miscellany monday

{en} 

"Emma's Baby" Jacob turned one a few weeks back.  At the rate I'm going, I may never post the pictures from his party :(  We got the cutest thank you card in the mail this weekend which reminded me that I had not even looked at the pictures I took yet.  Noelle was so excited to see them and especially loved the ones of Jacob eating his cake with his hands.

{to}

Noelle started "school" this month.  She's going two days a week and the jury is still out on whether or not this is a good idea.  I think the reality that it's not just a place where you get cotton candy (like she did on the grand opening day!) set in and she doesn't like the fact that Noah doesn't get to stay with her.  We'll see how this week goes.  The first week was great but last week we had some tears and that isn't going to work for me if it continues.  I am really happy with the school itself, though!

{tre}

I don't really have a right to complain because my Daddy's Girl doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night but my poor husband should be complaining up a storm (but he won't...not his style!).  Ever since we transitioned Noelle out of the crib, her sleep pattern has been a nightmare.  We didn't get to experience this fun with Noah since he has always slept soundly in our bed (yep, bad habit to start and I don't even want to think about how we're going to break that one...I keep saying it will happen in time!).  I'm not sure if Noelle even slept last night!  Good thing for me that she is head over heels in love with her Daddy and that's who she wants to play with overnight :)

{fire}

We had this organic and totally-not-processed cake last weekend and it was seriously the best cake ever!  I so wish we had a place around town that could replicate this cake.  I'm going to check out Whole Foods and see if they can come close.  It's probably best if they can't, though!  Lord knows I don't need any cake...

{fem}

Last year, we went to visit Uncle Kyle and Aunt Erin in March.  The kids still haven't seen real snow but the plan is to take them back to "Snow Mountain" (Stone Mountain, GA) so they can see fake snow again.  We went in March last year and it was just way too hot.  So, the plan is for Grams and I to brave a 7 1/2 hour car trip with the kids in February to repeat this fun trip.  I keep repeating...it will be worth it...it will be worth it! 

Afterall, I know I will end up with pictures like this which I will treasure:

{semi} wordless wednesday

Well, our trip to Boston this past weekend didn't happen.  Thank you, Patriots :)  The Lord worked it out for us, though!  There was a snowstorm on Friday morning and JetBlue let us cancel our flights in exchange for a credit - works for us as we'll definitely put these to use within a year!

This meant that we were able to join the kids for a trip to Tallahassee to celebrate our nephew's birthday and meet the newest addition to our family...baby Bella!!!

How sweet is she?!

I was shocked at how much Uncle Bobby held his sweet niece!  This is the first baby I have seen him want to hold besides our own children :)  Someone definitely has baby fever and guess who it is not?!

Me!  Although, she is super sweet and it does make your mind wander a little...

Noelle has been looking forward to meeting baby Bella since she was born!  I was so glad we were there to see her interact with her.  We almost missed it and I would have regretted it!

Noah was a little less interested but we got him to come inside for a second to give Bella a kiss :)

Is this love or what?!  So, so, so sweet!

We love you Bella Anne!

Thanking God on Friday!

Today, I am most thankful for the opportunity to be a Mommy! 

Noah and Noelle are the world to me.  I can't imagine life without them.  I have been truly, truly blessed.

Today marks a really sad day in motherhood for me, though.  Four years ago, we lost a baby whose heart we had seen beating just a few days prior.  I was so hopeless during that time and my faith was so weak.  It's amazing to look back at the time and then fast forward to today.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about our baby in Heaven.  Talk about bittersweet, though.  Noelle was the blessing born out of that sadness.  None of us will ever understand God's plan this side of Heaven but knowing that He has a plan provides great comfort.

I will try to focus on the extreme happiness that my babies bring me and not get caught up in the extreme sadness that I always feel on this anniversary.

miscellany monday

{en}

It is next to impossible to get a picture of two 2 year olds and two 5 year olds where all four kids are looking at the camera and smiling.  I still gave it an attempt!

How lucky am I to have a great friend who has kids the same ages and genders as mine?  It is really a blessing and I am very thankful.

{to}

I let Noah ride his electric Razor to our neighborhood playground. The playground is next door neighbor's house so it wasn't a far journey but it was a big step for me since I pretty much detest this toy and see the emergency room in our future.  He loves it, though, so I'm working on overcoming my fears!  Baby steps!

He kept his helmet on while playing on the playground so that was an added bonus.  If only I could keep a helmet on both kids at all times ;)

{tre}

Aunt Nikki likes to jump out of airplanes.  She's the kids' "fun" aunt!  Noah decided that he needed to make Aunt Nikki a parachute for the next time she goes skydiving.

His imagination, creativity and thoughtfulness never cease to amaze us.  She made such a big deal out of it and he was so proud of his project!

{fire}

What is this you might ask?

It's Noah's idea of snow.  I'm still not entirely sure what it's made of but it's still sitting in our freezer.  He *thinks* it's salt and soap but he "can't remember" (sure!) what he used to make it.  I thought it was pretty darn clever of him.  He is always concocting something - in the name of "science".  We must take him somewhere to see real snow soon so he doesn't feel the need to create his own.

Baking and Letting Go

One of Noah's Christmas gifts was a set of Star Wars cookie cutters. He has been asking to make cookies since he opened them. Thankfully, he didn't open them until Three King's Day (another post that may or may not happen!) so I haven't really been holding out on him *that* long :) We didn't have any Saturday afternoon plans this weekend so we decided to finally make the cookies!

Yep, I cheated and bought pre-made cookie dough mix. At least I mixed it with an organic egg and organic butter!

I gave Noah strict orders to leave some mix for Noelle...

...and he listened! Wow!

Somehow, I went from having no rolling pins to having three. I vaguely remember when we were first married how my mom and mother-in-law couldn't believe I didn't have a rolling pin. Now I have three so I'm guessing they had something to do with it. It was a good thing yesterday, though - each kid had their own!

Noelle loved cutting out Yoda (although she decided Boba Fett is her favorite...sorry, I'm not a Star Wars person...).

Noah is all about Darth Vader!  He was Darth Vader for Halloween :)

I love how this picture makes it look like this was a nice, simple process:

It was not. I don't think I did a very good job making the dough and it was so darn sticky! I used so much flour trying to make it not stick. The cookie cutters, while cute, aren't as user-friendly as they look. Or, maybe they are and it was just user error!

While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, I captured such a tender moment!

He really loves his Sycee so much!

Ten minutes is so long to wait when you're a kid ;)

Noelle kept trying to open the oven door but Noah took care of holding it shut!

Finally!

Ahhh, looks are so deceiving!  Picture of sweetness, right?

The little monster climbed the shelves in the pantry, found a container of ground cloves and decided to add an ingredient to the leftover cookie dough.

I guess I should give her credit for knowing that I sometimes use ground cloves when baking. She's lucky she's adorable!

We even let her have a cookie after her trick!

When we were done sampling our baking, Noah heard the neighborhood boys outside playing. There is a group of boys who play outside almost every day and Noah is always asking to play with them. They are all much older than him and make me so nervous the way they run around in the streets. I always say no when he asks but yesterday I decided to let him go outside and play since we had been home all day. This was a big deal for me and I did totally hover over him the entire time and make sure he was no where near the street!

The boys were surprisingly good with Noah! I think they were super excited to have our house as one of their "bases" since it's on the corner in between the usual spots that they play in. They kept saying how cool it was that they could use our house from now on. How exciting for us ;)

It was really cute to watch them show Noah how to play their game! Lucky for Noah, he has lots of Nerf guns which is what the boys in the neighborhood all play with. They made a big deal about how cool his gun was which was exciting for him.

See how they run through the streets?

Ahhhh! It makes me so nervous! I wonder if I'll ever be able to let the kids play outside without being out there with them. I guess you reach that point when they get to a certain age. I really feel like I did a little letting go by allowing him to play with these kids, ha!

Of course, Noelle wanted a Nerf gun so she could play, too. She settled for Dance Mickey and staying on the porch :)

It was a low-key Saturday for sure but lots of fun for the kids!

{semi} wordless wednesday

Tears...

Frustration...

Pain...

But, I did it.  I got on the treadmill tonight for the first time in almost four months.  I was attempting to jog.  That didn't happen.  I ended up walking - and not very rapidly at that.  This has been a long journey for me and tonight was a big milestone in my recovery.  Running again still feels very far out in the future but I will get there.  One step at a time (and probably after some physical therapy that is probably going to be necessary...blah!) :)

(Yes, it took me almost twenty minutes to go a mile...almost three times as long as it took pre-9/17/10...depressing!)

Christmas Eve

Yeah, I'm a little behind right now but I'm trying really hard to catch up!

We had a wonderful Christmas that can be summed up in three words - WE ARE BLESSED!  I thought it would be next to impossible to celebrate holidays without my Daddy and sister but the kids make most of the sadness disappear for me.  I thank God for giving us these blessings to help with the sadness and make our family happy!

Our Christmas Eve plan was to have brunch at Cracker Barrel and go to an early afternoon Christmas Eve service.  That plan was foiled when just about everyone else in our area showed up at Cracker Barrel!  Plan B (which was really my Plan A, ha!) was Chili's and it worked out perfectly.  Our "reserved" table was even available (we go here almost every Sunday after church!) :)

Trying to get a picture of the kids with Uncle Kyle was not so successful...

I know I will look back at these pictures and smile in the years to come.  Still, it would be nice if I could get them to all look at the camera and smile, with genuine smiles!

Our Christmas Eve service was AWESOME!!  Noelle went to her classroom and Noah came to the service with us since there was no Sunday School.  I was a little skeptical about letting him sit next to Uncle Kyle because he does not always bring out the best in Noah but they both behaved very well!  I know Aunt Erin took some precious pictures and videos at church but I haven't seen them yet (hint, hint Aunt Din Din).

When we got back to Grams' house, it was all about Penny!

Then it was time to try to force some smiles ;)  We were successful with some of them and others...not so much!

God, I love that smile!!

The kids got their gifts from Grams on Christmas Eve.  We've learned to space the gifts out over several days (which reminds me that I'm out of order in posting about Christmas since they opened their Uncle Kyle/Aunt Erin gifts the day before - can we say spoiled?!).

This was definitely the year of Legos for Noah.  I'm rationing them out to try to keep some order.  I have yet to come up with a good organizational system for the crazy amount of Legos Noah Boa has accumulated.  He has decided that the Harry Potter set above will be the last one he puts together "because it looks the hardest"!

Sycee was thrilled with her clothes and Vera Bradley backpack - what every two year old needs!  Grams remembered her saying "I want this" when we were shopping a few weeks ago and just had to get it for her.  We got a good laugh out of the different reactions to clothing gifts.  Noah pulled the clothes out and handed them straight to Mommy - as if to say "here, Mom, this is something for you".  Noelle would get all excited and hold them up to herself.  We definitely have one all-boy and one all-girl!

Time for Uncle Kyle and Aunt Erin to open up their "token" gifts!

(Glad I just looked at this picture - I owe Aunt Erin the rest of this gift which is now on the to-do list for this weekend!)

This was kind of a joke from me to my brother but I know it's something that my future niece(s) and/or nephew(s) will love!  It's the Little People nativity and it was a great deal but our kids already had it so I had to buy it for someone :)  Uncle Kyle seemed like the appropriate one, ha!

Grams was so happy with her wedding picture of Uncle Kyle and Aunt Erin!  We'll have to excuse Noelle who likes to be the center of the universe :)

Now I have to backtrack and find the pictures from Christmas Eve Eve!  Then, maybe one day I'll get to Christmas Day!  It was a BUSY few days and we are still recovering from all of the activity!