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Thursday, December 30, 2010

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.



Saturday, December 25, 2010

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.





Sunday, December 19, 2010

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.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

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.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

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!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

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.