11months

Whew!  So this is my last month to take pictures with the "month" sign and here's why:

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They turned out fine, but it was kind of a chore!  This one was my favorite:

I tend to take a lot of pictures of Noah eating, and I think it's because it's about the only time that he's restrained and I know that he won't wrap a cord around his neck or lock himself in a room or stir Toby's water dish or eat his food or pull his ear.  I know he will be in the exact same spot that I left him in, so I can get the camera and he will look at me and smile!

The kid loves eating.  We have been struggling with food issues since he started solids, just the pickiness and stubbornness just about do me in.  He just wants to only eat what he can feed himself.  So I try to sneak in the other stuff with a spoon while he's picking up something with his hands.

But he can have a snack all by himself--he loves bananas and graham crackers!  And he's just so happy that he is doing it all by himself.  (Definitely related to me in this matter.  Sigh.)

Noah has great fine motor skills, like pointing, grasping, picking things up, etc.  He always has developed those pretty quickly and easily.

The gross motor skills take a little more time for him.  I think it was about this time that he finally started crawling a traditional crawl instead of his funny army crawl.  Now you should see him go!! He darts all over the place.

Side note:  He also thinks he's just like Toby sometimes.  He will crawl over and stick his tongue out and try to pant like Toby, and also crawl over to a toy and pick it up with his teeth.

I promise I play with him and he should know he's not a dog.....

And here's some random pictures.  If I leave him for just a minute and then I can't find him, this is where he always is:

He's actually sitting and looking at books here.......

But usually, he's just standing, pulling all the books out one by one until they're in a big pile on the floor.

And after the books are out, he moves to the orange crate and pulls out all his toys.  Not to play with them, just to pull them out and put them in a pile on the floor.

The kid is always hungry it seems, so we got home from work one day and I just plopped him down with a bowl of cheerios.  As you can tell, he was pretty happy about it!  I think because again, he was doing it all by himself.

I don't remember when this one was from.

And this one is from my friend Megan's phone.  She stopped by on her way back from a trip in December I think, and we went out for lunch.  This was at the restaurant.
















So it was about this point in Noah's life that I started realizing I was about to have a one-year-old and baby fever hit me hard.  I'm not ready to be out of the baby stage!  Where did it go??  I just had him yesterday!  I want another little baby if Noah can't start over again!  But life goes on and a birthday party must be planned!!!!!  And if you know me, you know I LOVE a good social event.  Stay tuned for those pictures soon!

Christmas #3

And here, we finally made it to Christmas #3 at my mom's house!  This was fun, because Noah really knew more about what was under the paper and that things were HIS.  

I think Adam started opening this one, but Noah finished up well!

He looks like he knows that he is getting something fun!!  And he has gotten a lot of fun out of this toy, and still plays it sometimes!  It's a little piano, which he would stand at and shake his head or his bootie while he was playing.  It was SO FUNNY!  Sometimes he would shake his head like Ray Charles and it would just crack me up!!

I guess I love pictures of the boys reading, because this is another of my favorites!

I love this one too!  I love when he looks at books and points at pictures!













Whew!  After 3 Christmases, we had our car loaded down!  And then my mom brought up the rest of his loot a week later.  I think we were gone about 5 days and Noah traveled fairly well most of the time.  A couple nights were a little rough, and I was glad to be home, but it was so fun to experience Noah's first Christmas.

Smiles!

This was at Adam's aunt's house at Christmas.  We had a bunch more from there, but this was my favorite.  I just love the way he looks up and smiles!!!  

Christmas #2

For our next Christmas, we went to Oklahoma and visited Adam's family.  They have a shin-dig on Christmas Eve usually with extended family where they all give presents to "Grandma" and just get together and gab for a while.  It's always a good time, and really anything is fun with Noah around!  (I can't help it--I really like my kid.)

Adam and I didn't put up a Christmas Tree this year because a) there's not enough room in our shrinking apartment and b) we're not there during Christmas anyway, and c) I didn't want to deal with trying to keep Noah away from the tree, because there wouldn't be much room left for him after we put the tree up.  So it stayed in storage again this year.  Maybe next year....

Anyway, so at the McElhattan's, Noah got to see a Christmas tree:

He actually didn't bother it too much--there's lots of other fun stuff for him to do at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

I believe this was Christmas morning--he had just pulled the stuff out of his stocking--some books, a Razorback shirt, and some random toys.

This toy belonged to Adam and his older brothers, and Noah loves it!

I just love this picture!  Noah still LOVES reading, and he's just so attentive!

By now, Noah was figuring out how to peel the paper back, and he knew that it would reveal something good!

And again with the pointing...always the pointing.....

Just to clarify....no, Noah is not standing on his ankles with his feet all out to the side.  His pj's are a little longer than he is currently.  But his torso is long and onesie type things of a smaller size wouldn't really fit, either.

This present was definitely one of his favorites!  It was a musical thing that you could slide little balls down, or put them in the hippo's mouth.  Since I am writing this 4 months later--he would sit and play with this thing forever and ever.  Wait, not sit.  He never is sitting.  He would stand and turn on the music and dance.  Then the music would stop and he would turn it on again and crawl away.  Then it would go off and he would stop what he was doing and crawl back and turn it back on again.  He LOVED that thing!

By now, he was really getting the hang of opening presents.  This one was from mommy and daddy.  and since the box was colorful, I guess he thought it was interesting.  He received a ton of "big" gifts this year, but he was in need for sure.  We had a bunch of "baby" toys, but nothing for the next stage.  He was getting hard to manage at home sometimes because it was obvious he was bored!  But we didn't want to go buy him stuff because it was almost Christmas.  Here, he opened his Alphabet Train.  This toy should be good for a while because it has different "stages" of play.  Right now he just likes to turn the music on and put the letters in the hole.  

"See right here?  This is mine."

He really cleaned up here with all the fun stuff, but we still had one more house to go!!!

Christmas #1

The week before Christmas, my dad came up to Kansas City with my brother and his wife--it's become an annual tradition since Adam and I moved up here, and something we look forward to each December!  We hang out during the afternoon, then go eat at McCormick & Schmick's, (which if you ever have a chance to eat there...by all means, do.  Excellent seafood.  Adam even downed a few oysters.  Yes, that's right....Adam ate oysters.)  After dinner we come back and exchange presents! We usually get together the next day as well, either for brunch or lunch.

I was a little nervous taking a 10 month old to M & S, but we got a booth in a quiet area and he did great! We also went earlier than usual, so hopefully he wouldn't get too cranky.  No one likes a screaming baby in a restaurant!  We didn't give Noah any oysters, but he ate his baby food and was very well- behaved!  And then he fell asleep on the way home, but we woke him up so he could join in the fun!

He wasn't really sure what was going on at first!

So I tried to show him what he was supposed to do.....

At this point in his life, Noah had figured out how fun it was to point, so everyone was just pointing at everyone else.  Ha!  

My dad got him this great little trike with a long handle so we can push him and an umbrella to shade from the sun.  Later, it converts into a trike he can ride on his own.

Boy, was it fun to watch, er, help Noah open presents!!