Five Christmases = One Busy Weekend

We loved spending time with our families and celebrating the birth of Christ this Christmas season. Here are just a few snapshots of our Christmas gatherings this year. We left behind the camera for one of them, but here are pictures from the other four.

Rosenberger Family Christmas

Jason and I with a few of my siblings/inlaws. Don't be fooled, there are actually 20 members of this family. Four were "with" us via webcams from Colorado and Bolivia. (We missed you guys!!!)

Jason showing off his new oil changing supplies from Mark. "I am SO excited to use this!!"

Noah, are you playing with the toys or the wrappings?

Uncle Paul holding wiggly cousins Noah and Benjamin. My mom made them matching aprons with their handprints on them. Especially cute considering how much they both love to cook!

Liechty Extended Family Christmas

Leah, Addy, Ezra and Noah - second cousins.

Most of the grandchildren and great grandchildren

Noah wondering if he's going to get in trouble if he tries to break these ornaments like he does to the ones at home.

Two little toddlers admiring Finn's DS

Noah tuckered out.

Liechty Family Christmas (and video at the bottom of this post)

Gilliom Family Christmas

Mischevious little second cousins--Abraham, Noah, and Owen

Gage and Noah, second cousins one month apart in age

Noah tuckered out again.

Dutch Blitz became the game of choice of the weekend. Melody and Andrew are hooked for life, Jason just tries to finally win, and Lauren hates it but is a master!

Video: Noah opening a gift from his Liechty grandparents

Lots of good junk food, great people, and fun times! Too many to picture them all!

TV-free for January

While Jason and I have never been huge TV watchers, we decided to try going TV-free for the month of January. We decided 90% of the time we turn it on if we're bored, and it just wastes time. The idea is we could use our time better by being together, reading, exercising, playing games, or working on hobbies. Rarely is one truly edified by watching TV.

We've allowed "special exceptions" such as a planned movie on a weekend, but we will not be aimlessly turning on the TV or even watching the news. We'll see how this turns out at the end of January.

Christmastime: Decorating the Tree

These pics in this post are from early December but I am working on catching up since our hard drive crashed. (Still bummed about losing 5 months of un-backed-up pictures.)

We had lots of fun this year decorating our beautiful fake Christmas tree as a family. (I like artificial trees because they are relatively hassle free. Plus the free factor is nice...nothing to buy year after year.) Jason pulled it out from under his shirts in our bedroom closet (yes, that is where it was since January!) and set it up. We played the Christmas music and Jason sported his Santa hat. Meanwhile, I found the box of Christmas decorations. Noah was excited about helping.

Here he is playing with our plastic nativity. We only have three pieces - Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Since he couldn't really say their names, he just called them "Mama," "Dada," and "Baby." (It was a favorite toy until he threw Joseph down too hard on the kitchen floor and the head snapped off. So much for unbreakable...)

Jason decorated the tree with lights and..... pacifiers!!! If you look carefully at the top of the tree you can see two of them.

Noah decorated the tree with candy canes.

All in one spot.

Here is how it looked after Noah put on all the candy canes. :)

More of a finished product, after Mommy rearranged the candy canes. Those gold ornaments were such attractive items for Noah, and he must've broken most of them by Christmas. Time to babyproof our Christmas tree I suppose.

We're hoping to shop the after Christmas sales for some "shatterproof" ornaments and maybe some new decorations at 75% off. For now, this was our tree this year.

Noah's Day in the Snow

Noah got all dressed to play in the snow last week since his cousin Benjamin was coming over to play. He kept looking out the window pointing and saying "no!" (his word for "snow"). I told him we could go out to play for a little while so Mommy could shovel the driveway.

Not too sure what to think of the snow...

After watching me shovel some snow, Noah and Benjamin wanted to help too.

Soon it became more fun to sit on the snow shovel and be pulled around than to actually do any real shoveling with it! Noah and Benjamin both sat on the snow shovel while I pulled them up and down the driveway.

Noah tried to make a snow angel, but it was too cold for him. I tried to show the boys how to make a snowman, but they weren't very interested in that either.

We all lasted about 30 minutes before they were tired of being cold and crying to go inside. So funny!

Video: Noah Counts to Three

Noah learned how to count to three in the middle of November. It took me by surprise, because I had never worked with him on this skill. Jason says it is because he always plays with and tosses Noah onto our bed with a count of three.

Here is a little video of Noah counting (and mommy had a pretty bad cold---I don't think I always sound that bad!!)

To be continued.

Updates will be in progress soon!

It is no fun when your laptop crashes. Thankfully we had backed it up at the end of June, so we have only lost 4 1/2 months of pictures and other documents. The pictures are the most important part, of course. After one month with no working home computer, we are just now getting the new one set up and running. I have lots of pictures I'd love to share from our trip to Nicaragua as well as a baby update. In another few days we should have everything up and running completely so I can start doing updates.

Video: Benjamin & Noah

Noah is 20 months and Benjamin just turned 2. These two cousins are so much fun when they are together.

However, if you step away from their accessible space for even one minute, they will run to find you and cry at the gate. It is quite humorous, so I took a little video of it...

16 Weeks

Here I am for a 16 week picture. I think this makes me about 3 1/2 - 4 months. When I was pregnant with Noah, a picture like this would have put me about 24 weeks. It definitely happens faster the second time around.

Everything looks good; the heartbeat was 158. I had some bloodwork done today and got the H1N1 shot a few days ago since I am in the high risk group. We will find out the baby's sex in our next visit on December 3.

No Speech Therapy

Noah was evaluated yesterday by the speech and developmental therapists from First Steps, and he will not need the speech therapy. I am glad! Their guideline for providing assistance is 18 words by 18 months. Since his signs also count as words, Noah is up to 25 words now!!!! He has taken off in the past two weeks, only saying 7 words then!

His signs: "more," "eat," "please," "milk," "byebye, " and "bird"

New words just this week alone:

• hey
• Christine = "ist-tee"
• Bye Bye
• bus
• go
• duck
• paci "pah"
• big

Noah's Words

These were Noah's words as of last week:

• What's this? / What's that?
• All gone
• No
• Mama
• Dada
• Ball
• Dog

Apparently, we are making some quick progress, because Noah is saying new words almost every day.
These are Noah's new words in the past one week!!!!!

• Hi
• Eat ("ee")
• Sock (sounds like "it-sah")
• Light
• ....And he has a special name for Christine (sounds like Eh-tah)

We will see where he is at by the time the Speech Therapist comes to evaluate him on Thursday of this coming week. Ideally he would have at least 15-20 words at this age. He might just get there soon if he keeps this up!

A couple of ultrasound photos

13 week picture (I didn't look like this with Noah until I was about 5 months pregnant.)

8 week ultrasound

9 week ultrasound - that baby looks bigger in just one week!

Hopefully I won't have any more ultrasound pictures to share until 18-20 weeks when we find out the sex!

Noah's Worst Hair Day EVER

The picture says it all. And I tried all day to get that hair back to normal before just giving up.

Pumpkin Patch and the Fall Festival

On Saturday, we went to two fall festivals. Noah had fun picking out a free pumpkin at the Pumpkin Patch festival at a local hospital.

The Pumpkin Patch festival had lots for the kids to do. Noah got to climb up and play in an old fire truck.

He petted a dog who works for the police, helping track smells of people or drugs.

They checked out the Lifeline helicopter, which is actually really small inside!

We had to pet one of the goats in the petting zoo area before waiting in the long line for some free hot dogs, chips and ice tea. Of course, every animal Noah calls "dog"! He will learn one of these days...

Later that day, we went to a Fall Festival at Crossroads Church. We got to enjoy a bonfire, s'mores, and some rounds of Cornhole. Here my parents were watching grandson Benjamin and enjoying the hot apple cider and tasty chili.

Our friends Andrew and Mary came too and brought their twin 2 year old boys. Mary and I were watching the three toddler boys bounce in the bounce house.

Noah loved the little bounce house and kept laughing and laughing. Jason commented how much more fun it was this year to have Noah play in the bounce house. (Figures, Noah was only 7 months old last year!! He couldn't even walk yet!)

We did miss out on the hayride, but it was okay because the weather was actually quite chilly!! All in all a very fun-filled day!

19 Months

Noah is 19 months now! He is still not talking any more than last month, and we are working on getting him evaluated for speech therapy. I think he said the word "eat" yesterday several times when we were teaching him the sign for "eat", and if so, he can now say 8 words. He should be saying 15-20 words....so....hopefully we'll get there soon!

I am finally taking him to get his 18 month pictures done next week. It snuck up on me so quickly this time. I was waiting for a scratch on his face to heal from the past week, and then a bruise on his cheek from falling down.... Hopefully we can get pictures without toddler bumps and bruises!

12 week appointment

I am showing so much faster this time. This picture was taken THREE WEEKS ago at 9 weeks! I can't believe how quickly I starting moving into my maternity clothes again....

Well this baby is already 12 weeks along! The time is passing much faster this pregnancy; I think because I am busy chasing around a toddler all day.

All was well at the 12 week checkup. Baby's heartbeat is 165 bpm, though it took the nurse a good few minutes to find the heartbeat! I finally got to meet my new OB doctor, who was very nice. She has a son named Noah too. :) We discussed VBACs and how long they would allow a baby to go overdue before intervening with a repeat cesarean. She says 41 weeks. They can't/don't induce because the use of pitocin increases the risk of uterine rupture in a VBAC labor. However, a VBAC is very possible for me since my cesarean was a low transverse incision and the reasons for the surgical delivery were circumstancial and not likely to repeat themselves. I just hope this baby comes on his/her own this time! I am glad to hear this news and will be stopping in to pick up my surgical paperwork in Managua next month.

Hail Hail to Old Purdue..

We went back to Purdue this weekend for homecoming! It has been five years since Jason graduated and four years since I graduated. Stewart Cooperative, where I lived, had its annual alumni brunch before the football game. It was so fun to see old friends and catch up! These are some of the girls from Pledge Class 2002 and 2003.

We got tickets to the Purdue game with friends from Stewart also. Though the game wasn't Purdue's best ever (by far), we were in good company.

Jen and Aaron brought their sweet baby Noelle, who I got to hold during the game. She is so adorable!

Our seats were 5 rows up from the 40 yard line. It was really awesome to be so close to the action. As students, we were always stuck way up high in the bleachers in the student section.

Purdue's "world's largest drum" and the band out for halftime. An alumni band also played during the halftime, complete with alumni cheerleaders. =)

Purdue lost to Northwestern in one of the worst games I've seen (not to mention it started raining in the second half!), but all in all it was a fun time.