Sailor Man

Isn't this the cutest little boy's tee shirt you've ever seen (not to mention the little boy in it - seriously, look at that face)? I think I love it so much because I have very fond Popeye memories. I enjoyed watching the cartoon when I was little, but I also remember this one day when for some reason I started imitating Olive Oyl and my brother Dave thought it was SO hilarious. I loved that my big brother thought I was funny and I've always remembered it. Anyway, it's a good thing I like the shirt so much because it was actually quite the ordeal in getting it. My mom bought it for Noah when we were out visiting (thanks, Mom!) but the 2T ended up being a little small for him so when we got to Texas I went in to exchange it. Of course, they were out of the 3T so I had them order it from another store. Well, two weeks go by and I still hadn't heard anything so I called and apparantly the person who had ordered it for me messed up and it never went through. SO, I re-order it over the phone and another two weeks go by. I call again. The salesperson says it went through but was still pending. I'm not sure who Nordstrom's preferred mail carrier is - the Pony Express, perhaps? Anyway, I ask if it's normal for it to take so long and, by way of explanation, she tells me it's coming from Seattle. Hmmm. I think I could probably ride my bike from Seattle to here in two weeks (well, I couldn't - and definitely wouldn't - but you know what I mean). No hard feelings though, cause Nordstrom's awesome. Anyway, it finally arrived and I picked it up yesterday when we went to the Galleria to meet Ben for lunch. Yipee!!!

What a Difference 3 Months Makes

So I went grocery shopping this morning. I have learned that there are several factors which are necessary to make a successful grocery shopping trip with two small boys (and by successful, I mean a trip that does not end in tears or an excessive amount of sweating on my part). These factors include, but are not limited to:

1) Getting the giant grocery cart with the toddler car attached to the front. Yes, it's embarassing to push and very difficult to manuver (I've rammed it into many a display and have sideswiped many a cart), but it's worth it.

2) Fruit snacks and/or (preferably "and") suckers (Dum-Dums are small so you don't feel as bad about bribing your child with them).

3) Using a Baby Bjorn for the wee one instead of the carseat, which is too hard to see over. Plus, the Baby Bjorn tends to make my wee one fall asleep and stay happy.

With these factors in place I can generally have a nice and fairly relaxing grocery shopping trip. I still don't dawdle inside, but I no longer have to race around at warp speed trying to get through the store before my childrens' patience runs out. Let's contrast this with my first grocery shopping experience with two kids, shall we? Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to Ben in August after my first grocery shopping trip post-Sam:

Wow, grocery shopping with two kids is nuts. Got in the car, forgot the list and the coupon. Drove back home, booked it upstairs (kids still in car) to get them (coupon expired of course). Got to the store, they were out of their big carts (the ones with toddler seats in front that look like trucks). So poor Noah had to sit in the back of the cart among all the groceries (he organized them all for me). Sam got hungry basically right away. Luckily I thought to bring the bottle of expressed milk from the fridge so I was steering the cart with one hand (very hard since it was so heavy with 2 kids and groceries in it) and feeding Sam with the other and somehow still putting groceries in the cart. Same thing with loading groceries in the car (tried to load and feed Sam simultaneously). Got home, made a bunch of runs up/down the stairs while Noah played in the car and Sam came with me in the sling until he fell asleep and I was able to put him in the bouncy. In the middle of all of this, the shelf in the door of the refrigerator broke and so did a jar of relish so I had to clean all of that up. Then Sam woke up and wanted to finish the bottle. Finally have him sleeping again and Noah is eating lunch (very well, by the way). Now I have to finish putting the groceries away and clean the kitchen, get Noah down for a nap, and eat myself. And pretty soon I really need to pump because since Sam had a bottle and didn't breastfeed earlier, I'm leaking all over the place. Oh, by the way, Jewel was out of your yogurts. I’ll try to go to Ashland later today to get them. Or maybe we’ll walk down and pick you up at the train tonight. Then we can go together so one of us can just run in and not deal with getting the stroller through the bars.

Jamaican Boy

I think I mentioned before that when someone sneezes Noah says "Gazoonie!" Well, now he says "Gazoonie, Man". . . with a very distinct Jamaican accent. Now, most things that Noah says can be traced back to something that Ben or I have said at one point, or maybe something from the Little Einsteins DVD he likes so much (which is about 4 American children). But I promise you, neither Ben nor I speak with a Jamaican accent. Ever. So I can't figure out where this came from.

Welcome Adam!

At 3am today my new little nephew, Adam David, was born via emergency c-section. My sister-in-law started contracting and Adam's heart rate dropped really low. When they were unable to raise it back up they decided to do an emergency c-section (a very good thing considering Laurel was dialated to a 6 and 100% effaced; the umbilical cord was wrapped around Adam's foot and, since he was breech and coming feet-first, it would have been disasterous if he started decending into the birth canal). Anyway, Adam is 5 pounds which is great for a baby born at 32 1/2 weeks. He's having some trouble breathing and is on a ventilator for now but they hope to wean him off that very soon. There was a big scare with Laurel too, but thankfully all is well now and we're all very hopeful that little Adam will be just fine after a long stay in the NICU. Welcome to the world, little guy (it gets better, I promise)!

A Few Sweet Pictures

It's so late (early, actually) but I can't sleep so I thought I would post a few random pictures that I love. The first is Ben and a sleepy Sam; the second is me and a sleepy Sam. Is there anything cozier than a baby sleeping on your shoulder? I don't think so. It makes you feel like all is right with the world. The third is of Noah and Sam watching Baby Einsteins one morning (Noah requested that Sam sit by him in his chair). And the fourth is of Noah right after a nap, the way I find him 95% of the time when I go in to get him after he wakes up.

Impatient Baby

My sister-in-law Laurel (my brother Dave's wife) is in pre-term labor right now. She's 32 weeks pregnant and has been on bedrest since 18 weeks, poor thing. Now she's in the hospital and she's already dialated to a 5. They gave her some medicine to hopefully stop the contractions, but they don't know if it will work or not. She'll be in the hospital for the remainder of the pregnancy, however long that will be. Every day that the baby can stay in utero makes a huge difference so everyone send some good prayers and anti-labor vibes their way!

Naptime At Last

I have written several posts about how sweet, cute, and funny Noah is. So it should be abundantly clear by now how much I love and adore that kid and how wonderful I think he is, right? Okay. Then I feel I can proceed...

Today my firstborn is driving me crazy. I can only assume it has something to do with his missed nap yesterday catching up to him. Or perhaps it's the fact that he is two and prone to, well, acting two from time to time. Whatever the reason, we have had a difficult day today. He has been completely ignoring anything I say, I had to physically pin him down to finally get his clothes on him this morning, he ran away from me and straight toward a crowded parking lot when we were leaving our play date at the mall (which was for him, by the way), he went "boneless" on me several times this morning (translation: went all limp when I would try to hold his hand so he would come with me), and I have heard such fun comments as:

"Hey! That's mine!"
"I want to go this way NOW!"
"Stop it!"
"No, I want to ____________" (fill in with just about anything except what I was wanting him to do)
"I want ___________" (fill in names of people that were not mommy)

As you can probably surmise by all of this, Noah was incredibly exhausted and immediately konked out at naptime so hopefully our afternoon will be a little bit better.

Four Months Old

Well, I'm three days late on this, but here are Sam's 4-month froggy pictures:

He is such a happy baby, it makes me smile just to look at him. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he can roll now from his back to his tummy (to which his big brother always says "Great job, Peanut!") but he hasn't figured out how to get back yet. However, he tolerates being on his tummy for longer now and is getting really good at holding his neck up in that position and pushing up on his arms. As you can tell in the picture, he loves to suck on his fist these days. It seems his hand is always in his mouth - maybe he's teething already? Seems a little early, but I don't really remember when teething usually starts so who knows. He's such a love though - he'll just smile at everybody and he gets lots of oohs and aahs over his two big dimples. He's a good sleeper too, for the most part. He doesn't require anything (bouncing, rocking, holding, nursing) in order to sleep - he just lays in his bassinet and falls quietly asleep and he takes great naps (I'm still amazed by this, it's so different from when his brother was an infant...). At 1 month Sam started sleeping 8 hour stretches at night and by 2 months he was sleeping all night long, the little love. For some reason, when we moved to Texas he stopped that though. He's slept all night a few times since, but usually he wakes up once (occasionally twice) now. Weird. He's still so little that I'm not concerned or even bothered by it really. Especially since I know he has it in him to sleep all night. Plus, he seems genuinely hungry when he wakes up. In fact, it's actually a really sweet time when the house is all dark and quiet and I just get to hold and nurse and snuggle with my baby and actually give him some undivided attention. Don't get me wrong - I won't complain when he resumes sleeping all night, but it's nice to have a little alone time with him, even if it's just for a few minutes at 4am.

Little Einsteins Mania

Noah loves Little Einsteins (not to be confused with Baby Einstein, the DVDs with blobs and lightshows set to music - which he also quite enjoys). His obsession began when my brother and sister-in-law sent him a Little Einsteins DVD when Sam was born and ever since he has been quite the little fan. Sadly, the DVD broke about a month ago. I had been putting off buying a new one (I've seen it about a zillion times now) and Noah asked about it sometimes but seemed ok. Well, yesterday he started singing the theme song from it and yelling "Rocket!" (part of the song) and saying "Love that show. It's my favorite." Then "Einsteins broken. Get a new one at the store?" So, of course, this morning found us at the store, buying a brand new copy. Noah was sooooo excited. He kept talking to the DVD cover, saying "Hi Einsteins! Having a good day at Target? You're so cute!" I put it on for him as soon as we got home and he watched the DVD all up close and personal, like this:

Unfortunately for me, he was so excited about it that he couldn't sleep. He spent his entire nap time today not napping in any way, shape or form. He wasn't crying or anything, but I heard him in there talking about Einsteins and a few times he called me in to say he wants to watch it. He seemed fine with my "after nappy" rule, but he still didn't fall asleep. When he called out for me again toward the end of his normal nap time, I decided to give up and let him get out. Well, apparantly he decided to try a new tactic with me and when I opened the door he said "Had a good nappy!" As though I didn't know he was awake the whole time or something. Tricky little bugger!

Here We Go Again

Yep, this is yet another post about some funny Noah sayings. I can't help it - they're nonstop! Plus, this blog also serves as my journal (clearly, I'm not a very private person) and I don't want to forget the things Noah says. So...

Yesterday we spent a good 1/2 hour looking for Noah's shoe so we could go to the grocery store (he finally just had to wear his church shoes because I didn't find the shoe in my laundry basket until that night). He could sense my growing frustration over this and kept following me around the house while I looked for the shoe saying things like "Shoe, where are you??" and "Huh. That's weird" and "Where is it? Where?" and "I can't find it. So frustrating!"

Last night Ben was putting Noah to bed and as he was leaving the room Noah called after him from his crib, "See you tomorrow!"

Today Noah has been really into the word "exactly." He first said it a month or so ago and then forgot about it, but this morning he busted it back out of the recesses of his vocabulary. Many of my comments were met with the response, "Exactly" (ie, "Noah, you're really jumping off the walls this morning" - and he really was). Similarly, he's also been saying "That's right" a lot.

My favorite one of the day though... "Holy cow!"

Language Skills

Recent favorites from Noah (in no particular order):

1) "Hmmm. That's weird!"
2) "Cute baby..." (talking to Sam of course)
3) "Are you ready to go? I'm ready!"
4) "I'm waiting for my mommy and daddy to come home" (see below for more detail)
5) "Daddy? Are you in the office?"
6) "That's so crazy..." (spoken while shaking his head about anything he finds, well, crazy)
7) "Couple more minutes?" (asked every time it's time to leave the park or stop jumping on the bed, etc.)
8) "C'mon!" (exclaimed when he drops something, for example)
9) "C'mon, Folks. His capa was detated!" (this is from The Office, for all you fans out there; we were watching it one night and laughing when Michael said this and ever since Noah has been repeating it and getting huge laughs from me and Ben)
10) "I'll get you!" (as he chases after us)

The last week or so it seems like Noah has experienced an explosion in his language development. He's had a good vocabulary and has been putting short phrases together for awhile now, but lately it seems there isn't anything he can't say. Plus, his sentences are getting much longer and less choppy and he's starting to ask questions correctly. And when I ask him something he'll answer with a sentence rather than just a short word or two ("I want to play with toys" or "I'm doing a poop" - sorry if that last one is too much information for some of you, but I thought it was funny). He still mixes some things up (he always says "Me help you?" when he needs help with something and "show me" when he actually wants to show us something), but it's cute so I'm not anxious for him to correct himself.

Friday night Ben and I went out to dinner so we got a babysitter. She told us that Noah went down for bed fine but a little while later she heard him chatting in his crib so she peeked in and said (nicely) "Noah, how come you're still awake?" Apparantly, his exact response was "I'm waiting for my mommy and daddy to come home." (She said he wasn't sad or anything, and he went to sleep shortly after that). I couldn't believe what a long and perfect sentence that was!

Anyway, I know most of these things seem like pretty normal things to say (aka, not really post-worthy) but it's so cool to hear your toddler speaking totally normally, you know? I'm liking this language explosion. I feel like now I'm able to have full and normal conversations with my little boy, which is really fun.

Sam and Noah at Play

I took a child development class at BYU my freshman year and I remember the teacher telling us that playing is a child's work. Well, my boys put in some serious hours at their work. I wanted to share some cute pictures of them playing. Here is Sam with his Gymini. It's so fun to see him reaching out and grabbing toys now.

And here is one of Sam playing with his stretchy giraffe (this toy is a big hit):


Here's a picture of Noah with his blocks. Although he will play in his room sometimes, usually Noah likes to be wherever we are, so he'll transport toys from his room. In general, I find this very sweet and endearing. Every now and then when I'm desperately trying to get things done or keep things clean, it can be frustrating. Obviously, this time it was endearing because I whipped out my camera. Anyway, here's Noah playing in the office while I update my blog:

And finally, here is Noah playing in his room. I just walked in to see what he was up to and this is how I found him!

Swimming in November

That's right folks, it was actually warm enough here today (mid-high 80s) that we went to the pool. I remember when I was getting information about this apartment complex a few months ago I called the office and asked them, among other things, when their pool closed for the year. The woman I was talking to just laughed and said that since it's Houston they leave the pool open all year. Anyway, we are lucky enough to live in a complex that has a great pool with a really fun kid area. Noah loves it - he calls it the "water park" and gets sooooo excited when we go. Here he is having a great time in the water:

Sam stayed out of the water for the most part. At one point I asked Noah if we should let Sam get in the pool. He looked at me seriously and said "No, he's just a Peanut." Later he was telling Ben about our day and how Sam couldn't go in the pool and to emphasize his point he looked at Sam and said "You're too small!" So poor Sam didn't get to swim. Here he is living it up on a lounge chair instead:

Here's one more picture from the pool. Noah thinks those poolside chairs are really cool, so he played on that for a little while and Sam joined him (not for long though - he's not really at a sitting phase yet!):

Play Ball!

Here are pictures of Noah playing catch with Ben yesterday evening. I'm not sure what the benchmark is for a two-year-old's ability to throw a ball, but I think Noah's pretty good! He winds up his pitch and gets the ball directly to Ben almost every time. After he throws the ball he claps his hands and when Ben catches it Noah says "Great catch!"

Phone Talk

Tonight I went to tell Noah it was time for his bath and this is what I saw when I found him in my room:

I told him it was time for a bath and he said "I'm talking to Grandpa." I said, "Oh, okay. Let me know when you're done." I then left to straighten up a little and heard Noah making up conversations with several family members, asking about their day, etc. At one point, when in a "conversation" with one of his cousins I heard him say "I want to live by cousins." So sweet (and so sad)! He loves talking on the phone - real conversations or imaginary, as you can see.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Today is Ben's 31st birthday! Here is a picture of me and the birthday boy. Unfortunately, Ben had to spend most of the day studying for the Series 7 exam, which he takes this Tuesday. Sad, huh? While he was gone, the boys and I went grocery shopping, picked up a yummy cookie cake from the Nestle store (mmmmm), made cards and wrapped presents. As soon as Ben got home we got the birthday celebration off to an exciting start by getting haircuts for Ben and Noah. We really know how to party! Here is a picture of the guys with their new 'dos:


We decided to have Ben's requested birthday dinner (his mom's tasty Chicken Frito casserole) tomorrow night and instead went to Sonic for dinner tonight. While we were there Noah suddenly stood up on the bench and started dancing to the music playing in the restaurant. So funny to see his little body busting a move. He also, out of the blue, started talking about how excited he was for church tomorrow (he really loves the nursery at church), saying "Church pretty excited!" and "So much fun - I can not believe it!" I hope his enthusiasm for church continues as he gets older. When we got home it was time for presents and cake. Noah was so excited about the card he made for Ben; of course, Ben loved it too. Here is a picture of the birthday boy with his little boys and the present they gave him - a scrapbook of Ben's first two years of fatherhood (all pictures of Ben with his son(s)):


As we were all looking through the scrapbook Noah kept pointing at the pictures with him as a baby and saying "Sam!" That should give you a good idea of how much my boys look alike.

Anyway, one more thing. Tonight while we were eating cake Sam rolled over for the very first time! It was so fun to see this milestone as it was happening. And, as luck would have it, I had my camera right there. Here is a picture of Sam right after his new trick (which he did every time I layed him down the rest of the night):


Way to go, Peanut!

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Funny Boy

Okay, I know I keep posting about how funny Noah is but seriously, that kid cracks me up all day long. It's barely noon and I already have several funny things from today. I'll just make a little list:

1) Said "Gazoonie!" to Sam when he sneezed this morning.

2) Said a very friendly "Morning!" to our realtor when we met him this morning to look at some homes.

3) Requested a CD to listen to in the car - this is a recurring thing. The CD has to be the Wicked soundtrack. I guess he just got used to listening to it since I love it and now if anything else is playing the car, whether it's the radio or a different CD, he'll ask for a CD until we turn Wicked back on.

4) He was holding my keys when we got into the car so I told him I needed the keys and asked if he wanted his sippy cup to which he replied, "I'll trade you."

5) While driving in the car after looking at homes, he told his stuffed monkey all about our day (ie, the cats we saw, the stairs we went up, etc, etc).

6) Ordered his little brother, "Hey, Peanut! Say hi!"

7) Repeated after me the prayer at lunchtime. This is also recurring lately. It's so stinking adorable. He repeats every line. He can get it started all by himself now. The other night a couple from church invited us and two other couples over for dinner and someone else was about to say the prayer over the food but Noah beat him to it and then tried so hard to keep up with him for the rest of it. Oh, and I reminded him today to close his eyes during prayers and he kept them shut as tightly as he could (of course I opened my eyes to look at him cause he's just so cute!).

Little Things

Tonight I went out to dinner with some girls and when I got home there was a long line of candy in the middle of the front room. Apparantly Noah had had a great time lining pieces of his Halloween candy up one by one. The line was completely straight too. Ben told me that at one point he accidentally nudged a couple of pieces out of line. When this caught Noah's eye, he went over to make them straight again, mumbling "this way" under his breath. He's such a funny little boy. It's amazing how much you can miss your kids even if you're just away from them for a few hours (and even if you really needed a break from them!). I went into his room just now to check on him and just stared at my beautiful little boy for a few minutes. He looked so cute and content, all stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head. I almost wanted him to wake up and ask me to "make a story."

I took Sam with me to dinner and he was so good the whole time. He fell asleep in the car on the way there but woke up at the restaurant and it must have given him a second wind or something because he took forever to get to sleep after we got home (which is weird for Sam - normally I can put him down if he's tired and he just lays there quietly until he drifts off). He was so funny though. Ben was holding him and talking to him and Sam thought that it was just the funniest thing ever. He was gurgling and cooing and chuckling away. He is in such a fun phase. He loves interaction and gets so excited when you look at him and smile or talk to him. He gets this instant, enormous grin (complete with huge dimples) and kicks his legs up and bobbles his head around and laughs.

I'm a lucky mama.

Incentive Program

So I've decided that I should start making some sort of an effort to get my post-baby belly back into shape. I'm not too far off, but I still can't fit into my favorite jeans and darn it, I really miss them. I'll just pre-emt my mom's inevitable comment about this by saying that I know it's only been a few months (well, 3 1/2) and I know I should allow my body 9 months to get back since it took 9 months to grow the baby. Still, it wouldn't kill me to do a few crunches. Since I'm about the worst self-motivator ever, I've come up with a personal incentive program. I thought about one of my life's best simple pleasures that I would really hate to go without: coke. Yummy, yummy coke. I enjoy one every day when I put my boys down for their naps. So I've decided that I will not allow myself to drink my one can of coke a day until I have done at least 25 stomach crunches. I know what many (or all) of you are thinking: perhaps not drinking coke would do wonders toward fitting back into my favorite jeans. But that would be crazy-talk. So I've just done my crunches and now I'm off to enjoy my coke.

Halloween Humbugs

I'm totally kicking myself for not taking Noah to a subdivision or neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating last night. We just stayed here and went around our apartment complex, but I discovered that apartment dwellers are a bunch of Halloween humbugs! I suppose I should have been a little more with it and realized beforehand that trick or treating around an apartment complex would be a bit boring. No decorations, not too many fellow trick-or-treaters, and very few participants. For every apartment that actually opened the door and handed out candy, we knocked on at least five doors. Fortunately, Noah is only two and doesn't know the difference so he still seemed to have a great time. He was so darling. He would walk up to the door and knock, then run back to me and say "Now we wait!" When we got no response (most of the time), he didn't get sad or discouraged or anything - he would just say "Try another one!" When someone would come to the door Noah would say "Trick or treat!" and then he would thank them for the candy. One man generously gave Noah a huge handful of candy and Noah looked up at him and said "Thank you sooooo much!" Toward the end of the trick-or-treating he started saying "Happy Halloween!" when we walked away. Sam was so patient the whole evening. He just sat quietly in the stroller, sucking his thumb and looking around. That's my mellow Sam for you. Anyway, all in all we still had a fun night, even though we missed out on the fun neighborhood trick-or-treating experience. I hope ya'll (see, I'm a Texan now) had a great Halloween too!