Gaggle of Giggles

Noelle has been randomly giggling at things this past week.  She spit up all over me and then giggled when Corey grabbed a burp cloth to wipe it up.  She giggled when Corey 'bounced' Noelle up and down.  She giggled when I put her down for a nap.  It's really cute.  Trouble is things seem to only be funny once which is hard to capture on film.

* This picture is for Corey.  He claims I purposely don't put a lot of pictures of myself on the blog--which may or may not be true.

Tonight after reading with Noelle I put her on my tummy and she started giggling.  I then started laughing--making her wiggle from me laughing, which prompted more giggles.  She was giggling for a good two minutes before Corey went to grab the camera as it looked like she was going to keep giggling for a while.  She's starting to wear out from all the laughing but it's still pretty darn cute.

First Hair Cut

What are you looking at me for?  Does it look like I need a haircut yet? :)


It was actually Corey's first hair cut--first hair cut by me that is.  Other than the two years on his mission he can't remember anyone but his mom cutting his hair.  Needless to say he was a little nervous about me cutting it.  He made me promise I wouldn't be offended if he never wanted me to cut it again.

I think I did a pretty good job (he does too).  Of course not as good as his mom--but close enough.  I haven't been fired yet.  

Suspicions...

I suspect that Noelle will be rolling around a lot sooner than we think.

I also suspect that Noelle will like her 'blankies' and possibly her thumb.  Especially at bedtime and during naps.

Just a hunch.

Meet the Neighbors

Welcome.  Let me introduce you to our neighbors.  We've found them to be an unruly bunch--we try to leave them alone as much as we can.

Here's Spike (notice the barbs are as long as my index finger):

Blossom (with no barbs that I can see):

Porcupine: 

I've run out of names, but here are the other three varieties of cacti in our yard (can you believe we have SIX different varieties of cacti in our yard?!):

We also have a few other plants.  These yellow flowers might be weeds, but they are pretty right?  

And our bush had one sprig of pretty pink flowers.

We also have a tree, some bushes, and wild grass, but I didn't get pictures of those.  We're going to buy a weed trimmer soon so we can buzz down the wild grass.

Doctor's Prognosis:

Perfect!  


Our suspicions were confirmed that Noelle is a happy and healthy baby.  She's doing well growth wise.  She's nearly 14 lbs (50th percentile), and 25 inches long (75th percentile).  Noelle's new doctor seems nice and we liked the clinic a lot.  The only problem was they came into the office this morning to find out the air broke!  So it was a little hot, but it was fine.

Noelle did wonderfully until the shots came.  Only two this time.  It took until the second one for her to realize she did not like what just happened and it wasn't pretty.  Her face turned really really red and she collected herself for a few moments before letting out the most sad wail you've ever heard.  Break my heart.  Luckily Corey came with me (his early class was cancelled today) and we had a bottle on hand to calm her down on the way home.


Look, I feel better now.

Dance Dance

Noelle is still finding new things she likes to do all the time.  A new favorite is 'dancing' with dad.  

While dancing she sometimes giggles, almost always smiles, and sometimes it buys us a few more minutes being quiet at church.

Fun Times

Noelle is the best at being easily entertained.  Lay her on the floor with a burp rag and she'll have a ball.  One of her favorite past times is blowing spit bubbles (or in some cases milk bubbles).  

Here's a short clip I caught the other day:

Quatro

Today is Noelle's 4 month birthday!!  Time has flown since she was born.


This:

Grew to this:

                                      

Which grew to this:

                                                 

**Thanks Lesa!  This is one of our favorite pictures of Noelle :)

Which grew some more and is now this:

It's going to be a really long post when she turns 16 years old... just kidding :)

Sunny Days

Its still hot.  Big surprise!  Give us a few months and we'll be loving the weather.

For now Noelle and I will just hang out inside whilst dad is at school.  This week we started Harry Potter.  We lay on the floor together and I read while Noelle does whatever she wants (currently it's usually trying to eat her burp cloth or her hands and/or thumb).  Today she went between her thumb, burp cloth, and blowing spit bubbles.  She has started holding her hands too.

We are having little family home evenings with Noelle too.  It usually includes reading a book (we got a few church books as a shower gift) or small activities.  Yesterday despite the cute looking picture below she was not in the mood for books.  Instead we had an activity night and we sang a song, looked in the mirror, and had a family tummy time.  This lasted all of 3 minutes probably :)  Short and sweet.

Back in the Saddle Again

Where has the last month gone?  We can't believe our break is over already.


Corey started orientation this past Thursday, and starts school officially next Thursday.  He's met some of his fellow 'first years', the professors, and becoming more familiar with campus.  He feels like he will like the school.  It doesn't have the cutthroat culture that many other law programs have, which is great.  As well he learned the school is ranked somewhere near the top 20th for the law faculty (it's ranked 42nd overall I believe).

The first year will be the hardest--so everyone says.  Here we go!


*I made Corey promise me this picture before he realized that I may use it on our blog.  Heh.  I had to have it, it's tradition!
**This is our backyard.  This picture is misleading.  It looks green and lush.  In person it is neither green nor lush.

Laundry

We hang dry most of our clothes now.  Totally old school.  A good amount of people dry their clothes here.  At least that's what we've been told.

Today the clothes were dry in the amount of time it took the next load in the washer to finish.  Faster than the dryer would take.  Corey and I checked the temperature when we got back inside from hanging the last load, it was 102 I think.  I may try adding some fabric softener to the wash as our clothes are a bit stiff.

If we are tan when we come to visit at Christmas it isn't because we went to a tanning salon.  It's because we've been doing our laundry :)  Heh.

Is there anything cuter than baby clothes hanging out to dry?

Mobile

Yesterday I decided that Noelle needed a mobile.  I had been wanting one for a while, ideally something really cute and free.  So I made one.  


I got some string and made clouds (by dipping it in paper mache glue--aka water and flour).  Once dry I covered the string clouds with tissue paper.  I tried making designs in the tissue paper, but you can only really see them when there is light shining through the clouds (if you look really close the cloud closest to the camera has a little smiley face in it).

I used a hanger and more string to complete the mobile.  Maybe I'll look for a better looking device at the craft store sometime, but for now it will work.

Now the only problem is it's currently hanging off of Noelle's light which is in the middle of her room (and hard for her to admire in her crib).  I'll have to pick up one of those ceiling hooks this week.

Red Rover, Red Rover...

Noelle can rollover!  


Noelle has successfully rolled over unassisted this afternoon.  She was on her tummy one second and flipped over the next.  We tried putting her back on her tummy for a repeat, but I think she's still trying to figure it out.  No actual photos or videos (yet).  But she looked something like this:

Aw cute.

180 Degrees

Corey and I have done a few 180's this year.  Our family went from 2 to 3, I quit my job, we moved to another state, etc.

Well guess who else has done a 180?  Noelle!  To date she has gone as far as 270 degrees.  For the past few days we've noticed her arching her back a lot when we held her.  We weren't sure if she had bubbles or what was going on.  Then last night when we had her on the floor she did the same thing and began pivoting...

Here is Noelle at 90 degrees just this afternoon:

It takes her a while to get as far as she does, but I'm sure she'll be moving faster than we can keep up with shortly.  I also don't think the pivoting is going to help her growing bald spot on the back of her head, but that's ok.

Nap Time

We are continuing to wrap Noelle up as a burrito for nap times and bedtime.  I highly suggest swaddling to anyone with a wee one.  They sleep so much longer.  When on occasion Noelle channels Houdini and an arm escapes we get an early wake up call somewhere between 3 and 4 am.

Often when we put her back to bed in the morning she's not quite sleepy and has found ways to pass the time before falling back asleep (see video below**).  Sorry about the sound quality, there was a fan running in the background.

**Andy, let me know if you need help editing any of your videos.  As you can see I am now able to cut clips short and add words.  Pretty fancy.  In all seriousness I jest.  I don't know how you do what you do.

Solid Foods

Noelle is growing so fast!  We don't have her official weight and height yet, but we know she's over 13 lbs.  We can't believe she is eating solid foods already.  She's eating things like giraffes...

and lions, among other things.

Don't worry, the lion is ok.  He's a good sport.

In terms of regular foods she's still on a liquid diet, but she does make the occasional exception with unsuspecting animals that are laying about.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Noelle loves tub time.  

She discovered splashing a few weeks ago and she has only gotten better.    Sitting on the edge of the tub is now the "splash zone", like they have at Sea World.

We tried to get a video of her skills but as soon as we pulled out the camera she barely made a splash.  Camera shy I guess :)  Maybe next time.

First Laughs

We have officially heard Noelle's first chuckles (see video below**).  Her laughs currently sound like she is mimicking how we laugh, I'm sure that will change in the next few weeks.

**Ignore the caption in the middle of the video.  Our little video camera saves the files in an mp4 format which I found out doesn't play nice with other programs that I use to make the file smaller (so I can upload it to the blog).  I tried a 'free' converter software, but when you use the free trial they put a watermark in the middle of your movie.  Gavin--Andy-- any video techie know of a good free file converter?  Or maybe I can change the default file type my camera uses?...Stay tuned.

We love that she is happy so often.

She does have her fits now and then.

In other news Noelle is grabbing things better--although we've found her excitement level is about equal whether it's a dirty burp rag or a cute little toy.  I'm sure she will realize soon that a burp rag is lame and she will want some toys.

It has felt less humid the past few days, but the heat has also started climbing.  I guess it's one or the other.  I think I prefer the heat.  I don't like humidity really.