PT At Last!!

All 3 of us have been home from work and school this week. Without many plans, we decided that this would be a good time to finally work on potty training. Noah has been improving over recent months, but up until now has not really wanted to give up the diapers. But this week we went cold turkey. And, I'm so happy to say that we haven't even had an accident since late last week. He is in underwear all day- diapers at night and pull ups at nap time-- but I think I can officially say he is daytime potty trained (at least for pee, we still have some work for the other). I'm so proud of him.

The Botanic Gardens

Today, we went to my friend Sharon's house in the city for brunch and then headed over to the Smithsonian U.S. National Botanic Gardens. Whenever we do a trip like this, it always reminds me that we live in this incredible place with so many different things to do (most of which we don't take advantage of much of the time). I had never actually been to the botanic gardens before, and they are beautiful.

Christmas 2010

We celebrated a wonderful, relaxing Christmas with the Jews today. Last night Grandmoo and Papa came over for dinner and our regular Christmas Eve festivities (AKA opening the stockings), and they stayed the night so that we could do Christmas today. Noah got some wonderful toys this year (Thank you to everyone), and Darren and I are eagerly awaiting our cleanse of the old toys tomorrow (bye bye to some old, rarely played with things). Honestly, I'm just not sure how a 3 year old could acquire so much in such a short time on this planet. But, some of his new toys are pretty cool. Grandmoo and Papa (among other things) bought him a geotrax North Pole train set, Mommy and Daddy (among other things) bought him an awesome Hess truck-- this will be a tradition from here on out-- and Santa brought him an all wood fire/police station. I think we've got one happy kid.

Holiday Card 2010

Holiday Card 2009

Holiday Card 2008

Holiday Card 2007

The Gingerbread Man

This is the last weekend before Christmas. We spent yesterday at Grandmoo and Papa's house with Auntie Lisa, Uncle Myles and Evie. Today, we've been running errands and hanging out at home. Darren and I had wanted to do some sort of Christmas activity with Noah today, which we originally thought would be making cookies, but instead ended up decorating a gingerbread man.

Notice the intense concentration.

And, sneaking a bite...

The Year's First Snow

This week we got our first taste of snow this year. It wasn't much-- just a couple inches, tops. Nothing like last year's snow at this time (see link), when we got about 18-20 inches. But, it was enough for Noah to try out his new shovel.

The Tendersteps Holiday Party

Friday was the annual Tendersteps holiday party. They started by trying to get the kids to sing holiday songs, but only Elijah was really up to it. After much coaxing, Noah decided to sing too, but he was fixed on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star rather than a holiday song.

The kids enjoyed opening their secret Santa presents.
Cousin love:
He was sitting on my lap, so I had a hard time filming him.

Oh Christmas Tree

Last weekend, we put up our Christmas tree. This year, the tree lot where we get our trees had such beautiful trees, and I was really happy with how ours turned out. It's our prettiest tree yet by a long shot.

It was freezing cold when we went to get the tree. Noah is definitely a Schwartz because he's already complaining about the cold, and announced to me that he likes summer. But, we got bundled out and went to the tree lot.
It looks pettier in person. We're a bit anemic on the lights (next year I'm buying more), but we're slowly but surely collecting ornaments, and the tree looks less dominated by cheap bulbs than it has in previous years.


Sophia and her family came over that night for dinner. Here are Noah and Sophie being silly by the tree.

Hanukkah 2010

This blog entry is quite backdated (since I'm actually posting it on December 26-- It took a few weeks for me to get around to uploading the pictures from my calendar). Anyway, these pictures are from our Hanukkah celebration with Grandmoo, Papa, Auntie Lisa, Uncle Myles and Evie.

Could Noah look more thrilled?

Evie and Audrey have something in common- an appreciation for the taste of wrapping paper.

That's better!

The First Night of Hanukkah

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. Noah really enjoyed lighting the menorah with me, though he wanted to blow out the candles. I guess he doesn't get the difference between this and a birthday.

Thanksgiving 2010

Last week was Thanksgiving week. I had the week off from work, which was great, though the Schwartz-Lamb household was plagued with various maladies all week. But we were all well enough to enjoy Thanksgiving Day at Grandmoo and Papa's house.

Noah and Evie so obviously adore each other. It's so nice.



Evie ate WAY more Thanksgiving dinner than Noah did.

Yum! Turkey is good, but no match for green plastic.

A Photo Shoot

Sophia's daddy, David, took these wonderful pictures of Noah (and some nice ones of Darren and me). Here's just a few cute ones of Noah.
Is this Noah, or Paul Scholes?
And, of course a picture of the best pals.

Halloween 2010

This year's Halloween was not our finest. First, I was a bad mommy and made a bad choice of costume. Noah had been all about Mickey Mouse for much of the summer through the end of September when Grandma Jean bought him a Mickey Mouse costume, after which point Noah promptly lost all interest in Mickey Mouse. Grandma Jean bought it in a size 3T because I told her to. The costume was WAY WAY WAY too small, and Noah wouldn't have wanted to wear it even if it fit. So for most of the night he refused to wear his costume. Honestly, I was happy I could get him into his skull shirt.

We went to Sophia's house, along with most of the other daycare families. Sophia and Noah were clearly on the same wave length because she too refused to wear her costume. Now, David had made Sophia's costume from scratch. Designed it, spent hours sewing it, created a frame for it... so it was unfortunate that she was so opposed to wearing it.



But in the end the lure of Trick-or-Treating won out. After the other kids all left, Gretta and I took Sophia and Noah sans costumes out to see the decorations at some of the houses, and they both realized what they were missing out on. So back to the house we went so they could change into their costume and we did a limited trick-or-treat outing.

In this picture you can see how truly cool Sophia's costume is, and how truly too small Noah's is. Oh well, better luck next year!

Annette and Asher Come to DC

My friend, Annette, and her son, Asher, came to DC to visit us last weekend. For the last couple years, Annette has been my online pen pal, so to speak. We both frequent the same online parenting boards and have become good friends, though this was the first time we've ever met in person. Annette and Asher live in Chicago. Asher is about 6 months older than Noah, and they hit it off.

On Saturday, we picked Annette and Asher up from the airport and went to the Natural History Museum, where we met up with Kathryn (another online pen pal) and her two girls, Sabrina and Danica.

On Sunday, we went to Great Country Farms to check out the pumpkin patch and the other fun kid activities.

When we got home, we carved the pumpkins that Noah and Asher picked out.

Here they are making "scary faces."

A highlight was the bouncy pillow at GCF.

The Fire Station

Today was the annual open house at the fire stations across Fairfax County. As we did last year, we met up with Noah's friends from daycare.

Cousins

On Friday, both Noah and Evie stayed home from school. Noah had hurt his neck the day before(must have slept on it strangely during nap) and was still very sore the next morning, but recovered quickly. Evie had eye gunk and had to go to the pediatrician for drops. So, since neither was particularly contagious, Lisa and I got together with them for lunch.

It's funny how different aged children will play with blocks in different ways. The three year old stacks them into a tower. The six month old eats them. Both thoroughly enjoyed them though.