Two Years Old Today!!!!!

My baby boy is 2 years old today!!!! Wow, how he's grown!

Here we are right after he was born and picture below he's less than an hour old!:

Here we are today, two years later, singing Happy Birthday to him in our kitchen:

He just smiled and smiled as we sang it to him and when it was done he said: "More?":

And blowing out the candles. He helped blow them out this year!!

And there's more cake to come, his birthday party is this Sunday. His Auntie Jan is baking a bus cake. We've already seen and tried her practice cake, it's going to be great! With the exception that we can't get the birthday boy to touch cake! So, we'll have plenty of M&Ms on hand!

I actually got to spend all day with him today. He was up last night with a runny nose and had a hard time sleeping so I thought it best not to infect the other little boy that he's around during the day. I hope he feels better tomorrow but I have to admit I won't complain if I get to spend another day home with him!

Here are some pictures from the week:

M&M face:

Mr. "techno-kid":

Wearing Daddy's shoes:

Knock, knock, coming in the back door:

Popsicles and hanging out with my mom on my birthday:

Where's Noah? He was playing peek-a-boo, of course I didn't get one when he popped up because he saw the camera and ran over to me too fast:

This is my yoga kid: downward dog position:

Back to School

Well, we survived our first week back to school- but that's not saying we liked it!!!

Actually, I had really great classes, with the exception on one and the principal has decided that some students in that class need to be separated so that grade level will soon be rearranged. We'll see, the grade that I'm talking about has been a "challenging" class, to say the least, since they were small little kindergartners.

I think Noah's adjusting well to his new daycare situation. He still cries in the morning when I leave but when Justin or I pick him up he doesn't want to leave. I've seen some changes in him, especially today. He ate all of his breakfast and did really well at lunch and he started going down the stairs standing up rather than sitting down! We'll see what else he learns next week! It's so hard to believe that he will be 2 on Thursday, where did those two years go?

Here are some pics of the almost 2 year old:

Noah and Daddy reading the paper:

I love his facial expression in this one:

With his two favorite "love-ies", Doll and Casey:

Daddy tickling him with Umbaa (the very hungry caterpillar):

Daddy and Noah "driving" with J's Wii remote:

This is the way I found them one morning this week:

And here he is doing his new favorite activity: playing in the Suzuki:

The Last Weekend Before School

I'm in total denial that I start back to school in two days! This has been a busy and intense summer and my only regret is not having had enough time with the boys. I'm still hoping that we can get Noah to the zoo one of these Saturdays this fall and I enrolled him in swim lessons this fall (Saturday morning classes) not for the lesson part but to ensure that we go swimming. We didn't make it swimming once this summer! I know I have the full school year ahead of me but I'm already looking forward to next summer and all the time that I'll have off with Noah and J.

Justin started back officially on Wednesday. I did the orientation for the new elementary school music teachers Thursday and Friday morning. It was a good trial run for Noah and his new daycare situation. He will be going to Elaine, who lives next door to my Granny's house. It's very comforting because I've known her all my life, they knew my grandparents very well and have been close family friends. She also watches her grandson who is 3 months older than Noah. It's going to be great for him to have some social interaction with another kiddo. The influence of having Jackson and Holly out here last week was huge, the speech therapist noticed a bunch of new sounds and I attribute it largely to that social interaction that he had with them.

Well, here's some new pictures of my little sweetie, wearing Uncle Jackson's sunglasses that he left here last weekend:

Also wearing his Broncos shirt, too bad the Broncos didn't look as good as Noah tonight!

And here are some bath time pics:

Justin loves this one:

This Struck His Funny Bone

Noah sure formed a special bond with his Uncle Jackson and Aunt Holly when they visited last week. Since they've been gone, Jackson decided to make a couple videos for Noah. At the end of the one they sent today he and Holly said goodbye and then fell backwards on the couch. He wanted to watch it over and over, so I sat him down a the table and was amazed when he hit the mouse pad and was working the computer (for the most part). He thought his aunt and uncle were pretty funny, as you'll see from his reaction in the video below:

Vacation with the Illinois Abbotts

Last week Grandpa Dean, Fran, Jackson and Holly Abbott visited us. It was a great visit! We all got to spend lots of time together and we got to know each other better. Noah, Jackson and Holly had never met each other and by the time they left Friday morning they were all very good friends. In fact, the morning after they left Noah seemed puzzled as to where Jackson and Holly were!

Here's a picture of the three amigos their first morning here: (they all got in around 11 the night before so Noah didn't know they were here until the morning. He adjusted very well to having company!):

And here they are later that morning playing trains! (Noah actually shared with them- he hasn't been letting J or I play with his train track lately!):

Uncle Jackson being silly by putting the house from the train set on Noah's head. These two became quite good buds!:

Holly and Jackson playing with my nieces, Mary and Ellie, on Tuesday evening in the sandbox:

Since we had company we had to break out the game "Corn Hole"; he's Noah walking with Uncle Seth and Uncle Aaron to the other end. He loves to watch this game:

Aunt Holly and Nephew Noah sharing a bath, they were too cute together!:

Here we are picnicking in Rocky Mountain National Park:

Here's the crew (Fran, Holly, Dean, Justin, Noah & Jackson) walking back from exploring some boulders:

Me with Noah and Holly:

All the Abbott boys, Dean, Noah, Jackson, Justin and Seth, playing Corn Hole. . . . again:

Here's my youngest brother-in-law, Jackson. He starts 2nd grade in a couple weeks. Good luck with school Jax!

And here's my sister-in-law, Holly. Isn't she as cute as a button?:

Here are the Abbott brothers: Jackson, Justin and Seth. . .. playing. . . . you guessed it. . . . CORN HOLE!

Guess what, more Corn Hole (I didn't realize how many pictures I got of them playing this game, really they didn't play it that much!):

Here's the mighty trio eating breakfast:

Me, reading to Noah and Holly:

I love this picture of Noah and Holly watching their chicken nuggets cooking:

Right before they left, check out this crew! Julie, Holly, Seth, Noah and Jackson!

It was a great time had by all and hopefully we'll get to see them again soon!

Yippy!

I passed my writtens and orals!!!! I got an email from my professor the day after the orals telling me how proud she was of me and how articulate I was. I am so glad to be done. I have one credit to take this fall and then I will graduate in December. The credit is the ROCKE workshops that I would have been attending anyways, so it's really not that bad! The only problem now is I am incredibly restless. From studying and studying and studying all summer to not having to is a challenging transition for me. I have the new teacher orientation for the elementary music teachers in my district which I am in charge of this year and I need to plan for that but haven't started doing yet. I guess I'm also in denial that school will be starting SO soon! Justin goes back two weeks from yesterday and the orientation that I am doing is two weeks from today. Blah!

While I completed my orals, Justin completed some projects in the backyard, although he had a road bump along the way. (I'll tell you about this below)

Here is Noah's new sand box, which he LOVES! (See the pics and video clip below) and the area where we will put some play equipment next summer.

Here's the tree off the patio.

Here's where the road bump occurred. He had all of this done and noticed that the sprinkler system wasn't working correctly. He happened to walk by and notice water coming out by one of the rocks (right side of the picture). He lifted it up and water came gushing out of it. So, he had to move a lot of mulch that he had just laid, and the rocks and the plastic sheeting underneath it and repair the sprinkler hose. (He put a hole in it when he turned up the weeds that had been residing there.) Poor guy, but it sure looks nice now!

Here are Noah and I in the sand box (my feet are under the sand and Noah just pulled his up from being under the sand). I think this is going to be good preparation for a trip to CA next summer!

Here he is playing with a true boy toy: a truck (you'll see why I referenced this as such when you read below):

Noah LOVES to watch for planes. (The Erie airport is fairly close- not too close that it's a nuisance, thankfully!). He usually will go "yes" and pull his arm in to his side but as he goes to do that in this clip he sees another plane:

"Plane!!!!"

Now, I don't want any phone calls from Noah's uncles, but Noah has a "new" friend- Dolly. My Granny made this doll and I had it on the bed in the guest bedroom. Since he found her, she has become his new BFF. (Best Friend Forever) He takes her with him when he goes down for naps and bedtime. He asks for her first thing in the morning. He has to have her downstairs during the day and upstairs for story time. When we went out to dinner to celebrate me passing my orals he cried and cried and cried because "Dolly had to take a nap" while we were going to dinner (truth be told, we didn't want to take Dolly). (Sorry, Noah, if you're looking back at this in years to come and reading this- we didn't do it to traumatize you!)

Here are the BFFs watching Elmo. He kisses her all the time but I haven't got that in a picture yet!

Here's Noah with my 150 Folk Songs to Sing and Play book (I refer to it as my orange Bible, there's also the blue Bible (Sail Away- 155 folk songs) and the AM Bible (American Methodology)- and then the Jill Trinka Bibles- I use all of these everyday in my teaching. This one was on the dining room table, which has been used much more for studying on lately than eating on- we're working on fixing that!)

Searching the song index for a good song:

This is the best part of being done with class and the comps: