Our latest family photos

One day I'm gonna be a photographer....one day. A couple of years ago I bought a slightly fancy camera thinking that was all I would need to take fabulous pictures. But once I realized, nope, it wasn't the camera, then I started to seek out photography lessons. I took a couple of classes and figured that would be all I would need to start my professional photography business. But, nope, that wasn't it either. I think I lack that "creative" part of your brain that allows you to visualize and take a great picture and the only thing I can think of that might help out with that is just more practice. Or more lessons. Or a more expensive camera. : ) But until then, I just ask my good friend Jenny Marrs to take some pictures for us and let her do the "creative" work. She's so good and I would totally recommend her if you're looking for a photographer. Plus, she's great with kids which was awesome because Noah was having one of those days where he didn't want to do anything we asked him to do and he sure didn't want any part of taking pictures. But he was excited to go to the pumpkin patch. And Jenny did such a great job of capturing some special moments with our family. I couldn't figure out how to copy any of the pictures on my blog, so you can check out her blog post here.

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

Christmas Cards!!! Oh how I love them. I love planning our family Christmas cards each year and I love receiving others' in the mail. And my favorites are all the photo cards. I think they are such a great way to send a picture of our family to all of our friends and family that we don't get to see as often as we like. Although I usually wait until the last minute and have to rush around trying to find a picture that I like enough to put on our card and make sure I order it in time to send them out before Christmas! But this year, I am on the ball. We already had some family photos made and I have some of them in mind that I can't wait to use.

I am planning on using Shutterfly this year for our holiday cards. I have used them in the past for everything from printing photos to wall calendars. They also do wall art...how great would a big canvas picture be as a Christmas gift for someone? Or if you're having a New Year's Eve party, they even have invitations for those. And guess what? Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers. So if you have a blog and would like some free cards, all you have to do is sign up here. That is such a great deal and with the huge selection that they have, there's no need to look anywhere else! I can't wait to get my Christmas cards finished and start mailing them out to family and friends.

A couple of videos

I know I've had a lot of videos on the blog lately, but I love how easy it is to just whip out the little flip video and record a few minutes whenever Noah's doing something funny or cute. And I can't tell you how many times I've had to sit in front of the computer playing video after video for Noah of himself. He loves watching the ones from when he was a baby and laughs so hard at some of them...it's pretty cute. But anyways, here are a couple from this week.

The first one is of him singing Happy Birthday. A week ago was Pop's birthday and we tried and tried to get him to sing it, but he never would. Then a few days later, he just started randomly singing it and I was able to catch it on camera. So this one's for Pop.

This one is of Noah singing his ABC's. Now this is something he's been doing for a while, but has really gotten good at in the last few weeks but of course will never do when you ask him to and definitely not on camera. But he was in his room singing along to his keyboard with his microphone and I snuck the camera in. A few things to I want to point out about this video:

1. He sang the song all the way through with the microphone once before I could get the camera. But I guess this time, he got tired of using it and decided to use the "Walk around the room while singing" approach.

2. He has the hiccups while he's singing.

3. He says "yaaayy" for himself at the end...probably because that's what we always say when he finishes singing it.

4. At the beginning of the video I accidentally opened one of those recorded birthday cards from Noah and Jeff that was laying on his floor and that's why you hear "Happy Birthday Mama" in the background....it's a weird distraction I know but luckily it didn't distract Noah enough to finish his song. : )

5. Please excuse the mess in his room. I would like to say it doesn't normally look like that, but sadly it does. He has too many toys...I would like to throw most of them out the window, but for now they reside on his bedroom floor.

Trick or Treat!

Halloween this year was a success!! And just in case you can't detect the surprise in my voice, I was not expecting it to go so well. It's literally a fight every morning just to get Noah to get dressed in his clothes, so I honestly had no expectations of him putting on his costume and going trick or treating this year. I figured we'd try to put it on him, he'd say no and cry and that would that. But when he found out candy was involved....ohhh it was a different story. And for the record, he was not impressed with his Scooby Doo costume (I actually don't think he's ever watched a Scooby Doo cartoon) so we convinced him that he was dressing up like our dog Patch and he thought that was awesome. So when people asked him who he was, he of course told them he was Patch. He was a little shy about going up to the doors at first, but by the end of the night he was running up to each house, ringing doorbells and saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank You!".

He didn't want to put the Scooby head on (I think it was a little tight and bothered him) so when he would run to all the houses, that head just bounced and bounced. It was the funniest sight.

I must say that probably the only reason he was brave enough to go up to the first house was because his good buddies went with him and showed him how it worked. So a big thanks to Shae, Gabby, Kade and Kenzie. But once he watched the pros in action for a while, he really figured it out and could've gone on all night by himself! Except for the fact that he started getting really tired at the end and we had to carry him in between houses. He had such a great time...and so did we! Jeff and I both realized how much more fun Halloween is when you get to share it with a little one. We didn't go trick or treating last year so this was the first "official" time. And you should have seen how excited he was when it was time to go home and eat some candy. I think it's safe to say he thought that was the best night ever!!

The day before Halloween...

...is a very special day because it's Pop's birthday!! We were supposed to be heading down to visit him for his birthday, but unfortunately that trip didn't work out. So even though we're not there to celebrate with him, we want to wish Pop a very, very happy birthday! We wish we could be there, but since we're not, we of course have a little video from your very favorite little guy. Actually, there are a couple of them....it can be difficult to get a 2 year old to do what you ask him to on camera. Hope you enjoy them Pop! We love you and hope you have a great birthday! And hopefully the Hogs will have a big win in honor of your big day too. : )

Trip to the corn maze

Well, it's Fall and that can only mean one thing....time to go to the Pumpkin Patch! We had Mimi and Pop in town last weekend and decided that would be a great opportunity to go to the Corn Maze since we had never been. First of all, let me say that we had a good time, but paying to walk around lost in a cornfield with a 2 year old might be a little over-rated. Anyways, after we did the maze, we headed over to pet the goats. I wasn't sure how interested Noah would be in petting the goats, but he wanted to go in there with them. Luckily we got there early so there weren't too many people in the pen yet, because once it started getting crowded, I saw one of the goats start to get a little feisty....that's the last thing we need.

They also had a big jumphouse set up that day. I don't think it's something they have all the time, but we were lucky enough to be there on the day it was. I'm not a big fan of these things...they always seem to be very chaotic and I'm afraid Noah will get jumped on (or even worse, that he will be the one jumping on someone else). But we let him go in, and of course he loved it!

After that, it was time for the cow train that he had been talking about since we got there. Now normally, Noah is very cautious and reserved in new situations. I figured he would love the cow train from a distance and then as soon as we got close enough to actually get in it, he would cling himself to me or Mimi and not let go until we assured him that he didn't have to get in it. That's the way it usually goes. Oh but how my little baby is growing up. He ran over there, hopped in the train and wouldn't even think about letting me ride in it with him. There were lots of other moms riding with their kids so I figured I'd get in with him or he would freak out. Oh no, he wasn't having any of that. I put my foot in that thing and he told me, "No mama, get out." So he buckled up, gave us the thumbs up (which for some reason he does with his pointer fingers?) and took off.

Riding off into the sunset on the trusty old cow train....

I even got a little video of him. Notice he won't acknowledge my presence. He just looks at me like, "Mom, seriously? You're embarrassing me. I'm trying to ride the train and be cool and you keep following me around taking pictures." Sigh...

Happy Birthday Nanette!!

Tomorrow (Friday) is Nanette's birthday and we sure hope she has a wonderful day!! Noah and daddy have a little song they'd like to sing to wish her the best birthday ever. We love you Nanette!