I spy...

...with my little eye,  someone older!

You caught me.  It's my birthday today.  Happy birthday to me!


It's a pretty low-key birthday for me this year.  Corey and I had a nice dinner last night (baby-free, thanks friends!) and I get to spend the day with my favorite girl.  

She has already given me a sloppy kiss, a "surprise" in her diaper, and even worm-crawled a foot or so.  I couldn't ask for more.

Nine

Noelle hit her 9 month mark on Sunday.  Only three more to go until her first birthday!

Noelle had her checkup on Monday and is doing great.  She didn't even jump when she got her toe pricked, but screamed her terror scream when I set her on the examination table for the doctor to check her out.  Go figure.  


Among other things the doctor said Noelle was given the green light to eat solid foods and meat!  We had some baby peach cereal/cracker things so we thought we'd let Noelle try one (we broke it into about ten pieces just in case).

Sick mom.


I think I'll take a step back and see if she can handle small pieces of something softer like banana or potatoes.  We'll pick up some baby food meat next time we're at the store if we can stomach it (purred turkey dinner just doesn't sound all that appetizing) and let you know what Noelle thinks.

Coming Soon

Coming soon to a blog near you...two brand new front teeth!  

We believe they have officially broken through (about time, they've been close for weeks).  They are too small for pictures but give us a few weeks and there will be some cute pearly-whites to show off.

Is it possible for this smile to get any cuter? 

 It's hard to imagine, but I think so.

Page Turner

Noelle loves reading.  Noelle has started turning pages while we are reading.

She is so helpful.  

Here's a quick video.

"Winter" Hikes

Corey and I decided that we need to do better enjoying the beautiful weather out here while we can.  Sorry for those of you in the middle of what winter should be (cold, snow, etc).   But you get to see grass, so it evens out.

Noelle did much better on this hike.  As long as we kept moving she was a happy camper.

We tried the same trail we failed hiking last time (due to a few missed naps) since it was still on our GPS.  Don't ask me where it was.  East of where we live?  I'll have to look it up.  It wasn't a hard hike, nor did we get anywhere really.  But it was fun.

We think there was a lake further down the trail but we decided to head back so we would be home for Noelle's dinner time.

Here's a few snapshots of the scenery.  Those saguaro cacti are everywhere.  They make you feel small for sure.  We followed a roadrunner for a while.  It stayed on the trail for quite a ways as we were heading home.

Hitting the Books

Corey headed back to school yesterday.

His stack of books was nearly as tall as Noelle!  Corey's got another full load of classes and has already started reading that mammoth stack of books for homework.  


On unrelated news Noelle is still working on her two front teeth.  I've read they can take a while to show themselves, so we could see them any day now or it may still be another week or two.


The weather here is quite nice.  It's mid-70's, blue sky, and sun most days (not to make any of you jealous).  We are going to try getting a few hikes in before summer heat rolls in.

Flavor of the Month...

Noelle has been having fun playing with the window shade since we got home.

 She likes to kick them and grab them and hide behind the shade.

You found me!

Brown Paper Package

We picked up our last bit of luggage this morning.  After Christmas we realized that it would be very difficult to pack and carry everything we had back to Arizona with us, so we mailed ourselves a package.  It was like a late Christmas gift opening it up and remembering all the things we put inside.


We were a little nervous upon receiving the package (the lady at the post office actually told Corey, "I hope you don't have anything fragile in there" while handing him the battered box).


Below you will see why.  Our box sure went through the wringer to get here!  The box had two holes in the top and was ripping at the side (I almost lost my dye pack--part of a sweet gift from my sisters full of random craft stuff) and the brown paper wrapping was in tatters.

It would be fun knowing how this happened...

Thanks to Larry and his bubble wrapping job this ceramic jar (another part of my sister's gift) made it intact.  It's a Christmas miracle!

Moral of the story, if you have something fragile don't use the post office unless you have a skilled bubble wrapper available.

Lessons in Baking

There's a reason they make cupcake pans.


I've been wanting to make cupcakes for a while and decided to try them tonight.  Cake mix and frosting from scratch!


I realized after starting that the recipe needed two cupcake pans and I only had one.  No problem.  I had a small cookie sheet I figured would hold enough.  I tested one to make sure the sides would hold and it seemed pretty sturdy.  I carefully spaced them so they would cook evenly.  


When I pulled them out of the oven I found this:

Oops!

Don't worry.  They still tasted good.

Yum!

Christmas Fun

We had a wonderful Utah Christmas.  We were a little starved for winter when we left Arizona and were excited to be greeted with cool air and snow when we stepped off the plane!  


We discovered Noelle's coat was a little too big.

 Noelle met "Gingy"... It's a long story.

She played her first songs on the piano.

Noelle had so much fun with her grandparents and aunts and uncles (and adopted aunts).

Christmas Day was so fun.

We spent the morning at my parents.  We all got lots of goodies and Noelle had fun chewing on toys and garbage.

We spent the evening at Corey's parents' where we ate a delicious dinner and opened more great gifts.

Noelle got some really great gifts from her grandparents.  Karen cross-stitched and sewed each granddaughter a darling stocking and Larry made a beautiful music box for each one too.  Noelle's plays "What Child is This".

We had fun doing regular things, like baths.  She didn't mind the sink as long as she had a toy to play with (in this case a bowl).

 And playing with Dad.

We were so glad we could attend the blessing of our first niece and Noelle's first cousin, Sabrina.  Sabrina was such a good girl for her blessing and looked so cute in her dress.  Noelle was so good during the blessing and church...

And then not so much when we tried to get pictures of the two granddaughters.  She was being so wiggly and grouchy I tried holding her upside down for the picture :) 

Our Christmas vacation went by in a flash, as we knew we would.  We can't wait until next year (ha)! 

Dancing

This week Noelle has started to dance.  Kind of.  We first noticed the dancing when she was playing with her puppy from Grandma Karen.  It sings songs with her name and other favorite things.

We caught a short clip of her dancing the other night: