Library Story Time

Over the last few months we have taken advantage of the weekly story time at the downtown library. Noah just loves it! There are 3 story tellers and there must be some kind of rotation so only 2 of them are there for each story time. And each story teller has one or two puppet characters they do as well. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful library that offers this kind of programming!

Noah's favorite characters at storytime are not the story tellers (although they are really great), but the puppets. Specifically, he always wants to see Tommy Dog, Cedric the Dragon and the Spanish Fox. Just talking about story time will get him barking in reference to Tommy Dog. As we walk through the library to the children's area and then on to the theatre, he barks so excitedly and in such anticipation! Sometimes when we get there, the doors to the theatre aren't open so we have to wait and usually Noah will knock on the doors and bark at the them. And then while we sit in the theatre (usually on the same side as Tommy Dog's puppet house), he will bark at it until Tommy Dog appears. Thankfully, when Tommy Dog is there, he's usually one of the first characters to appear. And when Tommy Dog isn't there for storytime, Noah will bark at the other characters waiting for him. (I've actually had other parents comment at Noah's barking at the doors and while we wait so it's not just a quiet bark!)

The other equally favorite characters are Cedric the Dragon (but he must look like a crocodile to Noah because he doesn't have a sound for him, but he does the sign for crocodile to reference him) and the Spanish Fox. The same storyteller does both of these so they are usually one right after the other in the same puppet house.

At the very end of storytime, they sing a song and all the kids get to go up and sit on the edge of the stage. The first month or so I encouraged Noah to go up with the rest of the kids, but he wouldn't budge from my lap. But now, he'll walk up and find a place and then he just sits and looks around. I think he likes the different perspective.

On the days we go to storytime, its so much fun to watch him run to David when he gets home to tell him all about it. He gets all worked up and is so excited!

They have lots of great chairs outside while you wait for the doors to open. Here is Noah climbing on a few of them.

Here he is knocking on the doors and of course barking!

This is where he likes to sit on that last song when you get to go up (right in front of Tommy Dog's puppet house). If he gets a seat here, he doesn't want to leave at the end. So here we are waiting for him to be ready to go.

Walk Through Bethlehem

There is a local church that hosts a Walk Through Bethlehem each year. We had never gone and decided this was our year to check it out. It was really remarkable the way it was set up as Bethlehem might have looked - there were shepherds and sheep out in the field, a marketplace and an area with crafts for kids, and then the live nativity outside with even more animals.

Noah enjoyed all of the animals, but he just couldn't get enough of the sheep!

I'm not too sure what he thought of this donkey.

We ended our walk through Bethlehem at the camel and it was actually a pretty friendly camel. He ate some hay out of my hand and then let us pet him for a while. I think Noah really got a kick out of him.

Saturday Morning Baking

For the last several weeks, we have made pumpkin cinnamon rolls each Saturday morning and Noah loves to help! He gets to use the baking utensils from his play kitchen and gets extra dough to roll out and make his own mini-rolls that bake in his own miniature loaf pan. He even gets to help make the glaze and drizzle it on. And as you can see, he takes this work very seriously!

The only odd thing about the whole process is, he won't actually eat any of the rolls once they're done. He won't eat the ones from his pan and he won't eat the larger rolls either. I can't figure it out, but one day when he tries them, I know he'll really like them!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving here in Nashville and had a wonderful time with family. Katie's parents came into town and we got to spend some time with them along with Bryan, Ashley and little Emma. It was a great time together!

Birthday Fun!

We went to Chattanooga to celebrate Noah's 2nd birthday and had a really great time!

Here we are at the Incline Railway up to Lookout Mountain. It goes really slow, but was crazy steep! (You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger to really see the tracks all the way to the top of the mountain.) If you look just to the right of the light we are standing in front of, you can see the train station at the very top of the mountain and the tracks right beneath it coming all the way down to where we are. And yes, it looks like a roller coaster track instead of a train track! Noah had the best time on the train.

Here we are eating some ice cream.

We spent his birthday at the aquarium. He wasn't too sure about the hands-on tanks. There were two of them where you could touch the fish inside. One had stingrays and the other was full of sturgeon. Neither one interested him enough to actually put his hands in the water.

Of course he really got a kick out of all the fish, but he discovered some new favorites ... alligators and otters. He was intrigued by the turtles, sharks, penguins and stingrays, but we had to pull him away from the otters and alligators. He just couldn't get enough.

Birthday Weekend

We had a great time with Nana and Grandad in the days leading up to Noah's birthday. We celebrated the whole weekend together!

Instead of a birthday cake, we put Swedish Fish on top of cupcakes and I think he would have been fine with just a bag of Swedish Fish!

The act of opening presents and seeing what is inside has finally clicked!

Noah and Nana playing with a new favorite toy.

Cat Sitting

We are cat sitting for our neighbors while they are on vacation and Noah is loving it! Each afternoon we spend some time at their house with the cats.

No matter where they are in the house,
Noah will find them and chase after them...

He's gotten confident enough to feed them treats on his own and loves it so much that they probably get a few more treats than their owners would like!

A New Cousin!

My brother and his wife have a precious new daughter, Emma, and we visited them in the hospital this morning. Noah loves to say her name, but wasn't too sure what to think about such a small baby. Congratulations Bryan and Ashley!

Blue Socks

I'm not sure when it started, but Noah has had a thing lately about blue socks. We're just starting to work with him on identifying colors and he is really intrigued at what color his socks are. It's especially important with his pajamas.

We had a babysitter the other night so we could go to the Symphony and she told us that he kept saying something after she got him ready for bed. She couldn't tell what he was saying, but he was really insistent about it. Finally, he went into his room, dug around in his sock drawer, brought her some blue socks and repeated what he had been saying for several minutes, "Blue Socks!" and apparently was happy once she got them on him.

We've always known he's had some pretty clear ideas about what he wants, but this is a new one to me!

When Kids are Quiet

I was working around the house the other day and Noah was playing quietly. At one point, he was a little too quiet for a little too long and this is where I found him...

on the counter with the powdered sugar opened and everywhere. I'm not sure what he was baking, but he sure was concentrating on his measuring and stirring!

It may not look like much of a mess, but man oh man we had powdered sugar everywhere!

Trunk or Treat

On Saturday, we went to our church's Trunk or Treat and Noah went dressed as a frog. He was okay in the outfit until we went past a mirror. Then not so much after that. We finally were able to distract him outside with his favorite frog from our neighbor.

For some strange reason at the trunk or treat, anytime he had the opportunity, he would grab as many Tootsie Pops as he could. He would bypass all kinds of great candy bars and go straight for things like the hard peppermint candies and Nerds of course more Tootsie Pops. Go figure. We still don't let him have much candy so we probably have enough to last him until next year!

Here he is with the inspiration for his outfit...
The frog garden figurine that he loves so much from our next door neighbor.

There were plenty of games to play ...

and toys to play with ...

and of course Tootsie Pops to take!

Happy Birthday Nana!

Today is Nana's birthday, and Noah wasn't very talkative on the phone. We practiced saying Happy Birthday but he didn't want to say it on the phone. So we made a video!

Pumpkin Patch

Today we visited a nearby pumpkin farm. In addition to pumpkins you can pick, they have numerous kids activities and a fun hayride around the farm. It was the first cool weather weekend we've had and the farm was packed!

All of the barns were converted into some kind of play area. This smaller barn, had a slide coming out of one side. Here's Noah at the top.

They had small toy tractors for smaller kids to play on. It was nice because it was just for those who were 3 and under so we didn't have to try to defend Noah's space from the bigger kids.

If one tractor is fun, wouldn't two be better? It's hard to tell from the picture, but Noah is actually sitting on two tractors side by side.

If two is good, well you get the picture...

There also was a kid's play area with several troughs filled with dried corn and scoops. He had a great time filling up the funnels and watching all the kernels fall out.

On the hayride around the farm. The girl next to him was kind enough to share her animal crackers with him. She didn't realize he would keep asking for more :)

Family Wedding

A few weekends ago, we went up to Illinois for David's sister's wedding. What a wonderful weekend!

Beautiful Sarah and Noah

Making blueberry muffins with Nana

By far, the favorite toy of the weekend

At the zoo, this goat in the petting zoo was eating Noah's shirt. Funny enough, Noah didn't seem to mind!

He loved the carousel at the zoo!