Now I Really Have to Baby Proof

For months people have told us that one day Noelle would just let go and walk across the room. Well, today was that day!! It's so funny...she looks like a little Frankenstein baby. She has been taking steps little by little for the last couple of weeks, but it was always to me or Chris. Today she got the courage up to walk across the middle of the room toward no particular person or thing. At one point, she walked from our bedroom to the living room!

The ironic thing was that Chris' mom was here for a weekend visit, and Noelle didn't start this until about an hour after she left. I think his mom wishes she stuck around a little longer now. Here's a video of the special moment!

My to-do list for tomorrow: Finish installing cabinet locks! (I only got 3 done when she started crawling.) :-)

One of Those Days

Sarah's back blogging...I have to tell you about my day yesterday. It's just proof that a woman's work is never done. :-) Thursdays I usually try to get my major housecleaning done. Usually I get quite a bit done, but yesterday I only managed to mop and clean the bathrooms. Still it was better than nothing. Anyway, less than an hour later at lunch, Noelle threw quite a bit of food on the floor along with her sippy cup that splattered. Then when I gave her a bath she tinkled on the floor before I got her into the tub. (Those two incidences almost put me over the edge because I HATE mopping.) Then after her bath I had to put her in her crib for a split second to go get diaper cream from the other room. You guessed it...she tinkled in the crib. Then as we were getting her ready for bed she squirmed so much that I didn't quite get her diaper centered correctly and she tinkled on me as I read her a Bible story. Urg!! At least she's well hydrated.

Then today as I was putting clothes up in her room, she decided to keep herself entertained by opening all of the drawers, pulling stuff out, and then taking the diapers out of her diaper stacker. I don't know how I manage to get anything done!!

Besides that, Chris and I have challenged each other to give up desserts and fast food until December. Exceptions: 1) We get 1 splurge a month...mine will be a Black Tie Mousse Cake at Olive Garden 2) We will eat what we're served at other people's houses or at church functions, even if it's fast food (like pizza, etc.) So if you invite us over, feel free to serve McDonalds. :-) Anyway, I can't tell you how badly I wanted a chocolate bar and a quarter pounder with cheese yesterday!!! But I perservered because I'm looking forward to my cheesecake!

A really fun thing about yesterday was that Noelle got haircut #4. This time, though, it was a "big girl" haircut complete with a blow dry and curling iron. It was too cute! I had it cut shorter so that we have the option of wearing it without a ponytail or pigtails. (She's getting to where she pulls bows and ponytails out sometimes.) Here are pictures, but don't expect her to look this cute, because I'm not brave enough to use a curling iron on her hair.

Also, here's a cute picture of her using her high chair as a walker. She's taken her official first steps, but still won't walk by herself unless it's to one of us.

OK...gotta go, Noelle is sticking her toys out the dog door!

I Don't Have A Title

Sarah and I started this blog over a year ago so that we could keep family and friends updated on Noelle and all that she is doing. We did not start the blog so that I could talk about how worried I am about A&M's football team, how suspect they looked against I-AA Montana State last week, or how embarrassing it was that it took triple overtime to beat Fresno State yesterday. It would be out of place for me to talk about how poor their pass defense is, how one-dimensional their offense is, and that even though they won their first two games, they may have a very long season ahead of them once Big 12 play begins. None of this has anything to do with Noelle or the purpose of our blog, so I won't mention any of it. I'll just share some recent pictures of Noelle with you.

New Picture

No, this isn't a picture of Noelle. This is actually a hippopotamus. We don't have any new pictures of Noelle, so I thought I would give you a picture of something else in the mean time.

Update

The boil water notice only lasted about a day. Thank goodness that's over with! Since then we've had tons of rain from tropical depression Erin. There are many parts of Abilene that are flooded like they were during the flood of 2002. We're fine, but we know several families who have been evacuated from their homes, so please keep them in your prayers!

Again, it's confirmed...I'm SO not cut out for the pioneer life!!

Our city has announced that we need to boil our water until further notice. It's not really that uncommon for some of the smaller cities around here to have these notices every once in a while. But I thought we lived in a big enough place that we'd never have to deal with it. So far the news has said that we may have to do it for a few days or possibly even weeks!! I've heard that because people aren't using as much water as normal this summer (due to all of the rain), that the residual chlorine levels are low. (I'm not sure if all that is right or not.) I honestly doubt that this will go on for too long, but it's been a little bit of an inconvenience so far. All of the grocery stores in town are out of bottled water!!


I can't imagine being a pioneer and having to first find a water source, haul it from a creek or a well, and THEN boil it. As much as I love reading about the Old West...I'm definitely not ready to let go of my modern conveniences!!


On to other topics...Noelle had her belated birthday party today at playgroup. We still had a puppy party, which is what we had planned in July. My mom found this really cute outfit that had weenie dogs on it. Since all of our families have weenie dogs, she just had to get it! It was fun that Noelle even had an outfit to go along with her party theme.

Noelle got to have another piece of spice cake, and seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards she was saying "more, more."

She had a great birthday and enjoyed playing with her friends!

Is it illegal to wear earplugs while driving??

We've been out of town for a week seeing grandparents, and right now I should be unpacking, doing laundry, making a grocery list or any number of productive things, but I'm stalling by blogging!

Anyway, during our trip we bought a car seat in Dallas because we had some coupons to Babies R Us and got a great deal. So now we have officially made the switch to a forward facing car seat! I'm loving how much easier it is to get Noelle in and out of. I was surprised at how high the seat is, but it's great because she can look out the window. Noelle has done well in it so far, but can be VERY loud. I guess in her other car seat the sound had to travel to the back of the car first, and it didn't seem as loud. It's also harder for her to go to sleep with all of the distractions around her. In fact, on our trip home Noelle only slept for about 30 minutes and then stayed awake until we got home at 10pm. (She's normally asleep by 7:30.) She was pretty cranky.



Also, yesterday we went to the doctor for her one year check up. (Her original appointment had to be delayed because she was sick.) She's 20 pounds & 5 ounces (35%) and is 30 inches long (75%). The doctor said she looked really healthy and gave me some more tips about food allergies. Introducing table foods has been a really slow process because we have to watch for allergies pretty closely, and she's kind of picky about the texture of some foods. She's now eating frozen mixed vegetables (major victory!) and will eat canned peas & carrots, fruit and bread. We still give her baby food meat & some vegetables. She's also drinking rice milk because the soy bothered her when we tried that. I haven't gotten the courage to try the rice milk yet, but Noelle doesn't seem to mind it.


OK...I really have to get something productive done!! I hope you're having a great day!