Monday, September 28, 2009

Noah's Weekend With Grammy and Grandad


Noah just had the best weekend with Grammy and Grandad! They came to town to spend time with Noah so that we could go to a marriage retreat. The retreat was wonderful and well-timed, and we learned about God's plan for marriage and had nice long blocks of time to sit and talk. We were away for one and a half days and two nights, and Noah did great with his grandparents. It was great timing because Grammy and Grandad will be back to visit us when baby boy arrives, and they will take care of Noah while we're in the hospital. This gave them a chance to get re-acquainted and have fun before baby boy joins our family.

Highlights of the weekend were when Noah showed off how he can ride a trike, going to Lake Norman and throwing sticks in the lake for fun, and playing lots and lots of songs on the drums for Grammy and Grandad to enjoy. Here's some more pictures of the weekend.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

One Thing Leads to Another


Our nesting projects continue around the house, and this project involved some outside help from our contractor. Matt lost his home office space when we created Noah's new big boy room, so we decided that it's time to install french doors in the den. It's actually something we've been thinking of doing for years now, but it became a necessity just lately. Matt worked from home a few days ago and found it very difficult to conduct professional sounding phone conferences with Noah running in and out of the den, the dog barking, and Noah playing the drums. At one point, I found Matt sitting in the garage and covering his ears while trying to talk on the phone. That was when we knew it was time to have doors installed!

This project isn't finished, though. The doors still need two coats of primer and a coat of paint. The trim needs wood filler and re-painting, and the den paint needs to be touched up. Oh, and now our front hall really needs to be painted (it still has the builder's paint from when we moved in seven years ago) from all the dings that went along with installing the door.

We're not planning on tackling any of this before baby boy is born. It's going to be too time consuming for Matt to do on the weekends, and we want some time to enjoy life! The natural pine doors are already growing on us, and we can completely overlook all the paint issues. Gotta save something for later!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tot School


We've been busy doing all sorts of learning activities around the house, and sometimes I even remember to take a picture! Whenever we're home for a long chunk of time, I try to make sure we do something for tot school, but I'm not always successful in that. When Noah is too busy playing his drums or running around with Emma and he's not interested, I don't push the activities at all. They're supposed to be fun!

I started out September with the intention of doing "letter of the week" activities. Noah has known his letters for quite a while now, but there are all sorts of fun extension activities we can do with each letter. Noah did have fun with A activities the first week, but when it came time for B activities the second week, he was not interested at all. I brought out the B's, paints, markers, all the things he had fun with the week before, and he looked at me as if to say, "B is for boring, Mommy"!! I put it all away and will try again in the future to see if there's any interest.

I thought it was maybe time for something more advanced, which is in the above picture. Noah matched up bottle cap letters with letters on the paper in order to spell his name and Emma's name. He thought that was fun, and it was a way to use letters in a new and more challenging way.

He's also been doing a lot of counting lately. I hear him counting toys when he's playing independently, and he's starting to learn how to recognize numbers. He can count to ten, but numbers 6 through 8 are usually a little fuzzy and mixed-up. Here's some tot school pictures from the last two months.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Learning to Pedal


Noah has learned how to pedal his tricycle, and he couldn't be more proud of himself. He's been riding his trike occasionally since his second birthday, and it took him a couple of months to get the hang of it. I had a little rope tied around the handlebars so that I could pull him and he could get the feeling of pedaling. I think his real inspiration was watching Matt ride his bike because he always wants to be just like Daddy. The first time Noah really pedaled by himself, he just kept going and going, and he giggled and laughed the whole time! It was so cute, and it was on September 2nd, when he was exactly 2 years and 4 months old. Go Noah!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

I'm Moving to a Big Boy Bed!


Today is the big day! Noah's big boy room is ready, and he has officially "moved in" to his new room. There has been a lot of lead-up to today, so he was so excited he could barely stand it! The first nap didn't go too smoothly because Noah was pretty sure it was time to run around and play with everything in the room. It was the first time he hadn't been contained in a crib or pack-n-play so the freedom was quite exciting! It took about two hours, but he eventually did lay down in his bed and nap for a while - we consider that a success!

Bed time was a little easier, but it was still more fun to get in and out of the bed and run around the room giggling. He did manage to settle down and go to sleep eventually. We know it's going to take some time to get in to a new routine, which is why we wanted to do this transition long before baby brother arrives. Here's the painting and assembly process for Noah's big boy bed.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Happiness Is...