Sassy and Skiing

I am officially labeling London as sassy, stubborn, silly and sweet! She's keeping us on our toes recently with her quick crawling and honed shoe-finding abilities. And she's a paradox with her often incessant giggling mixed with her ear piercing screams. Hence the sass label! Love this girl :)

Mr. Noah is learning to ski. It's so exciting for us, and he seems to be having a blast learning. Right now he likes to stay squatted on his skis while the boat pulls him, and he's easily distracted in the water: waving, giving us a thumbs up, making suggestions for evening activities...etc. His undying willingness to be out there and to keep trying over and over is thrilling to us though! It's one of the dreams we had when he was just a baby -to see him out on the water one day, skiing. He's so close to getting it!

Love and Anger

Delray Beach on 7.18.12.

Since Matt and I came back from Mexico, Noah has been the sweetest little thing, and he's been especially sweet to me. He wants to sit by me all the time, and I've been getting lots of hugs and kisses! I'm totally loving it, of course!

Some of the sweet random things that have been coming out of his cute little mouth...

"Mommy, I want to sit by you, K?"
"Mommy, can you tell me a spooky, spooky story?" (He's so into telling stories right now.)
"Mommy, (in a very excited voice) I like your golden watch!"
"I love being with you Mom." (He told me this as I was strapping him in his car seat yesterday.)
And, quite often, in his baby voice, he'll cuddle his head into me and say, "Mommmmmy," and he likes me to reply with a hug and say, "baaaaaaby."
And he's been coming up and holding my hand more than ever. I'm eating it up!

Quite oppositely however, we had one of the most interesting conversations to date, today:

We're at my parents' right now, and today during his rest time, he kept coming out of the room. Earlier during the day, we had had a talk about disobedience and how next time he didn't obey, he would be receiving a spanking as a consequence.  So after multiple times of him not staying in the room, I went in and gave him a very mild spanking. Once he was allowed to get up from the rest time, he defiantly said to me, "Mom, I wanted to break the rules. Your rules." I said, "Is that because you were so angry about having to stay in bed for rest time?" "Yes. And Mommy, I wanted to drill this whole house down and you would be dead in it." Me: "Oh. Did you want to show me that you were angry enough to want me dead?" "Yes, but I don't want you dead now Mommy." Me: "Well, that's good, and I'm really glad you told me how you feel. Now Noah, let's talk about the right way to act out being angry and the wrong way!"  And we continued to have what I would assess was a pretty successful conversation about anger. I remember having visions of how I could prove to my parents how upset I was with them when I was younger, and I think because Noah operates on a similarly high emotional level, he does this too.  It was an interesting parental moment for me! And I was really proud of him for expressing himself in such a controlled way by simply explaining his feelings, even if they included fantasies of me being dead :) I know he didn't mean it!

A child size Lazy Boy at BJ's. Hilarious!

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Sharing a shopping cart with Sis at BJ's.

Tyler's 5th Birthday

Good times at Tyler's birthday party today! He loved all his new toys, and so did Parker and Noah. It's so much fun to see these boys playing and enjoying each other!