Noa's Birthday Pictures

We decided to have Noa's birthday party a week early just incase baby Micah decided to come early. He's still not here yet, but we're glad we already had her party since we had the perfect company, with the perfect weather, and she was in a perfect mood. What fun we had!

Smoochin' Babers

We decorated everything and when she woke up from her nap she loved looking at all the balloons.

Eating one of her faves - Mac 'n' Cheese

Midway through dinner, she was getting bored, so we gave her a present to open. Thanks Nana and Pops for the tea set!

Scared of the candles

Waaaay into opening her presents! She kept saying, "What is it?" and "How it work?" In her 2 year old kind of way. It was so cute.

Every mommy needs a baby carrier! She was in heaven!

Here's some pictures from today - her actual birthday. You can tell she wasn't feeling very good. Lorann and her boys (Noa's cousins) met us at Chick-fil-a for breakfast. The boys had a wonderful time and were so excited to come to the party, even though it was only our 2 families. Noa, on the other hand, just wanted to sit on Mommy's lap and wanted to go home. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept for 5 more hours after that! She woke up still groggy, but thankfully, we still had some presents sent all the way from Michigan to make her smile and keep her occupied for a little bit.

Grandma & Grandpa Roberts sent a whole bunch of Tales stuff! She especially loved the noisy book that plays loud music. Thanks a lot! :)

And Grammy sent her some things (I think she even made some of the things herself) for her kitchen including a whole bunch of baking supplies, apron, and chef hat!

Noa's been wanting a whisk. That's her favorite thing to borrow from Mommy's kitchen.

And unfortunately, she wasn't in any mood to wear her new chef hat, but someone else was!!!

With abandon!

This is what most of our day looked like though. We watched lots of Tales while surrounded by all of our new toys.

We're still awaiting some other things all the way from Michigan, and I'm glad her birthday will continue later this week - especially since she wasn't feeling well today. Thank you everyone for loving our sweet girl. She is a beautiful blessing from our Father and we are so humbled that he chose us to be her parents. We look forward to celebrating her many, many more times!

Happy Birthday Noa!

Today Noa turned 2 years old! I can hardly believe it. She's sleeping right now - taking a long nap as she woke up with a 102 fever. Poor thing doesn't feel very good at all. It was a good thing we had her birthday part last week when she had a ton of energy and a ton of fun too. We saved some presents for her today and will let her open them later. I'll post pictures later too.

Strawberries!

Some friends and I decided it would be a great idea to take all of our kids strawberry picking at a farm on Johns Island. We weren't sure how the whole thing would go especially since we were outnumbered 7 to 3. But it ended up being a wonderful day to hunt for strawberries!

Here's my lame attempt to take a picture. This is actually a great snapshot of how the day was though... all of us had a baby strapped to us and one or two other ones running loose.

There were soooo many strawberries! It was hard not to just stop and pick all of the red ones. Our buckets were quickly filled and our tummies were getting filled too! How do you tell a 2 year old that they can't eat every single strawberry they see?!?!

The bucket was really heavy for Noa but she was determined to carry it alllll the waaaaayyy down the looooong row to the car. It took forever, but it was sweet. I love that girl.

Ivana was nice enough to bring a little picnic for us afterwards. It was controlled chaos, but fun!

I left my camera in the car for most of the time, so I don't have very many pictures. I'll have to remember that next time we go! We loved it! We'll certainly do it again! And now we have a ton of strawberry jam too!

Speaking of strawberries... Here's a little guy I found in our garden in the backyard! I got so excited that I took a picture and forgot to pick it! So the next day I went out to get it and it was gone! We must have someone else in our backyard who likes strawberries too! I'm guessing a bunny... Time to come up with some pest control ideas! Oh well. I still feel like a farmer. :)

Noa's Play Kitchen

Noa definitely needs some more "big girl" toys. She's totally getting tired of all the little baby toys that she has and we haven't bought anything special for her in a while. I had this great idea to refurbish a play kitchen for her since I kept seeing it all over the place online.

I looked on Craigslist and found this ugly one for $30. I probably could've talked her down, but I'm not much of a negotiator, so I kind of forgot. Anyway... $30 is better than $150 - $200 for a little wooden kitchen.

So, while the girls were at Mother's Morning Out, I had a 3 hour window to start my project. After I stared at it for about 15 minutes, I decided I had to take everything apart in order to sand the very thick paint off of it.

I put all the little hinges and screws in sandwich bags and labeled them so I would know what was going on when I put it back together.

I sanded and sanded... and sanded... piece by piece and after being covered in blue and red dust, was finally able to prime them. I wasn't going to at first, but decided they needed to be primed just because the paint was so smooth and was still very present even after a lot of sanding. I found Rustoleum on a shelf in the garage, which is a spray paint primer for metal things. Even though this was wood, the can said: for smooth surfaces, so I thought I would give it a go. So far, so good.

Next I started painting each individual piece. This is when I realized that this project is not for the faint of heart. It took about 5 - 6 coats to get rid of that nasty blue paint. I don't mind painting though, it just took a while. I just painted and prayed for about a week's worth of the girls' nap times. Half way through painting, I put the bottom back together and painted more coats while it was one piece.

After trying a stone spray paint (to try to make it look like granite), I decided I liked just plain paint better, so I tried some green paint that we had left over from Noa's roon. I liked it! Green it is!

I then sanded the top and covered all the silver parts with paper so I wouldn't paint them. I primed it and painted it white. I added green later but white was my base.

After painting everything (a majority of the work), I decided to put little hooks on the side to hold 2 baskets for more storage (small "cup holder screws" that wouldn't go all the way through the wood).

I made 2 basket liners for the inside.

And voila!

Noa has something to do, and I have something cute to look at. :)
Before

After

So, here's the run-down:

- Play kitchen - $30

- White paint - 1 quart -$9 (I used almost the whole thing)

- Green paint - Free - leftover from Noa's room

- Spray Clear Top Coat - $3

- 2 white baskets - $1.25

- Pink towel - $2

- Fabric for baskets - Free - leftover from another project

- Time spent: about 15 hours

Total: $45.25 - not too bad for a little wooden custom kitchen. :)

Noa Easter Video

Christ is Risen!

Bob and Larry were a highlight of the day...

Noa of course thought both pails were for her - and carried around Bob & Larry all day long.

Ruthie only wanted to suck on her dress as soon as we put it on. So much for ironing them!

Ruthie putting flowers on the cross

Noa putting flowers on the cross

At first Noa just sucked her thumb and didn't know what was going on, but as soon as she realized they were singing her favorite "Tap Tap" song, she was zoned in! Here she is with her buddies Gracie and Lilly.

Egg hunt at Nanny and Pappy's house after church. She found one egg and opened it to find 2 pieces of chocolate inside. She stopped there and didn't care about looking for any other eggs.

All pooped out on the way home. Notice who is keeping her company! Also take a look at the skinned knees. That's what happens when you have way too many jelly beans and chocolate candies!

About 10 minutes later...

Ruthie, on the other hand, was wide awake when we came home. So much for Sunday naps!