Happy Birthday!

Today is my little man's birthday. He is two years old! I can't believe I have a two year old. I so vividly remember bringing him into this world and now somehow he is talking, running, laughing, and demanding.

Noah was born March 23rd 2011 at 3:13. His birthday this year is 3-23-13. I keep saying we should play those numbers in the lottery.

We made a stop and got him a massive M&MS cookie for a birthday treat. Of course, he ate all the M&Ms off like a little gerbil and left the cookie.

Just spending the rest of the day cleaning for his party tomorrow.

Rub a Dub

Bath time is always exciting. I'm trying to build and maintain his confidence in the water by making him think its funny and fun to dump water on his head. He is starting to dump water on his own head. He will also lay on his belly and stick parts of his face in the water. As soon as its not a blizzard in Ohio, we are going to do actual swim lessons. For now, the bath will have to do.

Making The Most Of It

We really wanted to have a fun Labor Day weekend. It's just a great way to say "goodbye" to summer. Friday, I completely scoured my whole house, I mean, you could perform a surgery in any room. I just didn't want to have to worry about it during the weekend.

Saturday, we had a great day at the county fair ( which you can read about in my last post). Sunday, we had a family reunion and then had friends over for a casual dinner at our humble abode. Monday, we did some browsing and shopping at an outdoor outlet mall near our house. We also have a pool in our development so we went swimming for a little while.

It's just a great feeling knowing we made the most of this "last weekend of summer". It doesn't change the fact that I am shocked it's September already! This summer flew by at an alarming rate.

Let's Get Physical!

I signed Noah up for a summer session at the Little Gym. They run gymnastic type classes for babies all the way up to older school age children. Noah just had his first "Birds" class with 10-19 month old toddlers. He had so much fun (until he tripped on a mat and smashed his forehead into a pole) but even after that he had fun. I can't wait to take him to class next week. I only saw one other mom with her camera out, so I don't know if I was a weirdo or not, but I couldn't NOT take any pictures. 


BACK STORY: these classes are not cheap and I really wanted to spend time doing fun things with Noah over the summer  since I work during the school year. My husband would probably have a coronary if he knew how much the class was, but I felt like it was so unfair that he couldn't do a fun class that would strengthen his motor development just because we don't have a lot of money right now so...... I asked my mom for money. Now you have to understand, I don't ask anyone for money, ever. So I sucked it up and asked my mother to loan me the $187 it would cost for the class and membership and told her I would pay her back as soon as I could. I waited until Noah had his first class, so I could show my husband pictures of him having fun, before I told him what I did. I know many of you probably don't condone this, but after 10 years together I have learned it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Happy Father's Day

When your husband goes from being your husband to the father of your child, there is an interesting shift that takes place. It's always been just the two of you until this new life joins the relationship. In my relationship, many changes took place when our little man joined our lives. Adam is a wonderful father (even though I sometimes question the things he does) and he loves Noah so much! I want him to feel special today because you go the first half of your life completely ignoring Father's Day and then all of a sudden you are being celebrated right along with other fathers. 


I took Noah to the park with a big letter "D" and a big letter "A" and we had a little photo shoot. I put the pictures in a frame to spell "dad". I wish I could claim original idea, but I stole the idea from Pinterest...









These were close contenders in making the frame, but alas, I could only choose 3. (FYI: I took 85 pictures so it was no easy task making the final choice)

First Time for Everything

We have trimmed Noah's hair ourselves but he has not had a full hair cut yet. So, since it is summer, it seemed like a good time to go get his first official haircut. He sat on my lap and got a cute little cape to wear. The hairstylist had to give him one of her combs to keep him happy, but he did a really great job! Yay Noah! Now we can spike it up and he won't look like Donald Trump.

Misc.

I must admit,  I am a little slow when it comes to technology. I just discovered this new app through instagram called, instaframe-so cool! It lets you make collages, edit photos, and add text. Here is a sample of my first go at it...

Here is just a hodge-podge of photos that I have been so far behind in posting.  Noah just loves Lola and climbs on her all the time. She is so patient. Our lives didn't just change, but so did hers. Now she has to put up with being pulled on, sat on, chased, and poked. I think she likes it though, she handles it really well.

I put Noah on one of those mechanical rides outside of most stores, for the first time about a week ago. As you can see, before it started moving, he was totally happy. As soon as I put in the money, he was not so happy anymore.

Christos Anesti!

Christos Anesti (Christ has Risen) is a phrase Greek Orthodox believers say to one another after the Resurrection. Orthodox Easter was this past weekend. It is such a beautiful holiday. Although I did give Noah an "Easter Bucket" and some plastic eggs with marshmellows, the "Easter Bunny" did not come to our house. We put more emphasis on the religious account of Easter. Jesus was crucified, died on the cross, was buried, and rose again to free us from sin and death.

I have included some photos from my iphone of Good Friday service and also of Noah.

The beautiful tomb of our Lord decorated by members of church.

We follow the tomb around the outside of the church to symbolize the procession that followed Jesus' body to his tomb. It's pretty cool to see if you never have before. Everyone holds candles and sings hymns.



First Time at a Park

This weekend was the first time Noah was at a park where he was old enough to go down a slide or swing in a swing. We have taken walks in parks before but were never able to actually do anything else.

At the bottom of the slide was sand. It took every once of "cool mom" in me to let him explore the disgusting public sand without looking like a hypocondriach. He had a great time and passed out in the car on the way home. Here are some of the best pics (modified of course with instagram, follow me at sincerelys)

It's very rare if I post a picture of myself with the baby and that's for two reasons. 1. I'm always the one taking the pictures 2. I don't feel like me since I still haven't lost this saggy tummy so I don't like people to see me in pictures. The pic below though turned out nice and is waist up. We were on our way to church for Palm Sunday.