NO Fear

As much grief as Noah gives me about going to swim, putting on his swim suit, playing in the sprinklers, he had an absolute blast swimming in Grammy and PaPa's pool.  To say this child has "no fear" of the water would be a serious understatement.  And, although Noah took swim lessons all summer, he never really mastered the whole floating on your back thing, so he never advanced to any higher levels of swim.  He can't swim, but he is tall.  So, once he's in the pool, he can pretty much touch in most places.  He is also pretty good at treading water and getting his head above in the deep end.  To quote his swim teacher, it's not pretty, but he gets it done.  So, several days at my Mom's, in between some rainy weather, Noah went for a swim.  And, for the record, for a Momma to put on a bathing suit six weeks postpartum and jump in a freezing cold pool, well, that's love little boy.   

Zachary and Seth joined in the swimming fun.

Here is the hot tub that connects to the pool.

Here is how Noah stood on the hot tub before jumping into the pool.

And the jump...

Loving every minute of it.

The big splash.  He had so much fun, and he must have jumped about 20 times.  A few times he would come up and say, "ouch, my foot."  He was hitting the pool bottom when landing in the pool.  I think he figured it out around jump 5 and adjusted his dismount. Fun times!

Arm-itis

My kiddos and I made our first road trip to Louisiana.  I have to say that I am so blessed with such awesome car riders.  Emma was a rock star on her first road trip, and we only had to stop once.  Noah, of course, continues to be a great traveler, and he watched a little video, played a little iPhone, but mostly just listened to the radio.  This trip it was All You Need is Love: Beatles Songs for Kids  that played on repeat.

  Everyone was very anxious to meet Baby Emma, so without further adieu, here are ALL the pictures of everyone holding Baby Emma. 

Addendum: Emma was also held by Grammy, Pa Pa Harold, Aunt Mo, Aunt Sarah, and Parrain Uncle D. No pictures were taken. Except for some of Parrain Uncle D, but he hates the Internet, needed a haircut and was shirtless, so I figured I'd spare him.

Great Grand - Ma Ma Ellen and Emma

I think Ma Ellen wins the award for most looking forward to meeting Emma.  She came over to my mom's house every day and was perfectly content to sit and hold little Em while she napped.  I think the record was about 2.5 hours.  Let's just go ahead and call her the baby whisperer. 

Great Grand - Ma Ma Gladys

Brooke and Emma

Katie and Emma

Morgan and Emma

Zachary and Emma

Seth and Emma

Caroline, Harrison and Emma

Grandpa, Grandma and Emma

Do These Make Me Look Smarter?

Today Noah grabbed Grammy's glasses, her earmarked Sudoku book, and a sharpened pencil.  He started walking around the house saying, "I'm the librarian."  Pretty cute, little man.  Although you do look a bit like Harry Potter. 

The Circus Parade

Noah just finished up a three week summer camp.  It was at his regular school.  I signed him up to give him a little consistency during the crazy, "you have a new little person living in your house" part of summer.  Lucky for us, Emma arrived a bit early, so she wasn't quite as little as should would have been starting the commute into town.  I considered this a bit of a trial run for school starting in the fall.  I am proud to say that we were only slightly late once... today, and I was able to get everyone dressed and out the door in a semi-organzied fashion.  There was that one day I wore lounge pants, a ponytail, no make-up and I may or may not have brushed my teeth, but again... it was just the one time, so I will give myself an A+ for summer school.  Emma gets an A too.  She proved to be an excellent car rider, and we spent most of our mornings either running a couple of errands or mall-walking.  Oh yes, Emma and I have become mall walkers.  It is way too hot to be outside.  And, quite a few other people over the age of 80 agree with me. 

I think Noah enjoyed getting out of the house and seeing some of his old friends.  According to his teacher, Noah was the most popular kid in class.  All the other kids wanted to play with Noah, and towards the end of the session, Noah started to take an interest in them.  He did great during circle time and music and answered all questions asked of him... and even those that weren't.  Keeping a quiet mouth and taking turns while talking is definitely an ongoing skill for Noah.  He wasn't a big fan of water days, and there were a few fights with Momma over putting on his bathing suit.  By the end of the three weeks, both the teachers and I decided to just forget about swim participation.  I mean it is summer after all. 

Today was the final day of camp and since the theme was circus, the kids ended the day with a circus parade.  Noah's class were the clowns.  Noah did such a good job walking the halls with his class. He was really surprised to see me there watching.

After the parade, we followed the students into music.  Noah was a bit distracted to particpate, but I know for a fact that he loves Mr. T, his music teacher.  Look how fun he is... what's not to love.

Ms. A, Noah's teacher did a great job this week.  And, was happy to give me a full report on all the fun Noah had.  She said his favorite part of the morning was dressing weather bear.  I'm pretty sure weather bear hung out in shorts and a t-shirt all week.  Not much weather variations in this TX heat.

Noah did a great job today!  Ms. A said he was the only student in his class to wear all his clown gear.  Way to go Noah!  Momma hopes the red nose and cheeks are washable. 



Emma had fun too.  Can't you just see how proud she is of her big brother.

Emma - One Month Old

It's about time for an update for Miss Emma Lou.  At six weeks old, she is continuing to earn the status of... Best. Baby. Ever. She's eating well, sleeping well, and pretty much goes with the flow.

She has started to have a fussy time between the hours of 6-10 PM. This is unfortunate since it coincides with bedtime for big brother. And, since Daddy doesn't usually make it home in time for bedtime. Momma is still working out the kinks on keeping one kid quiet and getting one kid to sleep.

Emma is such a great sleeper, and at just six weeks she's already given me five hours straight. Consistently, she goes down anywhere between 10-11 PM, up to nurse anywhere from 3-4 AM, and again around 5-6 AM. She goes back to sleep, and usually isn't ready to eat again until after we've dropped Noah at school.

Have I mentioned she's a speed eater. When Noah was an infant, he would totally set-up shop and hang out on my boob all day if I'd let him. This little one. She's in, she's out, and she's all... burp me Momma, I'm done. It usually takes her 5-6 minutes per side, and I usually end up covered in milk the process. I was worried she wasn't eating enough, but at her recent one month check up, she weighed in at a 9 pounds, 9.5 ounces (over a pound more than Noah at one month) and measured 23 inches. That's the 60% for weight and the 95% for height. The pedi commented that she's been pretty consistent in growth and that she seems to be a very healthy baby. I did have the doctor check to see if she was getting a flat head from all the time she spends in her car seat. He humored me and found no signs of plagiocephaly. Awesome.

Her hair is still dark, and she hasn't really lost a lot.  Although, I do think her head is growing faster than her hair.  She also seems to have inherited the same cowlick as Noah although it probably won't be as much of an issue once her hair gets longer.  Here eyes are starting to lighten, and it looks like they may start leaning a bit more towards blue.  Her awake time is increasing, and it usually falls in late afternoon. She is all eyes on big brother then, and I think we can check the developmental milestone, "follows rapidly moving objects with her eyes." 

Reason No. 1,523 Why I Love this Little Boy

This is how Noah posed for his full body clown tracing at school. Can you say laid back?



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The Circus Pencil

Noah arrived at the circus pencil free. About halfway through the first part, he started asking for one. I unfortunately did not have one in my purse. He started eyeing the pendant of the little boy sitting next to us. And although I reminded him repeatedly, "that's not for you." I wasn't quite quick enough when he finally decided to make a grab for it and knocked about three heads of people in the row in front of us. Daddy decided to head to the souvenir counter to see if they did indeed sell circus pencils. They did not. Not one to come back empty handed, Daddy showed major creative prowess. Any guess what this is? It's the stick out of the candy apple sold at the concession stand. Ingenious, Daddy! And, now to Noah, it's his circus pencil. The circus pencil now joins the elite ranks of all the pencils (among literally hundreds that litter our home) that are requested by name. The zoo pencil. Purchased this year on a school field trip. The Mickey Mouse rainbow pencil. Purchased at a gift shop at the Magic Kingdom. The race car pencil (which is actually a Family Guy pencil...not sure about this one). Given to Noah at the dentist after having his first cavity filled. The pink sparkly pencil. Because really, what's not great about that. And now, the circus pencil. Thanks Daddy for your quick thinking. You made one little boy super happy.




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First Smile

Emma gave me her first real smile today.  I rushed to grab my camera which incidentally is not as fun to look at as Momma.  So, please excuse the off center shot.  I'm looking forward to many more of these happy moments.  Yay for baby milestones!



More Roller Coaster Fun

What's the point of a fun new toy if you can't share it with your friends?  So, we invited over our friends, and the kids took a ride. 

Henry.  Head down ready for action.

Molly.  Holding on for dear life.

Sara.  Loving the thrill of the ride.

Jackson. Aaaahhhh!

Michael.  Woo Hoo!  This is fun!

And, what better after a hot ride than cooling off with some yummy popsicles.

Delicious!

Down Down Baby, Down by the Roller Coaster

A couple weekends back, Daddy, with Grandpa's help, finally had the time to put together Noah's big birthday present.

It's a roller coaster.

And, Noah was super suprised to see it.

He couldn't wait to take a ride on it.

Woo Hoo!

That was fun!

Wait a minute. What's that over there?

Check out this big box.

If this isn't typical kid behavior...

Sometimes the box is almost as fun as the gift itself.

Under the Big Top

The circus is in town.  Ringling Brothers to be exact, and since I recently read, "Water for Elephants," and am now a circus expert, I knew we couldn't miss the show.  Coincidentally, Noah's summer camp the past couple weeks has been a circus theme, so I have a feeling Noah thinks of himself as a bit of a circus expert also.    He did inform me each and every time today when I told him that we were going to the circus that he did not want to go.  Well, we went anyway.  And, from the start it looked like a good time was going to be had.  Before we even showed our ticket at the door, we bought a huge colored-picture program and a photo with an elephant, which started out like this...

And for just 20 bucks, ended up like this.

We took our seats and Noah spent much of the first half watching like this.

After intermission, he got really into it.  How cute is this?

We will go ahead and count this as Baby Emma's first major outing.  She stayed true to form and was a perfect angel, sleeping through almost the entire thing.  She did cry in the car the whole way home, but it could have just been her way of making up for the drastic difference in sound level from the circus to our car.

We even were able to get our first family picture.  And, thanks to Dean's new phone with the front camera, Noah has the best smile.  Where's Baby Emma you might ask?  She's snuggled in carrier being squished a bit by big brother. 

At the end of the show, I asked Noah, "did you like the circus?"  He responded, "I do so like the circus."  Yay!  A success!