Volume Control

When you first bring your newborn baby home from the hospital, you wish they came with an instruction manual. :-) Now that Noelle is a little older, an instruction manual would still be nice, but what I'd really like is a volume control. This little girl is LOUD!!! When she gets in a mood, she just babbles and chirps at maximum volume! We went out to eat at Abuelo's the other day, and Noelle was really enjoying hearing herself screech. We would try to keep her mouth full of Cheerios to delay the noise making, but we weren't always successful. Thankfully most people who looked our way had a "look how cute" expression on their face. I'm going to be very thankful once Noelle understands what whispering means!

Well, we're about 1 week away from her birthday. I just cannot believe that!! It's fun to think about last year when I was GREAT with child. I really didn't feel horrible until that last week, and then I started throwing up again and had the worst heartburn of my life!!! Chris took me to a cute-girly restaurant for lunch (Hickory Street Cafe) and I remember crying because I didn't feel like eating my super yummy lunch. I just didn't have any room in my stomach. That was a depressing day. :-)

Anyway, enough about me...here are some updates on Noelle:

• She's eating finger foods a little better. She still spits out vegetables, but we're trying new things. Yesterday she actually ate a couple bites of chicken...I couldn't believe it!
• She's cruising everywhere and using her walker-toy quite a bit. I think she's probably still a few weeks away from walking, but we hope she does it before Chris goes to work, so we have a better chance of us both getting to see her do it!
• She babbles a lot, and I wish we had a translator! There are times when she's very expressive and I know she's trying to tell us something. We're pretty sure she knows the words dada, mama, and puppy (which sounds more like "baba"), but she doesn't always use them.
• We've taught her some cute tricks (shake her head, rub her tummy, clap), but I think we overloaded her brain because she won't do them as often anymore. We've also been trying the Baby Sign Language thing for a while, and she's caught on to what some of the signs mean, but won't use them, yet.
• She's finally gotten tooth #2. Her teeth have taken forever to come in! She started cutting this tooth about 3 weeks ago, and it is just now barely visible! She'll still be working on her teeth coming in when all of her friends are loosing theirs or getting braces!

Well, I guess that's all for now! Sorry there are no new pictures for the grandparents. :-) I hope you all are doing well!