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Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Time

We all had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. My parents and my Aunt Sue, who is visiting from Connecticut, all came to our house for the festivities, and a lovely, food- and present-filled time was had by all.


Our "tradition" (tradition, meaning we've now done this for the second year in a row. Remember, this is Christmas with the Jews after all. We don't know what we're doing.) is to open stockings on Christmas eve. Here is Noah opening up presents from his stocking. This particular gift was some big boy underpants, assuming he ever fains interest in the potty. I'm beginning to think the kid will be in diapers as a teenager.
Notice Audrey eyeing the wrapping paper. She loves to eat plastic and/or paper products (strange cat). This means that we are unable to put presents under the tree until Christmas morning because she will eat through the wrapping paper if given the chance.

And, here is our tree Christmas morning pre-present unwrapping.

The first present Noah opened was this Good Night Moon matching game. Seriously, he had to show it to everyone, he was so excited. I think we could have stopped there.

But we didn't. Noah really enjoyed opening up the presents, so we let him unwrap every one, including the gifts for the adults.

Here is another big hit. Noah loved this big truck that Aunt Sue got him.

By far my favorite present of Noah's are these Automoblox cars. Santa got him one and Aunt Sue got him a second one. They are wooden cars with rubber wheels, but they are so cool. You can take them apart and reassemble them with mixed up pieces once you have multiple cars.

Noah was enjoying playing the Good Night Moon matching game with Grandmoo, but then he decided it was even more fun to just play with Grandmoo.

And, far more fun to ride Grandmoo.

Another Christmas highlight for Noah was getting to eat homemade whipped cream and strawberries. The rest of us had homemade strawberry pie, but Noah's a purist, and would rather have the berries themselves.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Watching the Snow Together


Snowed In

We are in the middle of an enormous snow storm. We could get as much as 24 inches, and supposedly this is the most December accumulation that the DC area has gotten in 70 years. Considering how much snow we're getting, we went out to do a mid-blizzard driveway shovel. There was already a good 8-10 inches when we went out. Of course, since it so rarely snows here, we only have one shovel. So, I helped out Darren using a dust pan. How pathetic. Noah loved playing in the snow, though he did fall in a couple times and needed help to get up.

ETA: These photos were taken at about 9 am. It continued to snow, hard and fast, for about 12 more hours. Maybe we're in the middle of a snow drift, but I think we have close to 2 feet of snow.





Sunday, December 13, 2009

Hanukkah and Decorating Our Tree

Yesterday we celebrated Hanukkah with my parents and took the opportunity to decorate our tree. Our tree looks a little like the Charlie Brown tree this year. We don't have an awful lot of ornaments and we probably needed at least one more string of lights, but it's still nice. Sadly, no pictures of the Menorah lighting this year.




Monday, December 7, 2009

Decorating Uncle Myles and Aunt Lisa's Tree

We went to Noah's Uncle Myles and Aunt Lisa's house yesterday to join them in decorating their tree. They reserved some soft ornaments and the bottom of the tree for Noah. We will be putting up our tree next weekend (when we do Hanukkah-- way to confuse the kid!)



Noah also enjoyed playing with Guapo, Uncle Myles and Aunt Lisa's dog.

And, he enjoyed playing with Uncle Myles's toys.


Saturday, November 28, 2009

Resuming a Thanksgiving Tradition

We are so happy that my parents now live close to us. My mother was always the Thanksgiving host throughout my childhood, but once my sister and I moved to the DC area we sometimes went to my mother's house, and sometimes they came to ours. Now that we are all together in Virginia, my mother can resume her Thanksgiving tradition of hosting.
Before dinner, Noah pointed to the turkey and told me it was a chicken. So, I explained that it was actually a turkey. This fact seemed to upset him, so we decided he could just call it a chicken instead. Noah's favorite part of dinner was dessert, especially whipped cream.
My sister, Noah's Aunt Lisa, is pregnant with Noah's first state-side cousin, Evelyn. Here he is checking out her belly.

And, Noah of course enjoyed zooming around the room with Daddy and Uncle Myles.









Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The New Soft Playroom

I have this week (Thanksgiving week) off from work, so I kept Noah out of daycare so we could hang out together. Today, Noah and I met up with Mara, Mia, Mimi and Sienna at the new soft playroom in Alexandria and then we all went out for lunch together.


Watch him totally claim this toy when the baby comes. Soft playrooms are a dog eat dog world.

The (American) Football

My friend Shanti was visiting DC recently from Arkansas and brought Noah this Arkansas Razorback football. He has a pretty good arm for a 2-year old.









Just Playing

These are just some random, recent pictures of Noah playing. He is climbing on everything these days. In this first pic and in the video below, he had emptied his blocks out of the rubbermaid box and turned the box upside down and then climbed up on it.



These two pics are of him playing with his toys on the stairs. Does this make me a bad mom that I let him play on the stairs?






Sunday, November 8, 2009

Family Close By

Today Noah got to visit his grandparents at their new house in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It is so nice to have more family close by, and I'm so happy that Noah will grow up having his grandparents as a constant in his life. It's always a sad thing that half his family is so far away, but now at least he has his Grandmoo and Papa just under an hour from us.

Noah had a good time zooming some new toys around Grandmoo and Papa's new house. He napped in the car-- which meant he didn't nap during nap time at all today-- and then napped the whole way home... which means our sleep schedule for the day is blown. Now he's wide awake watching the Manchester United match Darren DVRed from earlier today...

Best Buddies

On Saturday night we had our monthly dinner with Sienna, Mia, Greydon and their families. It's so much fun to watch the kids grow up together and enjoy each other so much. I still remember when they were little babies in the new moms' support group at the hospital. Noah is always so excited when he knows he is going to see them soon. He talks about them all day prior to our dinners.





Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween

This year for Halloween, we were invited to Sophia's house. Their neighborhood has a huge Halloween block party, costume contest, and "parade." Noah dressed up as a monkey. He has been getting more and more attached to his Curious George stuffed animal, so we thought the monkey was an appropriate costume.

The boys running out the door on their way to the costume party. Micah was a lion, Noah's the monkey, Isaiah is an elephant, and Gabriel is a race car driver.
A crowd shot at the costume judging.
Sophia was a nun, and her dog was a Catholic school girl.


Friday, October 30, 2009

More Pictures from Micah's Birthday Party

Here are some more pictures from Noah's friend Micah's birthday party. Sophia father, David took these.




Sunday, October 25, 2009

Welcome Baby Abigail

Today Noah got to meet our friends Miriam and Jeremy's new baby girl, Abigail. Abby is 5 weeks old now. Yesterday was her Simchat Bat ceremony, and today they had a brunch at their house so that people who haven't met Abbie yet could see her.

What a cutey!

Here she is with her grandmother (Jeremy's mother), mom and dad.