Silence is never a good thing when it comes to toddlers

Here we go again...just a first time mom learning the hard way…again! This summarizes a list of the most recent things I've learned. When you are engrossed in doing something productive and everything all of a sudden gets real quiet and your toddler is not in immediate view,

These are the things it almost NEVER means:

Your child is almost never sitting quietly in the corner looking at a book;

Your child is almost never working a puzzle or playing quietly with a safe toy;

Your child is most likely not amusing himself with something simple like playing with the Velcro on his sandal;

Your child is probably not just curled up sleeping somewhere where he randomly fell asleep without you knowing (really…does this ever happen?…I’ve seen pictures where someone’s kid suddenly fell asleep on the kitchen floor…oh come on! Well all I can say is that never happens here)

What the silence possibly (and probably) DOES mean:

Noah…er…I mean “Your child” has somehow gotten into the guest bathroom and is playing in the toilet water, and/or unrolling ALL of the toilet paper and/or playing with the nasty toilet scrub brush;

Your child is sifting, with his hands, the cat litter;

Your child has gotten a hold of your cordless phone and is in the process of calling China;

Your child has chosen this precise moment to learn how to unscrew the cap off of a bottle of water and is pouring it all over your new living room rug;

Your child is happily sitting on the kitchen floor playing with 2 steak knives, a flame lighter and a pair of scissors that you were certain were out of his reach;

Your child has disabled the child lock on the kitchen cabinet and is pretending (thank God only pretending) to drink out of a bottle of Windex;

Your child is quietly unfolding and throwing the basket full of laundry that you just painstakingly folded but hadn’t gotten around to putting away;

Your child is in the next room attempting to eat a bug he found in the corner;

Your child has pushed over a chair to the kitchen counter and is happily pushing every button on the answering machine, erasing all kinds of messages;

Your child is standing on the middle of the kitchen table reaching up to try and hang on the chandelier (and I thought “hanging from the chandelier” was just an exaggerated phrase);

Your child has gotten into your purse and is coloring his face with your lipstick while concurrently pushing the panic alarm button on your keys.

These aren’t scenarios I’m copying out of some parenting magazine. I came up with all of these on my own…lets just say… from…astute observation. Believe it or not I actually have more things to list but I’m going to stop now. Yes, speaking from experience, it is in fact possible for all of these scenarios to occur in the same 24hour period (or less)...like on the 3rd Tuesday of every month, for example.

God bless the professional photographers of the world

While out in Denver, Stacy and I wanted to take advantage of having all 4 of our kids together so we went to “Portrait Innovations” to attempt family pictures of everyone. It was time to get pictures of Noah done anyway and I figured it would be helpful to do it with my sister--one of the most experienced moms I know. I hadn’t had Noah’s pictures taken in a while and even though after the “passport incident” when I vowed to never take him in for pictures again, I had a momentary lapse of memory and agreed to this endeavor. I even brought several changes of clothing for him to get lots of good pictures. Needless to say it was a near disaster and he didn’t get to wear any of the cute outfits. Out of the 105 pictures they took, there was only ONE good one of Noah (and that ONE took an act of God, let me tell you!) We finally got a decent shot of all 4 kids together but Noah isn’t smiling at all in that picture. He spent the entire photo shoot crying and trying to escape from the studio. I think the photographers were quite happy to see our brood leave!(especially since they weren't too thrilled to begin with when we marched in for our appointment with 4 kids including a 22 month old and a 2-year old.)

I'm mostly going to post the actual good pictures that we got (most of the good pictures are of my sister's children). This first picture is an excellent example of how the majority of the photo shoot went.



Yep, this is Noah, acting as if we are yanking off his toenails one by one when in fact all we are doing is trying to take his picture. He is most definitely emotionally scarred from the "passport incident"



When we got there we told the photographer that our main goal was to get a great picture of all 4 kids together. "No problem," she said. Ha! Noah was so difficult that out of the attempted 50 pictures she took of all 4 kids, this was THE one and only acceptable picture of all 4.




I thought this one was cute. I really envisioned a ton of good photos of Noah in all his different outfits with different backdrops, etc. Nope.



I count myself LUCKY to get this one good, classic picture of him. The way he carried on and wouldn't even go near the camera (he was hiding in the waiting area the majority of the time) I can't even believe we got him to pose for a few pictures.




Nicholas was a breeze to photograph and really hammed it up for the camera



I can hardly believe how fast my nieces are growing. It seems like just yesterday I was packing my bags and moving from FL to GA because Shannon was 2 and Alyssa was a baby and I couldn't stand being so far away from them. Now they are 7 and 9! Next thing I know they'll be off to college. They are the best kids ever.


Nic really enjoyed the photo shoot



Didn't know we had so many cowboys and cowgirls in the family




Nicholas having more fun with his cowboy hat



I made this collage just so it seemed like I had more than one picture of Noah I liked



Shannon, Alyssa and Nicholas. So sweet.

Denver Trip: Part 2

Here are a few more pictures of our trip. Noah is missing his cousins already (and I am missing the fact that he no longer has constant entertainment with these wonderful playmates any longer!) We can't wait to see them in October in Florida.


The boys loved to hide in Stacy's cabinets and jump out and say "Boo!"



David was certainly proud to see Noah wearing a Home Depot hard hat. Like Father like son.




The boys got to ride in the "carriage" pulled by Uncle Aaron's bike. What a treat!



Nick and Noah: family hug. How sweet!



Riding in style in the double stroller at the mall. Everone thought Stacy had 2 sets of twins!



Noah discovered his hidden music talent on Stacy's piano




Aunt Stacy gave Noah hius first taste of popcorn and to say he was hooked would be an understatement. He was in heaven and would sit in the lap of anyone and everyone who had a bowl of popcorn to share. He clapped when she made it for him and a few times got into her pantry, found the box of popcorn (he's never even seen a box) and brought it to her to make for him.




Fun at the playground in Aunt Stacy's neighborhood

Home Sweet Home: Denver trip part 1

Home at last! Vacations are fun…but exhausting….and this has been a very exhausting summer. Noah has spent more time in other places, rooms, cribs, pack-n-plays than his own crib at home, that’s for sure. We just got back from our big trip out to Denver where we spent a week of quality family time with Stacy, Aaron, Shannon, Alyssa and Nicholas. The girls are growing into young ladies way too fast and Nicholas is talking up a storm and always does so in 3rd person which is adorable (he narrates everything he does “Nick sits down”, “Nick play with Noah”, Nick be quiet!”) Aunt Stacy properly spoiled her *favorite* nephew so Noah loved every minute of that. She introduced him to popcorn which is now his food of first choice for every meal. When she brought each bag out of the microwave he would squeal and clap his hands and rush to sit on her lap and share her bowl. She also introduced him to cheetos…boy was he a mess after that!

We are still so sad that they moved away from Atlanta but we loved seeing their new home in Denver which is beautiful. As usual, Noah was fine when we left home but ended up sick for much of the vacation. Luckily Aunt Stacy’s pediatrician was able to see Noah right away. I told David that Cigna may want to drop us from their insurance since we see more clinics, hospitals and urgent cares out of state while traveling than in network at home! Despite Noah being a little under the weather, we managed to get in a lot of fun family outings including going to the county fair, playing in the sand at the “beach” at the Reservoir which is a lovely walk from their home, shopping at the mall, going to the awesome kiddie pool in their neighborhood, going to the playground and lots of fun playtime at home. The kids played games, dress up, make believe, built tents and were amazing at keeping Noah entertained. Noah was thrilled to learn how to “play” Aunt Stacy’s piano and we of course think he has natural talent .

I have a lot of blogging to do to catch up on this entire trip so here is the first installment of pictures and I will post more later. There were so many good pictures from our awesome week out there so I narrowed it down to my favorites to share. Here are the highlights...


Noah discovered that watermelon tastes much better this way instead of cut up into bite sized pieces. I couldn't get enough watermelon while pregnant for Noah so I guess some of the cravings wore off on him.



Our very first day there, the afternoon rainstorm produced this amazing double rainbow visible from the back deck. The picture does not do it justice. It was one of the most exquisite sites I've ever seen.




Alyssa and Shannon giving Aunt Cristie a complete makeover complete with purple glitter. I even got a new hairdo and a massage and they didn't even charge me. I'm going back to "that" salon for sure.



Carousels and ice cream cones. What more could a kid want? Nick sure does love his ice cream...that's for sure. The most I've ever heard him cry was the night we made ice cream sundaes and Stacy wouldn't let him have a third serving right before bed...he took matters into his own hand and pulled over a large basket to the counter, turned it over and used it to climb up so he could reach the ice cream. Such motivation.




At first David and I were bummed that we paid $14 each to get into the fair for the sole purpose of giving Noah a fun time only to discover that the carousel was the ONLY ride he was old enough to go on...but then we went to the petting zoo and soon realized seeing how much fun the boys had in there was well worth the money. Nick was obsessed with pulling on the tails of all the animals (and hugging their rear ends for some reason) but my favorite part was when Noah and Alyssa were crouched down petting a goat and after petting the goat's head for a while, Noah just naturally reached over and started petting Alyssa's head....I couldn't stop laughing.




The boys had tons of fun at the fair.




Really not even sure what to write as a caption for this picture...




The Reservoir is a short walk from the house and it has a lovely beach, a playground and concession stands. The water is FREEZING though but the kids didn't seem to mind. Nicholas has perfected the art of playing in the sand, water and mud. He was as happy as could be in his mud hole.




Family fun at the beach. Noah was much happier in the sand and water on this vacation than earlier this summer. He didn't seem to notice that the water was frigidly cold. Mommy wouldn't even get in up to her ankles it was so cold.




Poor Noah. He was so exhausted from our day at the "beach" that he couldn't keep his eyes open on the way home in the "bike stroller" so he used Nicholas as a pillow.