows," blowing kisses, going outside, breaking into Mommy & Daddy's room, showing his muscles, trucks, climbing, playing chase, and playing with his cousins.