R.I.P. Jeep Grand Cherokee

I know I was supposed to show you more pictures of our new home today, but I have something else I would like to show you.

Let me explain to you what happened two days ago. I was driving home from work, and I was probably about 10 minutes away from home when the "Check Gauges" light came on in my car. I thought, "Hmm, that's weird," but I wasn't the least bit surprised to see the light come on. My Jeep has seen better days. I was a little concerned, and knew we would get it checked out, but I didn't realize how bad it really was.

I was just a few minutes from home as I pulled up to a stop light. All of a sudden, I started to freak out! My car was smoking! As I was carefully driving home I prayed over and over my car wouldn't die or blow up!

Whew! Thank the Lord I made it home.

Still shaking and in shock, I went upstairs and explained what happened to Josh. He went down to the Jeep to look under the hood, and he found that the coolant had leaked out completely. We thought that was strange. To make a long story short, he went to the store and bought some coolant thinking maybe that would hold it over until we could get it to the shop on the weekend.

The next day I got up to go to work and felt confident it was safe to drive my car. As I was driving I kept glancing at the temperature gauge to make sure it was in its correct position. It was, and everything seemed like it was working fine. I made it to work without any problems.

After a long day at work I got in my car not thinking anything about the problems we had with the car the day before. Again, when I was just about 5 minutes away from our apartment, the check gauge light came on, and the temperature gauge maxed out. I thought to myself, "What in the world is going on??" I called Josh freaking out saying, "It's doing it again, the light came on!" Thankfully the good Lord was watching out for me because I made it home before it started smoking again. Josh looked under the hood and the coolant he had replaced the night before was gone! "Ok, so that definitely wasn't the solution," he said to me.

So early this morning we took the Jeep to Firestone, and I'm not even going to go into detail about the frightening drive over there because I would like to forget all about it. Basically, the car died every time we had to make a stop and the brakes would lock up. It was scary!! But we made it to the shop, again, in one piece. We went back home and waited to hear back from the mechanic about the tests he ran on the Jeep.

When the mechanic called, I think we were prepared for what he was about to tell us. He said basically we would need a new engine, and that it would cost about 5 to 6 thousand dollars to fix it. We decided with the jeep having almost 130,000 miles on it and becoming less and less dependable, it would just be better to invest in a new car.

So that's what we did all day today, and we are completely exhausted. I thank God for his provision. We prayed for his guidance, that he would lead us to the perfect car, and He did. We didn't even know where to start looking, and we were nervous about car shopping with an 11 month old, but the search for a new car went so smooth. And sweet Noah was such a patient little guy. It was a long day for all of us, but we now have a wonderful, dependable car. Thank you God for providing for us.

So do you wanna see it now? Here is our new Toyota Camry!

Isn't it beautiful!? I never thought I would want a small car, because I loved my SUV so much, but I absolutely love it!

More house pictures to come tomorrow! Have a wonderful night!

Our New Home

Since we have been in our new apartment for about two months already, I think it's about time to share a few pictures with you. Don't you think? My plan was to completely finish decorating before I posted pictures, but decorating is expensive, so we are finishing one thing at a time. But everything is pretty much in its place, so I thought I'd go ahead and show you our new home!

Let's start with Noah's room tonight. His room was the easiest to decorate out of all of them. I don't know why, but everything just fell into place. The theme for his room is the jungle and I just love it!

Welcome to Noah's jungle!

When you first walk into the room this is what you see:

Close up of the Hutch:

The door to the very left is Noah's closet and the door on the right closest to the hanging quilt goes into the guest bathroom. The door to the far right is the main door which leads to Noah's (and my) favorite place in the house: the Kitchen!


View into Noah's closet.

It is HUGE! Thank goodness because we have a LOT of stuff.


Noah's little cubby hole with his crib


The ceilings in our new apartment are SO high, which I love, but we had a little bit of a problem. Our curtains were waaaaay too short. So my mom and I found some adorable fabric that matched Noah's room perfectly, and she sewed it onto the curtains. Ta Da! Don't they look great!

Noah loves his room too!

I wish I would have thought to take a picture of the view he has from his room. It is beautiful! I will post a picture of his view along with more pics of the rest of our home. To be continued tomorrow!

Have a great day!

You've Got a Friend in Me!

What?! No post in the past three days. What have I been doing!? Well, actually, I've been working, so I guess I have a good excuse for not keeping up lately. After a long day at work I'm practically useless. All I want to do when I come home from work is kiss Noah's sweet face, shower, slip into my pj's and eat some dinner that my wonderful husband has cooked for me. I honestly haven't forgotten to blog; I'd never do that! But after a loooooong day at work, my creative blog writing just doesn't happen. It's not like I don't try though. I'll sit down, write a couple sentences that don't make sense, and end up deleting every word I wrote. Then I'll realize I just wasted thirty minutes that I could have been sleeping. So that's why you have opened up our blog the past three days with nothing new to read.

Anyway, work has been more than I could ever have imagined. I thank God every morning I go into work for the job He has provided. Not only is it a job, but it's the exact thing that I love doing. And that sure makes it easy to work when you love what you do, right? I have never gone through an orientation as smooth as this one has gone. I have learned so much in the five days I have worked, and I am starting to feel at home there. One thing about North Hills is everyone is SO kind. Even the doctors are friendly! Ha. Every time I go into work, God makes it clear to me North Hills is exactly where he wants me to be. It's been wonderful, and I thank you for your thoughts and prayers for us as we have gone through many changes the past couple of months.

Before I say goodnight, I have the sweetest little video to show you. The other day Noah and Einstein were playing in the living room together, and it was seriously one of the cutest things ever. The yellow tennis ball in the video is one of many scattered throughout the house. Einstein has quite a collection of tennis balls, so there is always one to play with. Often Noah will grab one to play with, and Einstein will excitedly waddle over to play with him. When I watch the two of them interact, I can't help but smile. They are precious! Make sure you turn the volume up for this one.



Hope you are having a great week!

Baby Boyardee

Noah has been eating table foods for a little over a month now. Every time Josh and I would eat something, Noah just stared at us. Eventually, he started opening his mouth making it clear he wanted to taste whatever we were eating. So we started giving him table foods. I actually put off giving Noah table foods because one day, when he was around 9 months old, I gave him a Cheerio, and he choked on it. I literally almost had a panic attack. We continued to try different foods here and there, but most of the time the food would go straight to the back of his throat and he would gag, so I decided that he might not be ready for table foods just yet.

About a month ago, we tried again, and he has been learning to chew and doing so well. Our only problem is that, well, he does not want to feed himself. He will play and play with the food, but will not bring it to his mouth to eat it. He sits and waits with his mouth open wanting one of us to feed him. I'm starting to realize we should have been encouraging him to feed himself from the beginning. For the past week or so we have been placing the food in front of Noah to teach him to feed himself. As much of a mess and struggle it has been to get him to pick food up and put it in his mouth, it has paid off.

Tonight Noah fed himself for the first time! I gave him ravoli and he loved it! Of course he still wanted Mommy to feed him, but with encouragement, he brought the food to his mouth. I never realized how excited I could get watching Noah accomplish what seems like a simple thing, but I was clapping my hands and cheering like I won a million dollars. I'm so proud of my ravoli baby!

I guess it's a learning process for all of us!

Short and Sweet

I have to apologize for Josh's blog slacking. He kinda left you hanging, huh? You know I would never do that to you. Ha. But honestly, he really does have a good reason for not posting. Being a stay at home daddy with Noah has kept him running! But he promises to post part 2 of the Running Diary within the next couple of days. So keep watching for it!

The past three days at work took it out of me. So as for now, I don't have much to say except that...



this little boy melts my heart.

Dudes Day -- A Running Diary

Today, for the first time in almost four months, I played the role of Mr. Mom. That is, I had Noah all to myself all day while Libby worked. Four months isn't a big deal when you're an adult, but when you're going from six to ten months old, oh man. The difference is night and day. Yes, I've seen Noah change and grow in the past four months, but I haven't taken care of him all by myself for a whole day during those four months. Either Libby has been with me, or she's taken care of him without me while I work. God bless her soul.

Anyway, I thought the easiest way to tell you about our day would be through a running diary, a la my favorite sports columnist, Bill Simmons. Here we go...

5:58 am: Libby wakes me up with a kiss on the cheek to tell me she's leaving for work. I think I mumbled something like "I love you, have a good day," but I'm not sure. My brain is in "off" mode at 6 am.

9:02 am: I awake to the sound (via the baby monitor) of Noah laughing as he plays in his crib. He's up. I'm still tired. I roll over, hoping he'll be content to play in his crib until noon.

9:15 am: Noah politely informs me (again, via the baby monitor) that, while he has enjoyed playing in his crib for the past 15-20 minutes, he is hungry and ready to get up.

9:17 - 11:45 am: Nothing too eventful happened during this stretch. I got Noah up, fed him, we played a little bit, and then he watched a Baby Einstein while I showered.

11:46 am: Noah starts rubbing his eyes, which is the telltale sign that he's tired. Nap time!

11:52 am: Noah whimpered a bit, but he's sound asleep now. Libby's advice to me last night: "When he's napping, you go nap too. Otherwise you'll be dead at the end of the day." I don't mind if I do.

12:24 pm: Apparently Noah is now into power naps, because he's already up and screaming. What happened to the 2 hour naps he used to take? I get up and make him a bottle. Hopefully he'll take it and go back to sleep.

12:26 pm: I pick the bottle up off the ground in Noah's room. He threw it a good 3 feet out of his crib.

12:32 pm: Looking out the window, I see that there are only 2 people at the pool. Noah's still in a pretty sour mood, so maybe swimming will cheer him up.

12:33 pm: I put Noah in his play pen for a while so that I can get everything ready for us to go swimming. I start making a mental to-do list, but then it gets too long, and I have to use pen and paper. It feels like we're going of town or something.

12:35 pm: First on the list: get towels. Check.

12:36 pm: Air up the yellow submarine, and scare Einstein to death in the process. Check.

12:42 pm: Get Noah's stuff together: Swimsuit, Check. Sunscreen, Check. Hat, Check Swimming Diapers, umm...

12:50 pm: Where in the world does she keep those things?

12:55 pm: Check.

12:56 pm: Gotta get my stuff together too. I get my swimsuit on and find my flip flops in the closet buried underneath every shoe that Libby owns. I need to put some sunscreen on but decide to forgo it because my boss is getting restless in his playpen.

1:05 pm: Ok, we've got everything ready to go. All that's left is getting Noah in his swimsuit and hat. Oh, and I also need to dip him in a vat of sunscreen.

1:06 pm: One thing that hasn't changed in four months: Noah likes wearing the outfit that God gave him. Getting him out of his clothes and diaper is as easy as it's always been.

1:07 pm: One more thing that hasn't changed: Noah hates putting clothes on. Except now it's more of an issue because he can crawl, twist, and turn his body into every position imaginable to avoid putting on said clothes. I'm currently trying to get his swimming diaper on him, and it's not an easy task.

1:12 pm: It took me five minutes to get the diaper on him. I'm dreading the swimsuit.

1:15 pm: Still working on that swimsuit. I'm out of breath. Noah is laughing.

1:23 pm: Here's the thing about growing up in a house with five boys: you always have someone to wrestle. And you become very good at performing an assortment of wrestling moves. I end up using a variation of Ric Flair's Figure Four Leg Lock on Noah to keep him still on his back while I inch the swimsuit up his legs. I knew that move would come in handy some day.

1:25 pm: We have two different kinds of sunscreen for Noah: A stick for his face and a spray for his body. I have a hard time applying the stick to his face because he thinks it's a Push Pop. He opens his mouth real wide and tries to lick it. In fact, I laid it down for a minute and then looked up, and here's what I saw:

1:30 pm: See the red jacket that Noah is wearing in the picture? Let's just say it was easier to put that on than keep him still long enough to spray the sunscreen on him. It'll do a good job protecting him from the sun. I mean, surfers wear long sleeve body suits like that. Same idea, right?

1:38 pm: Over an hour after we started getting ready for the pool, we're walking out the door ready to head to the pool. I'm carrying Noah, the yellow submarine, 2 towels, and my keys. Let's hope I don't drop anything.

1:40 pm: We make it to the pool in one piece! But when we get to the gate, this is what we see:

1:41 pm: I weep uncontrollably. All my sins against my parents have caught up with me.

To be continued tomorrow...