Fun in the snow!

Before the snow hit this weekend, we had a good week. We got to see Andrea and Savannah a lot because Andrea is tracked out right now. We even had a Parham girls lunch at the mall with Nana one day.

A cute picture of Kylie from this week. I couldn't believe she kept this headband on her head...


Then, this happened. It was funny, I was doing something and when I came back, she was like this... not even complaining! :-) I, of course, grabbed my camera before fixing it.

On Thursday, we met Andrea and Savannah at storytime at the library. They had a blast!

Then we went back to their house for some playtime. You can see some video of them riding Savanah's toy on her blog. So cute!!

Friday night, we settled in for the big snow - but not before a nice dinner with Nana and Grandaddy. When we got home from dinner, the flakes started falling and I took Noah outside to see them. We tried to catch them on our tounges and Noah was so excited. Saturday morning, Noah woke up and on his way to our room, he caught site of the snow on the ground and we heard him yell, 'WOW!' Then he came running to our room and said, 'It snowed at MY house!!'

We got him out to play in it twice with Maddie yesterday...

All bundled with Daddy - good thing Grammy got him the snow suit last time we were in MD!

Going down the slippery slide...

Playing with Maddie!

My little loverboy.

Love love love this picture!

Today, Noah has been out twice to 'help' Waylon shovel and I also took both kids to play at Maddie and Mason's while Waylon kept working on the driveway.

Mason and Kylie - Kylie is a month younger and weighs more! We just make 'em big.

We aren't sure what tomorrow holds for us - the roads are horrible. Waylon is going to try to go to work but I might just keep Noah home. Tomorrow is supposed to be his first 1/2 day at school so I'd have to go pick him up at 12:30. We'll see how the roads look tomorrow morning but our road is still a sheet of ice so I can't imagine it will be better tomorrow morning. Cabin Fever!! :-)

A fun and much more restful and calm week!

- well, as restful and calm it can be with a 2 1/2 year old and 3 month old. :-)

It's been a week now that Kylie has been going all night without eating! The past two nights, she hasn't woken up at all and it's amazing. What a difference sleep makes! We feed her and put her down around 7:30 and she's been sleeping until 7am. Wow. Now, the flip side of that is the napping - not so good. She's following Noah's fotosteps (good night sleeper and bad napping) but I'm happy to have it this way instead of the opposite.

Noah has been happier also. He had gone through a rough week but last week was much better. We do think he might be going through a growth spurt now - he's been very hungry and very sleepy (which, combined with Kylie's sleep has been great for us!).

Pictures of our past week...

Two Sundays ago, we went to Nana and Grandad's for dinner and some playtime...

Nana with Noah and Kylie

Grandaddy and Kylie with what looks like matching hairlines!! :-)

That following Monday was MLK day so Noah's school was closed. It was a little wamer too so we got outside for a bit to ride bikes with Maddie. Noah hopped right on and took off! I was so surprised and proud. We've had the tricycle in the house since it's been colder and he hasn't had much interest but he was great outside. We went out later that day, too and he rode all the way up to the top of the neighborhood and back. I guess he was holding on tight to the handles cause he's stop every once in a while and say, 'Whew! Mommy, I need to walk. My hands are tired. See??' It was very cute.

Me with my babies - whenever I'm holding both of them, Noah will say, 'We're both your babies, Mommy!' :-)

Noah's new obsession - cutting paper. He does this a lot at school and wanted some scissors of his own, so we went out on Thursday and got some. He concentrates so hard!

How adorable are our kids!?!

Our weekend was good. Friday we had a nice dinner with our friends Sharon and Michael. We hadn't seen them in a while so it was nice to see them. They put up with our crazy mealtime to see us. :-)

Saturday was a nice family day. We went to the mall in the morning and just stuck around our house the rest of the day. It was a nice quiet day for a change.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to Maddie's house to celebrate her 3rd birthday! I can't believe these kids are growing up so fast. This was the first in a long time we've had a playdate with Maddie and Stella Dot at the same time and they had a blast. There were 'moments' as there always are but mostly, it was great! Noah did not want to leave.

Getting ready for cupcakes

Noah and Stella Dot - who has really come out of her shell since we played together last! :-)



All the kids!

Hm, what's going on here...?

This is Noah's last week of full days at daycare. Next Monday, we are starting half days. Since I'm out of work right now, we thought it best to keep him home some more but we still want him in a preschool type situation - not to mention that he loves it! So Waylon will take him in the morning, and I'll pick him up at 12:30. It will be fun to have both of them home together more.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Some Updates!

• Kylie went all night without eating last night!! She went down at 8:00 and woke up at 3:00 - Waylon went in and reswaddled her and she went right back to sleep. I had to wake her up at 6:15 cause we had a doctor's appt at 8....
• The appointment was with the pediatric surgeon about her hernia. The doctor thought it seemed smaller after only a month so that's good news! We have another follow up in 3 months. If it's smaller still, we'll keep monitoring and if it's the same size, we'll talk surgery.
• Her weight at the appointment was 16 lbs, 3 oz!!! Wow.
• Noah has mastered his tricycle! We hadn't tried it in a while but since yestrday was a little warmer than it had been we decided to go out and try it. He just hopped on and rode all over the neighborhood! I was such a proud mom. Summer is going to be so fun!

Busy weekends and a dramatic week

At the end of last week, Noah was really not feeling well. There has been a lot of sickness going around daycare, so I think he caught a bug or two. He even had a fever but perked back up with a little bit of motrin. He's such a trooper.

My parents got into town after the kids went to bed on Friday night. Noah was super excited to have Grammy and Papa here when he woke up...

They came to babysit for us pretty much all day on Saturday and to have our last Christmas celebration with my mom's side of the family so we were glad to see them, too!

Saturday, Waylon went to his parents house to work on my car with his dad. I was helping to throw a baby shower for my friend, Megan, who is expecting a baby boy in late February. Waylon left at 9 and I left at 11 and we didn't get home until 5:00.

My parents took this picture of Noah after he woke up from his nap on Saturday. He still wasn't feeling up to par and looked like he slept really hard! :-)

The shower was really nice and we can't wait for Ryan to join us on the outside! :-)

Megan, Anise, Megan, me and Jennie

Like I said, Waylon and I both got home around 5:00, hung out with the kids for a bit, freshened up and headed back out around 7:00 for our first outing alone since Kylie was born! We went out to a yummy sushi dinner with Megan and Dave, Megan and Jason, and Josh and Anise. It was so nice to get out with friends and have a nice long relaxing dinner! We were at the restaurant for 3 hours just talking and having a good time. So nice!!

Sunday morning, Waylon got up and made us all waffles with the new waffle maker we got for Christmas. Very yummy!

Around lunchtime, my mom, dad, Kylie and I headed over to Michael and Karen's house. Waylon and Noah stayed home so Noah could get in his nap - which ended up being 3 1/2 hours (obviously still not feeling 100%). They ended up missing the fabulous turkey dinner but had leftovers when they got there. It was so nice to visit with them for a while - my cousins, Katie and McCauley were there also (we all missed having Leah, Casey and Reeves there).

Our Sweet Kylie

Katie and Kylie

Noah and Karen

Watching You Tube videos

I had to bribe Noah with chocolate to put his sweater back on for this picture - we'd already changed him into his PJs to head home when we took this! :-)

This past week was an interesting one to say the least. Noah was quite the challenge in the evenings after school. We are chalking it up to him still getting over whatever he had/has and hoping that it will pass but we'll see. They told us at school that he's been acting normal, so we think he's just been tired. He's just had a lot of fits and also started an irrational fear of having water poured over his head when taking a bath!! He's been screaming bloody murder when we have to rinse his hair!! Not sure what's up with that cause he loves water usually - maybe it's time to get back to the pool. On Tuesday night, he woke up a few times - which hasn't happened in forever - and came into our room so upset and wouldn't calm down. We couldn't figure out what was wrong but he was so upset, he had to sleep in our bed with us (that hasn't happened in probably over a year!) until about 4am. We still don't know what that was about. I actually ended up getting him early from school on Wednesday just to let him nap at home so he could get a little more rest. He seemed a little better that evening and we're hoping he'll get back to 'normal' soon. :-)

A few pictures from out week...

Kylie has been doing great with tummy time.

She's really getting to the 'changing every day' phase. Each day she has a new little surprise for us. She rolled over a few times this week and today it was that Waylon was blowing rasberries at her and she was trying to mimic him. It was so cute and she did it many times! She loves being ticked and giggles. So adorable!

Watching her crazy big brother.

Here are a few funny pictures of Noah - we were just being silly

On Thursday and Friday, we had a few accidents - Noah fell off a chair while standing at the island and cut his lip pretty bad. Just one more notch to add to his stick! :-) On Friday, we had our first accident with Kylie - I thought we've done pretty well to go 3 months with her and a 2 1/2 year old and this is the first accident! :-) Anyway, she was in her bouncy seat on top of a picnic blanket (we were playing picnic in the kitchen with Noah). I had my back turned for a minute and Noah tried to pick up the blanket. The bouncy seat turned over and she bonked her head on the hardwood floor. I just heard a bang and looked over and she was face down on the ground with the bouncy seat on top of her! Noah felt so bad. She stopped crying pretty quickly and only had a red mark on the side of her forehead for a few hours so it was pretty minor luckily!

Friday night, Nana, Grandad, Andrea, Sean and Savannah came over for dinner. The kids had a great time playing as usual (and a few temper tantrums as usual!). :-) We ended the night with a double bubble bath. Notice his hair is not being washed! We decided not to even deal with the water over the head issue!

Saturday was a fun and busy day. Janet and I decided to give the older kids some one on one time with us moms and went out to a dog agility show that our neighbor, Mo, was participating in with his dogs, Chopper and Chloe. It was so cool to watch and the kids had a good time. We had a picnic in the back of the minivan before heading home for nap.

After a little rest, we had to wake Noah up for his nap to head to my friend Keri's triplets 1st birthday party! Abigail, Bethany, and Phoebe were so adorable and I can't believe it's already been a year!

Noah with their big sis, Lydia - this picture cracks me up!!! Keri said it looks like a prom picture! :-)

Noah is almost exactly 9 months younger than Lydia and Kylie is about 9 months younger than the triplets! It so cool that our kids are so close in age cause Keri and I have been friends since the 2nd grade! Now if only we could see each other more often!

Next up, a relaxing Sunday with dinner at Nana and Grandad's to round out the weekend!

Happy New Year!

I know I'm a little delayed in this post since we are now a week past new years! I thought things might calm down after the holidays but we've been trying to do some major put away and reorganization in this house so that's taken quite a bit of time and energy. Not to mention just keeping up with the kids alone!

So let's back track to Monday the 29th. Noah was off school but Waylon was back at work so Janet and Maddie came over to play for the morning. It was nice to catch up with them and Noah was definitely happy to see Maddie! I didn't get pictures of them that day but did get a
good one of NOah and Kylie later that afternoon....



Later that week, Noah tried on the new Wolfpack hat that Nana and Grandad got him for Christmas. We thought he looked like a little b-boy here. :-)

Just a cute shot of Kylie from that week.

We had decided to jump into potty training on Thursday because Noah had been showing some signs of being ready. In fact, he wanted to wear big boy underwear to school on Wednesday. He had a few accidents but did actually go on the potty twice. Not too bad for the first day going cold turkey with diapers I didn't think. Throughout the weekend, we had several accidents and were trying to get Noah to sit on the potty every hour or so. By Saturday night, he'd had enough and it was becoming a battle which we didn't want. We decided to give up and put him back in diapers on Sunday but since then, he's been asking to go and has actually gone on the potty several times. We are still back in diapers now but encouraging him to try when he wants and praising him when he actually goes. We'll get there in Noah's time. :-)

So back to Thursday, our first day of potty training, Eli, Evia and Cole came over to play for the morning. Eli has been working on potty training, too so we decided to try using peer pressure. No luck on the potty but we did have simultaneous accidents! :-)

I'm sure the boys will love this picture when they grow up!

Evia and baby Cole

Playdates with Eli are much more physical than they are with the girls! :-)

Kylie and Cole

Our big New Years Eve Celebration included a Mexican dinner and the first dual bath for Noah and Kylie!

After the kids went to bed, we had a big celebration (note the sarcasm) for New Years. Waylon went to bed at 9:30, but I was determined to stay up to see the ball drop. I watched The Notebook and went upstairs about 11:30 to watch the ball drop in our room. Luckily, my friend Jackie (in New York) was just as exciting as me and was on Facebook at the time. I chatted with her online while the ball dropped so I celebrated with her. :-) I leaned over and kissed Waylon at midnight but he didn't budge. Then I think I had the lights out and eyes closed by 12:05. Ha.

Friday morning, Nana and Grandad came over to take Noah while we took Kylie and tried to get a few errands done in record time. We managed to drop off our Christmas tree, a Target run, BJs and Food Lion all in about 2 hours! Not too bad.

We got a much needed bookshelf at Target for the 'playroom' (used to be our eat in kitchen). We got it put together during Noah's nap and filled it up in no time....

That evening, our friends Will and Julie with their kids Tate (5) and Quinn (1 1/2) came over to visit. Will and Waylon grew up together and they now live in Chicago. We hadn't seen them in a long time.... at least a year and a half cause we'd never met Quinn!... so it was nice to see them. We ordered pizza for dinner and the kids had a great time together. Noah really likes playing with older kids.

Dinner time!

Wrestling with Tate right before they left - notice Noah already has pajama pants on because he'd had another accident. :-)

Friday night, around 11 or so, Noah came into our room and proceeded to throw up all over the place. It was really strange and we were worried that he was getting sick but we never had another episode that night or through the weekend so we figured it was a fluke. It was pretty messy to get cleaned up though and Noah was as happy as could be afterwards. He was chatty and happy to be in the tub!

Saturday was kind of a rough day. We all stayed home together all day and I think we all had cabin fever by the end of the day. This is also when the potty training took a turn for the worse so that didn't help matters.

So on Sunday morning when Andrea texted me and said 'Want a playdate?' I wrote back 'Yes Yes Yes!!' We all went over to their house and let Savannah and Noah run out some energy together.

Sean reading to Noah and Savannah

Saying goodbye

By Monday, we were all pretty happy to get back to a normal week and have had a nice week so far. Noah likes to help us set the table before dinner - this is his handiwork one night this week.

Today has been a very good day and we are looking forward to Grammy and Papa coming this weekend to help us out some on Saturday, and then Sunday we are going to see my mom's family for our Christmas get together! Should be a nice weekend.