Sunday, Jan.29, 2012

A typical Noah expression:

Our 17 month old loves to laugh! He "runs" around doing laps looping through the kitchen, dining room, den, and back down the hallway to the kitchen. He giggles all day. Fletcher and Sarah especially love playing with him right now. Both of his oldest siblings give him special attention everyday, catering to his favorite activities and taking care of his every need. Fletcher is often getting Noah set-up to play with his singing Elmo and other musical toys. Fletchie also insists that only he can get Noah up from his nap when he thinks Noah is due to wake up.
Sarah is always scooping her littlest brother up and twirling him around, tickling him and giggling with him. She is quick to help him by changing his diapers, getting him dressed, and playing games with him. Tommy likes that his little brother is now able to "chase" him around the loop of the first floor rooms. They run giggling chasing each other while Tommy purposely bumps into Noah knocking him down repeatedly.
Noah doesn't have the full-blown Tommy pterodactyl screech that his bigger brother had at this age, but he does screech quite a bit to get what he wants. One of the things we hear Noah screech for the most often is cereal! Noah is JUST like his bigger brothers in that the boy puts down some SERIOUS cereal every morning and would eat it for snack any other time of the day, as well.
This is the exhausted state that Paris was in just 10 minutes after I picked her up after her slumber party with Rachel. She was asleep within 15 minutes of walking in the door.
The kids just barely tolerated me taking their picture after church on Sunday. It caused Paris to dissolve into a pool of tears. Within a few hours, poor Parie woke up from her nap with a stomach virus, her second in three weeks. Luckily, three episodes later she was feeling much better.

The siblings enjoyed the party, too...

well, Noah...not so much! Poor guy. He was so tuckered. Sweet boy's only had the four teeth for months now and he's finally trying to get some more. Bad timing. He's had the fountain of a runny nose, diarrhea, and cling-on to Mom. Fun, let me tell ya. He could somewhat hold it together when I wasn't in sight. Charlie sat with him so I could play with the kids on the roller rink. I loved that job! It meant holding Parie's hands as she learned to skate, taking a few turns around the rink doing the same with both of Tommy's hands, and encouraging Fletch's friends who were beginner skaters. Every now and then, I got to chase Fletch and John McBride. That was the highlight...being the reckless Mom that tossed the rules aside (surprise, surprise!) and in a crowd of parents with iddy bitties on the rink, I speedily chased down two nine year olds who thought that was the funniest thing. I only almost crashed twice. No regrets. Fun memory with my precious son.

Paris wanted in on the icing make-up! Eating with no fork was lots of fun for all! (Smearing on your face was about all the cake was good for anyway...)
Tommy wore the rollerblades he got for Christmas (as did Parie). They both made great strides in learning to skate. Parie got quite discouraged at one point as we slowly made our way around the rink with me holding both her hands. She said, "I'm terrible!" as she fought to keep the elephant tears from slipping out of her wet eyes. Just in the nick of time, her almost best friend, Rachel, showed up on the rink and was struggling even more than she was. Suddenly, all those kids zooming past her didn't matter anymore because she could join in the struggle to learn this new skill alongside one of her best buds. Rachel, John Flipse's younger sister, was holding the railing the entire way around the rink. Paris suddenly realized she wasn't so terrible after all. She was just learning a new skill like everyone has to do at one time or another. After the party, Paris stayed and skated with Rachel and her family while we took the party boys home. Paris spent that night at Rachel's house (something she missed out on two weeks ago because she got the stomach bug the morning of her upcoming slumber party at Rachel's). She was ecstatic to have the playtime with her buddy. As soon as we walked in our home after picking her up at Rachel's church on Sunday, she burst into tears that her stomach hurt. She fell promptly to sleep (a rarity these days at nap time), and two hours later woke up vomiting. Poor kiddo. Something about Rachel. Mind you, this is the friend that Paris had spend the night a few months ago, and I heard them TEARING down the stairs at 4 a.m. I leapt out of bed to find them fully clothed playing flashlight tag with full make-up on, their beds made, and enough Barbies out to know they'd been playing for hours. I was hot! I made them go down to the basement because there was no way I was going to have them waking the rest of the household up at that unseemly hour! They played house for a few more hours before I found Paris at 7 a.m. curled up in the fetal position in Noah's (never used) crib in the basement. Poor girl had fallen asleep while playing "baby" during her game of house. She was out for the rest of the morning. Paris started her day (for the second time) at lunch time after her friend had already gone home!
Sarah has really improved at rollerblading! I was quite proud of her at the party! She was super fun to skate with.
Sarah bravely tried the Limbo game along with the boys and me.

Two buddies, Paris and Tommy

Paris and Tommy have gotten so close the past few months. Tommy LOVES when Paris plays with him. The night before her birthday Paris made pink cupcakes in ice cream cake cones. When it was time to frost them, she invited Tommy to help her. I literally did nothing...in fact, I was on the phone in another room. When I came back in the kitchen, Paris had iced all the chocolate frosting and Tommy had done all the vanilla frosting and both had added sprinkles to their cupcakes all by themselves. Tommy was so cute with his frosting knife in his left hand (he is FOR SURE a leftie like Sarah!) and his right hand shoving sprinkles in his mouth.

Here are the buddies tasting their creations to "make sure they are not poisonous!"

Paris was excited to share cupcakes with her Tuesday Options school classmates.

It was awfully quiet...

This is how I found the boys when I went to investigate why it was so quiet.

The big kids told Tommy that he'd made Noah look like a pilgrim.

Paris is so sweet playing with Tommy!

One of Paris and Tommy's favorite activities is dressing up. They love to do this with their friends and together as siblings. Most days Tommy says, "Mom, me play dress up?" When I say, "Yes," he yells, "GUYS, Mom says, 'Us CAN dress up!'" The kids (T,P and F) also LOVE pretending to be animals together. They are most often a collection of felines these days. They pick a variety of cougars, cheetahs, & jaguars. They find the exact species in one of our animal books and love to show me the pictures of the ones they are pretending to be that day, well, that MOMENT, because they often switch species many times throughout the game! I love hearing them pounce around in the loft and chat about what their feline is doing throughout the imaginary play. The best part about these long playtimes is they rarely have any toys to clean up when they are done. When I tell them, "Time to clean up for dinner," they laugh and say, "Mom, we didn't use any toys! We are cheetahs!"

Tommy posing in Feb. 2011 wearing Paris' panties one day when she thought it would be funny to put girl underwear on him. Notice how she gathered them in a side knot and rubber banded them to be smaller and fit snugly!
The Spiderman mask from Grandma is a big hit and fun for the kids!
Paris and Tommy playing dinosaur set-up together. I often hear, most frequently from Tommy these days, "Hey Mom, come see my set-up!" The kids used to laugh behind his back because he'd sometimes have just two toys "set-up" for his play scene. When they would ask me to see their set-up, it would be an intricate scene of many toys, but Tommy joined in the excitement of showing Mom set-ups and would call for me with just a couple toys ready for action!

On another note about Tommy, today we had a five minute banter back and forth about "Bat-a-wang." I could not for the life of me figure out if he meant Batman's batteries (which didn't make sense because we both know Batman doesn't have batteries) or Batman's wings (his new action figure has black wings as opposed to the other Batman figures which have capes). He was so frustrated with me not understanding what he was asking me about Batman. It turns out that I finally figured out he was asking about his new Batman's Bat-a-rangs which Batman uses to catch the bad guys. Ohhhh. NOW, I understand..."bat-a-wang"...not Batman batteries or Batman wings, Bat-a-rangs, of course!

Noah turned 5 months old!

Tommy is sporting the classic "Sah-dya's" (Gammy's way of saying Sarah when she was Tommy's age) egg on his forehead from a recent bump. Poor Sarah used to have an egg on her forehead all the time when she was around two. Tommy thought it was funny that it was called an "egg" and his siblings teased that they were gonna eat it. He kept telling me, "Mommy, eat my egg!"

Our precious Noah loves to laugh, smiles easily and eats up the attention of all his siblings. They are quick to ask to hold him and often cart him around the house to have him "join" in the fun they are having! He is being "trained" by the kids to sit up. They count how many seconds he can sit unassisted before toppling backwards on the bed. This seems to be a fun game for all the kids! They get quite proud of him when he breaks one of his sitting records! Sarah has taken it upon herself to do "school" with him as often as she can (most days!) She reads to him and "teaches" him letters, colors, sitting, and other important sister stuff! Noah is edible right now with his wrist, arm and leg rolls. He is so cute and chubby. He loves to be smooched on and laughs when we kiss him playfully on his neck or cheeks. Zerberts on his bare belly (or "sherberts" as we fondly call them after Sarah's little girl word for them) are a favorite way to make him laugh right now.

Brother Time

I found Tommy "sharing" his superheroes with Noah.

Pretty adorable brothers!

I love Tommy looking on at Noah and that Tiny Batman made the picture, too.

Noah is two months old and ready for the chillier weather.

Our pacie-sucking baby found his fingers during this nap. He was sucking his thumb and pointer finger hard making lots of noise.

A new brother game...

The other day the kids and I were at the kitchen table doing school. Suddenly, Tommy's loud requests for our attention prevented us from continuing. I heard him (practically) shouting, "DIE! Die!" I was puzzled because I'd never heard him say that word before, and it seemed to be a request. I must have looked confused because Fletcher piped up, "Oh, he just wants me to play our game with him." What? I didn't really press the issue because I needed to continue on with their schoolwork, so I told Tommy not yet but that Fletcher could play in a few minutes when school was over. Well, I rolled when I saw what the game was that Tommy named, "Die!" They both grab throw pillows off the couch and rush at each other trying to knock the other down. Modern day knights, my boys? I bet you can't guess who normally gets bowled over! It wouldn't be the big kid now, would it?! How funny that the little guy actually requests/demands this game!

Fletcher's Pre and Post Hair-Cut

The new haircut he'd been wanting...spikey bangs! He saw that the big boy he admires who plays drums in the student band wore his bangs spiked up one day, and he decided that was the type of haircut he would get. Poor kid's been doing the shaggy look for awhile and some days it looks cute but...the long hair on his ears annoyed him at times (I don't blame him!) It was great to see his face after weeks (months) of it being covered up with shaggy hair. I have SO become like my Popsy who was always loving our hair off our faces when we were growing up! Something about seeing your child's whole face is really special; I have to agree with my Pops on that one! (The mohawk hair-do photos were taken the day before the haircut because Sarah had been wanting to fix his hair for ages. He let her make the mohawk for fun while she was busy dolling Paris up in princess make-up. :) Siblings have so much fun!

Thank you, Cousin William!

The kids are having a ball with the tub toys their cousin gave them! They've had both blue and red baths, as well as a mixed purple one, so far. They really like spelling with the letters and finding "their" numbers. Tommy is so funny with how we taught him to show people he was two. Since he wasn't mastering the typical "two" sign (like the peace sign), we have him hold up both left and right pointer fingers beside each other and say, "Two!" when we ask him how old he is. Someone laughed at us and said, "Guys, he's not eleven!" Oh, well. It is stinkin' cute when he does it!

2nd ever Valentine's Day with snow

Snow on Valentine's Day is significant to our family. It all started with three and a half year old, Sarah, back in October 2004 when we were living in Dallas, TX. She told us she really wanted it to snow. We told her to ask God for snow because we couldn't make it snow. Our neighbors and friends found out she was praying for snow and laughed telling her it never snows in Dallas. Sarah kept praying. Months passed and she kept asking God for snow. It wasn't until we woke up on Valentine's Day 2005 and saw a few inches of snow covering our apartment complex's yard that we knew God said, "Yes," to Sarah's prayers. How loved we ALL felt by God!


This year Charlie had prayed with all of us asking God for some more snow. We had had some beautiful snow in the weeks past, but we were missing seeing white. A few days after his prayer, we woke up and there was a beautiful snow covering our yard once again...Valentine's Day 2010. We all rejoiced together about this answered prayer.

Kids playing salon with the Webbs last weekend