Noah news

An update on Noah's latest antics:

-A couple of days ago I noticed Noah was clasping his hands together when I put him in his chair for a snack or meal. I quickly figured out he was waiting to say the blessing. We call it prayer hands, and it is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
-He loves to shake his head "no". He absolutely knows what it means, and does it vigorously any chance he gets.
-Noah gets very jealous when Gary or I sit with or hold Luke. He tries to push him out of our lap or just grabs onto us and cries until we pick him up. I expected Luke to be jealous, but I never thought Noah would be.
-He still likes to share, and one of his favorite things to share is his pacifier. He thinks it's very funny to put it in my or Gary's mouth and then pull it back out.
-He has finally started to enjoy reading, and I discovered today that one of his favorite books is Truck Jam. I think I read it about 10 times in a row this afternoon.
-"Uh-oh" is still his only word besides "mama" and "dada". I think he says "no", too, but I'm not sure if he's actually saying "no" or just making noise.
-Speaking of noise, he constantly makes the sound "eh". Whenever he points to something (and he points to a lot of things), he says, "Eh eh eh." When he wants something, he says, "Eh!" He gets many points across with one little syllable.
-He has a grand total of 5 teeth. He's had 3 on the bottom for a while, and the top 2 finally came in last week. It's so funny to see those big ol' top teeth when he smiles.

I'm sure there's more, but I think that's the best I can do at 9:30 at night!

Desserts with Dad

Tonight was "Desserts with Dad" at Luke's school. The kids worked hard on lots of goodies for their dads. Luke's favorite part was, of course, the cookies.
This is a laptop and a clock Luke made for Gary.
Luke also made a coin holder.
At Luke's request, he and Gary made "crazy faces".

Field trip

Luke's class went to the post office last Thursday. I must admit that I enjoyed it as much as the kids - it's amazing that mail ever gets anywhere!

The Frog class
Luke and his friend Kaylee
All the boys got on a big scale outside and weighed a whopping 285 pounds!

Silly boy

This old butter tub is in a drawer of stuff that the boys can play with in the kitchen. Noah got it out tonight, and I put it on his head. When it fell off, he fussed till I put it back on, and he walked around with in on his head for several minutes. This from the child who takes a hat off as soon as I put it on. I think he looks like a Shriner, and Luke said he looked like Abraham Lincoln.

My boys

Documenting the damage

The hail basically sheared off the texture on our shingles. This is a picture of our gutter with the shingle particles inside.

The bottom two pictures show dents in the gutter.

Holy cow!

This morning Gary and I were awakened at 6:30 to the sound of golfball-sized hail pounding our house. We've endured some pretty severe storms since we've lived here, but we've never seen hail like this. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks at the windows, and I thought at any moment we'd hear shattering glass. My van was in the garage, thank goodness, but Gary's company car has lots of dents in it. The ground was covered in hail stones, some of which hung around for several hours afterwards, even though it's almost 50 degrees outside. The crazy thing is that storms like this are common in the spring, but are quite unusual for winter. When it comes to Texas weather, you never know what you might get!

Happy heart day!

We had a lovely Valentine's day. It started with pink, heart-shaped chocolate chip pancakes which, oddly enough, Luke didn't like. He and Noah both got several Valentine's treats which they liked a lot. Mimi gave Luke some more art stuff (as we call it around here), and he couldn't wait to get started creating more fabulous projects. For dinner, I made red food for my boys: spaghetti, tomatoes & mozzarella, and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Gary got me a beautiful arrangement of red, long-stemmed roses, and we've all enjoyed having a little candy around the house.

I love my boys! Happy Valentine's Day!

Got yogurt?

I've been letting Noah try to feed himself yogurt for the past two days. We obviously have more work to do.

Noah's makeover

Noah got his first haircut today! I was holding out as long as I could since this will be the last first haircut for me, but Noah's stringy, straggley hair won out and today was the big day. He actually did pretty well and only fussed a little. I gave him a lollipop for entertainment, and we were both very stick by the time the whole thing was over. He looks like a big boy now and not a baby (which is a little sad for me.)

The first snip!
"I would get a haircut every day if it meant getting a lollipop!"
Ewwww . . . the stickiness!!

What a handsome boy!

What a character!

Here are two funny Noah stories:

When Noah's eating, he likes to feed whomever happens to be closest to him. Yesterday we were sitting on the floor, and he was eating Cheerios. When he was done, he walked away; a few minutes later he walked back to me and put something in my mouth. At first I assumed it was a Cheerio, but as soon as he put it in my mouth, I knew it was something I didn't want to eat. When I took it out I discovered that he had just fed me a piece of dog food. Yummy! I told him I didn't want it and to give it to Molly, which he did. Then he went back to her dog food container, got two more pieces out, and tried to shove those in my mouth as well. You just never know what a day will bring around here!

Yesterday (right around the time he fed me the dog food), Noah discovered Luke's toy recorder. When he heard the noise he could make on it, he cracked up. He'd blow into it and then laugh, laugh, laugh! Sometimes he was laughing so hard that he couldn't blow on it anymore. It was so very funny!

Awwww!

Noah's latest trick is to walk up to the sofa or recliner and lay his head down so everyone will say, "Awww! What a sweet baby!" He also loves on anything soft - his blankie, t-shirts he has pulled out of a drawer, a burp cloth -again so everyone will exclaim, "That's so sweet!" It's funny how quickly they learn what gets them attention!

Hey, good lookin'!

But I get my winning personality from my mom!

Sleepy-head

More nighttime hijinks from Sir Luke.

Update

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, so let me update all my fans on what's been going on around here lately.

NOAH . . .

-is walking full-time now, and has been for about 2 weeks. He's really fast - I think he'll be running before long.

-turned 13 months last Friday. He still loves to get into the trash; he puts stuff in and pulls trash out. Yesterday he found the crust of his sandwich in the trash and gave it to Molly.

-waves "bye-bye", blows kisses, signs "all done", "drink", and "more".

-has started to scream really loud when he's mad.



LUKE . . .

-Is a teenager in the making.

-Loves his stuffed animals so much he stuffed them in his pj's.

-Is a red Power Ranger!

Bug guy

Luke LOVES roly-polies, and he was thrilled to find one last weekend.

Whassup?

Think it's time for a haircut?

I want candy!

Gary's given Noah tastes of a Blow-Pop enough times that he knows what it is when you get one out. Gary got one out during lunch last weekend, and Noah nearly had a fit until Gary let him have some. He was happy until he dropped it, and then the theatrics started again. Gary gave it back to him because he refused to eat the sugar-free lollipop Gary tried to give him instead. All was good until Noah got down to the bubblegum and Gary took it away again. Looks like we've got another sweet-tooth on our hands!

More walking

Noah is pretty much walking full-time now. He crawls every once in a while, but after he discovered that he could stand up without pulling on anything, he is much more likely to keep walking even after he falls down. Because of this new-found mobility, he has sustained many more head boo-boos recently. I think he got three yesterday, and he busted his mouth pretty good earlier today. Someone asked me if he was getting into more stuff since he's been walking, but since he got into everything when he was crawling, there really isn't much of anything left for him to get into. Famous last words . . .

"I'm walkin', yes indeed!"

The Sunday before Christmas, Noah was taking 3 or 4 steps at a time. Today he's walking about 75% of the time. It's amazing how far he's progressed in a little over a week. I think he'll be walking full-time in the next week or two. It's funny to see him stagger around with his tongue hanging out (I think it helps him balance) and his arms stuck out like Frankenstein. Today he mastered the one-foot pivot turn so he can officially change directions. This isn't the best picture of him walking, but you can at least see that he's upright and moving.