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!

Happy July 4th...on the 7th!

Noelle wants to thank Lillian for these awesome shoes! They were just right for celebrating Independence Day.

Bathtime Fun

Sarah's Rant and Rave!

I have 4 things that are bothering me right now, and so I thought I would rant to cyberspace. Here it goes:

1) If you are driving a vehicle....IT IS NOT SAFE TO TEXT MESSAGE!!!!

2) Have you seen the new Special K commercial that says something like this "Right now, you're skipping breakfast to lose weight, blah blah blah" and the girl they are picturing can't weigh more than 100 pounds. No wonder people have eating disorders!

3) Another commercial that really irritates me...the one for Visa debit cards. They show a bunch of people buying stuff and using their debit cards. Then someone pays cash, and everything comes to a standstill. Apparently these advertisers have never used a debit card...you have to enter your PIN, then decide on cash back, then wait to be approved...CASH IS FASTER!

4) Lastly...there are not enough changing tables in public places. When we travel, our car is packed to the brim, so it's hard to do it in the car. Last weekend, we stopped at a Public Rest Stop on the highway, and they didn't even have one!!! I demand that my tax payer dollars should go towards a changing table!! I ended up changing Noelle on a picnic table...so sorry to any family who ate there. :-) We've also been to Jack-n-the-box, 2 starbucks, and countless gas stations that didn't have one.

Anyway, thanks for letting me get all of that off my chest. :-)

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 11 months old today! This makes me very happy because I am now just 1 month away from enjoying my first piece of cake!!

Any Tips?

Isn't this face sweet? Well, don't be fooled!

I had this theory that Noelle would eat pretty much anything as long as she could do it herself. She has loved eating the Gerber Puffs and some small pieces of bananas...she will stay entertained with them for a long time and won't let any drop on the floor! Anyway, she's now old enough to start the table food thing (although she still only has like 1/2 a tooth.) Our pediatrician told us just to give her stuff we eat. I've been putting it off for a while because 1) I'm scared of her choking and 2) we eat lots of dairy, which she can't have. This week, I thought we'd start making the transition.

Well, she's interested in the food, but as soon as she gets it to her mouth she makes a horrible face, sticks out her tongue, and lets the food drop off of it and onto her bib. It's really quite funny at first, but quickly gets old. I'm thinking, "This is the same child that would pick up ANYTHING off of the floor and eat it if we let her! What gives??"

Okay, all you experienced parents! I'd like some advice on this one! How'd you get your little ones to eat table food?

5:29 am

This morning (at 5:29) this was the scene at our house:




Not quite, but close. Chris was a sweetie and got out of bed to take the battery out. After he had been in the hall a few minutes (with the "chirping" noise every 30 seconds) he came into our room and said something like this smoke alarm was different than any one he had seen before. By the time I fumbled into the hall, Chris was unscrewing it from the wall, and we realize that it's hooked up to the electricity in our house! I had never seen one like that. It takes both of us to unhook it, but we finally got it. Then another chirp! I'm thinking to myself, "I'm a science teacher...I know this! When you unhook the electricity there isn't anything to keep it chirping!" So we look at the wires dangling from the wall...no alarm there. Chris has to take the cover off again, and it slipped out of my hand and cuts my foot. I can't tell you how bad I wanted to take a hammer to that thing.

OK...so, we can't figure the thing out! Chris says he'll take it outside. I wasn't too fond of this idea because I didn't want our neighbors to hate us, but I didn't see any other option. At this point I go into our hall bathroom to clean my cut, and I hear another chirp. ??? I thought, "Maybe Chris is just moving slowly." He comes back inside and we realize that it was really our carbon monoxide alarm (which is in the same hall) that was chirping. Oops!

Luckily, Noelle slept through the whole thing. And for those of you who just read our blog for Noelle pictures, here are a couple: