it's no secret that we've had a very busy month around here. if you've read the last several posts about our sweet little girl, you know that we've moved into our new house and have been trying to get settled in both the house and into a routine with our two kiddos. fortunately, my maternity leave with sammy is longer than my leave was when i had noah, so i have double the time off to attempt to get everything situated. and yes, i'm really enjoying having the time off work! i've written a lot about samantha this past month, so now it's time for some noah updates....
our little one-and-half year old is not so little anymore. i realize more and more very day how much he has grown and how he's less and less my "baby" as time goes by. he now says dozens and dozens of words, far too many for me to keep track of, we typically only need to tell him what something is once and he can repeat it and remembers it in the future. he's also recently started to put together two-word phrases and sentences. these typically involve saying something he wants and the word "please" (i.e. "ball, ball, please, please!" or "please milk!"), but he also has surprised us recently with phrases like "my car"and "i see baby" (which i still count as a two-word phrase because he blends the "i" and "see" so it sounds like "isee bay-bee").
his other favorite thing to do and say is to call lexi. i've mentioned before how much noah loves our labrador, and this is more evident every day. noah now calls lexi all day, whenever he can, and will attempt to get her to play fetch with nearly any toy he can throw. his version of her name is heart-melting, coming out sounding something like "yahtzee" :) he will call her anytime he has to go upstairs, or any time we go outside. at night when we tell him it's time to go brush his teeth he'll climb up two steps, turn towards the living room (where lexi is inevitably dozing), and call "yahtzee" repeatedly. unfortunately for noah, lexi doesn't really understand his toddler speech and usually has no idea that she is being called. this means that whomever is taking noah upstairs for bedtime had to call lexi, and noah is *very* disappointed if she doesn't join us on our walk upstairs. it doesn't end there, though, because while noah is brushing his teeth he will go and sit by lexi, lean on her, and play "chase" with her in the loft area until his bath water is ready. he also continues to love to feed her -- in fact i found that while i was cleaning the garage the other day he had opened her food storage container, retrieved the scoop, and dumped several scoops on the ground, which lexi was gladly helping to clean up. needless to say, i did not have to feed her dinner that night.
the other day i went to lay sam down for her nap and i heard noah giggling hysterically in the living room, saying "toes, toes, toes!" when i went to investigate, i found noah sitting on the floor with his feet just shy of lexi's nose as she was lying on the floor. noah would point his toes forward and touch her nose, to which her reply would be licking his feet, causing him to laugh like crazy. eventually he would remove his feet from her nose, catch his breath, then start all over again. of course when i tried to catch it on camera the camera became more interesting than the game...so no luck :/
other cute noah-isms include saying "bless you!" anytime anyone sneezes or coughs -- especially samantha, and including himself. he loves any sort of stick, ball, or car. and speaking of cars, we seem to have created some kind of monster by letting noah watch the disney movie
Cars. he will ask to watch it several times a day, anytime he sees the TV or the case for the movie. we will hear a chorus of "watch cars, watch cars, watch cars...." until we distract him or tell him "no" enough times that he bursts into tears. :( the hard life of a toddler!
noah continues to love to play outside, and especially loves going to the park near our house where he can swing. my favorite part of this is that he now says "wheeeee" every time you push him on the swings. so cute! he seems to adore his little sister about 99% of the time, the only time he doesn't is if he's very tired or hungry and *he* wants to be held, instead of seeing us hold her. otherwise, he loves to tell us "isee bay-bee" any time she is around, pat her tummy, stroke her hair, and point out her eyes, ears, nose, toes, etc. to us. he also loves to tell us when she's sleeping and tell us to "shhhh, sleeping!"
we all enjoyed a visit from steve and jacquie at the beginning of the month during our move into the new house, and noah definitely loved the extra attention. before that, we also got to enjoy the previously mentioned trip to tanglewood resort on lake texoma with my parents. we celebrated our family's august and september birthdays while there on sunday, then i stayed there with the kids on monday and tuesday. noah and i got to go swimming, while sammy enjoyed lots of extra cuddling by grandma sharon. it was a nice getaway, one that we wouldn't normally get to enjoy thanks to work schedules.
we also enjoyed a trip from my maternal grandparents on september 10th, so they could see the new house and meet samantha and visit with noah. it was great to see them, and wonderful that the kids got to see them, too!
i'm sure there are other things i am leaving out for this month, but there's been so much i just can't even try to accurately remember it all. the important thing is that we are enjoying life with two kids, a new house, and each other! we continue to try to make the most of every day and enjoy this precious time that. despite the long (sometimes very long) days, we know that these times go by so quickly. there are days where i wish the kids were older so i could get more done, or we could go out more, or so matt and i could spend more time together. then i remember that we only get to have this time with our kids once, and that there will be plenty of time for everything else later. while i can't ever say that i truly love *every* minute, i can say that i enjoy motherhood and the life i have :)
for more pictures click the image:
