Noah's New Spot

This is how I found my son the other morning after breakfast. He loves to play in the kitchen, and we've starting using plastic cupboard latches to keep the cupboards closed, lest he pinch his little fingers in them. Luckily, that's just our recycling bin he's in there next to, not the trash. He was so cute I had to take his pictures, and the minute the flash went off, he turned around to check out what was happening.

Oooh La La!

For Christmas, Hannah got a really cute fancy black dress from Aunt Leslie, Uncle Jesse, Milla and Aiden. She was so excited to wear it on Christmas Day, but it was too big. She was bummed, but she got over it when we took her to the mall to exchange it. She got another dress, which she planned on wearing to our annual New Year's Day brunch at the Brown Palace with my family. Well, then she, Justin, and I all got the yucky stomach bug and we weren't able to go. Poor thing, she just wants to wear her dress. We've let her put it on a few times to show people when they come over. One of these days we'll take her somewhere that she can wear it. In the meantime....isn't she CUTE in it?!

FEED ME!!!

There is probably nothing in the world that Noah loves more than eating. He can seriously sit at the table and eat for longer than the rest of us. His favorite is spaghetti and meatballs, but there really isn't much he doesn't like. Actually, raspberries are the other food we've found that he won't eat.

His newest activity these days is also to feed Roxy while he eats his food. He's figured out how to grab a handful of food and dangle it down just low enough for her to grab, and he'll open his little fingers just as she starts to lick them. It grosses me out, and boy is our dog doomed to fatness if he keeps it up! Most days we just put her outside when he starts doing it.

I can't wait for his first birthday party, when my sister will make him his own personal little cake to devour. We thought Hannah demolished hers when she turned one, but I have a feeling he will put her to shame!

Happy Birthday Leslie!

So I'm a bit behind on the blog...better late than never, I suppose! On Dec. 31, my big sister turned 30! I can't believe it, and neither does anyone who knows her. She is definitely not acting any older than she did when we were kids...which is a good thing. If there's one thing you can always count on with my sister, it's that you will laugh and have a good time. And now, a few (okay, 30--I figured it was appropriate) tidbits about my sister and me!

1. Her name is Les. Les-lee. (total inside joke)
2. She made me be her guinea pig through nail tech school.
3. We used to try to pluck each other's eyebrows with our fingers.
4. We shared a bedroom for about 8 years.
5. I always thought I was cool when she let me borrow her clothes and wear them to school.
6. She NEVER let me borrow her shoes, though.
7. We used to wake up in the morning and show each other all the different positions we'd slept in the night before. Well, she would show me, then leave before I could show her.
8. She's always been one of the prettiest girls I know.
9. Her friends were always soooo cool.
10. I once pooped in our bathwater. Sorry about that again, Les!
11. Some of my fondest memories are of spending her maternity leave with her, hanging out with my sweet little niece.
12. I was devastated when she left for college.
13. I remember her trying to charge me gas money for driving me to school, even though she was going there anyway!
14. She used to take me to Target to pick up her paycheck, and she'd buy Pepperidge Farm cookies and we'd share.
15. When we were little, she had some phobia of sleeping with any of her limbs dangling over the edge of the bed. One time she fell asleep with her arm hanging over, and I slithered all the way over to her bed on the floor and yanked as hard as I could. I'm surprised I live to tell the tale!
16. Watching her be a mommy gave me the confidence to believe I could be a great mom, too.
17. She's my hero, she's everything I wish I could be, I can fly higher than an eagle, cause she is the wind beneath my wings. He-he. (Another inside joke!)
18. She used to sing "I will Always Love You" at the top of her lungs in her room in the basement. I could hear her clear as a bell from the second floor.
19. She's got her own funky dance moves.
20. She used to want to serve pretzels and ranch at her wedding. Oh, how things change. I don't think the Brown Palace would have been willing to serve that, even if she asked!
21. She looks so much like my mom when they both don't have makeup on, it's scary.
22. I'm often jealous of the way she just enjoys her kids. Never worries, never wastes time on things that can wait, and is just WITH them.
23. We used to fight over the phone like crazy people. Seriously. It was vicious.
24. She once gave me the duty of driving over to her boyfriend's house (now her husband) and delivering flowers to him on their 8 months anniversary or something, because they were both sick.
25. I used to make her so mad by telling her that her front teeth looked like Chicklets. Really I was jealous, with a mouthful of braces.
26. I love that we live .84 miles away from each other.
27. We used to have sleepovers at each other's houses before we had kids. Crazy, crazy sleepovers.
28. She makes the best cakes in the whole world, and proudly took on the job of making my kids' birthday cakes.
29. We used to have competitions to see who could make her bed the neatest. Her friends would judge, and somehow I would always lose. Hmmm...
30. I couldn't ask for a better sister or friend.

Happy Boy

Noah has to be the happiest baby ever. He just smiles and laughes all the time. Even in the middle of all this acid reflux nonsense we've been dealing with, he just keeps on truckin'. Maybe that's why when he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night I want to just cry for him. It doesn't seem fair that a baby so happy during the day wakes himself up in pain countless times a night.

Luckily we have tried some new medications and have found that the Prilosec he's been taking has been doing the trick. In the last five nights, he's had four where he wakes up once, around 4:15, to nurse. Then he goes right back to sleep until 6:30, when he's actually ready to get up. Seeing as how we put him to bed at 8:00, I can't argue with him waking once around 4:00. We're like a whole new family around here!

In the midst of our sleep-deprived stupor, I haven't been blogging or even really downloading my pictures to my computer. I finally got around to it today, and had forgotten about this night a month ago or so. Justin kept putting a paper towell over his mouth, then blowing it off suddenly. The whole family was cracking up, and Noah was laughing so hard I had to get the camera out.