Muffins for Daddy

Last week, Noah overheard Matt say that we were out of muffins for breakfast. The next day, Noah insisted that Daddy's muffins were empty and that we needed to make him more muffins. That's quite fitting because he has become quite the sous chef! He specializes in making pancakes with Daddy on Saturdays and muffins with Mommy on Mondays. We have come across a great whole wheat strawberry (or blueberry) muffin recipe that Matt loves, and he eats them for breakfast every day on his way to work. Noah helps with every step of the process: getting out the the ingredients, measuring cups and spoons, helping measure each ingredient, and stirring. The coolest part about making muffins is that after I fill up the big spoon, Noah puts batter in each cup in the muffin tin.

Noah's Bumper Crop

The growing season is coming to an end, but Noah went to the garden and picked one last tomato harvest. He picked all these tomatoes completely by himself, and he only needed help reaching the highest ones. Noah has had a great time watching the garden this spring and summer. It's about time to tear out the dying plants and clear out for next spring. We do have one pumpkin vine that's still growing - we need to check it to see if there's any hope of a pumpkin for the fall.

Assembling Furniture With a Toddler

Noah's new room is the hub of activity in our house, and he is loving it! Matt decided to assemble the bookcase first, and I planned on keeping Noah busy in other parts of the house. Noah didn't agree with the plan because he wanted to help Daddy with every step of the process. And he really was quite helpful! He hammered in every wooden peg for the entire bookcase, then watched as Matt finished the assembly. He was so excited to see the final product, and it fits perfectly under the window so it doubles as a window seat, which is perfect for Noah.

Matt assembled the shell of the dresser while Noah was napping, and when he woke up, Noah was so excited that he brought his drums in and played a song in this new room. Here's the pictures of the assembly process.

1, 2, 3, JUMP!

We had another beautiful day of boating on Lake Norman. Matt had the day off work, and it is so nice to go on the lake on a weekday! It's like our own private playground, and there's no wake from other boats, which is great for me at this stage of my pregnancy. It's funny that as soon as Noah gets in the boat, he wants to eat. We always pack all sorts of snacks and a big lunch, so it is like a special treat to go on the boat.

After we anchored, Noah couldn't wait to get in the lake, and he did a great job jumping off the swim platform with Matt's help. We have Noah say "1, 2, 3" then Matt lifts him up and into the water by holding on to his life vest. Noah gets a kick out of it every time, and he always wants to jump in so many times that it wears Matt out. This time, it wore Noah out too, because as soon as we were back in the boat he had a few more snacks then quickly fell asleep sitting up. We had to look under his sunglasses to realize that he was out cold! He did look pretty comfy sleeping on the bench once we laid him down. Here's the rest of our boating pics.

Cool Fun on a Hot Day

Sometimes the sprinkler is the best way to cool off on a hot day! On this day, Noah had fun riding his bike through the water and filling up all sorts of containers. Our fun was cut short when the mosquitos found us and Noah got some bites on his back. He is quite he mosquito magnet! Here's a few more pictures that I got before we went inside and tried to soothe the bites.

Doesn't Everyone Wash Their Mailbox?

Our mailbox has been through a lot over the years. A few years ago, it was hit by a car and the mailbox was torn off the pole in our front yard. Matt repaired it and it was like new again. Then, earlier this spring, a biker hit it and almost ripped it off the pole again! You'd think we lived at a dangerous curve in the road, but there is nothing remarkable about where our mailbox is.

We didn't fix it right away, and it got wobblier and wobblier, to the point where we were sure it was going to fall off again someday when the mailman opened it. So, we embarked on fixing it again, which involves disassembling the whole thing. One thing lead to another, and soon we were hosing it down and washing the years of grime off. Noah had a great time with this project, and he has taken great pride in his work. Now, when he sees the mailbox, he says, "Noah wash that!" Someday he'll learn that everyone doesn't wash their mailbox!

Ikea Shopping Extravaganza

We had a full day of shopping at Ikea and were thrilled to find everything we needed for Noah's new room. We bought a bed and mattress, dresser, bookshelf, curtains, sheets, blankets... Now for the fun part. How in the world are we going to turn the parts in that thin, flat box into an 8-drawer dresser?

Mmm...Corn on the Cob!

You know you're doing a lot of ebaying when...

...Priority Mail stickers are fun to play with!

Painting Noah's New Room

It's time to begin our projects and get ready for baby boy in October! Our biggest project is creating a "big boy" room for Noah. Our goal is to have the room completed and transition Noah into it by Labor Day weekend. That should give Noah plenty of time to get used to sleeping in a "big boy" bed before baby boy arrives.

Our first step was to decide on a paint color. We love Restoration Hardware paints, so we went to the store to browse the colors. Funny enough, we couldn't find a color that we liked better than Shore, which is the same blue that is in the nursery. So, we decided to paint Noah's new room the same color as the nursery! To us, it's the perfect blue for a boy's room. We also wanted to put picture molding about an inch below the ceiling, just like our master bedroom has, and just like we put in the nursery.

The next thing to do was clean out the room. For seven years, the room has been our junk room/scrapbooking room/office, depending on our level of organization. Since we don't have a basement, that room is where we put everything and close the door. Cleaning out the room created a big mess and the urge to purge! I am listing a lot of my scrapbooking supplies on ebay, and we have lots of donations for Goodwill. Once the room was finally empty, it was time to begin.

Noah was a really good painting helper for about a half hour. He was really excited about painting the walls blue. Then, things started getting messy and it was time for us to go and let Matt be productive on his own. Later in the day, Noah was the DJ and pushed all the buttons on the radio to give Daddy good music to listen to as he worked. He was also good at listening to Matt's instructions and retrieving various tools. Here's the pics!

Go Daddy Go!

Our friends Stephen and Jamie invited us out on the lake for the evening, and it was so nice to have dinner on their boat and explore some new coves. Their twins Addie and CJ are a little older than Noah. Near the end of the evening, Stephen showed Matt how to wakeboard. Matt has never wakeboarded before, but he's always wanted to try. Matt followed Stephen's instructions exactly and he got up on the first try! It was so exciting! Matt was able to get up three times total before we had to head back to land for the little ones to go home and go to sleep.

Noah watched Matt very intently as he got in the water and was floating behind the boat. Noah's face lit up when he saw Matt wakeboarding on top of the water. But, every time Matt fell in the water, Noah screamed and cried hysterically. He screamed, "Daddy! Daddy!" as the boat continued to speed away for a second or two before slowing down and turning around to go pick him up. Noah was even more distraught when he lost visual contact with Matt. As soon as the boat circled back to pick Matt up, he would yell "I'm ok! I'm having fun!" and wave at Noah. This helped a little bit, but Noah couldn't calm down until the boat was stopped. Between each time, Noah was happy again and wanted to see his Daddy back up on the water. I was really surprised by Noah's reaction, but I had never thought about how strange wakeboarding must seem through the eyes of a two-year-old who has never seen his Daddy pulled behind a boat! Here's Matt's fabulous pictures!

Noah had so much fun serving cups of bottomless coffee from Baubie's play kitchen this weekend. He was also quite the short-order cook as he grilled anything we requested on the play grill. When he served it, he would say, "hot" and blow on it.

Noah has been talking so much more, but this weekend he started something entirely new. He points at everything around him and says, "that!" It's really cute! We heard "that! That!" all weekend and then it morphed into "That, Mommy, that!" or "That, Daddy, that!" A funny story about this new development is that Noah has never said Mitzi's (Baubie's dog) name - he just howls instead of saying her name. However, whenever he would see Mitzi this weekend, he would say, "Hi That!" It was really funny and cute. Here's some more pictures from the weekend.