Odds and Ends

I could make a few short posts, but I'll just stick everything in one larger post :)

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  We had been planning on having our own Thanksgiving dinner, but at the beginning of the week got invited to dinner in Mesa by one of Corey's classmates.  It was nice to get out of town and enjoy some good food.  They have grass in Mesa!

On Friday we put up the tree.  Really I did, but Corey helped me get it out of the shed (there are spiders in there).  We snapped a few pictures when we got Noelle up from her nap.  She had fun looking at the tree and likes to grab the branches.

Noelle's new favorite kind of toys are un-toys.  Anything that really isn't a toy is so cool.  Be it a roll of tape, pen, glasses, or chapstick (look mom--I think she's going to like chapstick too).  

We try not to let her play with things that aren't toys (so she'll learn what is a toy and what isn't), but sometimes we still let her. 

Seven Months!

The months seem to be flying by.  We can hardly believe our little Noelle is already seven months old!

She's growing up before our eyes.  She loves when we read to her, when we play peak-a-boo, dance, and recently she's loved being "tossed" in the air (I use "toss" loosely here as she doesn't even leave our hands).

She has discovered the world is an interesting place and wants to hold and eat anything she can.  Especially things that she notices Mom and Dad use (watches, remotes, phones, etc).  Her most favorite thing on her toys are tags.  She still likes her binky--only to chew on the ribbon that's holding it.  Silly girl :)


She has recently discovered that she can reach for things she wants.

She's dying to play with the camera.  It's making it harder to get good pictures.  Look at the determination on her face.

We love those cheeks.  We kiss them as often as Noelle lets us.

Introducing...

Sabrina! (Sorry, we don't have any pictures of her yet!)

We were very excited to meet the newest member of our family last night.  Gavin and Lesa had their first yesterday.  Here's Aunt Lesa with Noelle seven months ago.

We got to Skype with Ms. Sabrina (or Bri for short) just a few hours after she was born, and she is adorable.  It looks like she might have gotten Lesa's pretty blond hair.  Noelle was so excited to meet her very first cousin that she babbled for most of the chat (making it a little hard to hear the grown-ups talking).  It will be very fun to see and hold her in person and see these two cuties together in a few weeks.

Unannounced Visitor

We had a surprise today.


We opened our door and found this little guy.

There might have been some school girl yelps and some quick thinking (binder trap).


We finally got him back outside where he belongs.

Poor thing.  We think it literally had a heart attack as it sat in the same spot outside for quite a while.  Then after some time elapsed Corey stepped by and it was off like a rocket.


Good luck little lizard.  Next time you want to visit, call ahead please.

Hang Ten

Sometimes we find Noelle in funny positions when we go to get her up from a nap.

Socks half off, feet hanging over the edge.  Silly girl :)


On an unrelated note, do you like these jeans?  I made them.  Aren't the back pockets cute?

Well, they don't fit.  I actually don't know why I made these.  I just thought one day.  Hey, I'll make Noelle a pair of jeans out of my old jeans.  I was going fast and used some knit pants as a guide to make these and they ended up too high in the front and too low in the back.  Oh well!  I'm going to hem them up short and they can be dress up clothes for a teddy bear or doll.


Also.  Her quilt is almost done.  Yay!  The question is should I give it to her now or wait for Christmas or her birthday?  I haven't decided.

Merry Mail

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to discuss Christmas cards.

This may be a shock to some of you, but…I love Christmas.  Corey may have heard me talk about it once or twice.  I love the atmosphere, the snow, the Christmas music, Christmas cards, etc.  Whilst thinking about Christmas cards and browsing online I came across a sweet offer from Snapfish.  Talk about Snapfish and get a free set of cards.  Cool, I can do that.

I had fun browsing their Christmas card selection and narrowed my favorites down to nine (like this, and this, and this…).  Ha!  I am so indecisive sometimes.  I have completely extinguished my handmade card thoughts this year. All I have to do is pick my favorite card, pick a photo-or two, and done.  This will save me hours of wishing I hadn’t decided to make my own cards.  I have never used Snapfish before, but I think I'll hop back onto Snapfish when Noelle turns 1 to make a book of her first year too.  As much as I would like to scrapbook, I'm horrible at it.  Pick-and-click is my kind of scrapbooking.

I'm excited to see how our cards turn out.  Want to see our Christmas card picture?  Well you can’t!  What’s the point of sending cards if I give it away now!

Here are a few ones that didn’t make the cut:

Games

We've been having fun playing games with Noelle.  She loves when we play peek-a-boo, or parachute, or sneak-up-on-Noelle.  

We found a new one yesterday.  Here's a little clip:

Long Weekend

Hi all.  We don't have much to report this week other than we're hanging out and enjoying a long weekend.  

Corey has today (Veteran's Day) off of course, and his professors decided to cancel class Friday as well.  Thus far it's been pretty quiet.  Corey's been working on a paper revision and I've done a little work whilst the little one is napping.  We took a few pictures outside for fun, but Noelle wasn't really in the mood to smile.  We even tried upside down and didn't get so much as a hint of a smile.  It happens.

We are also enjoying the weather.  It was really nice today, it was in the upper 60s (I put on a jacket for fun).

Giggles

Sometimes Corey or I have fun sneaking up on Noelle when she is in her crib.  Sometimes when we do we are surprised ourselves when there's a cutie pie looking back at us.

Who's there?

Oh, it's mom and dad!

 This afternoon Corey snuck up on her and was popping over the edge making her giggle.  Here's a short video:

Oui Oui

Today was pretty fun.  While Corey was at school Noelle and I took a quick trip to France.  Here's us at the Eiffel Tower.

Or maybe I was just playing with GIMP (a free Photoshop type program) and pictures from Flickr with creative commons licenses (which lets you use their pictures without copyright issues)... this is fun!  Aside from changing the background I changed the color of my shirt (used to be purple) and whitened my teeth.  I also played with the coloring so we didn't look too out of place with the other picture.  It was fun messing around.


Where should we go next?

Gottcha!

Can you see them?  Look really close.  There are two tiny teeth in that mouth.  Until now it's been impossible to capture them on camera.

Noelle has been much happier since her teeth broke.  She was a tad grumpy for a few days.  Luckily she had a nice teether to chew on to make her feel better.

On an unrelated note.  Here is my first tomato.  Look how tiny!  Corey and I split it and enjoyed our bite of tomato.  

Time Flies

Four years ago today Corey surprised me on my doorstep at school and proposed.  It's true time flies when you are having fun.

We haven't aged a day since then.  Or so we like to think.