Three Months Old!

Three months ago, my life became incredibly busier! It was already busy, if you have ever met my firstborn, but now, wow...busy. I'm not sure if it has been as crazy as I imagined it to be or not. All I know is at times, life is Crazy. Loud. Funny. Loud. Crazy. Tiring. Crazy. I think you get the idea.

Anyways, since this is about Noah, I'll tell you about Noah! Noah is still my Angel baby. Don't get me wrong. He can get mad and he can get loud. But usually, that only means he's tired. Or Tristan did something to him. That happens often. I think that Tristan scares him sometimes. He can scare me too sometimes ;) Tristan still loves him. Loves to get his pillow and blanket and lay beside Noah. He's even let Noah borrow his special pillow. I don't think he noticed when Noah started chewing on the edge of it.

As you can probably tell in the pictures below, Noah is a chunk! Much different than his lean brother was as a baby. We had to go to the doctor this weekend for another ear infection, and he (with clothes and diaper on) weighed 15 lbs 5 oz! Tristan weighed 15.9 lbs at 6 months!

We are not on a set schedule with naps and such with Noah. Mainly due that Monday through Thursday, we are out during the morning, doing various things (music class, Mother's Day Out, Bible Study), so mornings are schedule-less. We just catch up on a good afternoon nap. Noah LOVES napping in his swing...not so much in his bed yet. That's ok with me. Tristan didn't nap in his bed until much older. Noah goes down at night after his last feeding about 7:15. Doesn't sleep all night yet. Usually wakes up about 3:00 or 4:00, but other than that, he's a great sleeper -- as long as he's swaddled good and tight!

Noah is overall a sweet sweet baby! Every time he's left in the nursery at church, the woman gush about how sweet he is. He is one loved baby :)

Noah -- Two Months Old

Noah is two months old already! Time flies...when you stay busy with two kids! Let's look at some pictures first:


Noah's two month picture with the bear. He had a hard time sitting up, and even a harder time looking at the camera...


Compare with Tristan's two month picture. We'll have lots of comparisons further in the blog!


Tristan and Noah's picture together.


Tristan thought this toy was for both of them...


Just a sweet picture!

Noah is such a wonderful blessing to us! He is exactly what I needed this time around. You'll notice below how different Tristan and Noah are! I'm just going to list some fun facts:
- Noah's a big boy -- 12 lbs 12 oz (75%) and 23 1/2 inches (76%)-- Tristan was 10 lbs 9 oz and 23 inches.
- Noah is very quiet, content, easy-going. He loves to sleep! Tristan was active and tempermental...and didn't love sleeping. That made for long days! Noah actually makes me wonder why I never got anything done with Tristan when he was first born...then I remember.
- Although Tristan was sleeping longer periods of time by this point than Noah, Noah is finally (fingers crossed) starting to sleep well at night. We've had our good nights and bad nights, all mixed together. We've tried complete swaddling, half swaddling, and back to complete swaddling. Noah was congested from week 3 to week 7 with an ear infection, so that mess up his sleeping also...and this mom's sleeping as well. I only remember one time that Tristan slept on my chest during the night, but Noah has numerous times, sometimes to help him sleep due to congestion, sometimes so I could get some sleep myself. But one thing I am very grateful for is that Noah does NOT have to be rocked to sleep. I had to make sure Tristan was sound asleep before laying him down, but I can lay Noah down awake and he'll fall asleep on his own. Never even had to sleep-train him to do that!

I have a feeling that Tristan is going to be our active, loud, funny, energetic, comedian child, and Noah will be our quiet, content, laid-back child -- and that is ok with me! Everyone needs one of both to keep life exciting...and calm...

I've been blessed with two wonderful boys, and I can't wait until they are able to play together and (hopefully) become best friends. I mean, they better...they will be sharing a room someday! :)

Noah at One Month

So, I haven't blogged in forever... There is reasons for that. One reason is named Tristan. Another reason is called moving. The last reason is called new baby "Noah". But I hope to start blogging again, especially about Noah's first year. To back up some, he was born 11-10-11, two days late and one day short of the famous 11-11-11. But we are actually thankful he decided to come that day since the hospital was PACKED on 11-11-11 with all the scheduled deliveries. We were actually able to talk our way in to going home the next day, on the 11th. They probably only agreed because they needed the room! I started contractions on the 9th at 9:00 that night, woke up at 1:00 with more contractions, arrived at the hospital at 6:00, got epidural about 7:30 (epidural didn't want to work on my left side, then worked great until right before pushing and it wore off some on that side), then started pushing at 12:10, and Noah was born at 12:28! Much different than my experience with Tristan. Contractions were more intense and consistent this time around, but pushing was SO MUCH easier and quicker. Very thankful for that! Here are some pictures of the day:






Here is the bear picture at 1 week:



More pictures of the first month:







Here is our one month picture with and without Tristan:




Born at 7.8 lbs, 2 weeks at 8.7 lbs, and now...don't know but sure is growing! Much bigger than Tristan, who was 7.6 lbs at 2 weeks. Noah is already wearing some 0-3 month outfits. He eats every 2-4 hours, and sleeps A LOT...which big brother NEVER did. So, this is nice, since I have to entertain big brother as well as take care of Noah. He started sleeping on a schedule at one week with eating at 1:00 and 4:00 during the night, but due to congestion and other things, the schedule hasn't been as consistent lately. We'll get there soon :) Luckily, the nighttime crying hasn't affected Tristan's sleep at all. It seems right now that Noah's awake time is after his 7:30 nighttime feeding until around 9:00. Hopefully that will change soon and we'll get him on an earlier bedtime schedule. About Tristan, he LOVES baby Noah...too much. This is the most exhausting part -- keeping Noah safe from Tristan. He just can't understand why he can't poke on, lay on, sit on, play with Noah...and he's gotten in trouble quite a few times for not listening to Mom/Dad about this. Goodness...so this is where we learn patience... And if you know Tristan, you know that his love language is quality time...100%. All the time, it's "sit, sit", and with his naps being shorter lately, it's been tiring. Fortunatly, he's been going to Mother's Day Out still 2x a week, with a friend picking him up for me, so that gives Noah and me a little break (and a nap for Mom :). I'll start back to teaching there in January,so I'm taking advantage of this while I can!

Anyways, it's true what they say about your kids being night and day. So far, that is what we have here with Tristan and Noah. Can't wait to see how they interact together as they get older! Should be interesting :)

Trip to Locomotive Play!

Today, since the weather is SO HOT, we went to a place called Locomotive Play. It is actually an inflatable indoor playground. It is usually $7 to get in (only kids have to pay) but I found a deal online that was $10 for 3 trips...so we thought it would be worth it. It was quite an adventure...I think everyone had the same idea we did...going inside somewhere to play. It was packed! Hopefully next time, it won't be so packed. But Tristan didn't care. He LOVED it. He played for two hours. He went back and forth between the ball pit, the inflatable houses, the pretend play area, and the toddler play area. I don't have an easy way to label the pictures, since I didn't "label" them before posting them, so I'll just have you look yourself. We'll definitely go back and play again!

Revive Our Hearts

I've been struggling with my Bible study lately. I've been getting up at 6:00ish to do it, but lately, I've just been so tired in the morning and no accountability to do my study. I read on another blog several months ago about someone who was doing a Bible study online called "Revive Our Hearts". It's 30 days and everyday, the study is emailed to you. I was in the middle of another study at that point, so I couldn't focus on this one as well, but I decided to go ahead and get them all emailed to me. Well, I decided last night to do this study, but I realized that I'll be starting my Bible Study Fellowship study on Sept 14, and I've heard that that study will take up a lot of time, so doing two at once probably wouldn't work. So, I didn't want to start this one and not be able to finish it. However, while looking at the emailed studies today, I noticed that not everyday was actually emailed to me. I counted them up, and I had 24 of the 30 days. I compared that to the calendar and if I started today, I would end on the morning of Sept 14. I think that was God's doing there :) So, I plan to start this today and maybe even blog how things are going...if I'm getting up in time to do it, things I've learned, just somehow to keep me accountable in doing this. The weekends are the hardest for me because that is when Nate lets me sleep in some while he gets Tristan up if needed. But, I'll do my best!

Trials and Joy with a 17 month old...

Tonight was a very stressful night. It seems when Nate is not around to help put Tristan to bed, Tristan doesn't do as well going to bed. Nate's "job" is reading bedtime stories to Tristan, and even if I try to and Nate is around, he doesn't want me, he wants his daddy. However, Nate is now going to a men's Bible study on Sunday nights at 6:30, so he leaves about 6:15. Tristan and I sat down to eat dinner right after Nate left. Once Tristan started playing with his food instead of eating, I took it away to start cleaning up. He happily got down (with my help) from his high chair, but instantly started screaming that he wanted more. I knew he wasn't hungry anymore, so I just cleaned up, the whole time Tristan is throwing a temper tantrum. He wants "juice" but all I would give him was his milk...but no, he didn't want that. Crying some more. Time to take a bath, screaming child, not going well. He screamed as I took off his diaper, and calmed down just enough to say "trash" and contently throw it away, then started the crying again. I even put bubbles in his water, which he usually loves, but this time, he didn't care and screamed in the water. So, I would take him out, and he would reach for the water and cry "bubbles!" I would put him back in and he would scream trying to get out, and once again, I would take him out only to have him scream "bubbles!" By this time, I'm just ready for him to go to bed! So, we go to his room to put on our pj's and he is crying "bubbles" the whole time. I finally get his pj's on and he calms down when I say it is time to read. Funny thing, he picks out a Precious Moments book called "Caring". It's not a very exciting book, has verses about caring on the pages. But we read that book seven times before I made him get another book! Any other book, one time was enough, but for some reason, he wanted to read that one book seven times :) Anyways, we go brush our teeth, turn out our lights and I lay him in bed, only to have him start crying and crawling out of bed. I decided since our routine was a little off without Nate here that I would rock him a while. While I rocked him, I sang some songs and he watched me intently the whole time. After a few songs, I asked "Are you ready for bed?" and he shook his head no, so I asked "Do you want me to sing some more?" and he signed "more". Can't say no to that! So, after a few more songs, I stopped to see what he would do, and he says "sing" (actually, "si..." but I understood :), so I sang some more. After a few more songs, I asked again "Is it time for night-night?" and he looked at me and said "night-night". I put him in bed, he rolled over with his pillow and closed his eyes, and I haven't heard from him since. Exhausting night, but precious boy. Oh, the trials...and joys...of having kids!

Costa Rica Trip -- Part 2

I should have finished posting about the trip a long time ago, but I didn't take many pictures of the trip, and just recently got some pictures from someone else. These pictures shows some of what happened during the actual retreat. Again, it was for missionary women in the Costa Rica area. I'll let the pictures explain:


These are two of the team members, both from Oklahoma. They both lead sessions throughout the retreat. One lead two sessions on bitterness and forgiveness, and the other lead several sessions on children ministry.


Two more of the team members. The one on the right is from my church here in Austin. She and the main leader lead one-on-one counseling sessions with the women during the afternoon free time. The younger woman on the left was another speaker. She grew up as a missionary kid in Ecuador and went back to Ecuador after college and ran a home for abandoned children for nine years. She had to return to the states for a sudden family illness and was refused back into Ecuador, so she is now in Arizona, waiting for God to show her what He has planned for her next. She shared her story during two different sessions. Not many dried eyes after her speaking.


This is the founder of Pure Joy International and our main speaker on the trip. She is really a gifted speaker. Her story is very interesting, because she applied with the IMB two different times. However, both times when they asked her where her "people group" were located, she replied that they are all over the world, not truly understanding what that meant. Both times, the IMB refused her because she didn't have a "country" or "people group". She then realized that her "people group" were the missionary women located all over the world, and she's been traveling ever since to various countries ministering to missionary women.


During praise and worship time. The younger woman lives in the jungle ministering to the people there. She said that it had been a really long time to be able to praise and worship in her native tongue...and even see anyone other than the natives there.


Another praise and worship time. The woman with the long hair and glasses is 10 weeks pregnant...and has three grown children in their 20's! I couldn't believe it -- she is 47! Doesn't she look good?!


During craft time that was held after the night sessions. They really enjoyed these times. We also had lots of chocolate laid out on tables for them during this time. We brought TONS of chocolate...and it was all gone before the last day. True women for you!


More craft time!


We also had prayer time with the missionaries. The older woman on the left was such an inspiration to all of us. She and her husband has been living and ministering in Costa Rica for over 50 years now. She now takes care of him due to his Alzheimer's. Her whole family, children and grandchildren, all live in the same city as her and her husband. They even all gather together for lunch every Sunday, and she makes sure they speak English while together :) Such an amazing woman!

I hope that helps you understand a little more of my trip. It really was an amazing trip, and it was such a blessing to be able to minister to all the women there!