Erik, Alyssa, Adorable Noelle, & Precious Soleil

For Your Viewing Pleasure...

2012-01-19T20:23:00.001-08:00

A veritable smorgasbord of videos of my cute girlies! Some are kinda long. I just barely found out that you can edit videos in youtube to just put on the good parts, but I was too tired, and anyway I like seeing the whole video :)

Cute laughing baby :)

You think this is just a video of a baby trying to poop ;) Until you see Noelle haahahahahahaahaha

Just moved in. And loving the piggy tails :) Oh, and the dishwasher arrived, which is why I had to end so quickly

Christmas Morning with Noelle

Underwear hat. Also, Noelle loves the garbage truck and we anxiously await its arrival every Thursday.

The reason I love this video is that it shows Noelle figuring out, remembering, and anticipating the timing of the song. Something new for her :)

To go with the pic in the last post, our big girl holding herself up :) That little coughing sound she is making is her "I'm-so-utterly-pleased-with-how-accomplished-I-am" sound :) Cute girl.

Baby Girl Turns 8 Months

2012-01-19T13:10:00.000-08:00

Cute bathing beauty! Look at that chubb!

She was so very proud of herself to be standing up and holding onto the tub by herself. This is one of the first times she stood and held herself up

All the Thurman cousins born in the year 2011. Isaac, Soleil, and Lucy :)

Chilling with her Daddy

Baby girl's first Christmas

Love that sweet big smile!

A whole 2/3 of a year! That scary 1-year mark is getting closer and closer, faster and faster. But we are loving watching our little ladybug grow. She is getting taller, though she looks so little standing next to Noelle. And her hair is getting longer too! Though it is still light at the roots, I think it will most definitely be brown. Coming from a family where all of us had blonde hair and blue eyes, it is such a marvel to me to have two little girls with such different coloring. But I love it so much! They are both gorgeous, I think ;)

This month, Soleil had her first Christmas. It was so much fun, and she loved all the excitement. She also got her first tooth about a day after her 7 month birthday. Her 2nd tooth nearly came in the day after her 8 month birthday, but it seemed to put itself on hold and is still just sitting right below the surface. She can clap her hands and wave hi and bye-bye. She loves to say ma-ma, da-da, ba-ba, and hi. Mostly her words are still pretty indiscriminate though. She can hold herself up standing, and can scoot around just a little on her bum. But still no crawling yet :) She loves to wake up in the morning and snuggle in bed with mommy and daddy for a few minutes before we all get up and get breakfast. And one HUGE milestone: She officially sleeps through the night!! Not even waking up to eat anymore. The past couple of weeks she has been sick, so her sleep has been not as great, but I am so happy that she finally sleeps through the night :D She is also very good at picking up small things, like Cheerios, with her thumb and pointer finger-- and shoving them into her mouth as quickly as possible before mommy and daddy have a chance to investigate :) We love our sweet little Soleil so much. We couldn't even imagine life without this little ray of sunshine in it. She loves to gives hugs and kisses. She loves seeing family and friends. And she is so animated and bright and lovely.

Catching Up to 7 Months!

2011-12-31T22:43:00.000-08:00

December 11th marked 7 months for this little lady. What fun she is! Her 7th month was a busy one, there was Thanksgiving, followed by a sudden week-long trip to Arizona for my Grandpa Williams' funeral. All the while we would spend our days out at our new house trying to get it fixed up, then drive back every night to Erik's parents' house, where we were living. It was a lot of driving and a lot to do in just one short month, and she was just a trooper. By 7 months Our little Soleil was a confident sitter and LOVED the reach it gave her, she can seem to get ahold of anything! She was loving solid food, and would eat any kind we gave her, and lots of it. She loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa Thurman so much, and just lit up with smiles every time Grandpa walked in the door from work, and every morning when Grandma woke up.

Ladybug was so patient with all the back-and-forth driving to work on the house, and Daddy always being gone at the house. She has been just an angel, but definitely has been working on her dramatic side too! She has a very loud, piercing scream, and she lets it fly with very little provocation :) Most of the time, it just makes us laugh at how indignant she would be at things we would do, like walk out of a room without her, even if we were coming right back ha ha ha.

Half a Year For Our Baby Girl.

2011-12-31T22:19:00.000-08:00

On November 11th our sweet little Soleil turned 6 months old, time flies so fast! At her checkup she weighed 16 lbs 4 oz-- about 50% for weight; and was about 24 inches long-- 75% for height.
How we love this little girl. At 6 months she was doing well with practicing standing, and she could just about sit up unsupported, but wasn't quite there yet. She has even more sounds to babble with-- da-da, ma-ma, as well as ba-ba. Ma-ma quickly became her "mad" sound, just like with Noelle.
Her favorite things to do were play with toys and put anything within reach in her mouth, which is a lot! She clearly inherited my "Go-go-gadget" arms, cause nothing ever seems to be far enough away to be out of her reach.

A Day To Give Thanks!

2011-12-31T22:04:00.000-08:00

And boy did we have a lot to be grateful for! We had just closed on our house :) Thanksgiving this year was a busy busy day for us. We started out with lunch at my Aunt and Uncle's house, then dinner at Erik's parents, then second dinner and desserts at my sister's house ha ha ha. We were stuffed. But it was a great day spent with family and we loved it.

Going Waaaaaay Back to..... Halloween!

2011-12-31T21:48:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun with Halloween this year! We went to a trunk-or-treat at Camp Williams with our friends the Westwoods, we trick-or-treated at Walmart, and then we capped off the evening with dinner and trick-or-treating at my mom's house. Noelle LOVED trick-or-treating! Ever since she ate her last piece of candy, she has been asking me when we will go again :) This year Noelle wanted to be a unicorn, and I couldn't resist turning our little ladybug into a ladybug! The girls were just so cute.

With the Westwoods, Natalie, Jossy, and Sammi, at Camp Williams. The trunk-or-treat line was sooooo long, but there were other fun things to do there too.

Unicorn Power!

Little Ladybug!

Cousins! And me :)

Sailing On

2011-11-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've had this song running through my head off and on for many weeks now. I loved Saturday's Warrior when I was a kid. I've fallen back in love with this song. It seems to well describe my life right now. And it also reminds me of some of the best things my dad ever did for me. Happy memories :)

Barnyard Boo!

2011-10-19T22:25:00.001-07:00

Our first year going to Barnyard Boo at Thanksgiving Point. We loved it! It was perfect for little kids, they had all the normal stuff that the farm there usually has, but also a bunch of fun little games for the kids to play to earn treats, right up our alley! We went with our friends, the Wilburs, then afterwards went to their house for some yummy taco soup and pumpkin carving. It was tons of fun and nice to have something to do to keep my mind off of Erik being out of town.

Hula-hooping is hard.

Katy and Julian. It was a cold evening. Actually, that night ended up being the first freeze (that I am aware of) of the season.

Yep. Cold.

Face Painting! These are supposed to be spooky eyes ha ha ha. It's what Noelle picked!

Riding Tater the horse. Noelle is in LOVE with horses right now. She asks to go to the farm and ride one every day :)

They're Married!!

2011-10-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

My dear twin sister Krysta is finally married! And she couldn't have picked a better guy! Heber and Krysta Tapia were married on Oct. 7 in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. And everything was perfect, except for the weather. But really, you can't have EVERYTHING be perfect on your wedding day.
Their reception was so much fun, good food, family and friends, and good music and dancing! It was a party! We were all so happy for this exciting day, and I am so happy to get to share the joys of marriage with my sister now ha ha.

The happy couple

Noelle and Addie dancing. Noelle literally danced all night. If we ever took her away from the dance floor she would say "Let me dance!." At about midnight she finally laid down on the floor and said "I'm tired."

The 3 Gau nieces with their Tia Krysta

Felicidades to the Happy Couple :D

5 Months Down!

2011-10-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

This baby girl just keeps growing, and keeps lighting up our lives! She is our sweet, smiley girl, we love her so much! With every month that passes I just become ever more grateful to be her mother. What a blessing our little Soleil is!
I realized that I forgot to put up her 4 month stats, so those first. At her 4-month checkup she weighed 14 lbs. 9 oz, which put her in about the 75% for weight, and she was 24 in long which put her about 90% for height. We love our chunky girl!
Soleil is so bright and sunny, she just has an openness about her, she is always alert and interested in what you are doing. She will smile at anyone and just instantly melt their heart, people always want to hold her :)
She is so close to being able to sit on her own, and she loves it. Every time I lay her down she tries to curl herself up into a sitting position, you can practically hear her saying "no, no I'm so tired of looking at the ceiling!" She is also now quite adept at rolling from her tummy to her back; no more tummy time for this girlie.
Our little ladybug is getting better at sleeping at night. She still wakes up twice, during her night, to eat. But it is on a pretty consistent schedule. But I am very excited to start her on solid foods tomorrow and see how that helps at night :)
Things we love about our Ladybug:

Of course, her ready smile and cute, cute, CUTE laughter!
She grabs EVERYTHING that comes within her reach and tastes it. Funny now, but I'm sure I won't love it as much when she can move around.
Today she figured out how to say "ba-ba-ba" and didn't stop saying it until I put her to sleep :) She would just talk to me like she had finally figured it out and had so much to tell me!
She loves to lay on my chest and roll off while I catch her.
She loves when I pretend to eat her belly and toes hee hee.
She still loves to hold my hand in the car.
She is willing to rock from side to side on her back like nobody's business, and loves to reach far up over her head to look at and get things, but she will NOT stay on her tummy.
She is absolutely engaging. Her little hazel eyes captivate you and her bright happy smile thrills you.
When she is just chillin she blows bubbles, razzberries, and makes a little "pfff" sound. She also makes that sound when she is sizing something up. It is one of my favorite things she does.

My girlies reading in bed :)

Love that hair! She is too cute :D she had a piggy tail in the day before and this is what it looked like after sleeping on it all night.

I was loving the wedding. She wasn't :)

Havin' A Sleepover With Anya!

2011-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had my niece Anya over to stay Sunday night so my brother and his wife could have a nice night to themselves :) These girls have so much fun together, it was such a blast! Anya is only 9 months younger than Noelle; it is fun to see a friendship blooming that will last forever.

Soleil Turns 4 Months

2011-09-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

And she is still just as happy and smiley as ever! How we love our baby girl! She is just a joy to have around, and I love being a mommy to my two sweet girlies. Soleil is growing just like a healthy baby should, and making progress in the sleep department, although she's still not quite where I would like her to be. She usually wakes up to eat twice during the time that I am asleep. But that's much better than 3 or 4 times! She is doing great with tummy time; even though she still hates it, she can hold her head up well and even push up on her arms. she rolls from side to side on her back, it is exciting to see her get closer to rolling all the way over.

She is so good at grabbing things! She is lightning fast and is great at putting everything in her mouth. Though this toy just happened to be lined up perfectly, no grabbing effort required :)

She is getting stronger and stronger and will be able to sit unsupported soon. She so much prefers to be able to be up and looking about at the world. When she accomplishes sitting life will be much more entertaining for her I think!

Love that hair! She looks like she belongs in the cast of Jersey Shore heh heh.

Things we love about Soleil:

Her beautiful smile :) She is so happy and smiles all the time!
Her cute cute little sounds and noises. We love to hear her "talk"
She loves to watch Noelle play
She loves to watch Mommy cook
Her favorite way to sleep is snuggled up next to her Daddy
How her little legs just kick all the time...
...Unless she is bringing her feet up and grabbing her toes, which happens a lot too!
How she "grumbles" when she is getting tired, bored, or upset. It is just too cute.
She always wants to hold my hand when we are in the car. It's a bit of a stretch, but we work it out :)
She loves to be (gently) tossed all about and bounced all around.
How much joy and happiness she brings to our little family!

2011-08-13T22:08:00.001-07:00

A video of our girlies. If you aren't family, this will prob be a bit lengthy, but I love it :) (For fun, reference back to the "Noelle 'talks'" post in May, 2009. They are almost exactly the same age)

3 Months Already!!

2011-08-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

At the parade :) I love this picture. It looks like she's dancing at her own little private party in her stroller.

We had a little photo shoot at Grandma's house with our new camera!!

My goodness where has the time gone?! Our sweet little ladybug turned 3 months old on Thursday. She is such a joy to have in our family! It is so fun to watch her grow and change :) She is still quite big; she is very long for a 3 month old! With her size (she is wearing 6 month clothing) and her hair she looks like she should be crawling around already! She's not quite to that yet ;) But she does love to "talk" to anyone who will listen. She also loves blowing raspberries still, and she is starting to use her little abdominal muscles to try and sit up. She hates being on her tummy, but has started making little side-to-side roll-y movements when she is laying down. She loves to kick her legs like crazy, just like Noelle did. Today she actually was scooting herself around a bit from the intensity of the kicking :) She is still as smiley and happy as can be, we love her so dearly. She also still wants to eat every 3 hours, night or day :( This makes for one tired mommy, but she is just so cute I can't really be upset about it. She loves watching all the things Noelle does, and she also loves watching mommy cook or bake in the kitchen. She also loves to buddy up with her daddy and look out at the world from the height of his arms. She really is our little sunshine!

Heartbreak

2011-08-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend of mine on facebook posted a link to a blog. It was about a family whose baby girl was in the final stages of liver failure. She was diagnosed with liver failure at 3 months, and just turned 7 months. She'd been fighting for 4 long months. Her skin was completely discolored from so little liver function. Her belly was huge and distended from swelling and an enlarged liver. But in the before pics, she reminded me a lot of Soleil.
When I went to bed last night, the latest news was that there might be a donor match for her. I prayed so hard all night. I knew that Heavenly Father had a plan for her, but I just wanted so badly for that plan to be the healing of this sweet baby girl. However, this afternoon I found out that she passed away overnight. This family is completely unknown to me; I am a complete stranger to them. But I think my heart broke into a million pieces for them. It just feels absolutely devastating. Sometimes matters of the heart just make no logical sense I guess.
I think part of the reason is that I know I will be losing loved ones soon. My Grandpa Williams was just diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and is not expected to survive to Christmas. My Grandpa Gau's health has been failing steadily for a couple years, and it seems like his time is not far away either. I have never lost someone I was very close to before. Both of these men are enormously important to me. I am not ready for either of them to be gone.
I think another reason is that this little baby girl reminds me a lot of Soleil. Just in her smile and the little personality that seems to radiate through her pictures. She just is adorable. And, of course, there's the fact that, as a mother, I think I would die if I ever lost one of my children. I can't imagine it.
I have read several stories recently that have been similar to this. But this one in particular has quite shaken me up. Oh my heart is breaking for this family. If you have time, and a lot of tissues, here is the link to their blog. Start in May and go from there.

I Just Wanted To Say...

2011-07-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

That I LOVE being a mother! I have never experienced anything so fulfilling. There are things I used to do, sans children, that I miss sometimes. But I can easily do without those things because I get to be a mother to my sweet angels. I truly think my girls are angels. Their little souls just shine so brightly in their faces every day, like little rays of heaven on this earth. It makes it very easy to forget the frustrations that also come from being a parent :) I'm sure every mom feels this way, but I feel so blessed every day to have the privilege of being mommy to these angels from heaven entrusted to my care. Anyway, I just wanted to say.

Statistics

2011-07-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had Soleil's two-month checkup. Everything went well; she is nice and healthy. She has been dealing with some constipation issues lately, and her doc gave me some good tips to help deal with that without having to use laxatives or suppositories. Other than that she is doing great! She had her first round of immunizations too. Man I really don't like having to watch my little ones get poked. It is just so hard knowing that they have no faculties for dealing with it, and they do not understand at all why they are suddenly in such pain. Fortunately, they forget pretty soon :) Her legs did start to ache at the injection sites a few hours later so we've been giving her some pain meds, but she has been handling everything just fine. And now for the fun part:
Weight and Height Stats!!

Soleil weighs 12 lbs 6 oz and is 24 inches long. That puts her in the 90th percentile for weight, and the 95th for height!! Man, I knew she was bigger than Noelle was for sure, but I didn't know she was that big :) At this same age Noelle was about the 6th percentile for weight and the 24th for height. We are loving our chunky little girl though. As a breastfeeding mother, it was always very stressful to me that Noelle was so small. I was so worried that I wasn't feeding her enough, or that I wasn't making enough milk for her. So I am loving being able to just relax and enjoy Leilei's sweet personality instead of stressing all the time about nutrition. We love her so much! She is just the perfect little addition to our happy family :)

Two Months!

2011-07-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today is my sweet little Leilei's 2-month birthday! :) In some ways it seems like it's been much longer than that, but in other ways it doesn't feel possible that my tiny little baby (who is not so tiny anymore) is already two months old! Soleil is such a happy addition to our family! She is still so smiley, it melts me every day. She is so fun to play with, and Noelle loves talking to her and coming up with ways to entertain her. Noelle also loves listing everyone in our family, and every time she gets to Soleil she nearly yells LADYBUG!
We are having so much fun as Leilei becomes more and more awake and alert. She is doing really well with holding her head up and figuring out that her hands belong to her :) She loves to look all around, and I absolutely love her little baby coos and the cute sounds she makes. Her hair just keeps getting longer, and is clearly growing in blonde :) On her eyes we are still undecided. I think they may go hazel, how pretty would that be! She has such a lovely tan complexion that I thought would fade, but it keeps hanging around. Of course, we think that we have made one of the loveliest beings on the planet lol.
I'm finally feeling human again and am loving that she is getting into a better sleep schedule. Erik is still having to work a lot, so us 3 girls just spend our days having as much fun as we can find!

More Summer Fun!

2011-07-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

Can I just say that we are absolutely loving being close to family and friends? It is so very wonderful. I feel like we haven't been doing a whole lot this summer, but looking back at pictures I realize how untrue that is, and how blessed we are to have so many wonderful people to spend time with! We have been swimming lots and lots with family and friends, we have been to the zoo and to a parade. We have had barbeques and celebrated the 4th of July. We have done lots!

At the American Fork Steel Days parade. Noelle always has so much fun playing with her cousin Anya, even if the sun is beating down!

All ready for 4th of July fireworks! This year was fun finally getting to be with family! We had a BBQ with my family, then lit off fireworks in the streets with a bunch of neighbors. On our drive home, it was so beautiful to see all the fireworks in the air, and from the freeway we could see several cities doing their shows. Sandy city was doing theirs right by our house, so we pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and watched their show too! It was really good. I had been kinda bummed that we didn't get to see a big fireworks show this year, since Noelle loved them so much last year, so it was the absolute perfect way to end our evening :)

Cute patriotic little girlies

All the Gau cousins having a good time :) So fun to have these little girls!

At the Hogle Zoo with friend Felicity. These girls always have such a good time together! Again, we are so blessed to have so many friends and family to spend time with!

Riding the carousel with Tia Krysta :)

Lots of swimming! I have been really bad at getting pics of all of the people we have gone swimming with, but here are just a couple.

A Jam-Packed Week

2011-07-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

The week after Leilei's blessing was so much fun! Erik's sister and her family were in town most of the week, and we made the most of it! Then the next weekend is when my grandparents came to visit. The pics aren't in order, but here's what we did:
We went to Lagoon! It was SO SO SO much fun. Erik and I both agreed that it was one of the most perfect days we have ever had. Noelle loved all the rides, which was surprising, we thought she would hate them. She also loved running through the fountain :) And Soleil was just perfectly good all day, no fussing at all. I only ended up going on 4 "adult" rides, but I've never had so much fun at an amusement park just watching my dear little Noelle have such a wonderful day!
We played in the sun! Noelle had such a blast having all of her Thurman cousins together, and finally being old enough to really run around with them :)
We went to a museum! It was just a little museum that showed the history of the South Jordan area, but it was lots of fun for the kids, they had all kinds of displays that kids could play with.
We went to Wheeler Farm! Another day that Noelle just loved running around with her cousins and seeing all the animals.
We celebrated Father's Day and my Grandma Gau's birthday! What a perfect way to end a great week!

Getting ready to blow out the candles ha ha :)

Grandpa loves fresh peach pie, so of course that's what he got for Father's Day!

Erik and I decided to take my grandparents out to Rodizio Grill as a way to say thank you for all the things they have done for us. It was yummy and we had a great time!

I LOVE this picture. Brigham is the oldest of the Thurman cousins, and Noelle just adores him. She loves to do whatever he does, and every time they visit she asks about him for the whole next week. and he is so patient and good with her, letting her tag along and helping her out. Here they are at Wheeler farm, waiting for the tractor to go by so they can go look at some chickens :)

At the fun museum

Playing in the sun!

More fun at Wheeler farm! From this picture you would think that they had cages to put your kids in!

LAGOON!!!

Leilei's Blessing

2011-07-11T08:22:00.001-07:00

Since we were still so new to our ward (we actually hadn't even been there yet when we wanted to bless Soleil) we just decided to have a private family blessing at my mom's house. She was blessed on the 12th of June. It was very nice, and Erik gave her a very sweet blessing. And fortunately he gave her the name that we both picked out for her instead of coming up with something else ha ha. She wore the same dress that Noelle did, and had the same flower bow in her hair. I think prob all of our girls will wear the same thing :) But I also had her wear the cutest little shoes that her Aunt Jenny made for her. They were so adorable!

One Month!

2011-07-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well we managed to survive the first month! ;) As our own little reward, we were visited by all of our family members that live far away from us! It was so wonderful to introduce Soleil to her cousins, and her Aunt Jenny and Uncle Tyler. We also got to meet the newest member of the Thurman family, little Lucy Hill who was born just after Soleil. I'm so excited for these little girls to grow up together!
We also got to see my Grandma and Grandpa Gau, who came up to visit for Father's Day. It was so good to see them! We have missed them dearly. We used to live so close to them and always got to see them at least once a month. In the months before we moved it was almost every other week, so we really missed spending time with them.
Soleil didn't have a 1-month check-up, but at 3 weeks she weighed 10 lbs 1 oz, so I figure she was prob around 11 lbs at her one month mark. She is growing so quickly! Noelle was always such a serious child, so I was very surprised when Soleil started social smiling right around 4 weeks old, and she hasn't stopped since! She is such a very smiley baby, and we just love it to pieces :D

Our smiley little girl!

With Great-Grandpa Gau, lol love that face!

Snuggling Great-Grandma Gau

The three Thurman babies born this year: Soleil in the middle, Isaac Prescott on her right- born in the end of January, and Lucy Hill on her left- born at the end of May

Going out to eat. I haven't been cooking a whole lot lately, but it is definitely getting better!

We love our little Ladybug!

Cousins!

2011-05-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

These girls are so cute together! Noelle and her cousin Anya love to play together, and Krysta occasionally likes to get in on the action too ;)
Sorry the video turns sideways. In my tired state I got stupid with the camera.

Going On 3 Weeks...

2011-05-31T15:59:00.000-07:00

...And I am tired. Sheesh. I forgot about how exhausting it is to have a newborn. And now I have an older child. (Who is currently doing something that sounds very ominous in her bedroom, but I am too tired just now to get up off the couch and investigate.) Which means I don't get to "sleep when the baby sleeps". Lol. People have actually given me that advice again this time around. Ok, and what exactly shall I do with my two-year-old while myself and the baby are sleeping? Yes, I'm cranky too. I don't really remember what pics I have on my camera right now, so how bout I'll take a look through and see what I feel like posting? K? K.

We were being too loud I guess

Ready for your close up?

She has the best smiles! They are mostly just gassy smiles, but they are bright rays of sunshine anyway :D My favorites are when she just goes all out and gets the biggest, gummy grin on her face. She looks like she's just heard the funniest joke or opened the best present ever.

Tia Krysta and the girlies. Krysta was so very kind to me yesterday and watched the girls so I could take a nap. Cause Soleil was up all during Noelle's nap, and when she finally fell asleep, Noelle woke up. My sister is an angel.

Ok Maybe They're Not Identical...

2011-05-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

But man they're so similar! Try and guess who is who, although it's prob pretty obvious cause the same picture of Soleil is in the last post. Ok:
Baby #1Baby #2 (sorry it's sideways and I don't wanna bother trying to fix it)

Could you guess? That's right, #1 is Leilei and #2 is Noelle. Leilei has longer, darker hair (who would have thought that was possible?) and maybe fuller lips, but it still astounds me how similar they are! And now for a 1-week update:

Soleil is doing fantastic :) She is still eating very well and really sleeping at night very well for a newborn, I think. She's already gained back any weight she lost after birth and we are having a fun time enjoying her sweet little personality. And doing her hair Elvis style.

Soleil Aneese Thurman

2011-05-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

She is here, she is here! Our sweet little Soleil (So-lay) Aneese Thurman was born May 11, 2011 at 2:21 pm. She weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long :) And she is just perfect! All us girlies! Noelle was quite happy to see me again, thought her little sister was pretty interesting, and even got a new shirt that says "I'm the big sister!"

My little "Plug-in" baby. She had to be on bili-lights for days cause of jaundice. More info on that below :)

A nice close-up :) Soleil and Noelle seem like identical twins, just two years apart. I've never seen such similar babies that weren't twins!

Getting her first bath! We've made it kind of a tradition now that Daddy gives the first bath. Maybe everybody does that, I don't know. Soleil LOVED having her hair washed, but wasn't too thrilled about the rest of it :)

It was such a relief to finally hold her in my arms and look at her sweet face! She is so wonderful. Her name means sun in French, and she really is our little sunshine, which has been nice with all this rainy weather!

Now, if you want the birth story, keep on a-readin! It might be kinda gross if you aren't a mother/expecting mother.

Soleil was such a sweet, obliging little baby. My due date was May 10th, but she was a very good little girl and stayed in mommy to let Erik and I walk at our Graduation on Sat, May 7th. We really appreciated it, but once graduation was over, we were ready for her to come! We graduated on Saturday, and had to move the very next Saturday! So we were pretty anxious for her to get here.

Unfortunately, she didn't really want to come right after graduation, which would have been perfect. She didn't come Saturday. Or Sunday. OR Monday. OR Tuesday. On Tuesday I had a Dr appointment. My doc knew we needed to move Saturday, so he scheduled for us to be induced the next morning at 7am (which, I found out is kind of a treat. They schedule most inductions for the middle of the night. I was a VBAC and I guess nobody wants to potentially be called into the hospital for an emergency C-section in the middle of the night, so they schedule VBACs for the morning :) She didn't come Tuesday night, so Erik and I went in Wednesday morning for me to be induced.

My Dr also knew that I wanted to have a natural, unmedicated birth, so the plan was that he would break my water and see if that got things going before we tried drugs. I was already dilated to almost a 4 when we got there, and Leilei was super low in my pelvis so things looked good. They broke my water and contractions started immediately. I was handling them pretty well. They weren't too strong yet and were about 5 minutes apart. However, after an hour I guess I had not made any progress in dilating, so I had to have pitocin.

They hooked me up and BAM, that stuff works really really well on me. My contractions got super hard and were only about two minutes apart-- all in the space of about 20 minutes. Then they upped the dose a little bit, and my contractions started coming one on top of the other. I would have three in a row, no rest in between, and then get about one or two minutes of rest before the next set started. It sucked. Bad. In no time I was dilated to about a 7.

So I tapped out. I had really hoped for a natural birth, but those contractions were just too much. I got an epidural, but it only worked on my right side; on my left I could still feel everything, and I was still rapidly progressing. So I had to have the epidural re-done. When they did the first one they said how much it was going to hurt to have all the tape holding the epidural in ripped off my back when I was done. Well, when they un-did it I just happened to be in the middle of a contraction and let me tell you, I didn't feel that tape come off at all.

When the second epidural was in, I finally felt instant relief. It was so peaceful, and just in time, cause on the last contraction I felt, I could tell it was time to push. So I started pushing :) It was a little difficult. I couldn't feel anything at all cause of the amount of meds I had from trying the epidural twice, but I think I did a fair job of it for being a first-time pusher. And to be honest it made pushing quite peaceful. It took about an hour and a half of pushing, but I didn't realize how much of that time would be spent waiting around for contractions to push with. My contractions slowed down and spaced out dramatically when it was pushing time. So I would push for a bit, then we would all wait around for 3 or 4 minutes for the next one. I was pushing so hard it was nice to have the rests in between.

She finally came a 2:21 :D I did have some tearing, but my doc decided not to do an epesiotomy. Either way I still ended up with stitches though. But it was all worth it as soon as she was here. They set her right on my belly and I just looked at her and held her and fell instantly in love. After about an hour of just holding her we were ready to try nursing, and she is a pro! She had it down from the start and has had no trouble since. It has been such a pleasant surprise considering all the troubles we had with Noelle. But now I have two darling daughters and I couldn't be happier :)

After her first day she had a biliruben test done for jaundice and we found out that it was quite high. Sadly, she had to go on the bili-lights. The worst part was that she could only come off them to eat and have her diaper changed. Otherwise she needed to be on them 24/7. We were anxious to follow the rules exactly, cause we didn't want to have to go home with the lights too. But it was very hard not to get to hold and snuggle her all the time. We were blessed though in that our hospital had the latest and greatest in bili-lights (one of the reasons I was adamant on having her in Cedar City is that the hospital there is so maternity/baby-oriented. They are fantastic) so she didn't have to be in one of those tanning-bed-looking-deals, just lights underneath her. However, the only size of mask they had to protect her eyes was preemie size, and she is not a preemie! They were so small and squoze her so tight that her eyes and ears got all red, puffy, and sad. She couldn't be swaddled and I couldn't hold her, so to comfort her all I could do was stand over her and put my hands on her and talk to her. We weren't going to give her a pacifier for a while because we didn't want nipple confusion (we think that's what happened with Noelle) but she needed comfort so bad that we gave one to her anyway. And she doesn't like it! Lol it is hard to get her to accept one at all, but somtimes it helped enough to fulfill those sucking needs babies have and give her some comfort.

We ended up staying in the hospital an extra day so she could be on the lights, but it was worth it because it brought her jaundice down enough that she didn't have to go home with them. Unfortunately, that meant that we stayed til Saturday, which was moving day. Saturday morning Erik, my mom, and several amazing people from our ward loaded up the moving truck, cleaned our apartment, and then left. About an hour later Leilei and I were discharged from the hospital. We hopped right into the car and drove from Cedar City to our new apartment in South Jordan. I never even saw our old place again after I left it to have her on Wednesday lol. But it does make me sad that none of our friends in Cedar got to meet her :( Now we are at our new house and loving life with our two girls :) And loving that things are a little calmer now!

One Month

2011-04-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, today marks the official start of my last month of pregnancy :) It is thrilling and scary at the same time! There is so much to do before she comes, and so much uncertainty about how life will be after, but mostly we are just getting excited to meet our new little girl. I can't wait to see what she looks like. I can't wait to get to know her and her own unique little personality. And I can't wait for Noelle to have a sister. My sister was always my best friend growing up and I hope these little girlies will be close.
I have been thinking a lot about birth plans and options, and have decided to try and go for an unmedicated, natural birth. I know a lot of people probably think I'm crazy. Actually I slightly mentioned the possibility of it once on facebook and nearly started a fistfight between two of my friends who were very adamant about their own views on the subject. The funny thing is that it was two guys lol :D Anyway, before Noelle I thought I would never want to go unmedicated, but having one baby changes your views on everything I think :) Let's see what having two does!

A Fantastic February!

2011-03-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well hello blogging world! I am taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity of spending Spring Break at Erik's parents' house with internet access to finally put up some pictures! Hooray! Pretty much the only pics I have on my camera are from the month of February so that's what I'll put up :)
February was a very busy month for us! Erik's birthday was at the beginning of the month, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures :( We spent the weekend in Boise for our sweet niece Karlee's baptism. It was great to spend time with family! Then of course there was Valentine's day. I usually go candy crazy with this holiday, but this year decided to change it up a bit and we didn't get any candy at all :) Shocking I know!
To cap off our busy month, our sweet angel Noelle turned 2 years old on the 25th! Time has flown so fast and I still find myself wondering where my baby has gone. She is very much a little girl now! It is so much fun to be her mommy, she brightens every day. It has been a little bit different having a two-year-old. Although it really hasn't been as "terrible" as I thought it would be. A least not yet :) Our biggest struggle has been getting her to eat much of anything. She had a few months where she would only eat cereal and crackers, and of course treats, but even hardly any of that stuff. We were just starting to really get worried about how skinny she was getting, when I guess she finally had enough and decided to eat again. She's still pretty picky, but the beauty of being two is that now she can understand that if she eats what we want her to eat she will get a treat when she's done, and if she doesn't eat what we want her to eat, there will most definitely be no treat :)
For Noelle's birthday she was of course a very spoiled little girl again this year. She got cards and gifts from all our family, and she got to have two birthday parties- one with friends at our house and one at my grandparents' house in St. George. She got lots of toys and clothes and books, just what a little girl needs :)
Noelle is so big and capable now. She speaks so well, has so many words in her vocabulary, and loves to try and say any new words we ask her to say. She knows all of her cousins and family members and can name them all in pictures. She runs around and dances and tries to jump, but still can't get off the ground so it looks more like she's galloping along as she runs. I absolutely adore her! Some of the things I love most about her are:

She still gives the best kisses
She doesn't understand that hugs usually include putting your arms around people, so when other kids go to give her hugs it usually freaks her out :)
She asks about what people are doing-- where's daddy?, daddy school?, daddy work?, grampa go?, things like that
She notices sirens and car honks and other various noises and ever time makes sure I notice them too.
She loves to point out any kind of truck, which there are a lot of in Cedar City :)
She knows her numbers 1-10, knows about half her letters, and knows most shapes, but still doesn't understand colors lol.
She says hi to the baby in my belly and kisses my belly, it melts me every time.
She has finally started saying "love you"! Most of the time we still have to ask her to say it, but every now and then she will just bust it out all by herself and make me want to hold her forever.
She loves to be tickled, especially by her daddy, and has the sweetest, most infectious laugh ever!

So this is a really long post, but now for the pictures (in no particular order):

She grabbed this hat and put it on all by herself. She usually hates hats so it was pretty surprising and she looked like a little hoodlum :)

Helping clean up the streamers from her birthday. She is a great helper!

Her favorite thing to do with the wagon my Grandparents gave her- read in it!

Grammy, Gampa, Noelley, and Mommy :)

Opening presents how fun!

Who doesn't love birthday cake and noise makers?

Trying oh-so-hard to blow those candles out!

She is the queen of fishy-lips. She does it all the time, mostly when she wants you to leave her alone, or when she does not want to do what you are asking her to do.

Doing beads at her birthday party. She loves it so much and loves seeing all the different colors and shapes of beads.

Blowing out her birthday candles at the party at our house. She only got one, oh well :)

Her presents were waiting for her when she woke up on her birthday. We were so excited for her to have them that we opened them before breakfast even.

She built a "fort" with her daddy and LOVES to go play in it.

In the fort with daddy. She looks so big. I usually don't go down in the fort much cause, well, it;s on the floor and my pregnant self and the floor aren't very good friends right now.

This was the first incident of beading with Grandma, the one that started it all :)

Daddy's Valentine's Day presents: Gloves and a Carbon Monoxide Detector :)

Noelle's Valentine's Day presents: bath foam, and a stuffed lion. She loves the huge eyes.

Baby Girl Thurman!

2010-12-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

Our little sack-o-bones girlie :) They assured us it was definitely a girl, though the view wasn't as good as with Noelle. It is so fun to get a little preview of how our angel is growing.

Great-Grandma and Grandpa's House!

2010-12-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

We love living so close to my Grandma and Grandpa Gau. They live in St. George and we try to see them at least once a month. Here are just a few pics of some visits with them.

Noelle loves helping my grandma water the bushes with this little watering can :) She thinks it is the neatest thing!

There is a little water play park by their house so while the weather was still summery we took Noelle to play. She had lots of fun!

Halloween, a Wedding, and Some Other Things in Between

2010-12-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

Well I finally have a chance to put up some pictures! We have had a very busy fall, with lots of fun and family. For Halloween this year Noelle was a fairy. Not super original, but I had been feeling too sick with my pregnancy to put together something really great this year. She had tons of fun though. We went to a trunk-or-treat, a Halloween carnival, AND we went trick-or-treating. Noelle LOVED getting candy from people. Usually she is so shy, but not if there's candy involved!

I love this picture. This is at the sheep parade that Cedar City does every year, which just happened to be on Halloween day this year. She looks like an angel :)

My little brother Aaron got married to his lovely bride Christina! What a cute couple they make :)

Noelle and cousin Anya. Haha neither of them was really enjoying taking pictures.

This pic cracks me up. The first time Noelle ever played with these toys this is what she did. She put each person in a mode of conveyance and lined them all up on the couch! Funny girl.

Noelle's first haircut. Her Grandma Thurman was so nice to give her just a little trim :)

Noelle LOVES LOVES LOVES stickers! We have so much fun with them, she is so cute!

I don't know why this picture is sideways, but I just think it's super cute! Love those eyes.

Holiday Score!!!

2010-11-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

Man I love the holidays! Thanksgiving was wonderful just getting to eat and spend time with family. This whole week has been great! And today I had a great time out finishing up my Christmas shopping with my dear momma. AND just happened to get an awesome holiday score too! We had just walked into Kid to Kid and were looking at some dresses and a lady came up to my mom and asked if we wanted this Crayola art easel she had. I guess she had brought it to the store to try and sell it to them but they wouldn't take it and she really didn't want it anymore and didn't want to lug it home and have it take up space there, so she just offered it to us for freeeeeeeee! I couldn't hardly believe it, I never get stuff for free. So now I have this great easel in perfect condition that retails for about $55 new that we get to give Noelle for Christmas :D :D :D What a great week it's been!

Hey Look!!

2010-11-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

<---------------------------------------
In case if you didn't know yet, we are expecting! Little Thurman baby #2 is in the way :) This pregnancy has been completely different from Noelle's, which makes me think it is a boy ;) We will hopefully find that out around the 13th of December! Our due date is May 10th, so we still have a long way to go, but I am about 14 weeks along and in my second trimester. The funny thing is that I know of 5 people (including myself) who are due withing the same week as me! So if I ever get to putting pictures up on this blog again, I'll be sure to get some when my belly starts growing and when we get an ultrasound I'll put that up too :)

Noelle's Kind of Fun

2010-10-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

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 :)

You Think Halloween is Scary? Read This!!

2010-10-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

So we live in sleepy, safe ole Cedar City. We have had a few interesting little encounters at our apartment due to the fact that we live near a bar. But we have never had anything really bad or scary happen to us. Until last night. It was so scary. I had gone to bed about 9 because I had to get up early, but Erik stayed up and I told him not to stay up late. At 1am I had to go potty and I woke up and Erik was still awake. I got up and got grouchy with him about staying up so late and made him come to bed. He got ready for bed, I got a drink and we turned off the living room lights (including bright Halloween decoration lights we had up in the windows) that were still on. We walked into the bedroom and I got into my side of our bed. Before Erik could even walk around the bed to his side, all of a sudden we heard a banging at our windows! We looked out and there was a silhouette of a person outside our bedroom windows, and he was trying to open them! It was so scary.
Erik ran out and pushed the panic button on the alarm and then called 911 and got his gun. I ran to Noelle's room and turned on her lights to make sure no one else was in there and grabbed her and ran to the living room. I guess all the lights and commotion scared the man away. But we are blessed and live very close to the police station (I will never complain about hearing sirens late at night again) and they were there in no time. They caught the man as he was trying to get away. Our apartment is the only one in a long row of old buildings that are all connected together and are full of offices and business. We suppose the man was just trying to find an easy window into an office and try to get what he could get. When he saw that people lived there it must have surprised him (even though if he had had any sense he would have looked around and seen our lights on only seconds before he tried to get in). The police were there for about two hours and we finally fell asleep at 4am.
We thought that was the end of it. Not so! We found out this morning that there was likely an accomplice who was apparently not apprehended, and that one of them had a gun! It was found thrown on the ground in a doorway of a business a few doors down as the employees showed up for work this morning. The night was scary, but finding this out has given me chills all day. I am so grateful that 1) the man did not try to get in Noelle's bedroom windows, which are right by ours, 2) the man was not able to get in at all, 3) that he just ran away instead of doing something awful, and 4) that we had such a quick police response. It was very scary, but we are all just fine. And now more anxious to graduate and move out of sleepy old Cedar City.
p.s. As we were waiting for the police to come up and talk to us Erik says "I bet you're glad I stayed up late tonight, huh?" Yes, I was very, very glad :)

Random Fun

2010-07-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

She loves her daddy. Really.

Have I mentioned my child is gorgeous? Yes, I'm bragging.

Noelley's hair is just so pretty!

Stylin' ladies,

Gangsta lady,

Loving-all-her-bows lady.

You Won't Wanna Miss This!

2010-07-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Us girls being silly at dinner time! You can hear my friend Anee and me laughing at her, she cracks us up! Be sure to listen for Noelle's little fart right after I ask her to blow a kiss ;)

Finally video of her walking!!! She is doing so well, I'm sure that she will have the confidence to do it by herself in no time! How we love this sweet little girl. She brings the sun to our lives :)

The Thundering Waters!

2010-07-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

More popularly known as Niagara Falls!!! The falls are only a half hour away from our house, so of course we had to visit! We had such a fun time! We only stayed on the American side, but there is a state park there and a lot of things to do. We went to the aquarium, Noelle loved seeing all the fishies in the tanks. We rode the Maid of the Mist boat all the way up to the base of the Horseshoe Falls. Noelle loved being on the boat and I was grateful for those lovely blue ponchos. Then we watched a movie about the history of the falls, and walked on a boardwalk called the Cave of the Winds up to the base of the American Falls. Again, I was thankful for ponchos (yellow this time) and the nice foam sandals they give you so your shoes don't get soaked (which they did on the boat). It was such a wonderful and nice day, everyone was happy and enjoying themselves. We had a great time!
The Cave of the Winds boardwalk. And lovely yellow ponchos :)

Wow we are so pretty :{

Canada on the right, American falls on the left!

On the Maid of the Mist boat.

That's the American falls in the background

The captain of the boat took this lovely family picture for us :)

The funniest thing happened at the aquarium! I had walked by this tank before Noelle and Erik and had seen all the big fish swimming all around in it. When I came back, Noelle was standing at the glass looking at the fish, and they were all on the other side of the glass looking at her! You can only see three of them in this pic, but there were about 7 of these monster fishes all piled on the other side of the glass staring at her. It cracked me up!

Riding the trolley.

Independence Day!!!

2010-07-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

What a fun weekend we had for the 4th of July!!

On Sunday after church we had a company BBQ with all of the APX people we are working with this summer. Since we all live in a couple different places it was fun to have everyone together to talk and play and have fun. The BBQ was at a beach, but sadly the beach and water were so gross and smelly that we could not go swimming!!! And it was sooooo hot and sticky, but we managed and had a good time. (I don't have nay pics of the bbq :( but might tomorrow)

After it cooled off a bit we picked one of the many free fireworks shows offered around the area, and I'm pretty sure we picked the best one! It was the best and most fun show I have been to in a long time, they did great! We went with our friends Zach and Anee, and Tristan and Sasha. Noelley did a great job staying up late and she loved the big pretty fireworks. It is so much fun to have her to celebrate holidays with!
Laughing at daddy :)

Eating Michealangelo. He was delicious!

Just waiting for it to get dark...

Walking down the big fun hill. Noelle is getting very good at walking but still doesn't quite have the courage to do it by herself :(

The fireworks show was at the University of Buffalo campus and as we were walking back to the car we saw this big bronze statue of a buffalo. We just couldn't resist going for a ride :D

On Monday morning our ward had a breakfast that wasn't quite early enough to beat the heat (that week ended up being the hottest Buffalo has seen for a while) but was still fun. There was a flag ceremony and free food, and you know we can't turn down free food!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!

2010-07-05T19:09:00.001-07:00

Yes my friends, we have a winner for the First Word contest!!
Noelle's first real word was: (drumroll please).........
EAR!!!!!!
Yes, that's right, she can say ear :) It's so cute she has to work so hard to get the "r" on the end but she does it and she knows exactly what an ear is.

A couple people guessed ear, but the first one was my friend Katy Wilbur!! She will receive a very special prize from me! Thanks everyone for voting, this was fun :D

First Word

2010-07-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

So Noelle has said her first REAL word that is not baby talk and actually relates only to the object that the word is and is not randomly babbled out for fun. It is an actual word with an actual meaning and it means the same thing to her as it does to the rest of the English-speaking world!!! Any guesses what the word is?????
Whoever guesses the right word will receive a wonderful prize specially from/made by me :)

Hint: It starts with "E"

War in Buffalo

2010-06-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

We went to a civil war battle re-enactment!!! I've always wanted to see one and now I have :) This particular one was the battle for the Erie courthouse (yeah I know, the Confederate army actually got some troops this far north). It was kinda small, but still interesting. after the battle we looked around the museum that was hosting it. They have moved a lot of old buildings from the area to the museum grounds for restoration and preservation and they made a little village out of them all for the battle. It was fun. And of course, we forgot to get a family picture :(

The Rebels!

Moving some troops (in vain!)

We're winning!

We win! After the battle all the actors lined up and shot their guns and whatnot. The cannons were super loud during the fight, but surprisingly Noelle was not bothered by them or the gunshots.

Spectators. In pretty dresses.

This is called a crazy quilt. Apparently they were all the rage in the late 1800's. Basically you plan out this crazy mismatch of a quilt, then you embroider all the seams with different patterns, and for good measure embroider all sorts of flowers and animals onto the patches. And the nicer the fabric scraps you used, of course the more affluent you were. The museum had several of these on display, they were really neat to look at.

A Summer Misadventure

2010-06-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

Last week Noelle, Anee, and I all decided to go to a couple of the Karpeles Manuscript Museums that are in downtown Buffalo. Just our luck, we went on Monday, the one day they are closed :) However, while driving to get to the museums, which were themselves very cool old buildings, we noticed so much interesting old architecture in the area. So instead of wasting a trip we decided to walk around and take pics of all the cool buildings and homes we found. I know this is a lot of pictures, but this is only about a tenth of all the pictures I took! It ended up being a very fun way to spend the afternoon :D

Above and below are pics from the same church. It was so amazing! You could tell it was built with absolute love and care by the people who would be worshiping there. I have LOTS of pics from this one building alone and if I was a professional photographer I could probably live my whole life just taking pictures of all the different details on this church.

Who would not want to live in this house?!?!

Or this one?

This tree was so big, I'm sure I looked pretty silly bending all different ways to try and get it all in one shot.

This fountain was on the grounds of another building we loved. We had to go in a gate and walk up a drive to see it, but all the gates were open, so we figured no one would probably get mad at us ;)

Above and below are from the same building, another old and awesome church! The fun thing about the area we live in is that there are old church houses EVERYWHERE!

This was and still is a Red Cross building. They have a new building built in the back of this one, but I'm so glad they didn't just tear this down and rebuild over it. The architecture was so pretty.

If you want to see all the pics we took I'll put them all up on my facebook. There really was so much!

Funny!!!

2010-06-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

So my sister, Krysta, is a security guard at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. She works the night shift and her job is apparently very top secret ;) but she just posted this little gem on Facebook and I thought it was too funny not to share!

So i found a dead pigeon on the temple roof at work and went to go tell one of the custodians..
Me: excuse me, there is a dead pigeon on the roof that needs to be cleaned up
Female Custodian with a look of terror : There is a dead patron on the roof??? (Patron is person attending the temple)
Me: NO,No, a dead PIGEON
Custodian with a look ...of relief: oh a pigeon, i thought you wanted me to go clean up a dead body lol

Haha feel free to laugh for like 20 minutes now :)

Like a Little Fish in the Sea!

2010-06-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

FIRST TIME SWIMMING!!!!!!

Ok so I took her swimming a little last year but this year the pool opened the Saturday before Memorial Day and so I took Noelle real swimming for the first time. I thought she would really dislike it cause the water was pretty chilly, but she LOVED it! We have gone every day we can since, weather permitting :)

(This might look like an upset face, but it's actually a smile)

Look at how neat the water is!

Getting ready to go!

Erik is doing great this summer. The summer started a little bit rough but things have picked up tremendously. He is kept very busy which is very good, but we don't get to see him a whole lot lately. But that's the name of the game in the summer :)

Summertime Fun!

2010-06-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

Well after the first two weeks the rain stopped here in good 'ole Buffalo and we have been enjoying ourselves! Our days are very lazy and relaxed, but we are having lots of fun together!

I found this beanbag at the goodwill and Noelle loves it! It's a little deflated and just her size :)

Noelle can stand up and get around and do pretty much whatever she wants now, but she simply does not want to walk! She just loves to crawl all over, but then when she gets to where she wants she is up and figuring out how to get the things I try to keep out of her reach.

First time in the sand box! She had a great time playing in the dirt :) She is playing with our friend Anee. Anee is another APX wife and is kind enough to keep us company and help us stay entertained.

So what's Noelle doing now? Noelle is just more and more fun every day! She officially has 4 teeth now! Her two front teeth are coming in and I am excited to see what her smile will be like when they grow a little more. She finally broke the 20-lb mark so it is not illegal for her to be in her car seat lol. She has officially taken her first steps too! It was a truly magical moment, but I guess not for her cause after attempting a few short times, she seems pretty determined that she like crawling a lot better than walking. If I try to get her to practice she just sits down and refuses. Oh well :) We have been going to several play dates so she can have a chance to see lots of other little kids running around and hopefully be inspired. She is learning lots of new tricks including blowing a kiss, singing "Old MacDonald", and clicking her tongue. She still loves dogs and lucky for her there are a lot in our apartment complex. She loves to watch out the sliding door and see all the people taking their dogs on walks. She loves to swim and her favorite treat is marshmallows! How we love our sweet angel Noelle!

More More More....

2010-06-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

...Videos!!!!! Hope you all enjoy a little taste of sweet Noelle :)

What's Noelle Been Up To?

2010-05-13T14:09:00.001-07:00

Truthfully not a lot since it's been so rainy, but we've been doing our best to entertain ourselves inside :)

(note, she has been a little screechy lately because both of her top front teeth are coming in at the same time. Hopefully more on that soon, but at the rate that she normally teethes, who knows.)

Shuffle Off to Buffalo

2010-05-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

If you do be sure to come visit us! Well we finally made it to Buffalo, NY after what seemed like the longest drive of my life. Our little Lolly actually did quite well, but nonetheless it was a very long 3 days of driving.

We left Cedar City at 5:30 Friday morning and had gotten no more than 20 miles down the road when Erik noticed that the box tied to the top of my car was not secured tight enough. So we stopped for a half hour while he completely undid it then did it again. We got back on the extremely icy road (I've only seen it icy like that once in the whole 4 years we've lived in Cedar) and crawled into Beaver, UT where we had to stop to feed ourselves some breakfast. After that the day had started warming up some and pretty soon we were able to go freeway speeds :) We did pretty well all the way to Vail Pass in Colorado, which just happened to be closed because of a blizzard and multi-car pile up.

Our options were to wait for an anticipated VERY long time for it to re-open, or take an alternative route. We took the alternative route, not realizing that it would take us 2 hours to travel what would have taken us 10 minutes on the freeway. Of course, by the time we completed said alternate route and got back up to the freeway, it was open again. Because of this serious delay and the distance we still had to travel that day, we didn't get to stop and see my friend Eric who lives in Frisco, CO, and we didn't get to our hotel until 3 am. That day we were on the road for nearly 21 hours.

On Saturday we got a late start to the day because of our exceedingly late night before, but we still hoped to make it to Cincinnati that night, and stay with our friends the Caspers. We didn't make it. When we started our trip we really didn't realize how much time Noelle would need off the road, and just how exhausting it would be for us. We drove as far as we could as late into the night as we could, but still had to stop somewhere in Indiana about 3 hours away from Cincinnati :(

On Sunday morning we got a late start, again, but drove as fast as we could towards Cincinnati, only to find that we got there right as the Caspers were in church. We stopped to visit with our friends Tiona and Carl Richards (thank you so much for feeding us, it was wonderful to see you guys!), and by the time we left their house we had no time to go back and visit the Caspers (I'm so sorry we couldn't stop and see you guys! The timing was just crappy :( But we will definitely be able to stop on our way home!), as our friends live 45 minutes apart! More friends that we didn't get to see because of time!

It was super late when we left Cincinnati and Erik and I were getting very tired of driving, but somehow we made it the 7 or so hours up to Buffalo and got here at 2 in the morning. We brought in just our suitcases and went right to sleep! It seriously took us the rest of the week to recover enough that we didn't feel exhausted when we woke up every day, so I am definitely NOT looking forward to having to drive back! But we are here and so far enjoying our stay, though the weather has been very wet. Hopefully it will dry up soon and we can really experience Buffalo!

Mothers Day!

2010-05-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

The very best day! I love being able to celebrate Mother's Day! It is all thanks to my beautiful and loving angel Noelle that I am blessed enough to get to celebrate this day now! I am grateful every second of every day for her, she is such a good girl! She smiles and laughs a lot and loves to give her mommy and daddy the BEST kisses! She is so inquisitive and curious about discovering the things she can ( and can't!) do. I love her from the very tips of my toes up to the top of my heart. It is more fun than I ever could have imagined to watch her learn and grow, to love her and comfort her, to teach her and guide her, to be her mother :)

This year Mother's Day was our first Sunday our here in Buffalo, so we just mostly took it easy. On Saturday night we went out to Cheesecake Factory with our APX group, it was delicious! The next morning we went to our ward and it seems really nice, and I got a chocolate bar for being a mother! Score! After church we came home and just spent time together as a family, watching a movie and playing with Noelle. My loving family got me two Jane Austen books that I had been wanting, thank you Erik! And Erik put up with me asking him to do all sorts of things because it was Mother's Day. It was a very nice day :)

A Quarter of A Century!

2010-05-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Well I have a confession to make: On April 26th at 12:08 am I turned 25!Yes, it's true, though I swear I don't feel a day over 19! This year we did something kinda special and my dear hermanita Krysta and I had a twin party again! after complaining about it every single year growing up, we actually wanted to share a party this year :) It was so much fun and I am very grateful to everyone who was able to come, you made our night!

We got some games out so people could play if they wanted and Noelle LOVED the Mexican Train Dominoes. She carried at least one around with her everywhere she went :)

HAHAHAHA Julie and Josie :D

Friends Jeff and Felicity Wilbur :)

Dorky me

How Do You Like My...

2010-04-21T21:08:00.001-07:00

... Signature? I stole this from a friend :) It is kinda fun, I hope it works out.

Happy Five Years To Us!!!!!

2010-04-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well friends, it's true. WE HAVE BEEN MARRIED FIVE YEARS!!!!! :D
For our Anniversary this year we went out to dinner (just the two of us!) and then we did something that we have both wanted to do for a long, long time.

WE WENT AND SAW MUSE IN CONCERT!!!!!

It was absolutely perfect! We couldn't have loved it more! It was worth driving through crappy weather late at night after and not getting home til 3:30 in the morning ( then getting up to make my first class at 8). It was worth the ticket price for sure, and it was even worth missing school on Monday! It was really great to just spend some time with my best friend doing something that we both love to do that is not Noelle related, much as we love her. Sweetheart I love you! Thank you for a wonderful anniversary :)

Easters!

2010-04-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

Boy did we have an action packed Easter Day! We were staying at Grandma and Grandpa Thurman's house (Erik's parents) and luckily the Easter bunny was still able to find us! After we woke up we came right upstairs to see what we got ( which is why there are not pics of me ;)

Noelle's Easter dress. I love it so much! She looks like a little lady in it, I think.

We watched the morning session of conference at Grandma and Grandpa Thurman's, then we went out to Aunt Julie and Uncle Dustun's house for Easter lunch, afternoon conference, and an Easter egg hunt with the cousins. It was so great to see so much family! Thank you so much Julie!
Here is Lolly chillin with her Uncle Steve. They are so cool.

I can just hear her saying "Hold on a sec I just got a text."

Easter Egg Hunt!!

Cute cousin Josie. She and Noelle had tons of fun playing together.

Cute cousin Cortnee. This girl was an Easter Egg Hunt pro!

Sadly, I somehow didn't get any pics of cute cousin Kylee :( I got too caught up in the Easter Egg Hunt fun.

Yeah she's totally enjoying something yummy while I'm not looking.

We had such a great time with family, it was a wonderful Easter!

KISSES!!!!!!!
(This is how Noelle gives kisses)

(p.s. Ever since Nacho Libre, every time I think of Easter I always say it in my head as "Easters". Hence the title of this post)

Who Knew....

2010-04-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

... That cleaning the bathroom could be so fun?

Whenever I clean the bathroom I take everything off the "counters" and put it all out in the hall. I knew Noelle would get into my makeup bag, but I didn't expect the tissue box raid! It took a little more effort to clean up, but the smile on my face and joy in my heart for my sweet little girl were well worth it :D

One-Year-Old Pictures!!!

2010-04-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

Our sweet little angel! I love every single picture we got of her, even the "not good" ones :) Here are just a few for you to enjoy!

New Games for Noelle

2010-03-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

Playing in the fridge

This is fun, right?

She did this over and over again! Throw the shoes down the step then reach and pick them back up. How does she come up with these things?

Funny Little Lolly

2010-03-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah these completely crack me up :D

So my new nickname for Noelle is Lolly. I don't really know why I started calling her that, but now I can't seem to stop. Oh well. Here we have a nice exhibit of Shrek/nun Lolly.

The Big 1!!!!!!

2010-03-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Oh dear our little baby is 1 year old! What a bittersweet birthday this has been! This year has absolutely flown by for us, I hope that doesn't become a habit. For Noelle's birthday, of course she got spoiled. This little one-year-old got THREE birthday parties with THREE different cakes and THREE times as many presents. We had so much fun :D

PARTY #1-- Grandma Gau's house

I love this picture

And this one ;) Meow.

Party #2-- Great Grandma and Grandpa Gau's house.

At the first party she wasn't too sure about the cake, but by this party she had figured out what it was all about.
The frosting handprint behind her on the table cracks me up.

Party #3-- Our house, with friends.

I LOVE this girl! She could not be any cuter.

I made a strawberrry-banana jello poke and pour cake. It was really good and Erik had great ideas for helping me decorate it.

Some things I love about my dear Noelle:
The way she coos and all the sounds she makes
Big, open-mouthed baby kisses! Heart melting for sure
How she loves to feed herself
How she crawls around
She is a fiend in her walker :) (thanks again Julie!)
She can turn lights on and off
She is very obedient
How she is shy when meeting new people
Her two adorable teeth, they are so funny and cute, it makes me laugh just to see them
Her laugh is hilarious, sadly she laughs just like me!
Of course, her beautiful blond, curly locks and stunning blue eyes
I love to dance with her to songs on the radio
She gets so excited when either mommy or daddy walks through the door, I would do anything in the world for that bright, shining face!
She loves to "read" books and especially loves turning the pages
She loves brushing her teeth and eating the toothpaste

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE SWEETEST ANGEL ON THIS EARTH!

Will You Be Mine?

2010-02-19T19:12:00.000-08:00

Holidays are so much more fun when you have kids! Valentine's day was spent at my mom's house this year. Erik was wonderful and after working all day he came home with flowers and cupcakes for me ( yum!) and I got him a drill bit set. So romantic I know, but I figured if I was going to spend money I would get him something he wanted.
Our little Noelle got a balloon that she loves (and luckily is still floating!) and a cute dress and hairbows which she got to show off at church :) Hope everyone had as nice of a day as we did!

What's Noelle Been Up To?

2010-02-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Cracking mommy and daddy up...

Stuffing her face (and finally working a tooth through, though you can't see it in this pic)...

"Helping" in the kitchen...

Taking baths...

And growing long, long hair...

Playing with her toys (sometimes in drawers I guess)...

Trying to be patient with all the pictures mommy takes...

Riding ponies...

Loving her daddy...

And just being cute! How we love this girl!

Happy 26th Birthday Erik!

2010-02-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

Saturday was Erik's birthday! Unfortunately we did have to do some chores on his birthday, but we spent most of the day relaxing and having fun. It was fun to have Erik's special day and celebrate him and what a great husband and father he is. He is so smart, funny, and such a hard worker for our little family. And he is the best daddy! He loves his little Noelle very much; it warms my heart to see them together, and I am so grateful that he takes care of her every morning so I can go to school. I love you Erik!

I made him a Coca-Cola flavored cake. It really just ended up being a slightly glorified Texas Sheet cake, but it was still pretty yummy.

Noelle made him a birthday card with her own hand print and her own scribbles on it. and she got him a bag of tootsie rolls!

We went bowling for the first time as a family! Noelle couldn't bowl herself (she should prob at least be able to stand up by herself alone before we attempt anything like that) but she cheered us on. Look how small she looks sitting next to Erik! And, upon special request, we had Cafe Rio for dinner :) It was a fun day!

Happy 11 Months My Dear, Sweet Noelle!

2010-01-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

My baby is 11 months old today! Only one month of official babyhood left :( Noelle is so funny and sweet! She loves to give mommy kisses and hugs and pats on the back. She is a wonderful eater and is loving exploring new foods, especially if mommy and daddy are eating it too. She is finally learning how to stand on her own, and she loves "reading" her books and playing. She can wave hi and goodbye, and can say mama, dada, ow, and hi (except not always in the right contexts!) She really is our little bright, blue-eyed angel. This first year is just flying by!

Now tell me that doesn't look like Erik with blue eyes and curly hair!

Also, we think she is finally working on getting her first tooth in! We'll definitely keep you updated on that :)

We thank our Heavenly Father every day for our lovely Noelle Miranda!

Awesome Hair!

2010-01-24T17:22:00.000-08:00

And beautiful blue eyes to boot! What a pretty girl our angel is.

This one just made me laugh. Guess I was just a little too close with the camera.

Fun Fun Fun in the Snow and the Sun!

2010-01-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

This was Noelle's first real time in the snow, and really she didn't like it very much haha. We were only out for about 10 minutes before she had had enough, which was fine cause there's only so much you can do in the snow with a baby that can't stand or walk.

The "sled"

The slide

The snot :)

One unsure girl!

Daddy's Sense of Humor

2010-01-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Noelle definitely inherited it! We were driving home last night and we took a bit of a break. I came back to the car to this. What a crack up she is!

Weebles Wobble...

2010-01-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

And sometimes this little weeble falls down :) Noelle is finally putting some interest into standing up. She is still very wobbly and not very strong, but it is fun to see her upright.

Sgetti Sgetti Bo Betti...

2010-01-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

Noelley likes spaghetti :)

I'm Bustin' Outta Here!

2010-01-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

We had just finished changing her diaper and we left the room for just a moment and came back to this: our sweet angel peeking out at us, or trying to break free, one or the other. It totally cracked us up :) Sorry some of the pics are blurry, our camera can't seem to take the kind of quality pictures that her pretty little face deserves. I know, I am terribly conceited about my baby (but really, look at that hair!).

On a side note, Noelle pushed herself up from laying on her tummy to sitting for the first time today! We are so proud of our big girl (even if she was "supposed" to be able to do that a while ago).

Temple Square

2010-01-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

And boy was it cold! Yes, we went out in 12 degree weather to see the lights. I don't think Noelle saw much besides Erik's chest because we had her so bundled up, but maybe she'll have a better experience next year. Last year we went with the Gaus, and this year we went with the Thurmans. Despite the cold, we had a great time :)

I love that they heat the water so the fountains can keep running. This one was steaming. It made a really pretty effect with the temple in the background, which I am not really talented enough to be able to fully capture with my camera.

Christmas!

2010-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

We got the internet at home today (woooo hoooo!) so I'm actually blogging again! We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas this year. It was so fun having Noelle and watching her laugh and play all day. Of course, she didn't really know what was going on, but we still had a great day. And of course, we didn't take hardly any pictures, only of Christmas morning. But besides presents with the Gau side, we also had a Williams family lunch, and spent the evening with the Thurmans. It was so wonderful to see everybody and spend time with family :)

Opening her very first present ever.

Christmas eve with the fam.

Thanksgiving... hahaha

2009-12-24T11:18:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to my Grandparents' house to visit. It was so nice to see them and spend time with them! For those of you who know Noelle, you know that she doesn't really laugh a whole lot, probably a result of seriously un-funny parents. But Great-Grandma has the magic touch!

Sicky baby

2009-11-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-11-06T08:47:00.000-08:00

I saw this on facebook and it just made me laugh. Thought I would repost it here just for fun.

Cute Kid Contest!

2009-11-04T08:05:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-10-25T13:59:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

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

Bathroom Sneak-up

2009-08-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T19:50:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-07-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-13T15:05:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-07-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-07-01T13:42:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

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 :)