Mother and Daughters

I don't know what I would do without my mom and my sister.

Cousins

The best part about our CA trip for Noah was hanging out with his cousins. The boy absolutely loves his cousins. He talks about them constantly and was in heaven getting to play with them every day. Sam also loved his cousies (and my nieces are such cute little mothers - it was fun to see them with him).

Noah and Abby were basically attached at the hip while we were there. They were such cute friends. It even got to the point that Noah wanted Abby to help him eat his dinner and put on his shoes (even though he's perfectly capable of doing both) and Abby for some reason thought this was fun as well. Sam and Alex played really well together (or, alongside each other as babies do). Ryan and Lauren, the big girls, were so cute with the little ones.

Noah and Abby

Big Girl Alex taking Sam for a ride
Ryan and Sam
Abby and Sam (with a little help from my mom)
Abby feeding Noah so he'll finish his dinner
Abby putting on Noah's shoes (oh, for heaven's sake!)
Cute cousies
Sam and Alex playing with blocks
Slurpee break

Noah's Birthday

On Noah's birthday we had a fun family pizza party. I already blogged about it here, but here are the pictures. (The lucky birthday boy had a second pizza party with Daddy when we got back home).

Eating pizza with a little help from Mommy Abby

Opening presents


Thank you hugs all around!

One funny thing that I didn't mention on my other birthday post: In the afternoon I took Noah to the grocery store with me to pick up some balloons for the party. I told him he could pick out one special balloon and showed him the wall with the balloon options. He immediately pointed to the balloon with Sponge Bob Square Pants on it (he has never seen that show) and said, "Mom! I want the Mac n' Cheese balloon!" I can't decide if I should feel embarrassed that my child so easily recognizes characters specifically from a processed macaroni and cheese box. Well, I know I should feel embarrassed, I just can't decide if I actually do. I'm leaning toward no.

Muir Woods

During our visit, we drove across the Golden Gate bridge into Marin one day to visit Muir Woods with my parents, Melissa & Thomas and their girls. The drive to and from Muir Woods was fairly miserable because Sam (who had opted out of his morning nap that day and does not easily sleep in the car) cried pretty much the entire way (finally falling asleep about 3 minutes before arriving back home). But he seemed to enjoy himself while we were in the forest at least. Muir Woods is so peaceful and beautiful.

Pool and Park

We spent many days of our trip hanging out at the pool or the park.

Noah's favorite pool activity

Cuddling with my boy on a lunch break

I actually only did a couple of park days - my dad took the kids there all the time though. Yay for fun Grampies!

Alex digging in the sand

Noah taking a break from the adjacant splash park

Sam trying to figure out how a shovel works

This baby loves to swing

Noah calls the baby swings "the big swings" and the big-kid swings "the little swings." He only likes "the big swings" (which is unfortunate because it's getting really difficult to get him out of those things!). He informed my dad one day on the way to the park, "Grampie, I love the park. I like things in this order: big swings, slides, sand."

Zoo Day

My sister and I took the kids to the Oakland Zoo one day (except for Sam, who stayed home with Grammie - so nice to have that option for things that babies really wouldn't have fun doing). We had fun running around looking at the animals, playing in the kids play area, riding on the trucks, and taking the train through the zoo (it's really a beautiful setting up in the hills).

Noah and Abby laying in the tortoise

Pretty Ryan

Ry-Ry helping Noah across the lily pads

Best buddies on the cars/trucks carousel

California Recap

I've been home from my three-week CA trip for over a week now, but recapping with all my (tons of) pictures seemed a little daunting. I think I'll just do several posts so I can get all the pictures on. I know I could do one of those flip books or something, but I kind of like to see all the pictures individually on a post (especially since I plan on printing my blog someday and, let's be honest, the pictures on this blog is most likely the best scrapbook I'm gonna do at this point).


Anywho, the boys and I had such a great time with my family. It's always so hard because I like going for a long time, and I like that my boys have a chance to really get acclamated there but I hate that we're away from Ben for so long. I guess we'll need to start having him come out for a weekend in the middle of our trips or something. I'm happy living here in TX, but I told Ben while I was in CA that I wish I could combine my lives somehow. The house next door to my parents' is for sale right now so my mom and I were imagining how fun it would be for me to buy it and we were relandscaping the two side yards in our head to make one big play area for the boys and stuff. My mom's lifelong dream is to have a family compound. Sounds good to me too!

Speaking of my mama, here are the first few pictures from the trip. The boys with Grammie and Grampie:

Toy Story

Noah's latest obsession is the movie Toy Story. Such a cute movie. He was introduced to it while we were in California (post and pictures of that trip to come eventually...) and loved it so much I had to buy it for him once we returned home. Now our funny toddler (is a 3-year old still a toddler? I guess he's actually a full-fledged little boy now - sigh) keeps delighting us with Toy Story one-liners.

For instance, the other day I overheard Noah talking to his little brother and he said, "Peanut, you're a strange little man."

The next night, Ben was making Noah dinner and asked if he wanted any strawberries. When Noah declined, Ben said in an exaggerated tone of surprise, "You don't want any strawberries? What??" Noah leaned in toward Ben, shook both hands up at him and said, quite seriously, "Daddy. This is no time to panic."

Hysterical.

Jazz Hands

Okay, by popular demand (or, by the request of two people), I am dedicating this post to the description of Jazz Hands from Ben and Amy's wedding lore.

When you only have four months to plan a wedding you need to be flexible and go with the flow. You also need to make quick decisions on things. Normally, quick decision-making is not my forte but I was actually a very non-dramatic and efficient bride. Many of these quick decisions turned out great - the venue for my reception, the food (which was apparantly delicious, although I didn't actually get to eat any of it), the cake. However, some hastily-made decisions left a little to be desired. Such as, of course, the photographer. In all fairness, I don't think the photographer was bad (except that I kind of do), just not so much my style. And she didn't take some of what I would have thought were very typical wedding pictures (like me with just my bridesmaids, or me with my sister).

Anywho, the photographer's biggest fault was her sense of artistic creativity - which culminated in her directive to our wedding party to line up around us and flash some jazz hands toward the happy couple. For your entertainment, I have taken a picture of this - my most embarassing wedding picture, hands down:



Note the lack of enthusiasm exibited by our wedding party at this atrocious request. I think my bridesmaids - bless their hearts - actually put on a good face and gave it their best effort. Although you can practically see the thoughts in their heads: "You want us to do what???" The groomsmen - particularly Ben's brother in the front - can't seem to hide their true feelings about the exercise. In retrospect, I should have stepped up and simply said, "Actually, I don't really want a picture with jazz hands, thank you." But being the people-pleaser that I try to be, I slapped on a smile and let my wedding party go about flailing their arms and flashing their hands in an effort to create the fun, light-hearted photo that my photographer undoubtedly imagined I would blow up and hang above the fireplace.


Moral of this story to all other clueless bride-to-bes out there: get a referral for your photographer, and don't be afraid to boss him/her around a little.

My Wedding

Yesterday was Ben's and my sixth wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary to us! I was thinking about how different my wedding would be if I were to plan it now. My wedding was beautiful, but there are a lot of little things that I would probably change. I would do my hair differently. I would use different colors. I would wear my wedding dress all day instead of changing into a suit before leaving the reception. I would use a different photographer (jazz hands, in my opinion, should never be suggested in wedding pictures - or in any picture for that matter). There are at least two things from my wedding day, though, of which I'm still a big fan.

1) I still love my dress.

2) I still love my groom.

My Baby Boy is Three

Today is Noah's THIRD birthday! I can hardly believe I've had him for three years - and that's I've only had him for three years. Does that make any sense? I have some cute pictures from the little pizza and cupcakes party we had for him, but I'll have to post them next week when I'm back home and can download them. Noah was so cute as he opened presents and exclaimed, "Thank you so much, everybody!" Oh, and tonight when he was playing with a new toy and his little cousin Alex tried to play with it Noah said, "Ax-lex, it's my birthday!" Apparantly sharing does not apply to birthday boys. Noah will be getting two birthdays this year as we will celebrate again with Ben when we get home.

Anyway, these past three years with my little boy have been amazing and fun and challenging and wonderful and sweet. And on and on. I love him so much it's absurd. I feel badly sometimes because he's my first and I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I'm afraid sometimes that I'm doing it wrong. Or that when I make a mistake it will somehow affect him till the end of time. (Although, I just read The Nanny Diaries and it made me feel like the best freaking mom ever. Man, that's a sad book).

Anywho, to my Birthday Boy. I'm so forever grateful and happy that you came to join our family three years ago. I thank God for you every single day. You are so sweet and happy and smart and funny and I feel so lucky that you are my son. Thank you for being my baby (and for promising this morning that you always will be). Thank you for being patient with me while I figure this mommy-thing out. I love you so much. Happy Birthday!