Happy Birthday Aunt Leahna!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Leahna!

I don't have a current picture of Leah and Noah. We're getting together at the Shoemakers' on Sunday morning for brunch to celebrate Leahna's b-day. I'll have to get one then.



In the meantime, have a great day Aunt Leah! We miss you and can't wait to see you this weekend!

We love you!
Here's little Mr. Smiley. He rolled over at grandma and grandpa's today for the first time. Tuesday was very hard having conferences after school, I was lucky that my principal let me leave early so I could see him briefly before he went to bed. I can't wait for the weekend so I can be around him and J all day long. He's changing so much each day. Tonight we had him on the couch and at times he was sitting by himself. He's going to be mobile before we know it!

This one's a little blurry, which is too bad. It was hard to get a picture of him on the couch and looking at the camera. He had too many things to see from that new perspective!

Happy Birthday Aunt Janis!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Janis!! Hope that you have a GREAT day!

We love you!

5 Months Old!!

My little boy is 5 months old today!! SO hard to believe, the time has gone by so fast! Justin and I were looking at some of the first pictures we took of him, he was so tiny!!! It's amazing how he's grown. In addition to saying his first word :) he's trying to sit up on his own, rolling over (when he wants to, which isn't that often) and trying to "army crawl." Everyday I'm amazed at what a wonderful journey this is and how blessed we truly are.
I had to share a couple of fun photos. Noah's Grandpa Dean gave him a baby magic set for Christmas that included a rabbit and a hat. The hat is a little small for him, but balances on his head. It reminds me of the Mad Hatter! He's such a good sport letting me put it on him. :)
We had quite the jam session tonight at Grandma Debbie's as you can see from this picture. Cousins Mary and Ellie were teaching Noah how to "play" the piano and he was delighted with it. He was squeeling and laughing the whole time.

These pics are for Aunt Connie. We caught him in the act again: eating the animals!! I guess he decided to take your advice and since they taste good, go for it. When he's old enough we'll teach him that his Great-Grandpa Marvy wouldn't want him to eat the the poor little animals. :)

First Word?!

Earlier this weekend Kathy said that Noah clearly said "mama". I, too, had heard him say this before. Today, he was saying "mommm, mommm." So, the debate at the Abbott house is: does this count as his first word? I say yes, Justin says no. His argument is that Noah didn't intentionally say it. I'd love your opinion!

I love the weekends, Justin and I get to spend so much time with each other and with Noah. I wish they lasted longer!

This upcoming week is going to be busy. I have parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday and Thursday after school until 8:30. I talked to my principal and he's letting me leave at 7:30 so that I can get home in time to put Noah to bed. Those days are going to be so hard, dropping him off at Grandma & Grandpa's at 7:30 a.m. and getting home when he goes to bed! And the following week isn't any better. I have a meeting after school on Monday and conferences again on Wednesday.

Noah's Aunt Janis and Aunt Leahna have birthdays coming up (January 30 and January 31, respectively). In fact we went bowling today with Aunt Janis to celebrate her birthday. Just in case I don't have time to write later this week, Happy Birthday Aunt Janis and Aunt Leahna!!! We love you two!

Hungry?!

Anything and everything is finding its way into Noah's mouth these days. We've been having him sit in his highchair with us while we eat meals. Here he is at breakfast this morning chewing on his stuffed elephant. You can see the smile on his mouth while he's biting on the elephant's trunk. Below is a picture of him trying to eat his toy tiger at Grandma Kathy's and Grandpa Tom's last night while he and Justin watched the Giants/Packers game. Sorry the Packers lost Grandpa Tom!
Tonight after we were done eating I was playing with Noah, moving the camera close to his face and then taking it farther away. He thought it was pretty funny as he laughed while I was doing it. (That's why this picture is SO close) The other night as we were playing with him we got some good laughs out of him, they were coming right from his belly! His little personality shines through more and more everyday. It was a great weekend, too bad every one isn't 3 days long!

Saturday

Here are my two guys hanging out Saturday morning. It's so nice to have a 3 day weekend! (Thank you MLK Day!)

Yesterday, Noah went with Grandma Debbie and me to the music store. As exciting as that was, he slept the whole time! He spent most of yesterday sleeping, except he was wide awake during church. The Saturday night service we go to is called a Taize service, it's very meditative. At any rate, we always take a bottle with us so that if Noah is fussy from we can feed him. There are 3 minutes of silent prayer after the sermon. Noah had just finished eating his bottle, I put him on my shoulder and he let out the loudest burp! It ws hard for Justin and I to keep our laughter silent, but we did!
Here's our little guy after his bath last night. He loves bath time! It's getting more and more difficult to dress and bathe him, he's always grabbing his toes!!
I had morning duty this morning. It was the first time all week that he didn't wake up at 5 a.m.!!
Way to go Noah! (He's so good to his mom, we didn't get up until 7:00)

Today, Sunday morning, he's taking a nap. We have a busy day ahead: lunch at Grandma Debbie's where he'll get to play with Granny; dinner and the Packers game with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom. Uncle Seth will be there, it will be nice to have Noah spend some time with him.

Tomorrow will be our lazy day. The only thing scheduled is for Justin and Noah to watch The Price Is Right.

Morning Person

Noah is definately an early bird. However, this week he's been getting up even earlier than normal. Prior to this week he was going to bed at 8 p.m. and waking up around 6 or 6:30 a.m., some days as late as 7:00. He decided to change things up for Justin and I this week. He's been getting up to eat around 3 a.m. and has been waking up to start the day around 5 a.m. every morning this week. He's not crying or upset, he's just playing- happy as can be. Since he's still sleeping in our room, we try to doze a little but aren't really able to sleep with the party that's going on in the cradle. So, inevitably we both get up. Justin jumps in the shower and I take little "Mr. Smiley Pants" downstairs to play in his swing while I eat breakfast and get everything ready to go for the day. All of these pictures were taken before 6:00 a.m. this morning!
I couldn't resist, I had to post this picture. His facial expression is so funny.


It's amazing how true the old saying is about babies changing everyday. He's reaching for everything, including the camera! (See above pic.) Noah's trick of the day is smacking his lips, making a loud popping sound. Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom left to go to a movie when we pick Noah up so we didn't have much of a chance to talk with them about his day. Kathy called tonight when they got home and said that he had been popping his lips all day. He sure has perfected that sound! You can also tell from his shirt that he's been drooling a lot, a little too early to start working on a tooth, but you never know!

He's been rolling at home for Justin and I from his back to his tummy. He's yet to do it at Grandma and Grandpa's, but I bet by the time we go back to school on Tuesday he'll be ready to perform for them!!

Jumperoo

We went to Babies-R-Us on Monday after school and bought Noah a "Jumperoo." We can't decide if he likes it or not. He didn't have too much time to spend in it on Monday. He spent about 20 minutes in it yesterday and today he didn't seem to enjoy it too much. We'll see what the weekend brings. He might enjoy it more in the morning when he's "fresh". Being the happy baby that he is I did get a picture of him smiling in it yesterday.

Today was the first time in a VERY long time that he was actually awake from the time we got home until he went to bed. Usually he only takes 2 naps at Grandma & Grandpa Shoe's but today he took three! It was great to have so much awake time with him, he's such an amazing little guy. And it's so much fun to watch his daddy play with him, Justin is such a goofball!

A Fun, Busy Weekend

It was a fun, busy weekend. We actually didn't leave the house all day on Saturday. My brother Aaron called and asked if we wanted to play games. So, Aaron, Janis, Mary & Ellie came over after lunch. Long story short, we played games until 10:30 that night! We played Texas Hold-Em' (Mary dominated the first game!), Clue (I won the first game, Justin won the second), Disney Scene-It and during the second round of Texas Hold-Em' Ellie watched Sleeping Beauty. It was a great family game day.

Today, Noah woke up at 6:30. It was my day to get up early with him. My husband, being the sweetheart that he is, woke up with him and let me get an extra hour of sleep. After I got up he did go back to bed to get a little more shut-eye. We went to my mom's for lunch. Shortly after that I had to head off to the ROCKE meeting, so I dropped Justin and Noah off at the Shoemakers to watch the Giants/Cowboys' game. After that, we went grocery shopping, had dinner, played with our bundle of joy, bathed him and put him to bed.

With everything going on we did manage to get a few other things done. We got Noah's high chair set up. He's wanting to sit up all the time so we thought that would be a good way to promote his sitting without us holding him all the time. He really liked it. We also put a gate on the steps to the basement. Noah's not mobile yet, but he will be all too soon!

It was a great weekend!

Sleepy Head!

Noah has been quite the tired little boy when we've gotten home from Grandma Kathy's and Grandpa Tom's this week. I'm sure that the change in schedule this week has been hard on him. He took an hour and a half nap tonight when he got home. He was awake for about an hour after his nap before he started acting tired again. Hopefully tomorrow we can dedicate some time to being lazy, we do have a busier than usual weekend ahead of us. We're going to church tomorrow night and hopefully getting together with my brother Aaron, my sister-in-law Janis and their girlies, Mary and Ellie. Sunday I have a board meeting for ROCKE (the Regional Organization of Colorado Kodaly Educators. This is my 5th year on the board, my first as president. We have the national OAKE conference here in Denver in March 2008. I'm very fortunate that I am not the regional representative for that!) That will take a couple of hours and of course, Justin and I both have school work to do. I'm looking forward to whatever time I have to play with Noah and cuddle with him.

So, I'm not sure if anyone reads that comments on this blog, but someone (who will remain nameless) posted one on the last entry. The anonymous entry was wondering why I never mentioned Noah's dashing uncle that lives in Westminister. Well, Noah has two uncles that live in Westminister: Uncle Seth and Uncle Aaron. I will post a picture of both, you can decide which one is the "dashing" one. :)

Uncle Aaron

Uncle Seth

Of course, if I post a picture of Noah with his Uncles Seth and Aaron, I also need to post a picture of him with his Uncle Adam. . . although not of Westminister, but perhaps equally as "dashing".

Feet

You can't tell it that well from this picture, but Noah found his feet tonight. I snapped a couple other pictures of him actually holding on to them but, as you see, he has no diaper on and those pics showed a little more than just him holding on to his feet. Justin kind of laughed at me taking the pictures, but I was afraid that he wouldn't be holding them still after I got the diaper on. I was right, he didn't find them again this evening. (He's also wearing no clothes, because as Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom know, diaper changes can sometimes feel like you're cleaning up a volcano eruption. I call it "Mount Saint Noah.")



I made it through a long day. After school there was an hour of vertical teams and then a staff meeting where I found out that the CELA test is the Colorado English Language Acquisition Test. It was about 5:40, after the staff was trained how to administer the CELA test and teachers were working on scheduling their students to take the test that my principal came up and told the me, the pe and the art teacher that it'd be okay if we left. The pe teacher, Mike, has a 1 year old so we both bolted out of there, wishing that he would have told us that a half-hour earlier! The art teacher, Bill, is single and said he'd stay through the rest of the meeting. He may earn brownie points with the principal, but Mike and I got to spend more time with our kids this evening! And really, who wouldn't want to spend time with this little cutie!!

Back To School

So, we've made it through two days back at school. Justin hasn't had kids yet, he starts his new semester tomorrow. Noah is back playing with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom during the day. I must admit that I'm jealous! It was so great spending so much time with my guys over winter break.

Tomorrow will be a long day for me- we have professional development after school. This consists of an hour of Vertical Teams, which is an intervention program to determine kiddos that need additional support. The second hour will be spent going over how to give the CELA test. I don't give it and honestly, I don't know what CELA stands for. It's given to students every year, I think has something to do with our second language learners- I'll know for sure tomorrow. (I don't see the point of making teachers that don't administer the test sit through the training. Am I a little resentful about having to sit through the training? Yes!)

Afterwards I will race home to spend an hour or so with Noah before it will be time for him to go to bed. If his schedule is like it was today and yesterday, he might actually take a nap while I'm still at school. I can't wait to spend all day Saturday and Sunday with him!

Last Day Of Winter Break

Today was Justin's and my last day of Winter Break. I go back to kids tomorrow, while Justin has an inservice day tomorrow and a workday on Tuesday. It's going to be hard to leave Noah tomorrow morning. It's been a great two weeks! I have never enjoyed a winter break as much as this one. It's been great playing with Noah, hanging out in our pajamas for most of the morning, holding him during his naps and spending all day with my two guys. I'm so going to miss it!

Noah is changing so much and I am really dreading the end of this month: one week I will have parent/teacher conferences two nights until 8:30 and following week I will have another night of conferences. I am trying not to think about it since it's a few weeks away, but it's going to be so hard to leave Noah at 7:30 in the morning and get home after his bedtime. I'm going to see if I can slip out early enough to get home to help put him to bed. I've come to cherish my time at home, it's definately my priority. There's nothing more important to me than being home with Justin and Noah. I know that I will have to two of them on my mind a lot tomorrow. The most comforting thing about going back to school is knowing that Noah is with two fabulous people who love and care for him. Thanks so much Kathy and Tom!

Justin, Noah and I spent the afternoon at my parents' home. I'm so thankful that my Granny is able to enjoy Noah. She turned 92 last September, he is her 3rd great-grandchild. Noah's so squirmy it's sometimes hard for her to hold him. I was able to get a couple pictures before the squirming began.

We missed seeing my brother, sister-in-law and their girls today, but we did get to see them a few times over the break, it was so nice. Aaron & Janis- if you're reading this, I hope that Ellie feels better!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Tom!!

Today is Grandpa Tom's birthday. He and Kathy are going to a fly-fishing show in Denver. We hope that they are having a great time!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Tom!!!

Justin, Noah and I spent the afternoon shopping. Santa brought Noah part of this train for Christmas. Justin and I found an addition car at Walmart and learned that we're still missing a car. There's also a couple other animals that go to it that we dont' have. We visited two Targets, a Walmart and Toys-R-Us and everyone was sold out of them. I did see them last night on Walmart's website, so guess what was ordered when we got home! It's good that Noah is too little to be spoiled!!!

At one of the Target's , I found this Roll-Along Musical Ark. The animals match the ones that go to the zoo train that we'd been searching for all day. I just couldn't pass it up, it's too cute! (Plus I had some winnings from this year's football pool- I came in second. Plus I told Justin that it would be a Valentine's Day present for Noah.)

Again, thank goodness he's too little to spoil!!! And even if he was old enough to be spoiled, I'd still have bought it. He's only a little kid once, right?!!!