Brothers, off to church, March 4, 2012

Dog-dog is in tatters. Check out the strings!

LOVE Noah's "checking out my big brother" expression here...
Typical Noah "DON'T Touch me!" expression and accompanying screech...

Noah, eighteen months

Dunno why, but Noah reminds me of Herbie, the elf on Rudolph clay figures, that wants to be the dentist.

Love his little side curl, hair flip...
Chubby cheeks, pointy chin...
Yummy boy...

Parie's Mini-Me...

At eighteen months, Noah still has drool spots on his shirts!

Noah is definitely Parie's mini-me in terms of looks, but he is following in Sarah's footsteps with the "egg" on his forehead JUST LIKE his oldest sister had constantly at this age! Charlie even forebade me to let Sarah walk on the paved paths around our apartment complex in Dallas because she was forever tipping over and hitting forehead-first on the concrete. Poor girl never NOT had an egg on one side of her forehead or the other. If she was out of the stroller, Sarah had to stay in the grass which was a-okay with her!
Noah still doesn't talk. But, hey, if he is truly like his siblings, why would he? They didn't talk much before two either!

Fletchie's first inline hockey game

Fletchie is number 7 on the Kings (grey).

The great thing about this inline hockey league is that each player gets to play all the positions. The teams have 10 children that get rotated onto the rink every three minutes. The five players on the rink get to play for three minutes before the other five players get called out to play for their three minutes.
Noah has fun wandering the sidelines when we are watching Fletcher on the rink at Skate City.
Fletcher's post-game face.
Fletcher felt pretty fatigued after his 45 minute game.

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.

Fletcher's Rollerblading 9th Birthday Party

To be honest, I wasn't sure how I'd like this birthday party. I mean, it was going to be so different than other kiddo parties we've had. Fletcher's had an army soldiers party and also a Star Wars light saber party (both in Elizabeth City, NC). When he turned seven, he had a warrior themed party when the guests made their own cardboard shields and battled each other with a multitude of nerf guns. At eight, he held a "Jedi Training Academy" to celebrate with his fellow Star Wars-loving friends. Now at nine, his obsession is inline hockey. And boy, do I not use the word "obsession" lightly! Wowzer! The kid eats, lives, breathes hockey. I knew it was bad when he came home from his first Dallas Stars game (when they played the Avs at home) and kept their schedule right beside his bed to read at night. When I'm bustling around getting Tommy settled, Fletcher is reporting to me when and where the next game is. He wants to constantly be in his rollerblades and practices "checking" his little brother any chance he gets. When we play "Things" during our family game night, his answers were constantly giving him away because they all related to hockey (until we all got smart and started submitting hockey-related answers to throw off the rest of the fam!) The natural choice for a hockey-loving birthday boy was to have a rollerblading party for he and his friends to enjoy doing his favorite hobby. He was thrilled when we scheduled the party for the closest indoor roller rink which just so happens to be where his inline hockey team practices and has their games. He spent much of his party honing his speed skills!

Luckily, his friend, John McBride, an amazing athlete, was super fast on skates and could provide plenty of healthy competition for Fletcher to try and keep up with him! Those two raced around tagging each other throughout the entire party. Mom, of course, had to get in on the action which made them both laugh! I thought John was going to keel over in shock when I raced up beside him with a "nah, nah, na boo boo" face and grabbed him telling him he was "it!"
When we asked Fletcher later in the evening what his favorite part of the party was, he said, "When they called me out to the middle of the rink to sing, 'Happy Birthday,' and I got to race around the whole rink by myself! That was super fun!"
The kids got to play Limbo which they loved. I got out on the second round, but Fletcher and the other kids stayed in for another two rounds.
Joshua Perry and Kofi were both good skaters and seemed to enjoy the party.
John McBride and Aiden took the Limbo game very seriously.
Fletcher was told by the waitress delivering the Skate City birthday cake that their tradition at Skate City is that the birthday child has to eat the first bite of their piece of cake without using their hands. She needn't say more...the boys were ALL into that!
Aiden took the challenge quite seriously (like the Limbo game!) But, he didn't take his icing smathered face seriously...he thought he was a hoot! :) He wanted to wear the icing the rest of the party and proceeded to skate around the rink with his roller warrior make-up.
Josh Perry liked his look, too. He only had the guts to wear it for two laps around the rink before he decided that was enough of the icing make-up!
The boys all went nuts for the new air soft (not sure if that is the correct name!) gun that John Flipse gave Fletch. They are gun buddies and often play nerf wars when they are together. As soon as the Chuckwagon hit the driveway when we got home, the boys piled out racing inside to our kitchen sink to soak the tiny bbs in water so they could fire the new gun at each other.
Sarah and Fletcher couldn't wait to play the Star Wars version of Trouble. They love this new game, although they bicker as they play (much to their mother's annoyance!)
Love this picture of Josh, Fletch, and John McBride.