The Mirror Has a Million Faces

Brianna is a delightful little gal. She's talkative, bright, fun and also...somewhat of a drama queen. She has a wide range of emotions and isn't afraid to show them. And some days, like many 3 yr. olds, she expresses quite a lot of them and runs through them successively. :) She could be an actress with all her many facial expressions. And, with her dad being the shutterbug that he is, I think we have managed to capture most of them. I was looking through some of the recent photos and noticed all the varied faces we've gotten on film and thought you might enjoy. So here they are, the many faces of Brianna:

Delighted

Conspiratorial

Determined

Happy

Courtesy Smile

Content

Stubborn

Mischievious

Shocked

Sly

Smug

Loud

Joyful

Pleased

Aggressive

Disgusted

Silly

Angelic

Peaceful

Exuberant

Whiny

Thoughtful

Rebellious

Dreamy

And finally, after all that.....ASLEEP!

Noah News

At 5 weeks old Noah is already starting to fill out (yeah, that's an understatement), become more alert and has started showing a little personality. In the past few days he's hit an early milestone and has begun to smile as well, really smiling big smiles with his whole face. (And no, it's not gas, that's such a stupid idea anyways. Whoever came up with that idea, that babies smile when they have gas? Actually Noah seems to think having gas, burping, or any other bodily function regarding the intestinal tract is a major production and he grunts, groans, grimaces, cries, and generally gets cranky about it.) Course he's good natured anyways and seems to often have a little smirky face, like he knows a funny secret. But now, the kid's been really smiling. And, who do you think he smiles at most? That's right, he'll lovingly gaze up and smile beautifully at....the ceiling fan. Yep, apparently him and the ceiling fan are best buds because the kid smiles at it quite often. Who knows why? I mean, he'll also smile at Mom, Dad, or big sis every now and then but he loves the ceiling fan the best.

The other bit of news about Noah is that he's learned a trick..an amazing trick! Every now and then, just for fun, when he spits up he makes milk come out his nose..ta-da! Cool huh? He'll be so popular in the elementary school cafeteria some day. Actually, poor kid, he doesn't like when this happens and it makes him cough and sputter and the first time it happened I was like, "What the...?" But now it's just run of the mill stuff. You know, the kid smiles at the ceiling fan and squirts milk out his nose...that's just how he rolls.

Poster Boy

Wanted to share a few more photos of Noah. We had ourselves a little photo shoot the other day when he was looking cute...and he hammed it up...

This is his "pin-up" shot. Watch out ladies!

A close up of Mr. GQ...

check out that "Oh yeah, I'm cool" hand behind the head action. :)


Don't you just love the shirt?

Between the smile...

...the big blue eyes and the pinchable cheeks, Mommy thinks he's the poster boy for adorableness! (Not biased at all am I?)

Aawww...what a pair. Aren't I lucky?

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Some new one-liners from Bree that have tickled our funny bone around here:

• After opening up a can of yellow play doh..."Ew! This looks like baby poop!" ('Cause for those of you who don't know. Nursing babies' poo is often a yellow color..aren't you glad you know that now?!)



• When Noah stopped nursing a minute to stare up at his big sister sitting next to us, "Hey, why did he let go of his milk?"



• Upon being asked how her corndog tasted her response was, "Corndoggy" (Like duh! I wonder when she figured out you can add a y to the end of some words and turn them into adjectives.)



• After seeing Daddy's new haircut, pointing, laughing and going "Haha! Look at Daddy's crazy hair!"

• "Holy Guacamole!" (Her new favorite expression, from one of her favorite books Skippyjon Jones.)

• "I don't want a brother I want a sister!"

Mini Me's

It's so interesting, as you have children, to sit and stare at them and find your own features staring back at you. When Brianna was born everyone said, "Oh, she looks just like you!" and my family said, "She looks just like your baby pictures!" It's true...she does resemble me pretty strongly in a lot of ways. But then Noah came along and in a kind of funny way he almost looks more like me than Bree does. I think it's in the nose mainly. Bree's got a more Taylor nose and Noah got mine. It's not just me who thinks so either. We've had visitors come see Noah and immediately say, "Oh, he's got your nose Beth."(Actually we've gotten alot of this too, "He's such a boy. He's just all boy. Beth, he looks just like you!" Which I suppose I could decide to take offense to but instead just amuses the heck out of me.) So, anyways, to amuse myself I dug up some of my baby pictures to compare to my kids. Judge for yourself!

Okay, this is me at around 2.

and Bree.

Me again... (as if you can't tell from the dress and background. Groovy baby!)

Bree.

Now for the Noah comparisons:

Here's me at 2 months or so....

..and Noah at 1 month old.

Me...

And Noah. Now you tell me, who does my son look like? :)

This is me and my baby brother...

And now Brianna with Noah.

Okay, they're not carbon copies, they are their own people, but they're my children for sure! This is not to imply that Travis made no genetic contribution but since I have way less baby pictures of him to use for comparison, and since I write the blog then I get to have all the fun.

No Smoking Please!

It's been really bad lately since it's been so super smoky here that it's not even safe to play outside at all. Seriously, check out this photo Trav took the other night:

Now, this has not been photo-edited at all to change the color or anything. It's so smoky that you can't even see the mountains and it's a yellowish haze all the time.

You can see for yourself via satellite as well.... smoke over Montana. I guess there's a hundred thousand acre fire going on in Idaho and several smaller ones in Montana itself and we get all the gunk and haze our way.

So, we've been stuck inside driving each other crazy with cabin fever. Guess it's time to break out good ol' Twister or something eh?

Big Sister Bree

It's been a month now that Bree's been a big sister. This whole baby brother thing is a big adjustment for our little Bree and she seems to be handling it pretty well. She calls Noah, "my baby," and when he cries she'll say, "Mom, why is my baby crying?" and so on. Actually, she really likes to be the big helper. For one thing, she likes to help change his diaper. Today he woke up from a nap crying and she asked my "Why is my baby crying?" Then she said, "Uh-oh. Maybe he peed."


"Good idea," I said, "We should change his diaper."
"Mom, can I help change my baby?" she asked.
"Sure," I said, "Let me show you how we do it."

So, there we were together on the living room floor changing his diaper together. Brianna watched very carefully. And at first Noah wasn't too happy about what we were doing. He cried pretty hard for a few minutes. Briannna clapped her hands over her ears and said, "I'm covering my ears. He's crying loud!" Soon enough she was back in the thick of it though. She gently grabbed one of his flailing arms and told me, "Mom, I'm holding his hand!" Then it was, "Mom, can I wipe his butt too?" "Okay," I said, "Just wipe it very gentle." So, she took a wipe and very carefully patted his tiny rear. It was pretty cute.


When she's not helping take care of Noah then she's taking care of one of her own babies. Playing dollies has been a renewed favorite since her brother was born. The other day she informed me, "Mom, see this baby? This one came out of your belly and it's a new brother!" She changes the dollies diapers often and can frequently be seen "nursing" one of them...sitting on the couch, Boppy around her waste and some dolly's head shoved up her shirt while she makes smacking noises, much to my amusement.

It's also amused me to hear her repeat a few of the things she's heard visiting adults say about Noah. Sometimes she'll walk up to him, giggle and then say, "I'm just laughing because he's so cute!" Or, in lieu of that she'll casually remark, "He's the cutest thing I've ever seen!" Both of these little gems make me smirk since they arent the typical 3 yr. old comments about a new baby brother, but I think it makes her feel like a big girl to be saying some of the same things the Aunties, friends, or Grandma's have said.


That's not to say we haven't had our moments of sibling jealousy and so on but overall I really have to say I think she's handling the whole thing beautifully.

Getting to "Noah" You

(Like the title? ..I'm so punny)

Okay so, in the past I've really tried to make each post an interesting, perhaps humorous, little story about Brianna that really lets you know about WHO she is as a person, how her little personality is developing, and the things she's figuring out as she gets older. (Although, lately the blog's been getting to be more and more like a laundry list of things we've done or people who've visited or just a lot of pix with not a lot of substance. But, I mean, give me a break people. In the last few months I've only moved across the country, been pregnant, and given birth. Geesh! :P) And, now that we also have Noah to talk about I'm looking forward to sharing all the same fun stuff as he grows, the coloring on the walls, saying funny little stuff as he learns to talk, etc. So far though, even though he's been here a whole month already (can you believe it?) I haven't had much to share about him. I mean really, here's the whole scoop: He eats, he sleeps, he cries sometimes, he fills his diapers. TA-DA! Feels just like you've been here the whole time huh?

But, he is starting to show some of his personality a little bit. And he's definitely a different baby than his sister was. So I thought I'd tell you a little bit about him...

For one thing he's very laid back little guy. He only really cries when he needs to eat, or when he's got gas or has to burp (and you'll know if either of the last two has happened. The kid is not shy about his bodily functions..maybe since he's a boy). Or, sometimes he cries when he's on his changing table. He usually smiles and kicks around on the changing table (and often plays peepee target practice on Mommy, that really makes him smile) but there are times when he manages to get his hand through the little side rail and his fingers wrap around one of the bars. Then he can't figure out how to get his hand back and it makes him mad...I'm pretty sure he thinks someone is pulling on his hand and won't let go....Other than that he hangs out and likes to stare at his surroundings.

He's a snuggler too. He likes to be snuggled up next to someone to sleep mostly. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's already spoiled in that department seeing as he's had family here to cuddle him pretty much every minute of every day since he's been born.

Let's see..he looks good in blue since he's got big blue eyes...which is a good thing because he's gotten gifts of blue clothing from about a million people.

Um, well, that's about it. You know as much about him now as I do. Yep, you're all caught up to speed...it's a high speed life over here as you can tell. Oh yeah..something crazy always happening.....oh yeah...superfly over here....always a party...ooops, I'm off to change a diaper, the excitement never ends!

Twice as Nice

Our attempt at getting a good shot of the two kids together:

It took awhile to get them set up ... Here's me trying to get them in a good pose. Oh, and you can see my new haircut in this shot too. I cut a bunch of it off...too hot and too time consuming for a Mommy of two!

Bree giving Noah a squeeze.

Check out Brianna's smile in this one. I call this her "shark smile" (lots of teeth showing and kind of scary) and it usually happens right before she's about to do something kind of naughty. She seems to give Noah the shark smile quite a bit but then usually just pats his head or kisses him afterwards, much to my relief.

Hanging out..but both refusing to look at the camera...

Noah's impression of Friar Tuck. Man, look at the double chin he's developing!

Our best shot and about as good as it gets with a preschooler and a newborn.

Both tuckered out by their intense photo shoot....

:)

One Chubba Bubba

Wanted to show you a few more recent pix of the little man. Even though he's only 3 weeks old or so, he's changed so much from his first few photos he doesn't even look like the same kid... check out those cheeks!