What a Week

I've had such a week of thankfulness!  We started Thanksgiving festivities last Sunday with the Nuelle's and had the Jones whole family Thursday and my dad's Thursday as well.  Then Friday we had it with mom and Kevin, Saturday none and today we finished it up with the Jones family (this time with Nathan, Kacie and cute little Micah).  It was quite a busy week but great one getting to visit and see so much family.  We are so truly blessed to have all the wonderful family that we have, love them all! 

Noah has loved Thanksgiving as well because I think he has really enjoyed all the delicious meals.  He has had lots of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, however no pumpkin pie for the little man this year maybe next year.  He doesn't need a sweet tooth yet.  I'm a bad photo mom, I didn't get a single picture of Noah eating any of his meals.  It wouldn't really be that exciting but I still missed capturing it.  I guess I'm saving all my picture taking energy for Christmas.  Oh how I can't wait!  I did manage to get a few presents wrapped and under the tree, looks so much better that way and I just love, love the paper.  I will get a picture this week, maybe after I get a few more.  I'm expecting we will get a flood of packages by the end of the week. I ordered lots of presents this weekend online, so once they all come in we will have just a few more presents to pick out!

Kitchen Fun

Most nights while I'm making dinner I have to occupy  Noah as well.  Some nights it's more challenging than others but usually it's pretty much anything goes when it comes to what he can play with.  The tupperware cabinet is usually a good one to start with and lately with all the movement he has made his way to a few others.  Needless to say by the time I have got dinner almost ready, the kitchen floor is a wreck.  It's okay though it's neat to see him exploring and anything to keep happy.  

 He really knows how to spread things out!

 Got bored he decided to find something new

My little cutie, he had just pulled down the towel from the oven bar.

 Another crawling picture from a different day!  He just loves it!

Christmas Decorating

Yesterday we tried to decorate the tree as a family but before we started we had to introduce Noah to Vanilla Ice the Snowman. I have had him since college and I always love getting it out.  It never gets old.  Anyways the snowman has a big light up necklace that says ice and it sings/dances to Ice Ice Baby.  Well at first Noah didn't know what to think he just stared at it for awhile.

Then he decided to go check him out

 Not sure again, haha 

And in no time our smart little boy already figured out how to get him to sing, he found the magic button.  

Then we got the tree out and put it together.  Once it was up Noah could care less to touch it he just looked at it with a little confusion.  

 Thought about touching it but never actually did.  He gave up and....

 decided to go play, apparently setting up trees are boring.  If you look close he's quite far away from the tree. Pretty much the entire time we fluffed the tree he played in the hallway, bathroom and dining room.  He didn't have any interest what so ever in the lights.  I thought he would try to play with it but he didn't, not even the rest of day.  We will see what the next month brings, I'm sure eventually his curiosity will get to him.  

Of course after Noah had a nap and we decorated the tree we had to get some pictures for our Christmas cards and just for fun.  Here are a couple of ones we liked.

 Our Handsome little boy, who we couldn't love any more!

Love this time of year!

Okay, so I am so so soooo excited about decorating for Christmas tomorrow.  Matthew and I are both off so I wanted us all to do it together so it will be a perfect day.  I thought about doing it last night and the night before but really wanted Noah to be up so we could try to let him help (crazy I know).  Also I really wanted to get ours up a little early because I wanted the first  Christmas tree he sees to be ours.  I know he has seen Christmas stuff up a little bit here and there but it different than the ones at Kohl's and Walmart.  They aren't anything like people's home trees!  I'm sure I will get some pictures during and after the process with our little man!

  I am just so excited about having Noah around this year.  After Christmas 2 years ago I bought stockings and I bought 3 hoping that then next year we would have a little one that would use that stocking.  Noah was close last year but missed it by less than a month so finally this year I will get to put out that 3rd stocking.

Also I been waiting to start Christmas cards until we had a baby too, so I'm just pumped about everything this year!  I have been scoping out all the Christmas cards on Etsy (love so many) and trying to get it narrowed down.  Now that  I have it almost decided I need to take a few pictures to put on them!  Hopefully I will get those ordered by the end of the weekend.

Then there is Black Friday shopping this week.  I love shopping all the time but this week especially there isn't anything like getting a good deal, buying Christmas presents and just enjoying the event.  This stresses some people out but not really me.  Each year I wait for all the ads to be released on www.black-friday.net and check often to see what ones have been newly posted.  This year I was a little behind and a lot of them were up before I even checked for the first time.  But I have started my list of places to go and things I would like get.  Then I realized I have a little dilemma this year, I'm not on my own anymore, I will have my little man.  So I'm thinking this year I will go about shopping all differently, ONLINE!  At first I was thinking I could start at Toy's R Us in Champaign at 10p.m. on Thanksgiving, then Kohl's and Walmart in Effingham and try to be home by 7a.m.  when Matthew would need to start getting ready for work.  Then I realized I wouldn't be able to just go to sleep since I would have Noah to take care of all day .  So looks like I'm going to try and get everything online.  Toy's R Us has free shipping and it seems like you can get all the sales online and same for Kohl's and Walmart so instead of fighting lines, people, and spending time on driving I will just be sitting at home waiting for sales to start to put my order in and then that way I can sleep in between.  I'm quite excited about my plan and I did do that last year with a big ticket item for Matthew's dad so I have had it work out for me.  I might end up going to Walmart just because I think I need a little bit of the experience  since I do look forward to it so much, call me crazy, but I LOVE it!

I also cannot wait to buy presents because I want to get wrapping so bad!  I'm so excited about my paper theme/ color scheme this year.  Each year I try to get paper after Christmas for the following year so I have been waiting a long time to get this out.  Each time I see it in my basement storage room I get excited all over again.  Once I get some under the tree, I'll be sure to get some pictures up!  I'm not sure the presents will be able to stay under the tree this year but we will see what Noah tries to do.  Christmas items might have to be a little different this year. He started crawling just in time, I think he knew that new great things in the living room would soon be coming.

Anyways it will be a busy this week with decorating, Thanksgiving and shopping!  I hope everyone has safe travel, and some great time with their families!

Noah, Noah, Noah

Oh how we love our sweet little boy so much!  He never ceases to amaze me and make me laugh each day!  We just can't get enough of his fun and energetic personality.  He has really been in the walking mode this week, which is tiring to say the least.  He has been crawling more and more but that doesn't necessarily mean he is happy about it.  This week so far I have got a few pictures of just what he has been up to lately.  It's funny looking back at all the pictures we used to take they were always the same Noah just sitting, laying or smiling now all of them we take it's him doing things (so cool to see how much he's grown but crazy at the same time).

In the first half of the day the sun really shines in our windows and Noah had crawled over to get to where the sun was shining.  He sat up and started moving like he normally does when he is dancing to music and I realized he was watching his shadow move.  It was so funny, looking at his face as he was trying to figure out what was going on!

Noah really hasn't liked any stuffed animals before but lately I have got a few out of the tubs of stuff we have stored away for him and he actually liked some of them.  I got out Eeyore and said the name and hee-haw and kind of tickled him with it. He just started busting up laughing, and still does laugh when I talk like him.  Then we have been playing with Thing ( I think that's what it is anyway from Dr. Suess) and I just loved the face he was making as he looked at it.

Matthew was playing with his hair the other night after bath and it was funny that it was like a messy bad boy style and he happened to have his guitar rock star pajamas on.  So here is my little rockstar and his ornery smirk.

Last night Matthew was going to find a movie for us to watch on Netflix through the Xbox and Noah really wanted his controller so we got him one out.  He also happen to be about ready for a bath so I had just taken off his clothes.  As I saw them sitting there playing I couldn't help but capture this sweet father-son moment while looking at the TV with their controllers.  What's even worse is I think Noah realizes that these things change what is on the TV because he was watching it like he thought he was changing it. He does the same thing with the remote anytime I have it in the air he looks at the TV because he has it figured out that it changes what it looks like.  Getting so smart!

 Such a sweet face with mild hair!

The next morning with not so mild hair.  His hair is getting so long and out of control.  I can blow dry it down, gel it and by the end of the day or sometimes noon it will be sticking straight up again.  I think we will try to get it trimmed up a little soon but I still think it will stick straight up but at least it won't be so high.  We have been getting so many comments everywhere lately about his hair from tons of people we know and don't know.  

The crazy thing is, is that his picture doesn't actually show the extent of the craziness

 The back- Wild! There is nothing else to say about it

I keep forgetting to get the camera out when Noah is crawling, so that is next on the list to get!  Hopefully will have picture or video soon!

2 More First Today

Wow, Noah turned 10 months last Thursday and today he finally crawled.  He has been army crawling(if thats what you call it, the way he did it was really weird) for a little while now but today we had arms up and knees up, real crawling.  He didn't do it for long but I caught him this morning for the first time and he probably did it a little bit about 5 other times today.  So maybe if we can keep him on the floor a little this week and next he might really start crawling soon.  He still loves to walk so much and it's still about all he wants to do so I'm not sure if he will stay down long enough to really try and get it down but we will see.

Also today we brushed Noah's teeth for the first time.  He has had stinky breath on some occasions so I bought him a little toothbrush and baby toothpaste.  Now he is eating a lot more table foods so I'm sure that adds to the breath factor.  I videotaped it but didn't get any pictures while daddy brushed his teeth.  I will try to get some pics another night!

Oh, how life has Changed

Last night we went to Culvers to eat as a family, just the 3 of us.  It was nice we hadn't relaxed together lately so it was a nice little outing.   I hadn't ate all day because I was just stressed and busy and so I was hungry.  As we stood in line I thought about how I wanted a Butterburger but then I was thinking I should probably get something Noah could eat in case he wouldn't eat his sweet potatoes I brought for him.  Well since you have to wait just a little bit for food I got his sweet potatoes out and started feeding them to him before he saw our food. He ate them all but once our food came he immediately got super excited so I took a big chunk of chicken off my sandwich and set it aside for him.  I kept feeding it to him and he loved it.  Then when we got in the car to leave I was just thinking about how much our life has changed since Noah.  I was even thinking about him when I ordered my food.  Wow!  It doesn't bother me at all,I love it but it just amazes me at how much a baby really makes us grow up and have to become a lot less selfish!