In honor of the Olympics...

Sarah and Noelle made an Olympic torch!

Strawberry Valentine Cupcakes

First Smile (captured on camera)

More Snow

Noelle's thoughts on Olympic ice skating

"Oh, that's cool! I need to learn how to do that."

Breakfast Conversation

Noelle: Why are our oatmeals different colors?

Sarah: Well, I put cinnamon on yours, and I didn't put any on mine.

Noelle: Do you not like your oatmeal to taste good?

Bible stories with Noelle

The other day Noelle was entertaining herself by reading Bible stories aloud. Sarah and I weren't really listening to her, but the following story did manage to catch our attention:

"...and then Jesus turned the donkey into Goliath."

Ooops!

I went over to a friend's house the other day. When I got there, my friend said, "Oh, the last time you were here, you left a diaper." I was cringing to myself wondering how I could have left a diaper there & was super embarrassed. Then she reached for a ziploc baggie. At this point, I'm wondering why in the world she saved the diaper!!? Then she said, "I didn't wash it because I know that a lot of times people use special laundry detergent for newborns." At this point, I realized she was referring to a cloth diaper that I use as a burp cloth. I was greatly relieved.

D. Mr. Gatti's

Valentine's Day Quiz

A good friend of ours, who looks for ways to serve others about as much as anyone we know, offered to watch Noelle for us this evening so that we could have a Valentine's date. With our 3 hours of freedom, we chose to:

A. Have dinner at Olive Garden, order dessert, and enjoy good conversation.

B. Go see a romantic comedy at the movies, and then enjoy chatting over coffee.

C. Take a scenic drive in the country and recount our favorite memories from college together.

D. Go to Mr. Gatti's, eat lots of room temperature pizza, and then play tons of kiddie games.

No Longer a Druggie

Sarah's been giving herself shots every day since April 30, 2009, the day after we found out she was pregnant, because of a blood clotting issue. Sometimes it was once a day, and other times she had to give them twice a day. We looked back and estimated that she's given herself about 340 shots. She had to continue taking them for 6 weeks after Jared was born, and recently gave herself her last one. She's really glad to be done with it!


Now that she has mastered sticking needles in her stomach, she mentioned that the next thing she wants to try to accomplish is putting in contact lenses.

Jared's First Snow

Today we woke up to rain/sleet that quickly changed to snow. We didn't get quite as much snow as we did on Christmas Eve, but it was still plenty. Chris' school got cancelled today, but Noelle's MDO did not. So, Chris and I had a day at home with just Jared.


On the news this morning there was an interview with a DPS Trooper who basically said the road conditions were pretty bad. It would be OK to go out if you had to go to the hospital or something, but advised not to go to Wal-Mart or anything "unnecessary." So what did Chris and I do?? We decided to ignore that advice and went to Lowe's and had lunch at Olive Garden. (Don't worry, Chris had driven in the snow earlier that day and the conditions weren't that bad.)

Once Noelle came home we went outside for a few minutes to play in the snow. Jared slept through the whole thing. :-)







This bear outfit is super cute & was perfect for taking him outside today. Thanks, Ashten!


Just for fun, here's a picture of Noelle's first snow when she was about 4 months old.

Tummy Time & 1st Super Bowl Pics

Pranking the Elderly - Seriously?

Noelle: "Look! There's snow at Ms. Betty's house!!"

Chris: "Um, no. That's toilet paper."

Noelle: "That's gross! What were they thinking?"


This is disturbing on a couple of levels:

1. Who in the world would wrap the house of an 80-something-year-old lady who lives by herself?
2. My poor 3-year-old daughter thought it was used toilet paper.
   

February 4, 2010

Today is the first day that Noelle got out of her bed at night. It's crazy weird that she's over 3 1/2 years old and she has just always stayed in her bed and called for us to come get her. I know some of you have kids who have been climbing out of their cribs since they were tiny. Anyway, the reason I write this is because she and I had a funny little conversation when she came out into the living room.

It was about 10:30, and I was rocking (a screaming) Jared. I hear a weird noise, like a dog barking or something. As I'm reaching for the remote to turn down the TV, Noelle's door opens up. I panic. Seriously, she has never gotten out of her bed before. About 5% of me thought there was going to be a burglar come out of her room. Actually, maybe more than that. Luckily, it was just Noelle. I tell her to come over to the chair I'm in and try to figure out what the deal is. (She may have even been sleep walking.) I ask her if she's had a bad dream. She says yes. I ask her what it was about.

She says, "Mommy. My bad dream was that I didn't get enough sleep."

Here's the story

In case you're curious about the recipe for the meal made in the previous post. Here it is:

Ingredients
2 cups of pasta
Not enough water

Boil water while you are feeding your newborn. In the middle of the feeding, while you are pausing to burp the baby, add noodles. Set a timer for 10 minutes so you don't forget about the noodles on the stove. Continue feeding. Ignore the sound of water boiling over the pan.

When the timer goes off, decide to change your baby's diaper first. Smell something burning. Hmmm. Change diaper faster. Put the baby in the bouncer. Quickly enter into your kitchen and see smoke. Remove pan from burner and set it outside. Proceed inside and fan the smoke detector. Realize that there's too much smoke. Spend 3-5 minutes trying to remove the battery while trying to keep the horrible beeping noise from deafening your baby and toddler.

Try to figure out another meal for your toddler while she refuses to step foot in the kitchen and is crying because of the burned meal.

Air out your house for 2 days.

Why it's important to bring meals to families with newborns

Finally!

After three and a half years, I finally convinced Sarah to let me post these pictures. They were taken the day Noelle turned 1-month old.