Christmas Highlights

So this was our first Christmas to spend without any family around and it ended up pretty fun. Christmas Eve we drove around and looked at lights. With each house we drove by Gage would yell from the back "LOOK!!!" He must have thought it was pretty fun. We then came home and read Luke 2 together and showed Gage the nativity scene with this Precious Moments Natvity set that I have. We then told him to go put it back on the shelf how the story went....this picture is how he told us it went. According to Gage poor Baby Jesus doesn't even get to sleep in the stable!

I thought it would be fun for the boys to have special Christmas Eve jammies. Since they both had red jammies I thought those would be appropriate and besides, they would look GREAT for the pictures in the morning. They would have, neither jammie made it until morning because of throw up and a diaper blow out!

Santa brought Gage a train table for Christmas this year. When he came down the stairs Christmas morning he was speechless. Literally. He just stood and looked at it for the longest time.

The best part came later, after he had opened his stocking (and of course we had turned off the video camera) he looked at Wade and I and said "I am SOO happy!" I guess all that hard work Santa did assembling did pay off!

Of course, what would Christmas be without Thomas the Train.

Noah gave us one of the best Christmas gifts ever. He slept in 4 hour intervals that night, so I got 6 hours of sleep total! After I woke up at 6 to feed him, I was so happy with his sleep I gave him a big kiss and told him Merry Christmas. He then gave me a big grin - another great gift. This is how he looked the rest of the day!

We spent the morning together playing and had friends over for Christmas ham at lunch time. Our bishop then had a bunch of students over to his house that afternoon for hay-rides and noodle dinner. Gage loved seeing his tractor collection and the train they had under their tree. It was such a fun day, we hope you all had as much fun as well.

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We are a little sad we couldn't be with family this year, but with all the travel troubles many people are having due to snow, we are also a little glad we are staying at home.

We have been very blessed this Christmas and hope you all have too. Gage can't wait to open his presents - he has more than he will ever need, which means we will be giving some away to nursery next week. Poor little Noah - we've all battled being sick with this-and-that since was born and so I never got around to buying him a stocking this year. I had to take this picture though, something I guess he can use against us when he gets a little older.

Merry Christmas!

The November Boys

As some of you might remember, there were four of us that were due in November,two of which were having boys. (See October 17th posting).

It ended up that my friend Allison and I overlapped our stay in the hospital because our boys were born two days apart. The other two girls had their babies a few days later on the same day.

Here are some picture of Noah and his good buddy Caleb Brown, who is two days older and wiser. They both like to eat and gain weight together. Caleb is a very good night sleeper and already sleeps through the night. I am SO jealous, but then again I knew sleep deprivation was part of this baby thing when I got into it.

Gage and Elizabeth are pretty proud of their little brothers as well.

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Since I'm already writing about Noah - can I just say he is growing like a weed! We took him to the Dr. this week and he weighed in at 10 pounds 15 ounces. What a porker. His Dr. said I didn't have to feed him every two hours! YEAH, except she doesn't know that he doesn't take a binky and I really don't enjoy listening to his cries.

Today I put a onesie on him that I remember Gage wearing to a baseball game. I looked up the actual picture on the computer and Gage as four months old and fitting the same shirt that Noah fits today at 7 weeks! Also, we got real smiles out of Noah this morning. Wade got the first one and left for school thinking it was just gas, but he kept on reacting to my faces and smiling at me! What fun!

Santa

This is the first year we have let Gage visit Santa. I know, some of you might think we are horrible parents for this, but we really haven't seen the need in it until now when he knows who he is.

So he got to see Santa at our ward Christmas party this year and we weren't exactly sure how it would go but it seemed to go well. He told Santa (without promptings) that he wanted trains for Christmas. I guess he will just have to see... I think Santa has some trains in mind.

Photo Shoot Out-Takes

We attempted to take some pictures of the boys for Christmas cards yesterday. Gage didn't quite understand that he had to hold on to Noah for the entire time. Here are some of the out-takes. Also, I posted another blog today too, so scroll down for more!

Hindsight

We went to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday last night and it made me think that my own birthday will be coming up soon and I will be 27 years old. That means that next year will be my ten year high school reunion! 10 years! Wow!

So I got to thinking about it and that means: 9 years ago at this time I was a junior in high school. At that time my teachers were big into having us make portfolios of our work. I clearly remember (to bad I can't actually find it, that would be funny!) a portfolio I made for my chemistry class and we had to have a section about ourselves and our goals for the future. What this had to do with chemistry, I'm still not sure. Anyhow, I wrote down goals of where I would be in 10 years. I'm sure if I were to find that notebook none of them would included the following true life examples of where I actually am today:

1. Using vocabulary such as:
"Do NOT spread your cheese on the tv"
"Hands out of your diaper"
"Do NOT lick the tv"
"Eat 5 more of your green sticks (green beans) and then you can have that cookie"
"Do NOT hit the tv"
"Give the tv a hug and tell it you are sorry"

2. Memorizing the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song. Then singing it to your newborn in the hospital because it's all you can think of for a lullaby.

3. Graduating in something besides journalism and then leaving the marketing field to be a stay at home mom and really loving it....also driving a mini van!

4. Helping my husband with medical flashcards that I cannot read. Yes, I try to sound it out, but that doesn't always work!

5. Finding out that your stomach really does feel like unbaked bread dough after having kids. They should tell all the girls THAT in high school instead of having them carry around those babies, I bet that would work wonders!

6. Knowledge that hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure I had good intentions 9/10 years ago, but I'm pretty darn happy with my life now. I am blessed to have a family, a roof over my head, food on my table, health, an education, and much more.

Grunty Porker

So we had an appointment today where Noah was weighed and to our surprise he was 10 pounds 12 ounces, which put him in the 59% for weight! (he was 7.5 at birth)

I know this might not sound like a significant amount to most of you with big babies, but for me I was ecstatic! Gage never got over the 15% - and once he was over 6 months old he formed his own line right along the 3%.

Noah is our little grunter and that is Wade has given him as a nick name. He grunts when he wants to eat, he grunts when he is tired, he grunts when he has to go to the bathroom, he grunts in his sleep.

I don't have any great new picture to post but he is losing his hair and following his brother in his "male-pattern-baldness" look. We think he is cute either way. I'll try to get some pictures of the little grunty porker posted soon!

My vent for the week

So here is my pet peeve of the week....delivery/installation people.

So I decided to upgrade our cable to digital for part of Wade's Christmas present. He was really missing ESPN and I thought it would be fun to have some movie channels. I called and was on hold and on hold with the company trying to get it set up for at least an hour on Tuesday. They said they would send someone out between 1-4 Wednesday. I sat at home all afternoon. The guy finally came, set up the box and left, however, he didn't install it right and so instead of a surpise when Wade got home, he found me, on hold with the company for at least another hour. I held ANOTHER hour the next day just to be told that they would send someone else out to take a look...between 1-4.

Now this time I didn't mind sitting at home so much, see our washing machine broke this past weekend and we had to buy a new one, and I was supposed to sit at home and wait for the new one to be delivered Thrusday, so at least this time I was sitting for two things, right? Well both things got delievered and Wade really does love ESPN....but the washing machine doesn't work.

SOOO, here it is Saturday and I have to sit at home again for the company to send a "repair" man to my house to fix my brand new washer...which has never been used! I want a new one, I don't want this one repaired.

Now even if I hadn't gone out all week anyway, (it is negative one degree with the wind chill) I don't like the fact that I had to sit here to wait on people. I just got a call that they will be running late today! Fantastic!

Ok, I'm done - I just needed to vent to someone taller then 3 feet tall and over two years of age. So to all the midget toddlers that read my blog - please ignore this post:)

The pictures

I finally got the pictures to work! Take the quiz and see how you do - the above picture has two of Gage and two of Noah. Can you tell who is who?

Below are Noah's one month pictures. A pretty handsome devil - I must say so myself ;)

One Month Old!

Well, Noah is one month old today. Wow, time flys! He has been a pretty good little boy so far and there seems to be no sign of colic - at least to the degree that Gage had!

With Gage I took a picture of him on the same day each month and it was really fun to look at after the first year, so I thought it would be fun to do the same with Noah and compare the two. It's amazing how much the two boys really look alike. I'm having trouble getting the pictures on, so hopefully I will get it figured out so you all can see!