All Smiles

Noah has eight teeth now. And he's not at all shy about the camera. Could you tell?

Rub a Dub Dub

Cutie in the tub
Posing for the camera
Sooo cute
Woah, wild man

A Week in Pictures

(Click on any picture to enlarge)
First, with mashed potatoes on his face (and hands):

In his new froggie towel from Gigi and Papa

"I LOVE crackers"

Up to no good ...but so stinkin cute...

Check out my new shoes!

Noah and Daddy at the Beach --click on pix to see his expression!

Noah and Momma

Look what Mom let me do while Dad wasn't watching! ...am I gonna get in trouble for this?

January may be the month of the Perfect Game

So it's WELL into January and this is my first real blog posting, other than posting pictures post- Holiday. (I have a few Alphabet Soup letters to catch up on!) So far, I have successfully written 2008 on all my checks but will skip posting any personal New Year's Resolution Mumbo Jumbo, because that's what it always is for me. But here's a few that Matt and I are working on together:

Return of the Date Night--tonight is our first. We're heading to Olive Garden and probably a movie, although neither of us have a clue of what's in theaters now, so we'll have to wait and see about that one. We have been able to steal away approx. one night a month since Noah joined us, and we're determined to up that to at least twice a month. One that we're willing to pay a babysitter for, and the other, hopefully a free night out.

Return of the Noah-in-his-own-bed-all-night--we are currently on Night 5 of our new mission, and have seen slight improvement, but no major break throughs until...tonight may be the unmentionable in baseball broadcasting--(for you girls, the no-hitter/"perfect game" that you don't talk about but start holding your breath for in the 5th or 6th inning.)

Devotional Book together. Matt usually hates these because they're often so cheesy, but I think he secretly admits that it helps us have something to discuss together, and he acts very cooperative this year. We'll see how long that lasts!

Decluttering our House one room at a time. Such a needed activity.

In Noah News:

In the last month, Noah has been up to the following shananagans:

**Learned how to walk. And yes, he is now ALL over the house. If I thought he was starting to be adventurous before Christmas, he is into EVERYthing now.

**Plays "Hide N Seek" with Daddy. Matt will egg on N to follow him, and then he'll run to a little corner of the house and call to Noah to come find him. Noah just giggles and giggles as he "toddles" after "Dada."

**Learned how to throw a ball. And when I say throw, i do mean THROW. No little pitter pat/ rolling the ball to you. He launches it now. Occassionally it still goes behind his head, but usually, you better watch out or it may hit you in the face. (because he gets so excited he walks right up to you and then throws it-point blank-right at you.)

**Also, he GRUNTS everytime he throws it. "Uhhghgh!" Soooo funny. It's kind of like a football hike, it has so much force behind it. When he's not throwing a ball, he's practicing his throwing arm, like a quarterback on the sideline. (right arm is showing more promise, finally).

***Sneaking into the laundry room, after the cat. He knows he's not supposed to go in there, so he'll walk to the door, look around to see if you're watching him, and if you are- step by step, he'll INCH in BACKWARDS with this little sheepish ear-to-ear grin you can see from behind the paci. I kid you not. So hard not to laugh at. Also, so sweet, look what I caught on camera. He took his cheerios into the laundry room and placed them right in the cat's food bowl.

And then...right after that...


**He is ALL in to "containers"--putting things into other things. Balls into cups, toys into boxes, balls/paci/measuring spoon into his ball machine, etc. He especially likes to place his paci in strategic places. Ie: photo above, dog's water bowl, ball machine tube, I even found one in the fridge door. The above pictures are LIVE, NOT a ReDramatization. Speaking of placing things in containers...

**Phone in toilet. Twice. Thankfully it is "Noah's phone"--our old one, that no longer works, but it looks just like my real one, so I am keeping my fingers crossed and not laughing too hard at this activity just yet.

Well, that's not all he does lately to entertain me, but that's all for now. It is 5:24 a.m. Saturday morning, and I need to head back to bed. I'm only awake because I've gotten used to waking every 2 or 3 hours with Noah and am not used to what's going on 5 and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep for him. In fact if this goes another half hour, (yes, 6 whole hours) I will consider this the very first night he has "slept through" since he was like 4 months old. Woohoo!

Noah's A Walker

Here's a video from our Christmas trip. I know it's a bit dark, but I think he goes further in this clip than any other I have. You can view more on youtube.com. Search for videos by mayjayhay.

Big Boy

Ooops! I forgot to post these photos on Thur.!

Here's Noah's 10 month photos! I know what you're thinking: "He looks SO big!". It's kinda scary, isn't it? When we first started taking these photos, we could barely prop him up against the red pillow, and his head was waaaay down near the bottom. Now we can barely get him to sit in the chair long enough to snap a few. He stands up, bounces back and forth, and forGET having him hold the card. My whole goal now is just getting ONE photo that is readable. While I type this, Noah is sitting on the floor near my feet opening and closing the portable DVD player he got for Christmas. He wants to HOLD the machine in his lap. Funny.

Post Christmas Post

We're back! And we've got tons of photos and videos to share!

I've been away from the blog scene for nearly 2 weeks. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years with family. Sorry I wasn't able to post pictures while we were away at my parents. I forgot to bring the memory card reader again :-( . I decided that a blog post from me is not much if it doesn't have pictures to accompany it. I checked email a few times, but it was nice to have a bit of a vacation from the internet as well. Because I like to be thorough and because I have a nearly-10-month-old son pulling at my leg, my recap may take a few posts. I'll try to keep it brief. I wonder how many pictures I can post each time?

First, we spent Sunday, the 23rd, here in town and enjoyed our very first "Christmas" together as a family. Noah "opened" presents from his Gigi and Papa and Uncle J and Aunt J. He got some clothes, books, stuffed animals, and a Busy Ball Popper. His favorite thing was to tear apart the tissue paper and stick stuff in the gift bags, then dump it, then do it again. He also got a cute little suit outfit from Grandma Salter/Esther, pictures to follow soon. Here are a few from Noah's first Christmas night.

(By the way, he wasn't sure what to think of the Grinch at first. The first couple photos I took, he looked real scared!)

The next 8 days flew by. Well, to be honest and specific, the first and last days (travel days) couldn't have dragged by any slower. But the 6 days in the middle while we were in NE were great. We had a great time visiting my family. We have really been looking forward to seeing them and also just to get away from town for a vacation. My dad and brother hadn't seen Noah (or us) since July. For being in "the middle of no where" as they actually call it in Ainsworth, (population: 1700?) we sure kept ourselves busy. My parents tried to plan a few things we could do, and that was a nice surprise, because I expected to stay at the house the whole time.

Christmas was spent inside, opening presents, playing games, and of course eating--a wonderful meal of ham and the fixings.

My parents and brother and sister got Noah several really cute toys that he could play with while we were there, which was great, because I didn't bring him any! The next day we went out in the snow with Noah for the first time, (not overly thrilled with the cold, but he did love the ball pit at my parents' church' nursery!)

That evening we went on an outing to an Indian Casino about an hour 15 away, just over the border of South Dakota (Matt went to 3 new states while we were there!). The big draw? An rib-eye dinner buffet for 12 bucks. It was good, but the best part was driving in our sweet rental, an extended Dodge Dakota. (no pix:-( Thur. we went out to someone's cattle Ranch and spent the afternoon four-wheeling through cows herds/terds in the snow. Then enjoyed another great meal of potato soup and biscuits, cheese and crackers. See a trend here? It was a couple from my parents' church and very sweet of them to invite/host us. Friday the girls made gingerbread houses-- a new tradition?--and the field trip was to the local bowling alley for a couple throws down the pine--Noah loves the sound of the bowling alley. Yummmy steak and baked pototo dinner. And then Saturday we shot a little B-ball at the town gymnasium--surprisingly very, very nice. The gym, not the athletic showcase. Carrie and Matt lasted through the longest game of 21 ever, I bowed out after like 20 min. If you're wondering, dinner was a wonderful homemade lasagna. We also did a little browsing at the town Dollar General and Alco while in town (which is like a Kmart) and were all impressed at the amount and variety of items they offered. Sunday we attended church and were overwhelmed by the friendliness of the people at my parents church. They are all very sweet and are taking good care of their pastors.

The highs of the trip? Other than spending time with my family, of course, 1)It snowed ON Christmas and there was several inches on the ground the whole time we were there. Yeah! 2) Playing with Noah and enjoying watching my family play with/delight in him. 3) Noah started to walk, really walk, while we were there! And then, he just took off with it, walking all over the house. It was pretty crazy how fast and far he could go after just a few days. Tomorrow I'll post the videos... 4) Wearing my dad's huge coveralls to go four wheeling in--see the photos!

The LOWS of the trip? 1) Traveling days that lasted 18 hours! 2) They "lost" 2 of our suitcases on the trip there--thankfully we received our car seat on time and brought all our presents to give in the carry on suitcase...but Noah and I were without our bags/clothes for the first 2 days! Ugg. That was sooooo frustrating to me. More than it should have been. I admit I was sooo put out. 3) Having to say goodbye.

Quick Summary? We ate GOOD, every meal. We played more games than I ever remember playing. Noah entertained us all. I could say more, but I think that's most of it! Enjoy the pix! I'll post some more on my flickr account and will upload vids to youtube.com asap.