BABIES!

After being closed in the house while Noah wasn't feeling well last week, he is back in good health, the germs are gone & we needed to get out!!

We haven't visited with the cutest twins in the world in a while, so decided to make a morning visit to see them!  Well, we have 3 mobile babies now.  Brooks & Bennett are the squishiest & I can't get enough!  Pretty sure they are wearing the same size as Noah now!  7 months age difference doesn't really show much anymore.  Once these guys are up walking, these 3 boys are going to be into everything together!!

Bennett has one sweet flirty grin.  His eyes just shine.

Brooks gives his fat-man grin so easily.  I could just squeeze their rolly-pollies.

From being around for a short while, I realize Noah & Bennett are the tiny destroyers.  Brooks was focused on standing alone on his tree trunk legs.  How did they all get so big already?!

The little 'doge.'

When it was time for Brooks & Bennett to snooze, Noah caught a ride in the swing before we hit the road for his nap.

So glad we visited the babes today.  Our family has some ridiculously handsome boys!

Ohhhh sickness...

Noah's been sick since LAST Monday evening.  

Two red eyes, runny nose, and HORRIBLE crabbiness.

Connor was only sick once as a baby at 13 months, only because he was put on antibiotics for a possible ear infection prior to his cyst removal surgery.  He did not have an ear infection & we ended up with Connor having a terrible case of diarrhea from the antibiotics.  That was as close as Connor came to really being 'sick.'

Noah, on the other hand, has been diagnosed with Second Child Syndrome.  He gets sick from any germs that enter our house courtesy of big brother going to school now.  He has been sick more times than I can count.  Sick. babies. stink.

So on day 7, he is slowly acting more like himself.  Aside from the boogers and drool, he's all better.

Wooooooo freakin Hooooo!

Now, let's pray no one else in our house gets it.

Happy Monday!

No school!

With another day off of school today, Connor and I agreed it be a great day to venture to our favorite spot on Sanibel.  It was a chilly 60 degrees this morning, so we knew going in the water was not in the cards, but tree climbing and hide & seeking was WAY more fun on the beach.  I was thankful for a morning out of the house & was even more grateful that we managed to leave the sand at the beach when we got in the car to come home.  A trip to the beach alone with two kids isn't easy, but we simplified things (no beach toys/water play/rolling around in the sand) which worked out great!

C & I worked together to keep Noah awake on the drive back, so we could fully enjoy his nap while at home.  Score!

My cute little climber

We did a lot of hide & seek with Connor's pretend Avenger friends (I believe Spidey & Iron Man met us at the beach).  The tourists walking the beach & taking photos were getting a kick out of us looking for our hiding super hero friends.

 The best spot on Sanibel.

When we ran out of hide & seek spots, we opted to explore some trails & take a snack break.

Noah hung near me for most of the beach trip, as the chilly breeze was not his favorite.  Once we busted out the Cheetos and a walkway out of the wind, he was happy to frolic around on his own.

We missed Matt there this morning, but still had fun just the three of us.  Now, here's to hoping Noah takes a 4 hour nap! :)

Keeping up with the Monster

My daily mission while C's at school...

1. Strategically plan around nap time

2. Find cheap entertainment

3. Teach him something

4. Bonus: accomplish something on my to-do list

When C's home, the boys are usually thrilled to see each other.  Noah continues to wave at Connor for the first 5 minutes of seeing him home from school.

The Noah Monster has become the Snack Monster.  He whines at the pantry door frequently, grabs a bag of goldfish, and brings it to me to open.  What's funny is he doesn't each much at each sitting, but has a liking to picking out what he wants in the pantry.

I apparently wasn't moving fast enough for him to get a snack ready, so he decided to hoist himself up to get closer to his food.

After playing 1,000,000 goldfish cracker pickup before school this week, I've learned to put chip clips on each bag in Noah's reach.  

We had one morning where I decided to load Noah on the back of my bike, ride up to the playground, poop him out, then head home for nap.  Well, my plan didn't play out as I had hoped.  It was more like... Noah fought and screamed as I loaded him on bike. I distracted him & got him happily up to the playground.  We were up at playground too early & the slides were still covered in dew/rain, so Noah was a soggy mess afterwards.  Noah fought & screamed as I loaded him on bike again to head home, but I pushed through it & we made it back without too much whining.  Noah was still roaring to go, so I embraced the soggy, wet clothes & we pulled out the water table.  Noah was thrilled to splash, so the morning ended in success!

His stinker face.

This week, Noah went from taking 2 naps to taking 1 nap.  Ughhh.  It has made our mornings longer, nap has interfered with when I have to pick Connor up from school, and I have very little 'free' time to get my to-do's done.  Noah's new sleep schedule though has landed a pretty set bedtime from 7:30pm- 7:30am, which is great!!  We're embracing it all & trying to find our new norm.

To wear the Monster out this AM, we dropped C off at school, and headed to a nearby park.  This kid was in heaven.

Noah wasn't a fan of getting in the swing this time (anything that looks to be confining him sets him in tantrum mode recently *swing, car seat, bike trailer, etc).  I let him just push the swing at first.  When he thought that was awesome, I tried to load him in the swing again.  Worked like a charm.  He quickly remembered how much he loved the swing.  Oh, the giggles that came from his little face!  I had a great view of all of his new teeth.

Connor starts basketball next week.  Stay tuned for pictures of my big boy in action!

Hello 2015!

Today was our last day of Connor's winter break.  Before we get back to routine tomorrow (which strangely I'm looking forward to), I wanted to have one last 'hoorah' today!  We tossed around a few ideas, but ended up with a trip to an indoor bounce house place to start our day.  It's not incredibly easy coming up with inexpensive ideas of places that can entertain a 6 year old as well as a 1 year old (and let's be honest...entertain a 36 year old too).  I think we did good with the bounce house idea!

Noah was coasting through his morning nap when we needed to go, so he was having fun...as long as he was held.  

Sidenote:  There should be friendly reminders to women who have birthed children to completely empty their bladders before bouncing.  Just saying.

Since I crawled into the majority of the bounce houses with Noah, I elected Matt to do the giant slide with Noah.  It was comical watching Matt try to squeeze up the midget staircase with Noah in tow.

We invited Connor's buddy, Michael, along, so C would have someone to hang with while we kept the Noah Monster content.  There were lots of giggles and red cheeks from these boys after two hours of bouncing.

After about 45 minutes of being there, Noah got a little 'tired drunk' as I like to call it.  It's kind of like Noah gets a second wind, complete with lots of spinning in circles, and laughing at himself after he's dizzy.  This boy is a hoot!

To end the day, I piled my bike high with tennis rackets, balls, and my fancy camera, and we all road up to our community tennis courts.  We're all terrible at tennis, but have a great time trying to hit the ball.  And you can't beat a fenced in area to let your 1 year old aimlessly roam.

Totally a coincidence, but don't they all look so cute & sporty?!

After we grew tired of chasing tennis balls and snatching beetles from Noah's mouth, we rolled on over to the playground.

C wanted to show me his 'tricks.'

(Tricks include climbing ridiculously high & making it across the monkey bars.)

I will never grow tired of showing my excitement as he wants to wow me with his neat tricks.  It helps to remind me that he's still little, despite the fact he looks so big.

Any slide thrills this kid.  He isn't into climbing as much as Connor was as a little guy, but slides...slides he likes.

You have no idea the wrangling to takes to get all THREE boys to cooperate for the camera.

I try.

Noah's first water fountain experience.  Pretty positive water ended up everywhere, except his mouth.

Back to school tomorrow!

2nd semester of Kindergarten, here we go!

So long 2014!

As I began a new picture folder on my computer for 2015, I ran across a few photos that didn't make it to the blog from the past week or so.  Before I start a new "Happy New Year!" post, here's the rest of 2014 :).

My big big boy walked Bobo all the way around Nana & Papa's neighborhood while we were over for the Whitaker family Christmas gathering this year.  

With how much my boys adore dogs, I am surprised I haven't talked myself into getting a dog of our own.  I am ever so grateful that we have family with dogs, so they can grow up around them.  Bobo will forever be Connor's favorite though.

As this little guy is inching farther from "he just turned one" and closer to "he's almost one and a half," he is a good mix of determined little booger and hilarious goober.

Since I'm always behind my new fancy camera, I have to remind myself to have others take pictures of me & the boys sometimes.  As I know with my Connor, you pretty much blink and your baby is a grown child!

With some strategic planning around Noah's 2-3 hour morning nap schedule, we packed up the fam & headed to the zoo for the afternoon.  It was a warm, warm day, we had lots of walking, supplying snacks, and trading off holding Noah (who decided he didn't want to be in his stroller after being there for about 5 minutes), but we all had a good time!

The giraffe feeding was the highlight to the day!  C was so big and did it all by himself.  Noah learned to say "giraffe" over and over and over every time he saw one.  It was great! :)

Sidenote: Noah can say quite a bit these days (which is a far stretch from my sweet C who didn't declare any major words until he was 3).  With a mix of hearing Connor talk non stop and the great blend of chatty Sears genes that Matt carries, it's no surprise Noah is talking so quickly!  Words he's said to date: Daddy, Mama (very few times when he's extra whiney and needs me), giraffe, gorilla, all done, ball, balloon, bubbles, oh wow, dog, cat, snack

 

Connor was more into seeing each animal then moving on quickly.  Noah kind of just went where ever we went.  He did give us a run for our money on a slow boat ride to go around a few islands to see the monkeys.  On the strict, "No food allowed" ride, we snuck snacks to Noah to try to keep the melt down at bay as we putted slower than a turtle around the water.  When we fed him the last snack out of my diaper bag, I said a silent prayer hoping we'd make it off the boat before Noah realized it!  Prayer answered!  Phew!

We ended the zoo trip at their playground area.  Both boys thoroughly enjoyed it!

And that is all!
Peace out 2014!