Christmas

On Christmas Eve, daycare was closed and Ryan was off, so it worked out well. Daddy was home with his boys all day while Mommy was at work wrapping Christmas presents. Noah came down with a fever two days before so he was slowly recovering from some random viral thing. When I got home from work around 3, Eric had still not had a nap. I began to panic that he would go to sleep too early and wake up in the middle of the night and see me setting things up. Eric ended up falling asleep at 4:30. I told Ryan to wake him up around 6. Ryan tried to, but Eric told him he was too tired. OH NO! Oh yes. He was coming down with a fever. He went back to sleep and I sat down and had a pity party about how Christmas was going to be ruined. The house wasn't cleaned, I hadn't slept through the night in 4 days, both kids were sick - poor me! I snapped out of it, and was ashamed that I even had it. Eric woke up again around 7:30 pm and we sat in my bed and watched Christmas movies - it was really fun and memorable for me.

5:30 am came and Eric was up - burning up. We gave him some Motrin and then he realized it was Christmas morning and wanted to know if Santa really came. I had bought him a performance stage (it's a tent). It was way bigger than I had imagined it to be. It takes up half of my living room. He was thrilled to see that Santa had came because, "I was a REALLY good boy Mom". Eric got a bunch of toys, a video game, books, clothes, transformers, etc. - his favorite was the Bat Cave from Uncle Todd. Noah got about 5 things. Only 1 from us. I figured he was going to try to play with all of Eric's gifts anyway. I did give him the empty cardboard wrapping paper rolls.

Noah displays the toy's versatility

Noah and his cardboard gift

We had Grandma, Papa, Uncle Todd, Nanny and Grandpa Nick over for dinner Christmas day. Poor Eric spent a good amount of the day on the couch. Noah made up for him in the eating department (as usual!). Noah ate sauerkraut, polish sausage and ham. We got to bed early - YAY.
We both had to work the next day. Ryan left at 6am. The phone rang around 6:15, it was the daycare calling to say they were going to be closed because of weather conditions. I had no clue what she was talking about. Everything was frozen - streets, cars everything. Ryan came through the back door around 6:30. His boss told him to just go home if he was close. His boss was stuck on I-65 (and for about 5 hours after that). Cars were just spinning out on the streets. The next day brought a day full of rain. We woke up to find that the ice storm from the night before had disappeared with all of the snow!

The Saturday evening after Christmas we had the Onohan family over. It was a lot of fun. I haven't stayed up that late in awhile! We spent all of the next Sunday recovering from lack of sleep.

Grandma and Noah

Sarah, Julie and Uncle Jim

The Onohan Boys

Lily and Eric

James & Sarah feeding cake to the piggy

Cousin Andrianna and Noah looking out the window for Sadie

The sectional really came in handy

Almost Christmas!

We have had a busy December. On December 4th, the boys had their Christmas program for their daycare. Noah did his famous dance move to "Jingle Bell Rock" (bouncing up a down to the beat). Eric's class did a slow dance to "Baby, it's Cold Outside". Eric was paired up with Anna - they were very cute. He has the same slow dancing moves as his father! Eric also sang the first verse to "Let it Snow". He is a natural!

Noah with Miss Maria

Eric dancing with Anna & my big blonde head with the camcorder

Eric holding hands with his buddy Zac

Eric is very excited about Christmas but not too excited about seeing Santa. After his Christmas program, he was not interested in meeting the Big Guy at all. Noah had no problem sitting on Santa's lap! He's up for anything. The Town offered to have Santa call the kids at home. We signed up for this & Santa called and spoke with Eric. Eric hung up & sat back down to watch TV. We waited to see if he was going to divulge his conversation. Finally we asked what Santa said. Eric said, "He said to leave cookies and milk for him, but I don't like milk - let's leave orange juice for him instead." The threat of "Calling Santa" has been used quite often and is beginning to lose it's power! Hopefully we can make it to Christmas without getting on the Naughty List!

Noah has went a couple days without his pacifier. It has been rough for him, but he's doing great. Unfortunately, I have given in at night & popped it in his mouth after 40 minutes of crying. He is so funny.

3 pacifiers - we need an intervention...

He loves playing with Eric and Sadie. You can tell already how much Noah looks up to Eric. Being an only child, I find it so interesting to watch them interact. Eric's first 2 years of life had my undivided attention. Noah came into the world having a sibling. My heart just swells watching the two of them together. Eric is so caring with him. There are quite a few moments that are filled with wrestling too! The fight over toy possession has begun. Poor Eric is constantly being told to, "give it to Noah". So unfair at that age - but he takes it well. I really think they will be close.

See what I mean?

Sadie. My darling Sadie. My friend until the end. The one who was there for me at my darkest hour. She has been pushed down the ladder quite a bit. She is so wonderful with the boys. She and Eric are beginning to really play with each other. They wrestle and chase each other through the house. Noah literally squeaks when he sees her come through the back door. She sits patiently under his high chair, waiting for him to accidentally drop or hand feed her his food. She still has the "puppy brain" as I like to call it. About once a week, something is destroyed. I told Ryan that we are going to call her Marley.

Halloween

Eric was so excited. I accidentally showed him a Halloween costume catalogue in September. He became obsessed with the Optimus Prime costume. He would not stop begging for it day and night. Being the sucker that I am, I told him that we could go pick out his costume after Noah's birthday, which is at the end of September. The day after Noah's birthday arrived and Eric was ready to go. I had already bought the costume and decided to let him try it on. It was about 10 inches too long for him so I hemmed up the legs & it was a perfect fit. He began to beg me each day to wear it.

I told him the story of my infamous Mr. Magoo costume. When I was in first grade, I was in ballet. We had a recital in the summer. I had a beautiful pink ballerina costume with pink tutu that I was going to wear for Halloween. My mother warned me not to wear it so much or I would ruin it. I was so excited to wear it to school & parade through the big kids classes (4th, 5th & 6th graders). The night before Halloween I tried on the costume again. (Mind you, the costume had my measurements from 3 months prior & I was going through a growth spurt) I put on the costume & bent over. The body of the costume split from my belly button, through my legs & up to my rear. I was crushed. It was ruined! My dad was the only one who knew how to use the sewing machine and he was working midnights. My mother tried to calm me down by telling me that we could go to Ribordy's (boy am I dating myself!) and buy another costume. I began to imagine all the costumes I would find there! Barbie, Cinderella, Snow White! I was ready to go! We went to Ribordy's & headed straight for the Halloween aisle. The costumes were strewn all over the place. After digging through piles of mismatched costumes, we came to find only one costume that was anywhere near my size. It was a plastic costume that you stepped into that tied behind your neck. The mask was hard & had a 2 big eye cutouts & 2 teeny weeny nasal holes with an elastic strap that left a welt on your head. I sobbed as we drove home, mortified that I would have to wear that to school, let alone, trick or treating! To top it off, she put my hair in pigtails on top of it! I am still traumatized by that costume.

Eric was actually very careful when he wore it prior to Halloween. He wore it every night for about 10 minutes, then would tell me that he was ready to put it away. It was still in tact on Halloween - I was impressed. Noah was Eric's costume from 2 years ago - a Monkey. Both were adorable!

This was their transportation

Noah seeing Eric come back from the 1st house. All he wanted was a sucker.
Eric went trick or treating with me for about a block. He wanted to be pulled in the wagon from driveway to driveway - what a lazy bum! At the beginning of the next block he looked at me and said, "I'm done. My foot hurts. Let's go home." I was stunned! We went back home and then Daddy talked him into going around with him.
Uncle Todd & Eric in Uncle Todd's truck.

Papa taking Noah for a spin

Jailbait Monkey

Party Like a Rockstar!!!

My baby boy turned one. I couldn't believe a whole year had gone by. He is getting so big and independent, it makes me a little sad. Noah's first birthday was a blast. We did a "Rockstar" theme. We had a tattoo station and a punk rock hair dye salon. Everybody had rockstar shades, guitars & microphones. Noah was mobbed by "groupies".
ROCKSTAR

To no ones surprise, Noah loved the smash cake. He ate until he was blue ( with icing, that is). And ate, and ate, and ate...