My TWO Favorite Kiddos

I love how close Gabs and Noah are. They love spending time together and laughing with each other. There are many times when we will catch Noah smiling and laughing at his sister because she is doing something he thinks is silly. Gabs can definitely get him to smile! Here are some of the great pictures we have taken of the two of them together...

It sure is great to have kids who get along, who adore each other. It makes my day when Gabs will stand in front of her brother and make him laugh.

Birthday Girl

Gabbie turned 2 last Friday. We decided that we were going to wake her up early before Daddy went to work so she could open presents and we could have breakfast together.

This year I tried to make her cake myself. I did everything homemade except for the black outline on the cake. If you can't tell, it's supposed to be the Magic School Bus (Gabs loves that show right now). Despite all the errors and time it took to make this, it was fun. Everything turned out tasting really good so that makes up for the mistakes in looks. Gabbie thought it was awesome!

She didn't want anything to do with pictures so early in the morning...

showing off a pair of church shoes that she will be able to wear in a few months...

She had to try on the dress she got and accessorize with stickers. Lately we will find her giving Noah lots of hugs like this...

Opening her package from Grandma Christensen...

All dressed up and ready to go celebrate at Chuck E Cheeses.

In case you were wondering Grandma Christensen, Kyle still does the tongue thing when he is concentrating and if any of you wonder where Gabs gets it from, here is the proof.

Happy Birthday Big Girl. Its hard to believe that two years ago we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of this girl. She is such a special person. I am so blessed to be her Mommy and get the opportunity to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She has the most infectious laughter/smiles. Thank you for everyone who thought of her on her birthday and wished her a happy day. She thought it was awesome.

Purty Tree

This year we ventured out on Black Friday just for the fun of it (plus I wanted to get a Candyland and Chutes and Ladders game for $3.99). When we got home, we were all very tired. Gabs ate her breakfast then played with Daddy's hat for awhile before she laid down for a nap.

While she was sleeping, we put up the tree. She walked around the corner after waking up and was super surprised.

She woke Daddy up from his nap so he could help us decorate.

This was the first year we have ever had a tall enough ceiling to put up our whole tree; I was very much looking forward to it. The tree was so tall Kyle had to stand on a stool to even decorate the top part. He tried to let Gabs help him with the star but she was too short, so he had to do it by himself.

I was trying to teach Gabs how to do the 'Vanna White pose' and show off our tree. This is the closest we got.

Thank you Grandma Christensen for getting us this tree from freecycle. We think of you every time we put it up. I love how our handmade decorations make the tree so special. This year Gabbie and I made a christmas tree ornament from a sponge and decorated it with colored brads. We also made wreaths with pipe cleaners and aluminum foil (it's definitely not the most put together tree but each year when we put it up again, we get to remember the fun times w had as a family making those ornaments.) We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.

Four Months Old

Our handsome little guy had his four months check-up yesterday. He definitely remembered the last time we were there because as soon as we put him down on the table and the nurse bent over him with her stethoscope, his lips puckered up in fear and he started crying. Sad but oh so cute!

Noah is getting very big. Here are his stats:
Length- 25 3/4 in (74%)
Weight- 15 lbs 2 oz (49%)
Head Size- 16 3/4 in (52%)

At four months he:

• sleeps through the night
• can roll over from his stomach to his back and from his back to his stomach
• grabs anything that comes near his hands and puts it in his mouth
• laughs when he thinks Mom or Dad are being silly
• can stand up on his feet while being held
• follows Gabbie around with his eyes any time he hears her voice
• kicks his feet like crazy when he is excited (whenever he does this Gabbie will scream "Noah scited')
• sleeps very lightly during the day and is frequently woken up by his big sister playing
• holds his head up high when he is pulled up into a sitting position
• nurses almost exclusively but we have started giving him a little bit of cereal each day if he is still hungry
• loves to snuggle. he grabs your hands and pulls them up close to his face so he can lean against them

We love having him in our family. He is a wonderful addition and we all adore him.

Gabbie's Projects

I love looking at other blogs and getting ideas for things to do with Gabbie. Since that is one of the reasons I enjoy blogs so much, I thought I would share some of the stuff Gabbie and I do together in case it might give some of our readers ideas.

In learning the letters, we drew pictures for things that started with the letter 'A' (don't laugh at the pictures...when it came time to draw, I couldn't think of anything that started with the letter 'A').

This project was a HUGE mess because Gabbie would squirt the glue into a huge pile, put her fingers into it then grab some rice. She probably had more rice stuck to her than the paper but it was one of her favorites.

For this tree, we traced her arm then she did finger prints with stamp ink because we didn't have paint.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is one of lady's favorite books. This activity was based off the story and the lifecycle of a caterpillar. First we read the story together then we made a caterpillar with lots of colored circles. After that we painted butterflies with watercolors.

This is one example of the monsters we made. I grabbed some of the kitchen utensils and traced them on paper. Gabbie drew on them after I made their eyes.

another very messy but fun activity...finger painting with pudding.

Collages are one of my favorites. Gabbie really just likes the glue aspect but she's starting to figure out that you put the glue on then you put something on top if it.

Clouds...

The newest project...bubble painting. I added some food coloring to our bubbles and then we blew them on the paper to pop. Next time we'll use more than one color of bubbles but you get the idea.

Painting on bread... I took some milk and mixed a little bit of food coloring into it. The paintbrushes were q-tips and the paper was the bread. After painting, we toasted up the bread and Gabs enjoyed it for breakfast.

A lot of these ideas came from books I checked out at the library or information I found when searching for toddler art projects online. I love to get those books that have a bunch of activities you can do with kids because they give me ideas when I am stuck on the same stuff with Gabs. If you have any good craft/learning activity ideas, please share!!

Especially for Grandma Christensen

We try to call Gabbie's grandparents on Kyle's side every week through skype. This way they can see us (and when they get a camera, we can see them). Gabbie looks forward to it very much. Last night she had to wait longer than she wanted to and kept looking at the computer and pouting, saying "Granma Chrisen".

We just had to take a video and share it with you Grandma.

(The VA family should get skype accounts and webcams so we can call you too!!!)

Overview of October

I'm a slacker. Yes, I know. There are so many things to get done during the day that I have to pick and choose what to do. Unfortunately, I haven't chosen blogging. I will try to improve. Promise. Since I hardly posted anything about what we did this month, here is a quick recap of the month. It starts from the end of the month (Halloween) and goes to the beginning of the month in descending order.

We all dressed up for Halloween this year. Each of us were characters from the Wizard of Oz. Our Halloween was actually the week before the 31st. We dressed up and headed out to Zoo Boo at our local zoo with some friends. Gabbie loved it; everyone at the zoo loved us. We kept seeing people take pictures of our family as we were walking past them. I guess not many people get as dressed up as Kyle did.

Our handsome Lion...

Dorothy and Tin Man crawling through the tunnel of fish...

trying to get a picture of the kids and daddy but they were too interested in looking at Kyle and his weird outfit...

Another day this month we went to a volleyball game at Kyle's school where three of his students played. Noah and Gabbie got dressed up in some clothes they hadn't worn yet. Naturally I had to take some pictures of this handsome little guy...

He has the cutest smile...he'll smile at you and then when you talk to him about his cute smile, he will scrunch up his shoulders, bow his head and turn to the side like he's embarrassed. It is super cute.

whenever we tell Gabs to 'say cheese' this is the look we get...

We realized during the beginning of the month that we hadn't been to the zoo in a really long time so we planned to go on Friday night right after Kyle finished with work. There were hardly any people there and all the animals were up close so we could see them really well.

We finally broke down and got a double stroller because it was too much of a hassle for me to go places while trying to keep Gabbie in the stroller and carry Noah in the Baby Bjorn. They love sitting next to each other. Noah almost always ends up with his seat laying back because Gabs likes to sprawl out with her feet and arms over on his side and accidentally hits him if he is sitting up.

The best thing we saw at the zoo was the Daddy Elephant playing with his son. They were hitting each other with their trunks (well actually I think just the son was hitting his dad).

Gabs and Noah LOVE their bath time...Sometimes they take baths together and other times Gabbie begs us to let her take a shower...

beautiful girl...

handsome guy...

Any time she gets into our bedroom, she pulls out my shoes and starts walking around the house in them.

Early in the month we made fruit loop bracelets. Gabbie was showing them off when I took this picture mid-chew...

She was talking to Jesus...

Playing with some toys...

During conference weekend for our church, the first weekend of the month, Gabbie watched a scripture video on the computer while we were listening to the prophets and apostles...

She is so brave now. Any slide she sees is one that she has to go down.

Sorry for the mammoth post. I will update more often. Things are going great in Texas. We miss our family and friends in Utah and Virginia but we are adapting well.