The Giggles

Noah got the giggles at dinner tonight- big time! I missed recording the big belly laughs, but here's the tail end of his laughter:

10 Months Old!!!!

It's that time again, Noah is another month older! Everything went well at the doctor's. His head measured the same it did last month, so the doctor was glad about that. We talked with her about the CT and she re-confirmed that he doesn't not have hydrocephalus. He just inherited a big head (and hopefully the brains to fill it!)
This afternoon we took Noah swimming. His cousins, Mary and Ellie, were also there. I know I've said this before, but they are so sweet with him. He's really taking to the water. He and Mary kept getting out and "jumping" back in, it was too cute!

Then this evening Grandma Kathy, Grandpa Tom, Grandma Debbie, Grandpa Jerry, Aunt Janis, Mary and Ellie came over for dessert. Justin baked a strawberry-rhubarb pie (with rhubarb from my mom's yard). Even I liked it and I don't eat pie!

Below is a clip of the cousins playing together. You'll hear my folks and Janis talking about the girls' school pictures and Noah will turn and watch the t.v. (baseball was on, I guess he had to check up on the scores!) They are so cute together!

Summer Reading Program

Noah and I have been going to baby story time at the local library. I found out that they let babies participate in the summer reading program. For every 10 times we read together he gets a prize. Noah actually had finished his first ten last week (we got started late with the program) so I brought his log with us to the library on Wednesday and he got a free book. I picked out a couple to show to him and he decided on Skip To My Loo, which is good because we can sing to it!!! He carried the book all the way home on our walk home from the library. This kiddo LOVES to be read to!

We've got a doctors appointment today (in about 45 minutes!). They are going to re-measure his head. Hopefully it's not growing too fast! I will post later how that turns out.

Here are a couple fun pictures:
Noah "helping" with laundry yesterday morning


Noah and his Daddy in their matching "Obama 2008" t-shirts.

Bath & A Box, Etc.

Noah's "duck" tub has been retired. You might recall I posted a picture of him in it a few months ago. It was by far ten of the best dollars Justin and I have ever spent. But, with the trip to Chicago quickly approaching and the fact that he is getting too big for the "duck" tub we decided to let him "go for a swim" in the big tub. He did great! He was able to play with some of his bigger bath toys, he loved the way the bottom of the tub felt when he rubbed his feet against it and he had a great time splashing!
Here are some pics of our big boy standing against the couch. He loves to stand, if only he could get himself into that position without our help! We had an appointment with Child Find today. He was assessed by a preschool teacher, occupational therapist, speech therapist and a child psychologist. He's right where he should be with everything except his gross motor skills, which are delayed. They gave us strategies to help him learn how to move to the ground from sitting, encourage him to use his arms and to help him learn to cruise. We put some of those into application when we got home.

Later this evening we went to Susie and Dustin's house to watch them open their wedding presents. They just got back Sunday evening from their honeymoon to Paris, Venice and Rome. Noah, as always, was very helpful by playing and chewing on ribbon and wrapping paper. Here he is sitting in one of the Bed, Bath & Beyond boxes. We got home about an hour past his bedtime. It was a busy day and he was such a little trooper.

Garage Sale

So Exempla Hospital in Lafayette every year has a huge baby garage sale. People pay $35 to reserve a booth to sell their "gently used or new" baby items and people pay $1 (actually a donation) to go through all the booths. We needed to get a pack-n-play for the Shoemakers' house for Noah to take naps in next school year. I found one that will work but I also had some other finds. I bought a couple new wooden puzzles (a children's toy store from Boulder was there), some plastic building toys and a walker. I think the walker was definitely $5 well spent. Noah had tried out his cousin Merrick's walked on Thursday and seemed to do well with it. Of course right now all he does is go backwards, but he'll learn!
This is not the best picture of Noah, but check out those teeth!! There is another tooth coming in on the top, if you look closely you can see it!
It's still so strange to see those teeth in his smile. They came in SO fast! I believe my Uncle Gary said after those other two on the top come in the molars are next. Oh fun! Noah's already hard to put to sleep right now because of teething, I can't wait for the fun that molars will bring!

Here's Noah at his play date on Thursday with his cousin Merrick. My cousin, Cassie, and her grandpa Jim are in the picture as well. Cassie's husband is in the service and will be going to Korea at the end of July. He will be there about a year. Please keep him in your prayers!

Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea?

Spongebob Square Pants! Okay, so even I don't know that song (from the cartoon Spongebob Square Pants) but Justin has been singing it OVER and OVER and OVER again since Noah's top two teeth cut through. Here's a picture of Noah and one of Spongebob, do you see the resemblance that Justin sees?

Here's Noah (in his Rockies outfit) and daddy yesterday. I think he's going to have to get some new Cubs "stuff" when we go to Chicago next month. Those Cubbies are hot right now!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Happy Father's Day to all you father's out there, especially my dear husband, Justin.

Noah bought daddy a new frying pan for Father's day. (with a little help from me). Noah and I also went to Lamar's Donuts and Starbuck's this morning to make sure Justin had a sweet Father's Day.


Here's Noah eating the Williams Sonoma bag. If he found that tasty just wait until he tastes something Daddy makes on the pan!

Here are the boys playing on Grandma Debbie's piano. The past couple times we've been at her house he's seemed really interested in it. I regret the fact that I never learned how to play piano, I hope that he wants to learn how to.
Aren't these three cute? The girlies always continue to amaze me with how sweet they are with Noah. (Even if I can't get Mary to change his diapers!! Right, Mar?!)

5th Wedding Anniversary

It's hard to believe that today is our 5th anniversary! I don't have any of our wedding photos on our computer (back in that day they didn't have these fancy digital cameras! Just kidding, it's just that all of our photos were taken via film and I haven't scanned any onto the computer) So, here are a couple pics from our honeymoon. In the top picture we were in Paris, the Champs Elysees is in the behind us and the Arc de Triumph is in front of us. The bottom picture we were in Venice eating lunch along the Grand Canal by the Rialto Bridge. That was a WONDERFUL trip, I hope that someday we will get to go back to both places.

If we don't make it back to Paris and Venice it might very well be due to this little fellow!! (Who, by the way, will not try pancakes, but does a nice job of dissecting them!) We decided to buy him some new books today while we were at Borders. He kept grabbing "The Wheels on the Bus" off the shelf. Although we had 5 other books picked out, once it went in his mouth we felt committed to buying it. Little did we know it cost $21! I guess that's our anniversary present to each other: more books for Noah!!! Sometimes it pays to be the baby!

Made My Heart Melt

Noah started hugging his "Cookie Monster" today! It was so sweet!!! Then when he woke up from his nap I gave him his stuffed cow and he hugged that as well. It was so cute to see him giving out hugs to Cookie Monster and the cow! Truly made my heart melt.

On other news, Noah cut his 4th tooth sometime on Wednesday. It seems that his teeth come in pairs. He got the front bottom two in March and now the front top two.
Today was the last day of swim lessons for a few weeks. We only registered for the 1st and 4th sessions. Boy those two weeks went fast!!! We're planning on scheduling swimming time (M,W & F at 12), otherwise we'll end up making excuses and not going! It's amazing how much he's "improved" from the first lesson. He's now catching the ball when they pass it to him, he's going all the way under water and working on his front float and back float! He's also loves using the wagon that Uncle Aaron had when he was a baby. I found it in my Granny's basement yesterday. A note to Uncle Aaron- hope you dont' mind that Noah is borrowing it, I don't think you'll fit in it any more! :)

Just Learned How To . . . .

Take videos on the new camera AND that I could post them on here. These aren't the best, but thought I'd share.

What a Weekend

What a busy weekend! My best friend, Susie, got married on Saturday. So, Friday was spent doing "wedding stuff": you know, bridesmaid lunch, manicures, pedicures, wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner. And then of course Saturday was her big day. We had to get our hair done, make up done, get dressed, have pictures taken- all before the ceremony. While we were all doing this, Noah and Justin went shoe shopping for Noah. We had bought him a little suit for the wedding in March and Friday night at 11:00 p.m. Justin realized we forgot to buy him shoes!!! Grandma Kathy got a picture (above) of the boys on their way to the wedding. They both looked so good. And Noah was so excited for the wedding that he didn't take an afternoon nap, so as you can see, he was a very tired wedding guest. Grandma Debbie, Grandpa Jerry and Mary & Ellie also attended the wedding. It's a good thing the cousins were there, they always keep Noah entertained and that helped Justin out a lot!


Sunday Noah and I walked to Grandma Debbie's and Grandpa Jerry's house while Justin went putt-putt golfing with his new Link leaders. Noah LOVES to spend time with his cousins. They are so great with him and he is so lucky to have the two of them for cousins.

Noah is finally getting big enough to sit on his Christmas present from Grandma Debbie & Grandpa Jerry. He still isn't quite sure of the horn, but he loves the blinker on the steering wheel.

These three pictures Grandma Kathy took at her house and emailed them to me. The first one he's sitting at the top of the waterfall in the Shoemaker's backyard. Then there's one of the three of us at dinner in their backyard.
And this is Noah's cousin Josh. He and his girlfriend, Shelby, were visiting a couple weekends ago. It was the first time Noah had really got to meet Josh (he saw him briefly around Christmas time). He even wore the University of Wyoming shirt Aunt Connie bought him in Josh's honor. (but his alliance is really with CU!)

Almost forgot to mention, Noah cut another tooth on Friday. He's now a "three-toother"!

Swim Lessons

Noah started swim lessons on Monday. Today Justin came along and took some pictures. I think tomorrow he (Justin) might actually get in the water with us.

So far we've had a different teacher each day. The first day a substitute was filling in, yesterday the teacher wasn't there so the aide filled in and today the teacher was finally there. (Although the aide pretty much ran the class).

It's hard to tell how much Noah likes the water. There's so many people and the whole thing is still so new. But, today he did go under water! They tell you to blow on their face before they go under because they naturally hold their breath.



Noah found the corner of the house by the stairs yesterday. He kept putting his leg through the slats of the gate. What a silly baby!

Noah's CT

First of all, I want to let everyone know that we received good news from Noah's CT!!!! We drove him down to Children's Hospital in Aurora this afternoon, I called his doctor when I got home asking her to let us know when she gets the results and she called us back before dinner. What a relief to know that everything is okay. We do have to take him in at the end of the month so she can re-measure his head. She wants to make sure that his head isn't growing too fast and if it is we'll be going back to Children's to visit a specialist. We're not sure what that doctor will do, but right now we are counting our blessings that as of now all is well with Noah.

As Justin and I were driving to the hospital we both were thinking how lucky we were that we were going there for only a CT and that we would be bringing our baby home with us today. I can't imagine how many parents go there and have to leave their children at the hospital. Or worse yet, those whose children never leave. It makes me very sad to think about that. How fortunate we are that everything is okay with our baby.




Here's some pics of Noah and his new piano and above is a picture of him underneath Grandma Debbie's piano bench. He likes the piano and is still learning about all the different things it does. One of his favorite features of the piano is the book on the music stand. He LOVES to turn the pages (and always tries to turn them from the right side! We should have known nothing was wrong with his brain!)

Below are a couple pictures of Noah in his outfit that Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom bought when they were in Hawaii last summer. In the first one he was playing on our bed after I stripped the sheets! Silly baby!

Yea! Noah is finally trying to eat crackers!!! That was one of the dr.'s concerns- that he wasn't feeding himself. He just needs more exposure to it and he'll get it. Granted this one missed his mouth, a lot of them are making it in!

And the other big news is Noah started swim lessons today. That was fun, he was fine with the water but clung to me. I think he was intimidated by all the people and the new surroundings. Justin will be going with me on Wednesday so we'll try to get some pictures to post.