Happy 4th Birthday Noah!

On March 18 we celebrated the fourth birthday of our first baby, our sweet Noah.

Noah is sweet, funny, smart, and kind.  He loves Cars (especially Cars 2) and fish.  He loves to play racing games on the iPad or Wii, and he loves putting on his "tuner" ("Shoom SHOOM!!") and then racing around the house against his Daddy.  He also loves to paint, draw, make bracelets, and build things (although that's mostly been on the back burner for the past while because his little brother is The Destroyer... Noah calls him "Isaiah Godzilla").

Everyday he tells me a hundred times that he loves me, and it always comes out somewhere along the lines of "Mommy, I love you a million thousand two hundred pieces!"

He got a trampoline for his birthday, and he loves it (this was before we put the net on).

We are so thankful for the past four years with our Noah.

March 18, 2010:

March 18, 2014:

The kids really didn't want their picture taken... here is an example of what the rest of the pictures looked like:

That's real life, people!

Isaiah is ONE!

Isaiah turned one on September 22!  It's so strange how it feels like he was just born, but at the same time it feels like he's always been a part of our family.  Since I haven't posted in forever this is going to be a mash up of what he's like now and what's been going on with him in the past few months.

At one year old...

-Isaiah weighs 21.6 lbs (weighed on our digital scale).

-He's only 29.5 inches tall, but that was with him standing up and I'm sure he wasn't totally straight, so it's possible he's a little taller.  Still, that's 2 inches shorter than Noah was at this same age.

-His head is 19 inches around, which I believe is exactly what they hope a child's head circumference is at 12 months old.

-He finally got teeth around.. eek, I'm kind of forgetting here.  Okay I just checked pictures and it was around 9.5 months.  I know it was definitely after we moved, and we moved when he was 9 months and one week old.  

-He is not a good teether.  With Noah we hardly ever knew he was teething.  Seriously, even molars, they just appeared.  No distress, no nothing.  With Isaiah?  His gums swell and bruise, he gets blood blisters where the tooth is trying to come through... He even had a hanging flap of skin when his top left tooth was cutting.  It was horrid.  And of course he's cranky from all that - who wouldn't be?  

-He got 6 teeth pretty much one right after the other between about 9.5 and 10 months - the top four and the bottom two.  He hasn't gotten any since, but he's started teething again just int he past week.  His bottom lateral incisors and his top cuspids seem to be on the move.  I can't tell what will be first. 

-Oddly, his first tooth was the top left lateral incisor (I had to look up what it was called... it's the tooth next to the top middle teeth). 

-He started walking just before his birthday.  Literally, in the week leading up to the big day it was like he knew it was coming and was determined to be "walking" before he turned 1.  I thought it would happen after his birthday but he suddenly made big leaps and bounds in that one week, and he is a walker!  He probably spends equal amount of time walking and crawling right now, but each day he walks more and more, and he really enjoys himself while he's doing it.  You should see the little stinker smile he has the whole time he's toddling around.

-He doesn't eat ANYTHING.  He is still exclusively breastfed.  We do baby led weaning and started giving him things to taste at about 9.5 months.  This is how that went:

This was actually his very first taste of something and it was strawberry.  He kept licking it and then making lemon-tasting type faces.  It was very amusing.  In general he really enjoys tasting things, but he will not swallow anything unless it's by accident (and then he chokes and gags it down).  I don't do the puree thing but I have tried giving him pureed food a time or two, and while he's fine with tasting it, he pushes it right back out of his mouth.  It actually seems that he hasn't lost the tongue-thrust reflex yet.

-He also doesn't drink from a cup or bottle or anything.  I am literally his only source of nutrition.  But hey, he more than tripled his birth weight and he is a really healthy baby (waaaay healthier than Noah as a baby) who has only been sick 3 or 4 times in his year of life (pretty sure Noah was sick like 13 times in his first year of life).  So there you go.

-After learning that breastfeeding is his only source of nutrition, it probably doesn't surprise anyone that he's up 3-6 times each night nursing.  Blaaah.  One day this will all be a distant memory...

-We cosleep, of course.

-We still babywear for hours each day.  Isaiah has finally been in a stroller (once) when Noah wanted him to go in one.  He thought it was like an amusement park ride and shrieked and cried every time we stopped moving.  He did the same thing when I took him and Noah on a wagon ride.  And the few times I've sat him in a grocery cart next to Noah (just for a short time during the grocery trip because Noah was asking for Isaiah to be next to him), he's gotten so hyper and excited.  It's funny how these things are novel experiences for him.

-Isaiah's favourite toy is... anything Noah is playing with.  And vice versa.  Really though, Isaiah really likes anything big that he can push around.  Walkers, bikes, ride ons, brooms, whatever.

Okay, it's 9pm and I have a doozy of a cold (I basically haven't been sick since Christmas so I shouldn't complain), so I want to go to bed.  First, a few pictures of the cutie...

9.5 months:

This is on his 10 month "birthday"... I can see 5 of his 6 teeth, which is how I knew he got them all between 9.5 and 10 months.  Otherwise I honestly wouldn't have remembered.

Just a few days before he turned 11 months old:

About a week before turning one:

Hahaha....

The day before his birthday... he keeps climbing in the warming drawer in my stove!

(don't mind the ugly floor, our kitchen is finally getting reno'd this month!)

Isaiah's 1st Birthday!!:

I liked the little smile he had once he realized what this present was:

"Noah, back off!"

It Was My Birthday

My birthday was this past Friday.  I really don't care much about my birthday since becoming a mother.  Noah's birthday is far more important to me.  This was actually my third birthday since Noah was born, and the first two were amazing.  There is just something special about spending your birthday as a mother after spending a birthday (or two, or three, etc) wanting to be a mother.  Even though my birthday is not very important to me, there was still something magical about it.

Well, that spell was broken this year.

Frankly, the first half of the day sucked.  Noah is normally incredibly pleasant and well behaved, but he chose my birthday to act like a 2 year old.  He decided to whine and cry over everything he wanted to do or have.  I can't. stand. whining. and. crying.  Especially when it's completely unnecessary.  If you want a freaking apple, just ask for it, don't whine and cry about it!!  If you want to watch Chuggington, just ask, don't whine and cry about it!  His first request for anything was punctuated by whining and crying.  I ended up putting him in time out for 90 seconds, where he screamed like someone was cutting his arms off.  It was brutal, and really grated on my nerves.  The whining and crying got a little bit better after that (after he nursed for a good 10 minutes to "recover" from such an unreasonable and terrible consequence... can you just feel the sarcasm oozing through your computer screen?).  But it was still a very frustrating day.

Thankfully we were invited to my parents for dinner, so shortly after Noah's nap we left to go there.  I knew there would be a drastic difference in Noah's behaviour once we got there, and there was.  No more whining and crying, just our happy, pleasant boy.  So those few hours were enjoyable, at least.  My brother and SIL had come to town (not for my birthday, but because my Dad had his shoulder replaced on Wednesday), and it was nice to see them.

So my birthday was just meh. I don't know why exactly, but I'm in a bit of a funk.  Things from my last post are stressing me out.  Then I had a really stressful Thursday, which I'm not going to recap right now.  I'm feeling easily bothered, and I have very little patience.

I guess it's probably just a mixture of real-life stress and pregnancy hormones.  Everything seems worse when you're jacked up on pregnancy hormones.

Okay, I think I'm going to take this time to try to list some positive things going on in my life right now.  Maybe it'll help me get out of the funk.

1. I'm pregnant.  Hello, that's pretty awesome.

2. I'm pretty positive I've been feeling the baby fluttering around in there for the past week.  I know it's early, but I was feeling little mystery flutters this early with Noah, so it only makes sense.  Plus, considering the size and location of my uterus (the top of it is just about even with my belly button), it makes even more sense that I would feel it earlier than normal.

3. We have an ultrasound tomorrow!  We haven't seen this Bambino in almost 6 weeks, and I'm really excited to see him/her looking like a real baby instead of a kidney bean.  Plus at my clinic they broadcast the ultrasound onto a big flatscreen on the wall, so it's really a neat experience.  And if there's enough time we might be able to see some 3D images!

4. Justin and Noah are best friends lately.  For awhile there (maybe about 6 months ago), poor Daddy was way down on Noah's list of favourite people.  Numbers 1 through 9 were Mommy, and Daddy barely hung onto the number 10 spot.  But no longer!  I am still number 1 (especially when it comes to Noah being hurt or upset or scared, or when he wakes up in the morning or after nap).  But the rest of the time, MAN is he happy to be hanging out with his Dad!  No more whining for Mommy!  In fact, if Justin has to take a shower or go do something else, Noah doesn't give a crap the fact that I'm still there; he just gets sad that Justin is gone.   It just makes me so happy to see them be so close, and it's great timing with the pregnancy and impending baby.

5. We've been able to go to church again for the past 2 weeks!

6. Noah is loving babies.  He gets excited whenever he sees one ("There's a baby!!"  "Hi little baby!").  He asks if he can hug and kiss the baby (ie. my belly).  If he's on my lap he says "Careful of the baby!!!"  And today in the church nursery I was holding a baby boy (about 3 or 4 months old), and he was sooo sweet to him, caressing his face, and leaning forward to give him an adorable kiss on the cheek.  This makes me really look forward to the new baby arriving.

7. Next weekend is Easter, and that means my whole immediate family will be together in one place (there are currently 13 of us, and 2 babies on the way).  Last time we were all together was Christmas, so this will be nice.


Okay, I'm feeling like I'm in a better mood.  I just need to focus on the good stuff instead of the bad/annoying stuff.  Off to do other things!

Noah's Second Birthday Party

We had Noah's birthday party the day before his birthday.  As I mentioned, I didn't think we'd even be able to have a party, and only had 2 days notice to be able to plan this one.  I didn't want to burden any friends with coming to a party (they would feel they needed to bring gifts) with less than 48 hours notice, so we just invited immediate family.  The guests were:

My mom
Justin's mom
Giliane (my sister)
Matt and Lynsey (brother and SIL)
Hilary (SIL)
Elijah and Josiah (nephews)

Plus me, Justin, and Noah.  So there were 8 adults and 3 kids.  It was definitely small (of our immediate families we were missing our Dads and one of my brothers, and Giliane's boyfriend of 5 years).  But it was very low stress and tons of fun!

The morning of the party Noah really enjoyed the balloons we were blowing up!:

He especially liked this long one.  I am still impressed that Justin was able to blow it up by mouth!:

Part of what made the party so low stress is that people brought stuff.  Giliane brought a veggie tray, Matt and Lynsey brought a ton of dips and crackers and breads and stuff, and my MIL brought these little finger food thingies.  There weren't that many people to feed, so those snacks were really all we needed!  I made punch and put out several bags of chips (in bowls, of course), but thankfully I didn't go to any other trouble, snack-wise, because there was already more food than we needed.

While we were setting up food on the island, Noah decided to take present opening matters into his own hands:

I just went with it... there was no reason he had to wait until later.  And at this point his cousins weren't there, so there would be no jealousy/confusion.

We already have cut-apart food, but this is wooden Melissa and Doug stuff, so it's much better quality!

An Elmo book, of course!

The weather was perfect.  Like many people, we've been having unseasonably warm weather - shorts and t-shirt weather - when often we have snow at this time of year.  So we spent most of the party outside.  Justin and Matt played with the kids outside on our playground, played with sidewalk chalk, kicked balls around, took them for a walk in the wagon, etc.  They had fun, and my house stayed mostly clean.

We BBQed hot dogs and burgers for dinner, and had banana cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert.  This was Noah's first cake, and his reaction to the whole thing was pretty cute.

"Umm, what the heck?"

Starting to realize we're singing to him:

He saw the candle!  And he loves candles:

"Whoa... give to me!"

Legitimately trying to blow out the candle:

Daddy secretly helping him:

You did it, Noah!

Proud:

Inspecting the candle:

He said, "It's a two!" and then pulled it out.

First bite of cake:

He liked it, but he only ate half of his piece.  Which was half the size of everyone else's piece.  That's ma boy.

After dinner he did some playing with his Aunts and Uncles.

Aunt Hilary was throwing his big long balloon for him to catch:

Playing with Aunt Giliane and Uncle Matt:

As small a party as it was, I don't regret not inviting more people (not that we really had a lot of time to).  It was much calmer this way.  I got to talk to everyone extensively, instead of having people show up at my house and I'm just running around like a chicken with my head cut off and can barely socialize.

Another benefit was that Noah didn't get tons of unnecessary presents!  He really didn't need many new toys, and he got a much more controlled amount of quality toys, so that was great.

I am seriously so glad that we got to celebrate Noah's birthday with people other than ourselves!   It was a great day!

Details of Noah's actual birthday will be in a separate post... in the near future:)