Noelle's Kind of Fun

So sorry there are still no pics up. It is just so hard to take the time to bring the camera all the way to school and wait for them to upload when I would much rather be at home sleeping, eating, playing with Noelle, etc. But I just thought I would write a little bit about the fun things Noelle has been doing lately.

She is a chatterbox. She has some real words, her vocabulary is growing daily, and she knows several body parts, but she still just mostly chatters away in gibberish and then looks at us like we should have some very profound response to the obviously profound statement she just made :)

She LOVES to read her books. We go to the library to get some new selections almost weekly, but she still loves her old favorites too. Reading is her favorite way to play. (Although some of that might have to do with our abysmal toy selection. Good thing Christmas is coming.) And her favorite way to read is in Mommy or Daddy's lap, having us read to her then her read to us :)

She is learning to sing! She loves trying to sing the ABC song whenever we are reading her ABC book, or the Baa Baa Black Sheep song (which coincidentally are the same tune) when we have that book out. She doesn't quite get it right, but it is close enough that we can actually tell what she is trying to sing. She also makes up songs to sing to herself while I am doing housework :)

She loves playing in drawers and cupboards. Which has been a bit a trying thing for us. We have been able to teach her, for the most part, which drawers and cupboards she can play with and which ones she can't. With the exception of her clothes drawers. She used to rip through them every day with delight. I say "used to" because we finally got smart and put child locks on her drawers. We put them on all the drawers except her top one because she won't be tall enough to reach that one until she's five. We thought. The morning after we put the locks on was Sunday, and Erik and I were both VERY pleased that Noelle had seemed to sleep in until 8:30! She usually is up by 7 or 7:30 at the very latest. But Sunday seemed like a huge blessing. Until I wandered into her room to find that she had, in fact, been awake for quite some time, and she had been very quietly pulling everything she could reach out of her top drawer, which she could pretty easily reach from her crib. It was so funny we couldn't even be mad. But now that drawer has a lock too :)

She just continues to delight us with her sweet nature and willingness to give Mommy and Daddy hugs and kisses every day. I feel bad that she is so scared of everybody else, whether they be a stranger, a friend, or a family member, but hopefully that will start to change as we get to spend more time with family during the holidays. She is the light of our lives :)