Ready for bed? I think not...

Most nights, Noah is so tired after his bath that he just wants to be held, drink his milk and go "nigh, nigh."  Every so often he gets a wild hair and decides instead that he wants to run around like a wild banshee before bed.  Well the other night was a wild banshee night and about halfway into his terror on the house I decided to start videoing.  This is the tail end of his silly escapade- you can tell he's losing steam when he starts hugging us.  Sweet boy!

PS, you'll notice the house looks a little bit like a tornado came through- overturned toys, etc...that would be tornado Noah's damage, although I can't really blame him for the stacks of stuff on the entryway table...

PSS, in the second video I say "Excuse you!" and start cracking up.  The iphone didn't pick it up but little angel boy tooted really loud.  I was SO disappointed that you can't hear it because it was too funny!



15 months

Noah, on February 16, you turned 15 months old!  I can’t hardly believe you are such a big boy!  It does seem like your first birthday party was forever ago, but I think that’s because SO much has happened in the last 3 months!  Let’s start from the beginning…

-          The week after your first birthday we traveled to San Antonio to spend Thanksgiving with the Kita side of the family.  You were a huge hit, as always, with your Grammar, Papa and aunts and uncles.  This year you got to partake in the Thanksgiving feast- you enjoyed the ham, scalloped potatoes and the strawberry salad your Aunt Terri made and that was about it.  Maybe next year you will like all the other yummy food more J

-          The first week of December, you started walking!!  You had been standing on your own and taking a couple of steps at a time for a couple weeks before and then Tuesday, December 7^th, you started taking off!  Since then you have been strictly a walker- you never went back to crawling. 

-          On December 9^th, your Daddy and I left you for the very first time to go on a trip to New York.  You stayed with Grammar and Papa and Aunt Terri while we were gone and I think it’s safe to say that you loved it!  You absolutely love your Grammar which helped ease my mind about leaving you, but we still missed you like crazy!  It felt so weird not having you with me, but it was a needed break for all of us.

-          Just two weeks after that, you took your second ever plane ride to Lubbock for Christmas with the Bayles side of the family.  I thought it would be a smart thing to book our flights around bed time so you could just sleep, but turns out it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.  You were as good as can be expected for a 1 year old kept up past his bedtime (because you weren’t sleeping in that setting) in a small confined space.  We were blessed with some very nice people sitting next to us that didn’t mind an occasional temper tantrum.  I’ve said it many times before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but it’s a good thing you are cute and can charm strangers!

-          January was a little bit of a blur for me because I was working a lot more hours than normal, so you and daddy got a lot of special time together! 

-          You started cutting your 1 year molars in January and, oh boy, are they tough.  You got your bottom right molar at the end of January/beginning of February and are STILL working on the other 3.  I CANNOT wait until all those suckers poke through and I hope and pray that you are back to your happy little self when that is all done!  I think teething is the main reason this is such a hard age!

Road Rage starts young, yall



-          Going out to eat with you is getting to be more of a challenge.  I know every parent has said that about this age, but somehow, I thought you’d be different.  Nope!  You still throw your food on the floor, try to climb out of the high chair, throw your head back and arch your back to show your temper and sometimes just scream for no reason.  SO FUN!  *I will say you are not ALWAYS like that and its usually about ¾ of the way through the meal that things start going downhill, so we get some good times out of you J

-          You are still pretty attached to me and Daddy…probably more me than daddy to be honest J  You have gotten so much better about being dropped off at school in the morning, but you do much better if Daddy drops you off than if I do. 

-          The world inevitably falls apart while I am cooking dinner and most nights I am standing at the stove either holding you and stirring or you are latched on to my leg while I cook.  I have to keep telling myself that this is just a phase and there will come a day that you will want nothing to do with me and I will long for the days that you just wanted me to hold you- so I’m trying to cherish those moments!

-          You LOVE outside.  LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  You’ll walk to the front door and just start saying “bye-bye”- it’s pretty cute.  You just wander around, pick up sticks and leaves and just love exploring.  It is the one place that you DON’T want me to hold you!  Ha!  You also love to swing.

-          You also LOVE your dogs.  I have to be honest, it is your love for them that makes me not give at least one of them away.  Most people know that your mom is kind of over our animal family members lately (one in particular) but seeing you hug them and get so excited about seeing them makes all the dog hair and licking worth it.  After all, “dog” was your first real word!

melt.my.heart.

-          You started taking a bath in the big bath tub!  I always give you lots of bubbles, but daddy does not (lame).  When you have bubbles, you lie on your tummy and bury your face in them so that you come up with a bubble goatee.  You know I think it’s funny when you do that so you always look up at me and smile after- such precious moments with you.  Your favorite bath toys are your balls and basketball hoop- you always clap after you make a basket!

I STILL don't get how you did this...I turned around for literally 5 seconds and found you like this!

-          You are saying a TON of words!  Here’s a list of all that you say: hi, bye bye, mama, dada, dog, Georgia (guh-guh), dixie (deeee), bath, night night, go, car, more (you sign that too), thank you (its hit and miss with that), tree, ball, juice and eyes.  Every once in a while I get you to say Elmo, but I don’t really think you’re saying it consistently yet- I think you are just repeating the sounds I am saying.

-          You know that a dog goes “woof! woof!” and a cow says “mmmmoooo” although you really just get the “mmmm” part.  You try to “oink” for pigs but haven’t really mastered that yet.  We are using one of your bath books to learn all of these noises.

-          As for body parts, you know where your toes are and can point to them, but you get confused with “nose” and “toes” sometimes.  They sound too much alike!  You also know where your ears are when asked and just the other night you could say AND point to your eyes.  Before that, if we asked you where anything was on your face- eyes, mouth, ears, etc, you would just point to your ears.

-          You have started giving hugs and kisses!  You have to be in the right mood to give them, but when you do, they are the sweetest! 

-          You have had your first 2 ear infections in the past month L  I can’t believe we went over a year without having you on any kind of antibiotic and now you’ve been on two different ones in just the last month!  Poor baby!

-          Your heart is doing great!  You had a 15 month check up with an EKG which was perfect and then we had a consult with a new heart specialist.  There is a procedure/study to look at your heart better that the doctors want to do, but we are waiting until you are a little bigger to do it.  It was a hard decision, but I think it’s the best one for right now!

-          The last time you were at the doctor you weighed 21lbs, 11oz. 

-          You wear 12-18 month clothes and still holding onto a size 4-5 shoe. 

Well this might have been the longest little boy update ever!  I just don’t want to forget anything about this time- good and bad!  It’s a tough age, but also such a fun age!  It is such an awesome and rewarding thing to watch your baby learn new things, figure things out and become a little person.  I’ll take it all- the tantrums and the kisses!

Love you Noah B!

Take that and rewind it back...

Well, it's been a while.  And I'm not gonna lie.  The past couple of months have kicked.my.tail.  We have been traveling like it's going out of style, I have been sick not one time, not two times, but THREE times.  And not just "oh-I-don't-feel-too-great" sick, but real, fever-running, laying in bed, sick.  Noah started walking like a big boy, which is great, but also means we are on full-time baby patrol and watching him like a hawk.  Work has been much busier with a big project that I am the lead on wrapping up.  Throw in some Thanksgiving, Christmas and hunting (for Ben, of course), and you have our last two months.  I guess that's just life, but, goodness, it has left me tired and wanting some calm. 

I don't want to forget what all we did this fall and holiday season.  We had a TON of fun, after all!  Instead of doing a massive post with pictures, I'm breaking it up into the Birthday, the Fall and Thanksgiving and then December and Christmas. 

Christmas 2010!!

Christmas 2010 FLEW by way too fast.  I feel like this entire holiday season went by in the blink of an eye.  Time, slow down!!

Our first Christmas was spent in San Antonio with my family the week before Christmas.  Unfortunately I was coming off of sickness #4, and we made it a really quick trip.  We packed a lot in those 24 hours though!  We had our annual ornament exchange, last minute shopping, birthday celebration for myself and my BIL Scott, AND Christmas with everyone!

Sisters picture!  We are really trying to be better about taking pictures...again, unfortunately, I was not looking my best because of the great illness of 2010, and poor Karen was coming down with something too.  Oh well, we tried!

Sisters and mom picture!

Present time!  Most of that large pile is Noah's...poor thing barely got anything for Christmas.

Opening his first fire truck!

The next week we traveled to Lubbock for Christmas with Ben's family.  We decided sometime this summer to fly and I have to say I am so very glad we made that decision!  Noah did pretty good on the flights...we had layovers going there and going back home, but even with all of that, he was pretty much an angel. 

We always have such a good time in Lubbock.  Laughter is non-stop for the entire time we are all together.  This year was especially fun because we had EVERYONE there!  I think there were around 15 people actually staying at Aunt Beverly and Uncle Ronny's house, and then at the peak of Christmas day, there was somewhere around 35 people in that house!  Christmas night we always play Bingo for gifts and, while both Ben and I managed to find the only bags that didn't have gift cards in them, we still had a great time!  I just love that family- seriously they are so fun.

Noah and cousin Annie on Christmas day while we were opening gifts.

Bayles family Christmas action shot...

Checking out the stocking- he got mostly snacks, plus some glow in the dark pacis

Bayles Fam!

The little Bayles fam!  We haven't taken a picture in a long time together...Noah looks so much like Ben these days!

All the girls and our scarves...made with love by Micah and Chad in the sweat shop in the back :)

The entire group Christmas day- Knowles/Byers/Bayles Family Christmas 2010

When we came home, Santa had visited Noah!  Don't worry, his presents were wrapped, this was after he opened them (there has been a lot of debate whether Santa wraps gifts or not, but he does in our house!).  Of course, he was most interested in the box that his penguin came in, which made me feel a little better about the fact that Santa didn't really bring a whole lot this year :)



We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!  We sure did!

Fall Fun!

Waaaayyy back in October, Noah and I met Mary and Jake at Old Mac Donald's Farm in Humble for a day o' fun.  I wanted to take Noah to a pumpkin patch for the token pictures with pumpkins, but I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on admission when I knew he wasn't really going to be able to take advantage of all the fun activities (read: I didn't want to pay the $$$ to go to Dewberry yet).  Old Mac Donalds was a good in-between for us- not too expensive and there were lots of activities, a petting zoo, a train (that we didn't get to ride- it conveniently broke down close to lunch time, suspicious, no?) and a pumpkin patch area.  I have to be honest, part of me wanted to turn around when we pulled into the parking lot and saw about 15 school buses also parked.  Alas, I did some relaxing breathing and got us out of the car.

We walked around quite a bit and let Jake show off his newly aquired walking skills while we looked at various farm animals.  Since both boys hadn't quite grasped animal noises yet and were more interested in the dirt and grass than the animals, it was a pretty quick walk around the grounds :)

We made our way over to the pumpkin area, where we were informed that our children were the exception to the sign that read "Children pick one pumpkin to take home!" because we didn't pay FULL price for their admission.  Seriously?  They were gracious enough to at least let us in to take some pictures.  Gee, thanks.

The only way to get both boys to sit on the bench for pictures was to feed them snacks.  Oh, how Noah LOVES him some snacks.  I still couldn't get both boys to look at me at the same time...Jake must have seen something more interesting than me to look at. 

 

I might have accidentally hit my poor baby in the face with my camera while I was setting him down for the perfect picture...

In front of the "broken" train.  I had forgotten what a beautiful day it was that day!  (those leggings are for you, Dabs!)

We finished off our fun morning with lunch, where our precious boys shared mac and cheese, grapes, and crackers.  I just LOVE having a little boy the same age as my BFF's little boy! 

The rest of these pictures are just random from the rest of the fall...

Little stinker showing off his Halloween PJs!  LOVE smiles through paci's.  Melts my heart!

We went to our church's fall festival on Halloween.  It was so much fun!  The church totally went all out and made it the best one since we have been there (almost 5 years).  There was a train, a bounce castle/slide, tons of booths, cotton candy, etc.  Noah will have a blast next year!

I don't think there was ever a cuter monster! 

Adorable boys- Noah and Jack- I mean the monster and Buzz Lightyear.  I hope these two grow up to be great friends! 

I decided riding the train was a "daddy" thing :)  They sure do look sweet too!

That night we passed out candy at home and Noah dressed in his Halloween outfit for the occassion.  In reality, he was only awake for the beginning of the trick-or-treaters.  Homeboy goes to bed about 7:30 :)

The day after Halloween, we went for Noah's one year check up with Dr. G- his pedi cardiologist.  He had an EKG and chest X-ray, which both turned out great!  I was SHOCKED with how still and good he was for the EKG.  If you've never had one, you have a bunch of leads stuck all over you and then you have to be super still for about a minute while the test runs.  It's not at all painful, but just getting a 1 year old to sit still for a minute is difficult.  I think everything was so weird to him that he was in a little bit of shocked wonder and that made him sit still :)

He also had to have another Holter monitor put on him.  The Holter just monitors his heart for 24 hours to make sure that he has normal sinus rhthym and doesn't go into SVT when we don't know about it.  Basically there are leads all over his chest taped to him and then he had to wear this belt thing to hold the monitor on.  This is his 4th Holter he's had to wear (he had 2 in the hospital when he was born and one when he was 2 weeks old) and he did great again!  He didn't mess with it AT ALL.  Again, I was shocked.  He is such a good boy.

Here he is with the Holter on- we joked that it looked like he had a blackberry hooked to his pants.  He had important business deals that day :)

Apparently, that's all the pictures from the fall that I had on the camera...I didn't take one single picture over Thanksgiving with the camera.  Ever since I got the iphone (life changer, btw!) I use it for about 90% of my picture taking.  At any rate, we spent Thanksgiving in SA with my family.  We had a great time with family, ate until we were stuffed and then my sisters, mom and I shopped the day after Thanksgiving.  It was great!  I love getting to spend time with my mom and sisters and long for the day when we live close to them ;)

Ha, this is the only picture from Thanksgiving on the phone- Noah sitting on Papa's belly :)

I think that about wraps up our fall!  Between Halloween, the first birthday and Thanksgiving, we were busy, but it was all oh, so fun!