M-I-C-K-E-Y...

M-O-U-S-E! We attended our first Disney on Ice experience this weekend. Disney on Ice featuring The Incredibles. Surprisingly, Noah was pretty well behaved throughout most of the show - Penny slept through 98% of it. He seemed to be mesmerized by all the action for the first half of the show even dancing and clapping during parts of it. Intermission brought some restlessness from him and he wanting to climb on the railings infront of us. We swaped kids between us after that, Travis holding Penny and myself trying to wrangle Noah. Anyways, here are some pictures from it. Not a bad idea, I think we may just do it again. :-)

Well, it's about time!!!

I know, I know - it's been way too long since there has been a post. Life happens and we get backed up doing well, everything, and you just lose track of time.

So, I started back at work today, which made today Penny's first day at Noah's school. She did well. She was very happy to see me and gave me HUGE smiles when she came to me and I started singing the Barney "I love you" song. She is growing like a well-fed weed. She weighs about 12 pounds now and is almost 11 weeks old. Noah is LOVING being a big brother and absolutely loves helping out whenever he can. His vocabulary is huge and he has become way more independent than we would like. Although we don't let him, he always wants to walk along the sidewalk and across the street without holding hands. And he tries to throw the biggest fit if we try and hold his hand.

We also figured out that Penny has acid reflux. The doctor gave us some stuff that we give her every day. The acid reflux was causing colic for a while. She is doing much much better now. I promise, now that I am back at work, I will update this more often. Till then, here's a few pictures of the kids!

Boy it's been a while

It's taken some time to get back into the swing of things around here since the power came back on. We had dryer issues, issues with the Roomba, getting back to a normal schedule - oi! and then 3 out of the 4 of us got sick with a variation of a stomach bug. We think Penny may have it now too. Luckily it only lasts about 24 hours!

Penny went for her 2 month well baby exam on Friday. She is growing and growing! 9 lbs 8 ozs and 20 inches long already. Her pediatrician is happy with her development so far. She has given us a few smiles (not gas ones either!) and she is cooing here and there. She is becoming more alert and definitely knows what she wants and when she wants it! Way more demanding than Noah was at this age. Hehe...

Since this past weekend's weather was nice, we decided to go out and visit a pumpkin patch and get some pumpkins. Noah had alot of fun. He kept wanting to pull the wagon. I can't believe how fast everyone is growing...Seems like just yesterday they were just born.

Yep, we're still standing!

We made it through Ike. We lost power that evening at 11 PM and we are still out of power. My company gave us a generator to use so we have had that going since we got it from them. The kids are doing as well as can be expected. Penny is easy, just eating and sleeping. Noah has been stir crazy but we were able to get him back to school today (kind of). His campus' school is closed until they get power back, there is another campus of his school we managed to get him into and today was his first day there.

Anyways - just wanted to give you a little update. Hopefully when we are back up and running completely I'll be able to post more.

Hurricane Ike - do your best!

This is going to be a short update for now. We are sticking around here for the hurricane. We are set and ready though.

Penny is doing beautifully so far. Wednesday she turned 4 weeks old. I can't believe how fast she is growing. Noah LOVES to shower her with kisses too. He is being such a great big brother to her. AS long as momma spends some time with Noah everyday, then we have a happy household.

I have attached a great picture of Noah giving Penny a kiss. This was about an hour after he just met Penny for the first time.

Welcome baby Penny!

I apologize for being MIA since the last post but soon after that post, things got interesting around here. "Little sister" decided she wanted to come 7 weeks early. She weighed in at 5 lbs 7 ozs and was 17 inches long. She has been in the NICU since her arrival that evening but only for reasons of not being able to maintain her own temperature and eating. She is strong and healthy now, weighing in at 5 lbs 14.8 ozs and 19 inches long. She is taking all of her bottles now and is almost out of her isolete she is in. She should be coming out of it tonight and probably come home tomorrow night or Monday. She is such a great baby. We can't wait to get to learn more about her. We can't wait for her to come home. Just in time for momma's birthday!

Mr Smarty Pants

Well, hurricane number 2 came through here this past week. Tuesday everyone stayed home, work was telling us to stay home and we weren't about to take Noah to school that day. It was a pretty uneventful day that day considering the weather.

Every day I am amazed by what Noah can do. He repeats everything we say now, not perfectly but pretty darm close. He knows Nemo from the Finding Nemo movie. There's this one particular book he likes to read at bed time called The Very Busy Spider. This book has different animals and has their sounds you can do with them. When I was sitting in Noah's room when Travis and he were reading this week, Travis would ask him, "What does the horse say?" "Neigh" is what Noah would answer...and he was able to do that with the cow, the duck, the dog, the cat, the rooster and the owl all with their associated sounds they make. He just amazes me how he picked that up so quickly!

Remember me mentioning before that Travis bought a Roomba to vacuum? Well, that is also one of Noah's favorite things now too. Whenever we get home from school, as soon as we walk in the door, Noah says, "Roomba?". He likes helping dad place the Roomba. I was thinking about it the other day, he probably knows more than 60 words, and a dozen phrases. He knows where the ears, eyes and nose are, and likes to point them out on everyone. :) He knows when the cats have done something wrong and likes to point it out when they do. He points at them, shakes his hand up and down and says, "No no no no no".

As for the rest of us, Travis and I are doing alot of home improvement stuff every weekend. There seems to be so much we want to do before "little sister" gets here. I am 33 weks along. Pretty much all stomach from what almost everyone is saying. Kind of nice to get those compliments. I have had a few people tell me from behind I look normal, but once I turn to the side, it's a whole different story. :-)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Sorry for the delay!

Apologies for not getting an update out sooner this week. Time seems to be disappearing quickly for us these days. There always seems to be something else to do - and with the heat here getting it done while it is still manageable to be outside makes for a challenge.

Last week was had some excitement with the weather around here. Hurricane Dolly hit south Texas on Wednesday. We didn't get much of it other than rain for 2 days. I managed to get a cool morning picture of one of the rain bands heading into town. It made for much cooler temperatures here last week. It was pretty nice.

This weekend we took the opportunity to do some house upgrades, more focused around Noah than anything. Uncle Scotty moved out recently and we did some bathroom upgrades for Noah. Noah now has a fish themed bathroom for him to take a bath in, complete with a fish nozzle on the bath spout, a bath mat to sit on in the tub, new shower curtain and bath mat to stand on out of the shower. He was pretty happy with the new digs for him.

We also noticed that some of his clothes were getting a bit small for him recently. His uniforms that he wears to his school/daycare are 3T/4T just because the 2Ts are way too small on him - so that wasn't the issue. But he normally wears 2T clothes. His pajamas and clothes that he would wear on the weekend were seeming to be a bit small. We decided to test out our theory that he needed 3T clothes. Well, we were right! We bought several sets of 3T clothes/pajamas for him. And wouldn't you know - they fit him and are actually a tad bigger on him, like kids clothes should be.

What a busy weekend...

I guess our weekend didn't start out that busy, it just seemed to pick up on Sunday. Actually, I was able to get together with one of my best friends and her mom and kids this week. Shanda and her two kids (Cody and Adri) came to Houston to visit her mom - they live about 2 miles away from us. I picked up Noah early from school/daycare on Wednesday and we all went to the Children's Museum since I can get up to 6 people in for free. It was quite fun. Noah played in the toddler area for about 45 minutes and then we walked around the rest of the museum. He loved the grocery and fishing area.

Travis got a raise at work. That was pretty awesome and unexpected. And his boss appparently mentioned something kind of cryptic about better things to come. We can't wait to hear more about that! Oh, and on a nerdy note - Travis bought a Roomba. Right now it's having it's go in the master bedroom/bathroom/closet area. He's been trying to talk me into getting one for at least a year now, I finally gave in today when we were out shopping. I know, I'm weak. I just hope it does what it says it's supposed to.


As I said above, Sunday was busy. We had someone come over and take the futon that has been sitting in Noah's room for almost 2 years. We didn't need it anymore and we really needed the room more for his stuff (toys, bib boy bed eventually, etc). After they came we went to Costco and spend a sizeable amount for food and such, but we should need anything for the next two months except for your breads and other type stuff. Since there was more room down in Noah's room we moved the majority of his stuff down to his room so we can reclaim most of the living room again. We have more cleaning to do tonight but it is nice to have the living room not look like Toys'r'us threw up all over it. :)

Happy Monday!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Grandma (Alison's mom) came over Saturday and spent the night until Sunday evening. Noah got a huge kick out of that. "Nanaw" or "Nana" as Noah has dubbed her brought him some new little toys - Wooden block letters and a little card game that introduces pictures with their sounds. Noah has been in the habit of repeating words that we say and ask him to, so this was perfect timing for these things. I know people say it all the time but it is just insane how fast they grow and adapt to new things. Noah now wants to help with everything going on, especially if it is in the kitchen. :-) Gives us some ideas for what Santa can bring in a few months to him. There is a children kitchen set at his school in his room and when they have down time or free play time, he is usually there playing with the plastic food or the plates or the fake sink. I think he is going to be a little chef like his daddy is. :)

On a technology note - Travis and I both got the new 3G iPhone on Friday. Wait time wasn't terrible, we had to activate them at home on our own, but all in all we are pretty happy with our purchases. I know my phone was aching to be put out of it's misery with it being 4 years old and all. I haven't fully explored every feature on the phone yet but I will get there eventually.

Let's try this again...

Some time back we attempted to have an online journal to update family and friends on how Noah and the family was doing. Well, that wasn't kept up as well as we would have liked. So, here we are attempting this one more time. There is so much going on right now and rather than send everyone an email constantly, we figured - let's try this journal thing again.

Updates:
Noah just celebrated his 16 month birthday on July 1st. He weighs about 26 lbs and is about 33 inches tall. This keeps him in the top percentiles of the charts. He's going to outgrow us in no time. :) He is doing incredible. He runs all over the place, he is especially curious about everything, he is repeating alot of what we say. He is great at following directions most of the time "Bring that here. Put that up." etc...He is enjoying his school (he goes to a Montessori school) very much. He goes every weekday and is quite the little student. Attached are a couple of pictures of Noah, one of him in his swim trunks on Splash day at school, another with mommy.

BIG Update:

For those of you who do not know, Noah will be a big brother come the end of September of this year. We were initially planning on waiting, at least another 6 months or so, but apparently that was not meant to be. This pregnancy has been much different than the last one. But, hey, aren't they ALL different! We have been able to see this baby multiple times - we have had 5 ultrasounds so far. And we have confirmed at least 3 times that it is a GIRL! Before you ask, we aren't giving away the name. Same rules apply as last time :-) Everyone finds out at the same time. Although we may play a little game towards the end to have people guess. We are trying to introduce Noah to the idea of having a little sister. When I read to Noah at night before bedtime (we alternate), Noah will sit on my lap and "read" to sister and then hug and kiss the belly and say "nite-nite".

So, those are the big highlights going on in our life right now. Work is fine for both of us, nothing special. We are just doing the usual day by day thing waiting for "little sister" to get here. I will do my best to have at least one update a week. Maybe Travis will even make a surprise update or two!

-Alison