On the road again

This past weekend, we made a flying trip down to Central Arkansas to do Easter lunch with my side of the family a week early, and then Jeff and I ended up going to the horse races on Saturday while Nanette and Papaw stayed with Noah. We didn't bring a Pack and Play with us because we figured he could just sleep in the bed with us and that would be fine....hmmmm, note to self, "Always bring a Pack and Play when traveling." Normally during the night when he's sleeping in his crib, he'll wake up a few times during the night and just roll over and go back to sleep on his own. Well, with him in the bed with us, when he'd wake up and see us, he thought it was playtime! So he'd crawl over to me and start crawling all over me and standing up and then he'd go over to Jeff and poke him in the face....you get the picture. And it was really difficult to get him to go back to sleep after that...needless to say, not the best 2 nights of sleep I've had in a while, but it was fun anyways.

I think Noah has already started to figure out that going to the grandparent's houses is kind of like Christmas. Pretty much every time he visits, there's new toys! Well the latest is his new Spiderman 4-wheeler, of course. What 9 month old doesn't need a Spiderman 4-wheeler? He's not quite big enough to ride it by himself, but I can totally see him getting into all kinds of trouble on this thing in the very near future....

Then it was off to the horse races for me and Jeff! We went with some of my cousins and had so much fun! The weather was awesome! We didn't win much, but we had a blast.

The Clydesdales were at the races....they're so pretty. I think I want one. Don't you think that would make a great addition to our family? 2 dogs, a baby and a Clydesdale....it could stay in the backyard with the dogs, no problem.

Then, on Sunday we went to church with Jeff's parents before heading off to our early Easter lunch and Egg Hunt.
It was a little too cold outside for Mr. Noah to hunt for eggs, but he was happy to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa while the big kids did.

It was a fun but tiring weekend. And by the looks of it, the little guy was exhausted too.

Me and my Chucks

What does every super cool, super cute, baby boy need? Why a pair of Chuck Taylors of course. Yeah, these are the ones with velcro, but we learned quickly, a wiggly 8 month old and shoelaces do not mix well. So what do you think? I think they got his approval....

Lessons learned

Noah's latest trick is blowing raspberries, spitting, making motorboat sounds....whatever you want to call it. He does it all the time....I mean ALL the time. It's really cute and it usually gets a laugh out of us which is why I'm sure he does it (I think we may have a class clown on our hands who LOVES all eyes on him). However, a few days ago he discovered he could do it while he was eating and spit food all over me, his high chair, himself and anything else within approximately a 1 mile radius. Well, you can see the mess he made....this first picture was taken mid-spit...

While this was cute the first time, after his 85th consecutive time to do it, I was not so amused. So when he'd do it, I'd say, "No" very sternly and try again, but he'd just smile, laugh and keep doing it. So I warned Tracy, my neighbor who keeps him during the day, to get out her rainjacket before breakfast the next day. So when I came to pick him up, she told me that she started feeding him and he spit his food all over her. She proceeded to tell him, "No, no, Noah". He just looked at her and his bottom lip slowly poked out in a pouty face. Then she gave him a couple more bites and he spit again. "No, no, Noah!" she repeated. And his lip started to poke out again and he let loose, started bawling, tears streaming down his face. So of course she comforted him and finished feeding and he didn't spit anymore. I figured once I got him home, it would be back to the same big mess at dinner, but he ate every bite without so much as sticking his tongue out and hardly even spilled a drop like such a big boy. I was so proud of that little stinker! And he hasn't done it since. But most of all, I think it's so funny that I can get on to him, and he could care less...he'd just laugh at me. But he sure didn't want Miss Tracy to get mad at him, it hurt his feelings! Guess we see where I rank! : )

I heart NYC....and baby teeth

Yesterday, we took Jeff to the airport because he had to go to New York this week for work. His company, Imperial Doors, makes custom doors for houses and he was going to do some work on some jobs they have going on in NY. Now for me, this sounds like so much fun! I've only been to NYC once, but I would love to go back!! Me and 2 of my best friends went a couple of summers ago and this was us taking a carriage ride around Central Park. Touristy?...yes. Did we care?....no. By this point in the trip we were so tired from all the walking, we were just glad to sit down and ride for a minute.

I don't think I've ever been so exhausted from a vacation as I was after that one, but it was worth it. We got to see so many of the things that I wanted to see...and it really helped after we mastered the subway system. It was a little daunting at first, but we discovered pretty quickly that we'd be broke if we took a cab everywhere and all that walking was for the birds!

So anyways, my point here is that I love NYC and to go and get to see some really cool, fancy NY houses would be so fun. But unfortunately, Jeff's not much of a big city guy....too much walking, too many people, total sensory overload for him. So he wasn't nearly as excited as I would have been. But I think he's having a good trip anyway (good for a work trip at least) and we're looking forward to him getting home!! I'm sure he's looking forward to it too, he made me promise to send him a picture of Noah every day. He tried to pack him up and take him along, but I figured with all the extra weight in the suitcase, it would cost him more to check his bag so we decided against it. : )

Speaking of the little stowaway, he is now officially the proud owner of 2 shiny new teeth. Yep, the 1st one had just barely popped through when we noticed the one right next to it coming through as well. Two in one week....must be part of the reason he's been a little crankier than usual...in addition to his ear infection. So now we've got 2 teeth and no pictures to prove it. He just won't let us get a good look at them. I can't say that I blame him, but I'd really like to get a picture of his cute little teethies before he's got a whole mouthful of them.

Happy Birthday!

Look at that mischievous little grin...he thought it was more fun to crinkle up the paper than to hold the sign, but he still wishes grandma a Happy Birthday today!!! Grandma came up a couple of weekends ago to watch Noah while Jeff and I had our first weekend away from him and they had lots of fun (and so did we) ! Thanks so much for watching him and being such a great grandma!!

Poor little guy is sick again with another ear infection and on his 3rd round of antibiotics. He just hasn't been himself the last couple of days and we can tell he really doesn't feel well at all. And his eyes are so puffy from crying and being so stuffed up....I'd do anything to take it away from him. But hopefully he'll get over all this stuff this time and start feeling better!

We all wish you a great birthday Grandma!!!

Pearly white...

Guess who just got their first tooth?? I'll give you a hint....he looks an awful lot like the cool guy in this picture and smells like a mixture of green beans, applesauce and diaper rash cream.

That's right!! Noah's first tooth is peeking through and we're so excited! You'd think he learned his ABC's or something the way I was carrying on when I found that tooth. But it's been a much anticipated arrival. Ever since he was around 3 or 4 months old, any time he'd go through a really cranky phase and cry and scream a lot (which was actually quite often), we'd say, "I think he must be teething. I bet he'll have some teeth coming through any day." Well, either that tooth just took a really long time to come in, or we were just making excuses for what was a normal crying baby. But either way, now it's here! I didn't get a picture of it because he wasn't real happy with us digging around in his mouth, but maybe in the next day or two I'll be able to...

Oh we're at such a fun stage right now. Noah's pretty much crawling everywhere now which is giving me a small glimpse into how much life is going to change in the next few months (whoa! how am I going to take a shower now? can't lay him on the bed, too big for the bouncy seat, don't want to leave him on the floor 'cause he's pulling open all the drawers...Yikes!!)

Well, I guess we have to go brush our little tooth now...is that what you do when there's only one of them? I don't even think we have a baby toothbrush....geez, for having a baby that's been teething for 6 months, you'd think we'd be a little more prepared.

Sick Day

Noah and I are both sick right now (this is the second time for me this winter...no fair) and Jeff's fishing all day today, so we've decided to take a sick day. That means staying in our pjs all day, doing nothing but watching tv, playing and sleeping. No work, no cleaning, no running errands...and I must say, it's been so nice. I made cookies earlier (it doesn't qualify as work if you get a yummy treat out of it) but that's really the only thing I've done today even worth mentioning. I finally had a chance to download all the pictures from my camera that were just sitting and piling up. I really need to get them printed...I'm terrible about letting them sit until I have hundreds of pictures to print all at once and that can get pretty pricey. I don't think I've printed pictures since Noah was about 2 months old. Yikes....But anyways, as I was looking through the pics, I found some cutes ones from a couple weeks ago when we went and got Noah's 6 month pictures made. He wore this super cute outfit that our friends Kevin and Sunni got for him....it's a little smocked outfit with fish on it.

When she gave us this outfit at one of my showers, Sunni said (in her adorable southern drawl) "Every little boy needs a smocked outfit!" And I agree. There's such a small window of opportunity when you can get away with putting them in an outfit like this, and you've got to seize it....they've got the rest of their lives to wear t-shirts and jeans!

And as you can see, he takes after his daddy...telling outrageous fishing tales...."That fish was THIS big! I couldn't believe it!" (And neither did we, but we'd never tell him that. wink wink)

I also love this picture of him in his little duck robe. No story about this one, just a cute little ducky...




And I feel like I should mention our poor doggies, they've really gotten the worst out of the aftermath of our ice storm. Several sections of our fence got demolished by some huge tree limbs that fell under the weight of the ice.





And since they normally stay outside in our back yard during the day, we've had to build a makeshift pen on one side of our house. There's still plenty of room for them to run back and forth, but not nearly as much room as they're used to having. They've been pretty good sports about it, except for this morning when they escaped and took off down the street. Needless to say, since this was my sick day, I was not too happy about having to deal with that. They eventually came back, but only after Belle managed to make it halfway up the neighborhood. Noah has really started to love the pups, and his face totally lights up when they're around and he reaches out for them to try to grab an ear or anything else he can get. I tried to get a cute shot of them the other night, but between one excited baby and two extremely hyper dogs, there was so much moving going on that they were all blurry.

Getting lots of doggie kisses!

I'm tired from all this playing...

I love Belle and Patch!!

Well, I guess I'll go eat some more of my yummy cookies and enjoy what's left of my sick day. Maybe I'll go to bed early...actually yes, that sounds like a great idea. And I'm still in my pjs so I don't even have to get ready....what a great day.