Thanksgiving... hahaha

So it turns out we got very few pics of Thanksgiving. These represent the best of the small selection. Yeah I know, pretty sad :)

Our Angel

We really have been blessed this year! For this Christmas season we have our very own angel from heaven to help us celebrate! Our Noelle Miranda will be 10 months old tomorrow. What a lucky girl to get to open presents on her 10 month birthday :)

Merry Christmas To All!

We are truly grateful for this special time of year to focus on family, giving, and the birth of our Savior. We hope all of our friends and family have just a very merry Christmas and that you all get to spend it with someone special! We love you all and thank you for being our friends :)
Erik, Alyssa, and Noelle

Finally Halloween!

You can all expect Thanksgiving pictures sometime around The 4th of July :) But for Halloween this year we went as farmers with our little pumpkin :) It was a fun year to have Noelley with us! She sure is growing way too fast and that first birthday is speedily approaching! She has finally started to figure out how to crawl and we expect that she'll have it mastered by Christmas. She is such a joy to have! I am grateful every day for my happy, funny, curly-haired angel :D

Noelley Laughs!

Sicky baby

Noelle is sick. It's not really bad, but she is just feeling yucky and has a low fever :( Mostly she is being pretty cheerful (I think) for a sick baby, but she had a hard evening and I think it is one of the worst feelings in the world to hear a sick little baby cry and know that you can't instantly make it all better. But when she is sick she is much more cuddly and snuggly and I never mind that part :) Please don't think that I enjoy my daughter's suffering, but as a mom who feels like her little baby is growing up way too fast I love being able to just hold onto her while I can.

LDS Ad.

Cute Kid Contest!

Yep, I did it. I entered Noelle in a cute kid contest, and we need your votes to win! Simply click HERE and post a comment (with your email address so she can verify the vote please! If you are "anonymous" and don't have a name and email your votes won't count.) saying you want to vote for #18! If you really want Noelle to win, you can get on and vote once a day every day until the end of November! Go team Noelle!

p.s. I think I'm a little narcissistic because so far I'm the only person who has submitted an entire slide show of pics for the contest. Everybody else just picked one of their kid. But really I think that Noelle deserves more than one because she has so many cute pictures :)

Finally!

I am BLOGGING! It feels so nice :) Noelle is 8 months old today, and what a joy she is! She is the most fun, cute, funny, beautiful, happy, sometimes sassy, and amazing girl I have ever met. And I tell her all that daily. Yes, we are prob spoiling her a little bit, but how do you say no to a sweet precious little baby? Anyways, I'm sure reality will set in when she gets brothers and sisters, so i don't mind spoiling her a little now when she's my only baby ;) She is not quite crawling yet, she prefers to have mommy get everything she needs or take her where she wants, but she can roll around pretty darn fast if she wants. She smiles tons and she wrinkles her little nose up when she is amused or getting upset. She babbles all day long and can say "mama" (my favorite!) but of course mostly says it when she's mad. She definitely loves her sleep! She still takes three hour-and-a-half long naps every day, and she is now sleeping through the night, from 8pm to 6 or 7 am. I'm definitely appreciating that! I can't believe I've already had 8 wonderful months with my precious little girl, and that I only have four more until she officially becomes a toddler! What a joy it is to be a mommy :) Joy all around! Makes me excited for the Christmas season!

On Friday we went to a pumpkin patch to take pics and get a punkin, and on Saturday we went to two parades! First the Livestock and Heritage Festival parade, that one had the sheep (they run them down main street, I thought it was neat, but Noelle hated the sheep) and then the Homecoming parade. The best part is that they were both right by our house. No walking or fighting crowds :)

7 Months Old!

I don't have any pictures to upload unfortunately. She is getting more and more adorable. We were over at the church a few nights ago, and we set Noelle on the floor to let her play. Within a few minutes, she had rolled like ten feet away. She gets her crazy skills from her father. Here's to hoping that she never stops melting our hearts.

Absence of Blogging

So sorry it has been so long since we have posted anything, especially pics of our dear sweet Noelle. We are so busy with school and since we don't have internet or a compy at home we have to go to the library at school to get online. Whenever I do get to the library I usually have so much work to do that there is just no time for blogging. But I will try to dedicate some time soon to put up pics of Noelle and some video. She is growing so fast! It is so exciting, but of course bittersweet too, to see my little bundle of a baby slowly disappearing, and this fun little personality emerging :) What a blessing she is to us. I love you my baby!

Free Stuff Again!

Go HERE for a great giveaway for anybody located in the SLC/provo area. Free pics and more!

Bathroom Sneak-up

Sorry about the bad cinematography and the terrible shots of my dirty bathroom, but I had to kind of sneak up on her to try and record what she was doing. Every time I pull out the camera now she stops doing whatever it was I wanted to record and just stares at the camera! It's frustrating. This day she was being so cute! All day she was just babbling and cooing to whoever would listen. I was in the bathroom getting ready, and I just had her on the floor by me. And of course, as soon as she spots the camera everything she was doing stops and she just looks at me like "What?".

Spitting Mad

Ha ha I guess she was done :) She has learned how to "spit" and now she does it whenever she is mad. It's actually really cute and really funny. The first couple times she did it I was torn between calming her down so she wouldn't be upset or just watching her do it more.

Some Blogging

What to do when you only have one day to get your house cleaned and packed up before you put everything you own in your car and drive home? Why, blog of course!

Hahahahahaha

I'm sure some of you have heard of this before, but I just came across it again and had to post it. Enjoy :)

see more Fail Blog

5 Months!

Yes, Saturday was my sweet Noelle's 5-month birthday :) What a beautiful baby she is and what change in just one month! This month has felt a little different for me; less "oh my goodness I can't believe it's been so long already" and more "I feel like she's been mine forever". With Erik being gone for work so much this month we have really spent a lot of time together. Being her sole care-giver all week long has been somewhat challenging, but kind of a treat. It's fun to have my little buddy with me all the time. It makes me sad to think about going back to school and having to spend so much time away from her. This month she has changed and learned so much! From little things like getting better every day at reaching for and grabbing things, to being able to really focus on a toy and how it works, to putting her toes in her mouth, and finally having her first cereal. She is doing great with it too, she loves her cereal! I love my baby girl! I am eternally grateful to be blessed with her :)

No Longer A One-Trick-Pony!

After the first bite...

After a couple bites...

All done!
I'm so excited to be starting her on cereal! She haaaaates formula and she won't really even take a bottle of my milk either, so I am pretty much the only person on the planet that can feed her. Until now! Woo Hoo! She ended up spitting most of it out, but she didn't cry at all so I figured she liked it well enough and just needs practice swallowing. Wish us luck!

More Cuteness From the Baby

I'm not sure why this one is turned weird, but I love the expression on her face.

She can put her toes in her mouth! She has been playing with her feet for weeks, inching ever closer to her mouth, and on Friday she finally got it! It is so cute to watch her just bring her toes up and stick them in her mouth :)

Noelle Plays

Ha ha this is how Noelle plays. She yells at her toys if they don't do just what she wants. Here she is trying to pull the blue hippo head off so she can stick it in her mouth :) I love how she peeks at me every now and then to see if I'm still watching.

Fun Noelle

She's going to help mommy fold the laundry :)

She is getting so much more deliberate in her actions. She will shake this rattle to make the little blue balls inside move and she will try to get them in her mouth. She always gets so frustrated when the big plastic ball gets in the way :)

This little bumblebee toy cracks me up. She has another ladybug toy that is very similar to it, and when you pull on that toy it will play a little song. So whenever she has this toy in front of her she will always pull on it and just look at it like "Why is it not singing?" She is such a fun baby! She loves going on walks, playing with her toys, and giving mommy eskimo kisses :) She only wakes up once a night, but would sleep all day if I let her! And she falls asleep like an angel, almost never crying or fussing. I definitely appreciate that!

Watch This!

Well I guess she has had enough of tummy time!
I'm so proud of my sweet baby!

I Don't Usually Get Too Religious But...

I came across this on facebook. As I read it I had a mental picture of Erik and I humbly coming before our Heavenly Father together, saying that we had found our love and wished to ask his approval for our marriage, and Him smiling, saying yes, and blessing us to be together for all eternity. I like that picture :)

In many ways, the confirmation of a couple's sealing is a "stamp of approval" given by God, a divine recognition that their union will be eternal. This is the true definition of a celestial marriage—one that has been ratified by God as being in full force for the eternities.

My Baby Smells Like A Cherry Airhead

You know the taffy-like candy? Well, Noelle has strep. I guess that is pretty uncommon for babies her age, but somehow she got it. Now between mylicon for her gas bubbles, her antacid for her reflux, the tylenol, her antibiotics, and all the accompanying syringes and droppers my kitchen looks like a pharmacy :) So she has been feeling pretty crummy for a couple of days but has really been a trooper considering. The crying, fussing, and drooling I pretty much expected from this kind of an illness, but there is also one other side effect that I really didn't see coming. The infant tylenol is cherry flavored and sticky, and her antibiotic is also cherry flavored and sticky, and between the two she has now taken on a decidedly cherry flavor and aroma herself. It's kinda weird, but I really don't mind if it helps her get better fast :)

Free Stuff!

For little girls! My SIL makes the cutest, most adorable bows and things for little girls and she is doing a giveaway on her new blog! So if you have a little girl, or a niece, or can even think of any little girl that you might know, click here to go to the blog and enter to win! It doesn't matter who you are, anybody in the world can enter. Well, maybe you should live in the US so that she can ship it to you :)

4th of July, Thurman Style!

What a fun day we had! Noelle and I had a little picnic with some of the other wives and their kids, and then Erik was able to get home by 8! It was wonderful to have him home in the evening! We had a little family bbq, just the 3 of us, and then we lit off a few little fountains and sparklers for Noelle. After that we watched our city's fireworks show from our apartments. It was way past Noelle's bed time, but it seemed like she enjoyed the fireworks and the noise didn't scare her. And she slept great that night :)

Happy family :)

You Want Drastic?

I'll give you drastic :) I love my new hair! I just woke up from a nap, but I think it still pretty much looks how it did when the stylist did it. I feel so liberated :) No more long, messy hair and boring old pony tails for me!

Piggy Tails

I was at the store yesterday and just decided to get some tiny little elastics to try and put Noelle's hair in little pig tails. I was so excited about it that as soon as I got home I threw some in real fast just to see if it would work. Here is the result.
So Cute! I think she looks absolutely adorable, but it also makes me kinda sad because I don't think she looks like a little baby anymore! I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up tomorrow and she's going to be 18 and moving out to go to college.

Master of His Craft

Erik would try to play this down and make it seem like it's not a big deal, but I think it is really neat. He was featured in APX's weekly newsletter for the good work that he does. Sometimes a little recognition is nice. I would just link to the article, but you have to have an APX log in to see it, so I'll just paste the whole thing in here:

"Masters of the Craft

by Matt Pitts

June 27, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota - Some people think that being a tech is the sweet life. Sure, the actual work is tougher and the hours bite, but it’s guaranteed money, right? Not so much. Yeah, if you’re a tech in a good office the jobs invariably come your way, but when it comes down to it, making money as a tech is a lot like doing the same as a rep – it’s a crowded food chain and only the fittest survive.

Two Minneapolis-North techs demonstrated on Friday that the tech life is not one of full time handouts. Erik Thurman and Buck Shaheen showed that success is an individual choice that is not thrust upon you by circumstances. While some reps in the office ended with 1-2 installs on the day, both Thurman and Shaheen ended up with 4 completed installs each. This isn’t just the luck of the rotation. It’s the story of two techs that are straight up masters of their craft."

Way to go sweetheart! I love you :)

My Baby is 4!

Four months anyway :) She turned four months old yesterday and I can't believe how she is growing and changing so fast! Yesterday she did her first real laugh a couple of times, but has decided not to repeat it since :( And today she looked at me in the mirror while I was holding her then turned her head to look at the real me, then looked back at me in the mirror, then back at the real me. It was so cute! I could practically see the wheels turning in her head. She weighs a little over 14 lbs and is 26 1/2 inches long. I love my baby girl so much! These have been the best 4 months of my life :)

Playing With Her Toys

So I am feeling kinda bummed lately that we are so far away from family and friends and I can't show everyone all the cute things Noelle does every day and all the little ways that she has changed. Hence all the recent posting of pics and videos. I just wish I could have everyone there to share all the sweet moments with me!

Look at those blue eyes and that cute little mouth!

Noelle's First Parade!

And boy was it hot! Roseville had their annual Rose Parade yesterday so we decided to go since it was just down the street. But the parade was in the evening instead of the morning, so it was over 100 degrees when we first got there, and soo humid too. Poor Noelle was kinda dyin, I kept pouring water on her cause I didn't have a spray bottle to keep her cool. But she liked to look at the flashing lights on the police cruisers and watch the high school marching bands walk by. We left quite early though. After sitting for and hour and a half they were only a quarter of the way through the parade! And we had had enough of the heat.Sitting with Monica and Karalee

Proud to be an American!

Baby Toy Junkie

Must

Get

In

Mouth!

I Love This Girl!

Just a few more samples of sweet Noelle's sounds :)

No Room For Mommy

Sometimes a mommy just isn't needed :)

Daddy Scaring Noelle

He was making funny faces and noises at her and I guess this combination wasn't particularly amusing :) Poor baby.

Some More Reaching and Even Some Grabbing *wink wink*

Reaching

This video only shows a little bit, but she has started reaching for things. If it is small enough she an grab it, but she is still working on making her fingers do what she wants. I imagine that will be a long process. I still can't always seem to make my fingers do what I want.

Some More Pictures

Well we haven't really been up to much lately so there aren't any pics of fun activities, so I just decided to put up some random pictures of my baby :)

Watching tv :)

I absolutely love her big blue eyes. They are so bright and sparkly when she gets excited or is just watching and learning, and they get all cute and droopy when she is tired.

Another trip to the Zoo.

This time with Daddy! Noelle still really didn't care and I still had a blast!

Erik and the sloth (burying its face in the tree. I think it was trying to sleep but it just spends all day up in that tree in the middle of the "rainforest" room)

These little monkeys move sooo fast it was way hard to get a pic but I tried because they are so interesting! They are tiny little things, but they have these huge white curly mustaches, like a cowboy or something. They are my favorite animal at the zoo.

Yes, we are riding a bronze statue of a giant tortoise. Noelle is sitting on its head. Good times.