Day at the park

Since Russ had The MAN Retreat this week-end and we were missing him terribly, we decided to get outside and have a picnic at Waterfront Park today. I was so glad to get out of the house and enjoy this beautiful Fall weather with my babe! We had a perfect spot in the shade between 2 trees overlooking the harbor. Noa absolutely loved being outside and kept herself busy trying to crawl. (That's her new thing... and she thinks she's hot stuff again).







Then we went walking around downtown. This was the hotel we stayed in for part of our honeymoon.

Of course there are all kinds of nooks and cranies to photograph in Charleston. I love the understated charm of this city.







After a long walk we ended up at Starbucks to sit down for a minute. Noa was sleeping the whole time but decided to wake up just as we were sitting down. Bummer. So we kept on walking. She was totally content though. She loves looking at people and taking everything in, so this little adventure was perfect for her.

Blogging

I've found myself totally unmotivated to blog lately. Being that it is an excellent way to keep family and friends aware of what's going on in our lives - well, mainly Noa's life - I really need to get back in the game. This morning I was thinking of 10 reasons I haven't blogged and I thought I would share them with you while I'm waiting for new pics (Yay!) to download.

10. I've been sleeping. Noa has revolted against a full 8 (or full 6, or full 4) hours of sleep at night, therefore forcing Mommy to sleep all day long.
9. I've been busy making baby food with my new Beaba Babycook (fancy little steamer/blender from Williams-Sonoma). I'm fascinated with this little machine and wish she ate food faster so I could make more.
8. I've been shopping. Who would choose blogging over new clothes?
7. I've been going green. Lately I've spent all my time researching cloth diapers. I've become a little obsessed with it and need to cut back.
6. I've been REALLY going green. I found old shirts/etc. in the house that I've cut up to make burp clothes and wipes. I told you I was going crazy...
5. I've been with friends. We've had a new "mandate" (if you will) at our church to have couples over for dinner twice a month. It feels like we've had about 5 months worth of get-togethers already! It has been so much fun though!!
4. I've been hanging out with my babe. Russ and I have had a lot of time together lately. Sometimes we take Noa out with us and sometimes we get to have quality time just by ourselves. I can't think of anything I would like to do more.
3. I've been lazy.
2. I've been constantly cleaning up poop. No lie. Today I looked over and Noa was in her exersaucer. I noticed she was kind of slipping and sliding around as she tried to stand. Low and behold it was yesterday's carrots. Yep, that's right... bright orange... she pooped them right out the side of her diaper. She didn't seem to mind, but of course, each little adventure like this takes about a 1/2 hour to clean up (bath, diaper change, exersaucer sterilization, laundry...)
1. I've been trying to make pajama pants. It took me about 4 hours to figure out how to thread the sewing machine. The pants still aren't done and when they are I think they might only fit a 400 pound man. I'm still plowing ahead...

O.k... enough with the boringness. Pictures are downloaded!!

Noa has been wanting to crawl, crawl, crawl lately! She gets up on all 4's and wiggles, but that's about it. She can rotate on her belly, but she can't even really scoot yet. Anyway, she's getting so big!



Here's a sweet little embroidered towel that Jim & Deb Dean sent to Noa. Thanks!! I'm sure Jim had a big part to play in making it... :)

Here's the table I refinished! It goes with the 2 chairs I recovered. Wow, I'm so domestic!

Bug Bites!

Since we've had such great weather here the last few days, Noa and I decided to go to James Island County Park and take a walk. It was wonderful! She LOVED being outside and loved being able to look around at everything. I convinced Russ to come with us after dinner for another walk. The 2nd one didn't go so well. She definitely did not want to be in the stroller and let us know as soon as we strapped her in. So 10 minutes into the hour long walk Russ picked her up and walked with her the rest of the way, which, if you've ever held Noa can get REALLY heavy. Then came the mosquitos. Blah! They were everywhere! I didn't even see one earlier in the day, but they had suddenly come out and were feasting on Noa. She has bites on her legs, her fingers, her forehead, and you can see how bad this one is on her eye. :( Poor thing. It doesn't seem to bother her though. I just know it took about 3 weeks for the last bug bite to disappear, so I'm hoping this one goes away sooner.


On a brighter note, Noa received a sweet package in the mail from Char the other day! Yay!! Thank you Jim & Char!! Actually, Mommy liked the cute outfits that were inside and Noa Jane liked eating the paper. To each his own. :)

And here's Noa in the John Deere outfit Abby got for her - hat and all! I think she looks soooo funny! I couldn't stop laughing, and I had to take a pic!

Giggly Girl

This girl absolutely LOVES her Daddy! Mommy is the one in charge of all the boring things and Daddy is the one who has cool sound effects and just wants to play all the time. How can you compete with that? Here are some sweet videos of Russ' sound effects and Noa's giggling, which they both do quite often.

Cereal

Finally, it worked!

Let's try Cereal

I'm trying to get this stupid thing to download some videos, but it is having problems again. I have about a million to put on here but always run into problems. Sorry grandmas!!

This was a monumental week! We tried rice cereal for the first time!! I think she liked it. She definitely didn't know what to do with it, but she kept grabbing the spoon for more. I don't think we're going to have any problems with eating...




And, of course this is what follows. Noa got Russ bad!! We will be so excited when proper digestion is a part of her life.

On a sad/panicked note, the exersaucer is becoming Noa's enemy. For some reason she is starting to grunt and whine at all the animals when she gets in there - like they have some unfinished business or something. We have no idea what this could possibly be, but she seems to get the most frustrated when she can't pull them up out of their stations (for lack of a better word). This is especially troubling because exersaucer is really spelled F-R-E-E-D-O-M. We'll have to find something else quick!

By the way... I couldn't figure out what this animal was for the longest time. Was it a duck? A dog with wings? A bear? A duck with a dog/bear's face? Finally we figured out that it is a SEAL. Of course!

Getaway!

Russ and I were able to get away last week-end for a night in Charlotte, NC. We left Noa with Bruce and Linda and just got to enjoy each other's company without having to worry about a baby. What a nice break! We were definitely ready to see the sweet girl when we got back though...

Here we are downtown. Our hotel had a great view of the city and we were able to walk around a little bit on Friday night.

We ended up going to this restaurant and it was great, they just took FOREVER! I could've made the meal myself in the time it took them to give us our bread. Here's Russ waiting for bread. :)

The next day we ate at California Pizza House (or something like that) - Yummy!!

And we went the mall. Am I missing out on the latest trend in make-up? These girls were everywhere - kind of scary.

Our hotel was overrun with East Carolina and Virginia Tech fans. We had to wait forever to eat breakfast and we were surrounded by a sea of marron and orange and purple and gold fans. They were quite a group too - very country. Check out this lady's hair...and outfit...and purse...and anklet...it is worth enlarging the photo...