Merry Christmas from the Barnes Family

Six Month Side-by-Side

The boys just had more pics taken at school a couple weeks ago and I'll post them next. For now, I needed to post this side-by-side comparrison of both of them at 6 months old. Seriously.

Tball Pictures

I'm planning on doing an entire post devoted to the millions of pictures I took during Connor's tball season, but for now here are the team pics. Love.

Kaci, Connor, Aidan, Cole, Kaitlyn, Elias, Cole, Coach Jeff, Cheyanne, Coach Paul

Photo Catch up

My photo catching up will be done in several installments...until I'm caught up. I'm being realistic and hoping that I'll be caught up by Christmas. Kinda realistic :)

We've been super busy over the last couple of months and I'm not making time to blog which annoys me. While I totally understand we have so much going on that blogging doesn't necessarily count in my top priorities, I use this thing as a baby book/scrapbook/time capsule/venting vessel and everything else so I really NEED to blog! Plus...my dad just sent out his Christmas letters and put my blog in the letter so I'm sure I can expect tens of people to start visiting on at least a monthly basis.

Connor's Tball season just ended this past week and soccer will be starting in a couple weeks. In true Barnes family fashion, we had his last tball game at 8am on Saturday and then ran to his soccer meeting at 10am. Not so sure about this new soccer team, but I will wait to see I suppose. Maybe.

I've been super busy with Chi Omega stuff. Our alumnae chapter delivered study buddy treats to the ASU chapter the day before their finals. There were cookies, candy, cakes, cases of water, popcorn balls and a ton more o-so-healthy items. They were thrilled obviously. This is soemthing that we do every year and I thing both the collegiates and alums love it. As an alum, I know it's great to meet the Sisters who are carrying on the Chi O legacy and it's great to go back to ASU and reminisce like an 80 year old woman...those crazy girls :) Here's a pic of some of us at the chapter house.

Angela pushing our child labor (Connor) around - BTW he looooves visiting the chapter house.

Kelly, Anglea, Kathy, Karen, Alisa, Alona, Jeri, Lindsay

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. This is my kid at the end of November - in shorts and a tee shirt. Gotta love AZ. We have been trying to take advantage of it and going outside to play - we know that in just a few short months we'll be sweating and sticky from a walk to the mailbox!

Every year we go to the Fountain Hills art fair. Most of the stuff sold isn't really our style, though the salsa we love is sold there and sometimes we'll buy a couple items for gifts. Oh, and we got this adorable frame for Connor three years ago so we made sure to get one for Noah too. Anyway, we really love just walking around for a few hours and looking at all the kitchy stuff is fun too. Carly and Bobby joined us this year and it was a great time. Plus, they have turkey legs and you may know how we feel about turkey legs...we love them. So does Carly...see below.

Hilarious - Can you see Bear reaching for the turkey leg? This was a week or so before we gave him real food...clearly he was ready and interested. :)

The mighty pregosaurus. Rawrrrr!

Connor's school hosted a thanksgiving lunch for the families and since I'm right next door it was super easy to wander over and join them. Jeffrey surprised us and made it too so it was a nice break in the day. After eating with Connor I grabbed Noah and brought him over to Connor's class so we could all hang out for a bit before Jeff and I had to get back to work.

cute centerpieces. After Tgiving, the teachers picked five kids who were really good that week and they got to take them home. Yeah, Connor got one. Score.

Connor and his sparkley pilgrim hat...what, pilgrims didn't use glitter? oh.

St. Nicks 2010

I've blogged before about celebrating St. Nick's with our family, here and here and here. We don't really do much with our extended family for the holiday anymore - we're all cutting costs so much that it helps. We do however still celebrate in our household.

The tradition with our family it to get the kids a small gift in their stocking that they are supposed to open the morning of December 6th after St. Nick delivers it on the 5th. I thought it would be a fun tradition to give them their special ornament that day so that it can hang on the tree until Christmas - just doesn't make sense to get an ornament on Christmas when the tree is coming down soon. I also wanted to start the tradition of getting the boys new Christmas pajamas every year so that was added to the St. Nick festivities. We really blew it this year with all the "additional traditions"...instead of one small gift, each of the boys got a gift, an ornament and pjs. but that's ok, it's Christmas :)

We bought this cute sleigh several years ago and use it for Santa's gifts when he brings them. Of course this year I decided to be a crazy photo mom and stick my children in it in hopes of a cute photo. done and done. I FRICKEN LOVE THIS PICTURE!

bear helping me with the wrapping

Connor hanging up his special St. Nick's ornament - we got him a baseball ornament with a pic of him playing tball in it. love.

obsessed with Toy Story 3 - usually the St Nick gift is supposed to be something small, but we just couldn't resist getting him this...and couldn't wait for Christmas

Connor got green Santa pjs and Noah got blue pjs with monkeys and candy canes

Connor was trying to get Noah to care about his Babies 1st Christmas ornament


Noah was way more interested in the mat he was sitting on

Noah got his own set of 3 glow in the dark balls - a basketball, football and soccer ball

6 months old

Are you kidding me with this?!? I refuse to believe that my Noah Bear is already half a year old. Ok, refuse may be too strong of a word, but my goodness.

Noah turned six months old on November 28th and we had his 6 month checkup this past week. It's been a tough past few weeks with some illnesses, but luckily we seem to have finally turned the corner. Nothing really dangerous but his cold turned into a respiratory virus that stuck around for a couple weeks so that's a big deal when you're this tiny! Speaking of tiny...he's not! At his appointment he measured 27" tall and about 18 1/2 lbs. He loves food, totally loves it. He attacks the spoon and if you're dumb enough to leave the food container within his reach, he'll grab it and thrash it around trying to get more food. I've only done that once! He got his little chompers early like Connor - even earlier than Connor actually! He had two teeth before he turned 6 months old.

He's really, really trying to crawl. You can see in the pics that he just gets up on his feet like he's getting his yoga in for the day or something. You can see him getting frustrated about it, but he manages to be mobile anyway. He scoots around pretty fast and we can't just sit him down and expect that he'll stay put anymore! He can roll around and around and has perfected sitting. It's funny that babies hate being on their backs. For a few months, we'd put him on his back and he'd roll to his tummy but that was really his only trick. Now, if we put him on his back he'll immediately roll to his belly and then get into a seated position. Hilarious though...if he reaches/leans too far forward to grab something when he's sitting he gets stuck and just hollers until we move him - like a turtle stuck on its back. cruel maybe, but very funny.

As for his overall demeanor, he's still primarily happy and smiley - except when he's not :) The teacher in his class tell us that he's perfectly happy just playing by himself but if another baby starts playing with something he's playing with it's Game Over. They say he screams until someone literally removes that other baby. While I find it kinda funny, hopefully he'll get over that soon.

Noah is in looooove with Connor - I wouldn't be surprised if Connor was his first word. He loves watching him and Connor loves performing for Noah. Connor hasn't quite wrapped his head around the fact that Noah can't catch the ball yet so we're working on that.

huh!?!?

downward bear

Gobble Gobble 2010

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, probably one of my favorites and right up there with Christmas. I love the family getting together, the food and all that goes with it. I love the crazy grocery store and love the thought of how crazy it must be for black Friday shopping. That one I love from afar.

We had a two part turkey celebration this year. For the first time in years we didn't host it which was lovely for many reasons. The four of us headed to Jeff's parents house on Thanksgiving and my mom met us there as well. Everyone included I think there were 17 of us. I think. Before the big meal, most of us met up at a park to play football. This was my idea because I'm a nerd and I love seeing people on TV playing football before Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't nearly as cool as it is for my TV friends. There were 7 of us playing I think. One of those, Chuck...played college and pro football. Another one, my nephew Jalen is the only Freshman on the Mountain Pointe Varsity football team. Can I continue to brag for a minute? Yes? Thanks. Jalen is listed as one of nine freshman in the country on the watch list for National Freshman Football Player of the Year! THE NATION!! One day I'll watch tv and say "I changed that famous guy's diapers when he was a kid"...but that would be a lie because I met him when he was 4 and there were no diapers at that point. Anyway, the point of that was that I stuck it out for about 7 plays before wandering away from the game and taking a few photos. I was not missed. I wore wedges so maybe they missed mocking my shoe choice that day.

Auntie Sarah and Noah Bear - I love this picture. My sister hates having her picture taken but this is so sweet that it makes me melt :)

Noah watching the game

Uncle Chuck and Connor

After our big "game" we headed in where it wasn't freezing cold (60 degrees) and got started on gorging ourselves with goodness. I saw in my MIL's pantry that she had a bunch of baby foods in turkey day themes like sweet potatoes, green beans, peas and such and Jeffrey and I decided that today would be Noah Bear's first day of real food. I planned on making all of his food like I did for Connor but this was there and now I'm over it. Over it.

Grammy Barnes feeding Noah his first few bites of real food. He chowed through an entire large size of sweet potatoes. That's a lot for those without baby food history

He kinda liked it :)

On Sunday, we had Thanksgiving part two with my dad and Corliss. It was great having two thanksgivings - now I know what all other kids of divorce feel like. Jealous. Totally kidding, stop it. It was nice and relaxed. I love the big family holidays we get with the Barnes family, but also really enjoy the smaller things with my family - the ones where you don't have to scream to get the salt passed. Unless you feel like it which is fine with us.

Connor hates green beans - hates them. It was the first food we ever gave him as a baby and he was completely inconsolable after. Just spit out nothing for twenty minutes after it was all out of his mouth. I've tried it several times over the last few years and each time he's just sick with it. This year we tried forcefeeding it. You can't see it, but during the pic above we were all eating pumpkin pie and I finally negotiated down to the single green bean on his fork was all he needed to eat to get a piece of pie too. He finally gave in and took a little bite. Then he honestly gagged and spit vommited all over his plate. So nasty. YOU WIN CONNOR.

Noah on the other hand scarfed an entire thing of green beans...and another of sweet potatoes!

Sadly, this is the only picture of the boys that I got. Oh well, there's always Christmas. I do love that we managed to dig out Connor's "1st Thanksgiving" bib so that Noah would be able to wear the same one.

That bib worked its pants off

and bear was still hungry after

Friday's Dose of Brilliance

I'm in love with this...you may not be but I'm sure you're aware of my owl obsession if you've read my blog before. I just spent 20 minutes making my own Owl Calendar and now you can too!

because i can't come up with anything clever to blog about...

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Not really named after someone but my name came from Lindsay Wagner. sigh.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
I can't remember, but I'm kind of a crier so I'll say it was probably within the last week.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It's probably the coolest thing about me. probably.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Turkey

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yuppers - Connor is 3 and Noah is 5 months old

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Hells yeah, I mentioned my handwriting right?

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Often

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
RIP Summer of 1999

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
I think I would. Not because I'm super brave but I think it would be a cool experience.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
I love so many. Lucky Charms, Golden Grahms, Kix. I really love cereal

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Rarely and I am always so mad when I'm hurrying to put them back on that I have to deal with it then since I didn't deal with it when I took them off.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
If I'm really doing it right, I love cake batter with cookie dough and brownies. go big or go home.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Hair probably. and jewelry.

15.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
I honestly don't think i have a fav color. It was purple for so long, but I really like green and yellow.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I bite my nails. gross, i know.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
my kids during the day

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
I'm really not into forwards and pressure like that.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Grey slacks and black pumps

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Ryan Adams - Desire

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
I don't know...Gray maybe. No one bothers the gray and I'd like to be left in one piece.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
food smells like cookies and spices. I avoid the soapy smells in candles and lotions.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
I'm at work so probably a realtor or title officer - before that Jamie Seessel :)

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
No one really sent this to me but I saw it on someone's FB and she's great

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Football

27. HAIR COLOR?
Brown once colored

28. EYE COLOR?
brown - no coloring needed

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Yes

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Too many. I'm really into wings right now.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings!

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
No idea sadly. Assuming it was grea.t

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Pinkish

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter. Summer is gross here.

35. WHO DO YOU ADMIRE?
ugh. anyone who got through this survey.

36. IF YOU COULD WORK IN A DIFFERENT PROFESSION WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I'd love to work in publishing of some sort.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
don't do it. i hate these things. by the time I get half way done i want to quit but i'm too invested.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
see above.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
The Smallest Color by Bill Roorbach

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
A pic of connor at my dad's house from maybe 2 years ago. i need an update.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl - because I'm 15

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)?
these questions are getting worse

43. IRONED OR WRINKLED?
Ironed - in the dryer.

44. BEACH OR SKIING?
Beach

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I don't think so...I can write a mean letter like nobody's business.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Mesa yo

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
See above some more

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
we worked together.

DONE AND DONE

5 months old

Noah turned 5 months old a couple weeks ago and while I remembered to take the picture, I spaced on actually posting it. I think it got jumbled around with Halloween and other going ons. Here are all the pics so far with his hootie hoot :)

It's been a busy time as usual and we've had some health issues to battle. Nothing big or concerning at all, just annoying stuff. Noah caught a stomach bug or something a couple weeks ago and was out of school for about a week. Really gross stuff.

In Very Exciting News...Noah has his first tooth coming in right now :) We spotted it on Sunday night - remember the date mom...11/14/2010 - Noah's first tooth! It's on the bottom, just to the right of middle. It's nice to see an actual tooth after months of drool and crankiness over teething. Connor got his first tooth the day he turned 6 months old so Noah beat that even! A bummer about teething is that it causes all sorts of odd side effects - in Noah's case this week it brought on a bit of a cold. He's got a cough and all kinds of snotty issues. Poor baby. Ugh, and I hate the bulb thing - it never works well enough to validate putting them through the torture. But, we do it anyway because it's the only thing we can do!

Noah is really trying to be mobile right now. He's making a bit of progress, but no crawling yet - which is just fine with me. He gets up on all fours and then moves around lots. He will also lay completely flat on his tummy and somehow scoot. No idea how this happens but it works for him. He's working hard at grabbing things and while he's still a bit (meaning very) spastic with his hands it cracks him up to hold on to things...so much that he tends to smack himself in the face which also cracks him up. Being a baby is great. Watching babies learn is also great.

He's eating great and I'm anxious to give him real food. He just loves that nasty rice cereal so much that I really want him to be able to have yummy fruits and veggies. His doctor recommends waiting until 6 months and we're nearly there so I'm sure we'll just do that. Plus...I haven't got around to making any fruits or veggies yet so there's that too. I'll get around to it in the next couple of weeks. Connor started with green beans and hated them - still does. I think I'll start Noah on avocado and go from there! He's still eating a ton - 5 bottles a day at 8oz each. Piggy, but a cute piggy :)

He's got this amazing smile that uses his entire face. He has lots of smiles actually - small, medium and huge. The huge is my favorite and it takes his whole face to make it happen. It scrunches up his face and I love it! He really, really loves everything Connor does and it just makes my heart melt watching them together. We discovered mid Connor's tantrum last week that when he does that tongue spitting thing that kids do (gross, i know) it cracks Noah up! We're working on teaching Connor how to do that without actually spraying spit all over Noah. Still working on it... It makes Noah laugh, like a huge belly laugh and it's amazing. He's got so much personality now and it's so fun to watch him develop into this little person. I love my Noah Bear :)

Too lame for facebook - a letter

Dear person who is seriously trying to have everyone believe they are no longer smoking by covering it up with way, way, way too much perfume,

give it up. thanks.

signed,

unable to breathe over here.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I haven't posted pics in a while except the family pics or halloween stuff so we've got quite a bit of randomness going on here.

We've been pretty busy over the last few weeks with weddings, family stuff, tball and a bit of traveling. Mix in Halloween and there have been lots of opportunities for pictures of the boys and going ons.

when bear gets fussy and i'm trying to get something done we tell Connor to go and dance or sing in front of him. Apparently, awkwardly patting him on the head works as well.

two funny thing in this picture...1. when we took connor to the dentist last week the dentist gave Noah a toothbrush too. He loves it and has been carrying it around and playing with it for days. 2. When Noah sleeps he sleeps on his tummy, propped up on his knees with his rear up in the air. For about an hour after he wakes up, he has these red circles on his knees and you can see them in this picture.

Noah was sick with a stomach flu or something a couple weeks ago. I was home with him one day. I brought a bunch of work home and this is what my "office" looked like for a while that day.

Grammy Barnes bought personalized pumpkins for all the grandkids. We took the boys to decorate their pumpkins and this was the end result. Connor painted his whole pumpkin dark green. We put his hand print on it but he choose light green for that part so it barely showed up against the dark green color. I painted Noah's and we stamped his feet on the sides.

pouting over something or other during his tball game

Connor and "Coach Jeff". Connor hears other players and parents refer to Jeffrey as Coach Jeff so he will ask "Are Coach Paul and Coach Jeff going to be there?"...I don't think he gets it. lol.

Connor and Aidan waiting their turn to bat

showing Noah his drawing

Connor told me that this was Santa and his sleigh with reindeer. What? You can't see it?

We surprised Connor with tickets to see Mickey's Magic Show a few weeks ago. It wasn't as great as Mickey on Ice but he had a good time. Clearly so did Noah by the look of this photo.

Whenever the Dbacks offer up suite tix to employees for something like this we jump at the chance...so much easier to let Noah roll around on the floor and let Connor run around with the other kids rather than confining us to seats. Having the restroom right there certainly helps too!

I'm not really sure what Connor was doing here during intermission, but he looks like a frog

We got Noah a bumbo a couple months ago and he seems to like it in small doses. After about 15 minutes if he's not being entertained he tries to escape which I find hilarious.