“Grandchildren are the crown of the aged…” Proverbs 17:6

Guest Blogger: Sandy "Grams" McNutt

On September 14, 2010 at the Miami International Airport Buz and I said goodbye to Noah as he left with his mommy and daddy to head home to St. Louis. After spending a week with us in south Florida my heart felt a little empty as I watched him go through the security line continually waving goodbye to us. We were happy Evie and Matt made it back safely and reunited with Noah, but sad to see him go!  Parting is such sweet sorrow…

…our adventure began on Tuesday, September 7 with Noah and me (grams) flying from St. Louis to Ft. Lauderdale. A great idea was shared with me from a fellow grandparent and good friend – her advice, take him into the airport store and allow him to pick out a toy and a treat. Advice, I may add that was wise. Noah chose a Nemo and Dora coloring and sticker book and peanut butter M & M’s.

Airport security allowed Evie to go to the gate to see us off; needless to say Evie was having a hard time saying goodbye, but Noah was all smiles and was happy to fly on an airplane, so no tears were shed (that is unless Evie shed some as she left us). Noah was an angel during the flight, other passengers took notice and even commented on how great he was. I was a proud grams!

noah would fit in an overhead compartment!

watching the big planes!

noah and grams boarding the plane

I had many plans for the week, Coconut Cove water park, Green Cay Wetlands, Sugar Sand Park, and of course, the beach, but unfortunately I was sick, so therefore we spent more time at home than I had originally planned, but still Pops and I managed to get in a few fun activities. Our week went as follows:

Wednesday, September 8 – Noah and Pops went to the Morikami Park and played on the playground

            Thursday, September 9 – Pops hooked the hose up to the waterslide and the fun commenced!

            Friday, September 10 – Noah, Pops, and Grams went to the ocean – waaaater!

'cool dude'

helping pops with a sand tunnel

Saturday, September 11 –Noah and Pops went grocery shopping and later Pops walked him to the   Fire Station where Noah got to sit in the fire truck (sadly we lost the photos of this event)

            Sunday, September 12- Church and Church dinner

            Monday, September 13 – back to the ocean

noah loved the waves

sand sculpture of polar bear - delray beach

We shared many sweet and funny moments with Noah. Here are some of the highlights! Every morning he greeted either his Pops or me with a cheerful “good mornin’!” One morning right after breakfast he looked at me and said, “What are we gonna do today, Grams?” He was sitting in my lap eating an apple one afternoon and we were chatting, I was telling him, “Grams loves Noah, Pops loves Noah, Mommy loves Noah, Daddy loves Noah”, I go on to name the rest of the family. Noah turns his head and looks at me with those big blue eyes and states, “Noah loves apples” cracked me up!  Another day Noah walks up to me and out of the blue says, “Grams, I need a hug!” Oh my goodness, that was a sweet, sweet hug – you don’t think he has me wrapped around his little finger do you? He is such a joy to watch while he is playing – what a great imagination God has given him.  “Choo Choo, all abroad”, says he when playing with his train. His pops is very impressed that at 2 he knows his colors. Of course, once pops found out he could name his colors he constantly asked him the color of the item he was playing with and Noah would always respond, “that sa red” or that sa blue or that sa green,” and on and on it would go. He would get it right most of the time, and when he didn’t we would say try again, and he would. Noah and I were coming out of Target one afternoon when he states, “I wuv unca ben and ant sa sa”. Of course, I could hardly wait to call and share this with them – ant sa sa said that made her day! His mommy does such a great job of keeping him informed about his family even when he doesn’t get to see us often.

ottoman turned into a boat "all aboard"

Noah loved playing with his farm!

Noah is getting great at stalling techniques as well. Whenever pops would need to leave, Noah would go into this routine, it goes something like this, “jipper, jipper, jipper, jipper, …and so, ummmm”, jipper, jipper, jipper, jipper, jipper, … and so, ummmm” and on and on it went!

Noah’s mommy has been teaching him to count in Spanish, so I continued working on that. We would count his toes and I would ask, “Noah, do you want to count in English or Spanish?” Spanish was always his choice. After counting, he would state  matter of fact, “I have ten toes.” We tried to teach him a couple of other Spanish words, and one day as I was taking him to meet pops for lunch at “chick-o-le”, he blurted out as we parked, “adios amigos!” He is full-up with personality!

During his stay the US Open was on, which I love, so needless to say, especially since I was sick we were watching quite a bit of tennis. Noah began to say, “I wanna watch tennis”, so on the first morning back with his mommy and daddy as he was lying in bed with them he states, “how about watch some tennis?” (maybe we had tennis on a little too much). 

There were so many funny little things he did while with us. He is fascinated with tunnels so every day we would get out his blocks and build him a tunnel to go over his train tracks. With same blocks he wanted pops to build him a high tower, which he would then knock over with glee.  He liked to play on our bed after his bath, get behind the pillows and pretend it was a car, and we had to put two car doors on either side (pillows), this was a must. We would then continue to play on the bed with many giggles and laughs, we would pretend we were sleeping and snoring – listening to a 2 year old pretend to snore is hysterical! But this was a ritual we did every night. One night while playing on the bed Noah had a pretend guitar, which he was playing. He asked his pops to sing, so his pops commenced to sing a John Denver song, ’Life on the Farm’ . Noah loved this and asked him to sing it over and over – so picture in your head a 2 year old playing a pretend guitar with a grown man singing to his tune! Such sweet memories!

Noah in his 'car'

dribin` the 'car'

…and then Tuesday, September 14 came and we packed up Noah’s things, put in him the car and headed to Miami International Airport. We arrive and as we are walking around waiting for Matt and Evie, Noah asks his pops over and over, “what we gonna do today pops?” pops answers over and over, “we’re gonna get on an airplane with mommy and daddy and fly home!”

We love you and miss you Noah!

Thanks to Pops and Grams for taking care of our Noah for the whole week we were gone...I was at peace knowing he was with you both.  And thanks to Grams for recording all of these moments! I love this post!

The Sandidge's Came!

Sarah and Jay came to visit us last week for three full days before continuing their trek to Ohio.  We haven't spent that amount of time under one roof since they lived with us (several years ago when they were in transition back to Springfield from Nashville). We  had such a lovely time togther.  It made me homesick for my friend.  Whenever we get to spend any amount of time together we always grieve about the distance between us.  We dreamed a little about what it would be like to live in a compound-like situation.  Everyone helping with everyone else's children, sharing the cooking, the chores, the farm responsibilities (because of course we would have chickens and a cow)...  

Well, back to reality.  If I can't live in the same city as my bff (or on a compound), at least we can have visits. Sarah, Jay and Matt had to work during the week, so one of the days, I took Lula and Noah to lunch and Walmart with Shanna, Aidan and Reese.  I loved it! And I think Lu had a good time. At lunch, Aidan asked Lula, "where's your mom?" "where's your dad?"  He was talking to her and offering her his crackers, just like she was another one of his friends. That  kid cracks me up! Lula was happy to take his crackers.  Later, I had a little moment of "how am I going to get two kids into Walmart when there's only one seat in the cart" panic. I quickly remembered that I had the Bjorn in the trunk, so I put Lu in that and Noah in the cart.  They played happily together as I shopped, and I thought to myself, "I can totally do this!" 

During their visit we also, took walks, had a picnic in the park for Will Malone's birthday, played in the Tower Grove fountain, visited the Cupcakery, went shopping, and watched a few movies (It's Complicated, An Education, and about 5 minutes of 2012...don't waste your money on that one).

 

 

 

Lula and Noah bonded, as is obvious in these last photos.  They were giving each other goodbye kisses. So cute!

Hello Summer

On Sunday we welcomed the summer to St. Louis.  We celebrated summer's entrance with swimming, friends, grilling and ice cream! Good times.

noah, lee and claire playing poolside.

this picture makes me laugh really hard.  noah clearly thought leaning on claire like this was hilarious. she didn't think it was quite as funny.

noah discovered he could straddle the side of the pool. he would bounce up and down and say, "horse, horse!" 

noah thought he needed to pick up olivia...she wasn't a fan of that idea.

noah and lee eating ice cream cones and teagan waiting for the drippings.

we (the parents) totally took advantage of our kids' addictions to veggie tales by letting them eat dinner while watching.  although we felt a little guilty about allowing this, it was so nice to have an adult dinner in peace!

On the Farm Part 2, Florida Trip Part 3

 sitting on gg's front porch

  swinging with grams

 swinging by himself

riding on the lawn mower

looking at uncle kevins's chickens with gg

  uncle kevin's huge garden

 walking with grams and gg to the garden

climbing gg's trees

 uncle kevin taking noah to find a pool (they played with chickens too. i also hear that noah gave uncle kevin some advice on gardening!)

.

heading back to gg's with the pool. stopping to say hello to missy the moo cow.

 

 pool time! thank you uncle kevin!

 

grandpa, uncle kevin and gg

 aunt gerry, preston and noah. noah is noticing that preston and daddy have something in common.

 

 mowing naked. enough said.

 

brushing his hair in gg's bathroom with gg's brush.

 

noah helped himself to a veggie tales break on gg's bed after all of that running around.

noah had a blast at his gg's (my grandma's) house. it was great for noah to catch up with and meet some of his extended family. i wish we lived a little closer so that he could explore the country more often and know his aunts, uncles, cousins and great grandparents better.