'Tis the Season

to...

admire your Christmas tree

read Christmas stories

do the Advent Jesse Tree (like an Advent Calendar) and remember the reason for the season

admire Nonni and Pa's tree

decorate cookies and carry out the tradition (more on that later). The candy I used for his eyes makes the snowman look evil-oopsie!

decorate a gingerbread house for the first time in my life...

go see Christmas lights on steroids :)

to decorate your own felt tree

open a present-BOOTS!

look at lights with Nonni of her house

admire Nonni and Pa's house

look at Christmas lights-he loves this house and knows right where it is on our street :)

sing Christmas carols with Waylon and Pa

Santa

Oh my how I wish you were there to see this sight. Some of my girlfriends and I met at the mall to visit with Santa. Well, we didn't, the children did, or shall I say ran away, instead of visit?!?! Last year Noah was pretty chill being 8 months and all! This year, although not as bad as it could have been, he was not so impressed. Neither were Cambrie and PJ! Wes was a complete angel, all 3 months of him :) I think this will have to be a tradition. It's just too much fun torturing the children. We were acting like complete fools trying to get them to smile and not run and scream. Just writing this is making me chuckle all over again. Like I said...it was a sight to be seen :)

Full Swing and Loving It

Christmas is so very fun this year with little Noah who is now 20 months old and talking up a storm! He loves all the "wights" and "mic" (music) and has a blast identifying the different ornaments on the tree. Some of his favorites are: da staws (stars), da noman (snowman),  da aipane (airplane), da heart, da balls, da church, and da choo choo's. 

We got right on the decorating this year and had most things up before December even began-shameless I know... He has his own felt Christmas tree with personalized stockings for Mommy, Daddy, and himself :)  Most nights we go for a walk or drive to look at the lights and each time we leave a house Noah says, "bye wights." He cracks us up! 

As I think all mommies would say...time please stand still! PLEASE.

Here are pictures of the day we put up Christmas lights. Noah was very into "helping," which meant climbing the ladder, playing with cords, and running around the front yard :)

Goofy face!

Top of the ladder-Daddies are so fun!

Video Time

Sorry I have been MIA lately...

It's a weird thing, to want to blog and yet I have been lazy about it.  Is it an okay excuse to say that Noah keeps me BUSY, nah, it's really all Pinterests fault. Blame them. So in true lazy form I am going to leave you with a few videos of life lately until I get my act together, my pictures downloaded, and the Christmas presents ordered-my Amazon Cart is saying "chaching."

"Whights"

Our first walk of many!

We jumped on the wagon nice and early with Christmas music this year and I am not ashamed to admit it. Noah and I have been singing "Jingle Bells"...listen for when he chimes in!

Grandpa stopped by to say Hi and had so much fun playing with Noah and all his toys.

Gotta have some fun while you are putting up the Christmas tree :)

Funny thing about the vacuum is that Noah loves to to do it, and who does he ask to vacuum with?? DADDY! Tricky that Mamma is... Okay, I'll be honest. Justin vacuums more than I do so Noah thinks of him as "The Vacuum Man!"

Putting up the Christmas tree was a little different this year...in the best way :)

Her reading aloud was encouraging him to do it as well. Sweet moment.

We've been having a lot of fun over here with Christmas tree farming, craft making, Christmas Light Walking, and so on...this of course is in between the worried Mamma reading about toddlers hitting and throwing everything and how to deal-AHHHH! Be back soon, xoxo

In Between the Destruction

Oh the joys of parenting...

I wonder how many times this has been said? 

Noah is 19 months and changing every day. I love love love all of his new words! One thing I don't so much love is Destructoman (yes, I turned it into a name). I don't know if it's a boy thing, or if it's a Noah thing, but what I do know is that all children are different and we are rolling right along with it and we will power through :) This may sound silly, but one thing I have learned is that everything is a phase, therefore we are just going to power through and do our best as parents. It's tough though.  I think it's difficult to find the balance between disciplining too much and letting things slide. With certain things it seems the more we say something to the effect of "no," the more he wants to push the envelope. We try to stick with positive statements of what he can do, but once again, easier said than done. Lately he likes to be destructive, but the good news is that it's usually when he is getting tired of doing something, almost as if he doesn't quite know how to transition.  The magna doodle, now gets flung back and forth, and almost everything would be thrown if we let it. I feel really passionate about teaching him the right way to use things and I really really really don't want him to grow up with a destructiveness to him. Yet, once again, the balance between it all is hard. 

But...

Tonight I treasured a precious moment in between the destruction as I was putting Noah to bed. I was standing up snuggling him and singing 'Jesus Loves Me" and he was just looking around his dark room (he usually does this before he lays his head down). Then he took his soft hand and slowly put it on my face, followed by a kiss on the lips. It was such a sweet moment, and in that second I felt so thankful for all the moments like these that can be clouded by the destruction. 

Well, I will leave you with the good stuff. I'm quite sure you didn't come here to listen to me rant about parenting ;) but rather for some random iPhone photos!!

snuggling the kitty (for real). Shocking...but 9 times out of 10 he is very sweet with her.

Rainy Fall day :)

Christmas Fort (up a few days early because Daddy was just too excited to add the lights).

I'll just apologize in advance (to Noah)

I'm so bad. Really mean. But it's so funny though...just take a peak....

Bwahahahaha!

Gotta love the smudged hand prints all over the door :) He did this for 10 minutes and was cracking up! As was I...sorry Noah, but when you're 21 and you look back at this, just know that your Momma got a really good laugh out of it all and so did you ;)

"Duh Moon"

I could write for days about how obsessed Noah is with the moon. He asks us to draw it and chooses books just to find the moon over and over again. His face lights up when he sees the real moon. Did you know the moon is in A LOT of children's books? The other day we received a fun package from Oma. She sent us the moon! A really good looking prototype at least. Noah loves turning it on and off, and it even has its own remote-bonus. I tried to get pictures of it, but I don't know how to take a picture in the dark and highlight the subject-help Melissa ;).  The few I took are not great, but they at least give you the idea. Thanks Oma-it's a big hit!

It even has different phases :)

Here it is all hung up. He uses the remote to change from phase to phase.

Snuggles

A few weeks ago my parents came over for dinner. I made Pioneer Woman's salsa-amazing. I posted about it here! Noah was really into the salsa and even more into snuggling with Nonni. It was 

a-dor-a-ble. And Nonni...she was in heaven and soaking it up. 

Silly boy :)

Ha!

Some of the pictures have a little different lighting...sorry about that...I was playing in iPhoto. 

Fall Leaves

We've been having a lot of fun in our falling leaves. These leaves create a weekly clean up session, completed by the fabulous Daddy and his sidekick Noah. I don't have great pictures of it because Noah never wants to look at the camera these days (unless I do a song and dance :), but these still show how much fun he's having.

Goofy kid!

Noah would not look at the camera so I was asking him questions like, "Where are Momma's eyes?"

He was not so much buying it...but at some point I did my cheeks and that's when he pointed.