Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Noahlogy

Catching up with Noah...

  • Well, he's finally reached one important milestone we've all been waiting for. Nope, still no teeth yet (!) but he has graduated to regular, hands and knees style crawling, although he prefers and is still faster at his freestyle carpet swimming. He's also been pulling himself to a stand and is even starting to take a few steps while holding onto the furniture. Yep, he'll be a bundle of tiny walking and talking trouble-making soon. :)
  • When Brianna was a baby, I was worried that she'd be afraid of the vacuum. So, I made sure to smile broadly at her every time I started it up, to reassure her that I wasn't afraid, everything was okay, and it was no big deal. And, it seemed to work. Maybe too well in fact. I think she almost got to the point where she thought vacuuming was a funny joke and every time I pulled it out she would smile and giggle. But, alas, this vacuum reassurance strategy has not worked with Noah. He's still terrified of the vacuum. Hates it! That and the hair blow dryer, both. I'm not sure if it's just the loud noise, or if he thinks that it's hurting me somehow but he bursts into immediate and frantic sobbing every time. Pretty common thing for babies. The funny thing to me is that while he seems afraid of it, while I vacuum he insists on crawling along just behind me, bawling all the way.
  • It's always amusing to me to watch the kids as they get older get into pretending. Noah's already at it. In particular he likes to pretend to be drinking stuff out of empty cups, or in one case, a candle. Recently, he found a candle, a blue gel candle inside a glass and at first he must have really thought it was a small cup full of water. He held it up to his mouth and tipped it towards himself. Funny part was, he kept doing it over and over and smacking his lips and everything even though I'm sure after the 20th time or so, he HAD to have realized it wasn't what he thought...he must have just been having fun pretending. His other big pretending game lately is to fake sneeze and then laugh at himself. I actually remember Bree going through this phase too (think I even blogged about it). Yup, it just never gets old for him, fake sneezing repeatedly and laughing.
  • There's no question that Noah likes his big sister. He finds her funny, always laughing at her nonsense and following along behind her, wanting to play. But, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I know he must really like her because of his copycatting her the other day... Being the big sister, Bree has no problem yanking things out of Noah's hands and while she expects him to share, if she sees him with any of her things, she rushes over to yank it away. (We're working on curbing this lovely habit.) Well, for her birthday, Brianna got a jewelry box, you know, the kind with the little ballerina inside that dances to music when you open it? And Noah is just fascinated by this and wants to play with it all the time. Of course, what do you think happens when he gets his hands on it? Yoink! Snatched away by his sister. When this happened recently I said, as usual, "Bree, share with your brother and be nice to him. He likes that box. Show him how it works." Then I glanced over and caught Bree, instead of doing what I asked, holding her jewelry box out of reach and sticking her tongue out at her little brother. I was about to say something when Noah turned his head and looked at me and then stuck his own tongue out! It made me laugh.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Breeisms

Been awhile since the last round of these so here you go...
  • Oh Tarter Sauce! - Bree's new favorite thing to exclaim when she's frustrated. It makes me laugh since it's right off of SpongeBob and I'm okay with that, considering, there are WAY worse things she could be deciding to spout off in an emotional moment.
  • Never! - Another one of Brianna's favorite exclamations these days. Yep, she's 4 now going on 13....has the teenage attitude down to a science. I tend to get the "never" thing a lot when I tell her no. Like this. "Mom, can I have some dessert?" "No. Not right now. After you eat dinner we'll have some dessert." "Fine! I'm never eating dessert or dinner again! Never never never!" Quite dramatic.
  • Ticklish Dog - the name of the big dog I won at the fair a few years back. I don't seem to remember him having a name before, but lately, he's Ticklish Dog, which, I suppose is no more odd than some of her other stuffed animals' names, like Motorcycle the cat, but still, makes me smirk because...how does she know he's ticklish?
  • Hand "Zappitizer" - This one is thanks to my good friend Karen, who is a great mom and always has some hand sanitizer on hand for keeping the kiddos germ free. Now Bree is obsessed and every time we see Karen and her kids Brianna has to say, "Um, Karen, I need some hand zappitizer!"
  • Helpful Grandma - We recently visited Idaho to attend the wedding of one of my many cousins. Naturally, Ginger, Bree's best buddy and stuffed dog pal, had to come along. This was all well and good until, after we arrived back home, we realized that Ginger was still at Grandma's house. Disaster! Brianna was completely devastated and there was a whole lot of her worrying about Ginger and feeling guilty that she'd not taken good enough care of her. After an extended search though, Grandma located Ginger in the exact same odd place Bree had stuffed her (a drawer not used often) and mailed her back to us. A few days later Ginger arrived safe and sound in the mail, complete with a new dog blanket, a little dish, and some "dog bones" (graham cracker Scooby Snacks). That afternoon when Bree was talking to her Grandma she said, "Thank you for mailing Ginger back to me, that was so helpful!" Needless to say it made her Grandma chuckle.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Mental Vacation

Hello! I'm back! Were have I been you ask? Well, actually, nowhere special just taken a little blog vacation I guess. It keeps getting farther and farther between my posts, I know, which is unusual for me. Just you know, a lot going on lately... It's summer so we're more active in being out and about and doing things. Birthdays, weddings, holidays, traveling back and forth to Idaho to visit family and attend events, you name it, all coming in fast and furious these past few months. Not to mention I guess I'm finding it harder, as Noah is getting older, more active and more mobile, to find the time to get to my computer, or when I do, I don't seem to have the where-with-all to sit down and type coherently. So, yeah, guess I checked out there for awhile and took a mental vacation and just couldn't keep up with my regular blogging pace... Hey it happens people, even to a fairly prolific purveyor of everyday nonsense and mundane anecdotes such as myself. Anywho, I have decided to check back in to reality and life now and hope to get back into the habit, kick my lazy butt back in gear, and get on top of this blog again. Meanwhile life has gone on as usual around here... The kids continue to grow. Bree had a birthday this week and turned 4, and Noah will be 1 in July! And as usual, they alternately drive me crazy and/or make me laugh. There, now you're all caught up. Don't feel that satisfied you say? Okay, here's a few visuals to go along with that:


The birthday girl and her little helper.
As usual, Bree got totally spoiled this birthday. Just like last year, she got to have several parties, one in Idaho, we opened presents on her actual birthday, and another day had a few friends over for a birthday play date as well.


Showing off the new SpongeBob tennis headband and wristlets, which, I guess is a serious thing. We tried this year to get her things like games or outdoorsy type stuff, since she already has enough toys with small parts for Mommy to pick up!
Can't believe she's four years old already! Where has the time gone? It's just surreal...

And Noah's first birthday is in just a few weeks now! He's turned into a little ham, always laughing about some secret joke he seems to know.

...or making silly faces

The weather finally caught on to the fact that it's summer as well and we've been out enjoying it.
Here's Noah and I looking cool and chillin' at the park.

...and, of course, what would a picture narrative on this blog be without including one of Bree making a typical Brianna face. :)

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Dish Helper

As promised, here's pictures of my little dish helper lately. About time that kid started pulling his weight around here, although, not sure how helpful it is really, since he's all about unloading, even when the dishes are dirty! :)


Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Idaho

Okay so, we actually visited Idaho a few weeks ago, for Memorial Day weekend, but due to photo processing time and one lazy blogger lately, you're just now getting to see the pix from our trip.

We started out by meeting Trav's side of the family at their cabin for some outdoor fun...

Bree chillin' with Papa Roger


Although she had a total blast just getting to do outdoorsy stuff, (takes after both her parents that way), one of the highlights of the weekend for her was getting to play with the 4 wheeler.

Bree had never been on one and although her mom was a little nervous about her getting hurt, Papa Roger was very careful with her and she sure thought she was hot stuff getting to sit up there by herself once they got back from their ride.


And I had a lot of fun too getting to relax and take it slow.
Here I am on a mushroom hunt.


And here I am in the woods with a BB gun! Watch out! (Trav told me to look mean.)

Me and Noah hangin' out.


Of course, it wouldn't be a cabin trip without a campfire...


The end goal of that, of course, being a perfectly toasted marshmellow.

After that we headed over to see my side of the family.
Here's Noah enjoying a chocolate covered strawberry with Great Grandpa Jerry, who, if you ask me, Noah takes after quite a bit. All I see when I look at Noah lately is my Grandpa Jerry.


And that's Noah's Great Great Grandpa Arvad (the one on the left side) who's about to celebrate his 91st birthday. Pretty amazing huh that Noah gets to know his Great Great Grandpa?

Here's some cute pix of them together:


And to wrap it up I just wanted to share some landscape shots of the beautiful drive on the way through Idaho. I don't know what it is, I guess growing up there, the landscape just imprinted itself on my soul and I'm a bit of a romantic about it, I just love the land. And as much as I have loved the places I've lived, it just doesn't feel quite like home without rolling brown foothills and big outcrops of rock jutting out of the ground. It's a beautiful place...