What Noelle's Been Up To

Our little girl just changes so much every day! She is so much fun to play with, she has started reaching for things in front of her, like hanging toys or her feet, and her hair is long enough that I can style it in little curls or clip a bow or flower into it (thanks again Julie!). She is so happy when she wakes up every morning and just smiles and "talks" to me all morning long. She is quite a vocal baby (I think) and it is so interesting and captivating to hear all her different noises that she makes.

She loves laying on her back and kicking her legs, but she still hates being on her tummy.

Look at those cute little curls!

My First Mother's Day

Was absolutely wonderful! It was such a joy to celebrate mothers day! Erik got me a very pretty bouquet of flowers and a card, and a gift card to Target! He surprised me with it in the morning. To be honest I actually thought he had forgotten because I came downstairs kind of early and couldn't really see anything, so I was kinda bummed, but he had hidden them in the kitchen when he got home the night before so I wouldn't see them and surprised me while I was changing Noelle. It was so nice. We went to church and our ward had roses for all the moms (that's me!) and it was our first week at church here in Minnesota so we met a lot of new people. Then we came home and Erik's company had a BBQ so we had a nice evening with friends. It was such a happy day :) Mother's Day might be my new favorite holiday.

Snapshots of Noelle

I was looking through our camera the other day and I found

all these cute pics that Erik had taken of Noelle. She is so alert

and active! And absolutely adorable I think. I just had to

put them up for everyone to see :)

The Como Zoo

This is the wonderful thing about where we live. There are parks everywhere and they are all different and unique. The Como park is just a few minutes away from our house and it is huge! It has its own lake, a golf course,a little amusement park, and a zoo and conservatory, along with the regular park stuff :) Noelle and I went to the zoo yesterday with some of the other APX wives and she slept through most of it, but I had a blast! I haven't been to a zoo in ages and it was just a little one, but it was so much fun. They had a primate house with some of the neatest little monkeys I have ever seen (sorry the pics of those didn't turn out). They also had lions and tigers and snow leopards, cougars, zebras and giraffes and his really cool looking deer from africa called a kudu. They also had a giant tortiose and an aquarium with all kinds of fish, penguins, and seals and sea lions. And they had a new part that was a "rain forest" with tropical fish and snakes and bugs, all in a big room full of tropical plants. There was a sloth in there too and he was grooming himself, making sure to look good for all the crowds :)

Lazy Lions. There were two more inside that you could see a lot closer. Lions are big!

Our buddy the giraffe. I felt bad that most of the animals couldn't go outside yet because the temp here doesn't stay above 50 degrees all the time. They are all still cooped up insideGrumpy Gorilla. Yeah, I wouldn't mess with him if I were you.

Mee-inn-a-su-oh-ta

Well we made it! The drive was long and it rained non-stop all day saturday for the entire drive. Rain gets old fast when it is all you have to look at and it gets really, really old when you've been staring at it for 17 hours (however it does keep the bugs away which means no nasty guts all over the windshield). Noelle was great though and hardly fussed for the entire trip. She was such a trooper and an angel and I am so proud of her. And we are now in the land of 10,000 lakes. So far it seems like a nice place. We live in a town called Roseville that is just to the north of Minneapolis. It is pretty, and will prob be even prettier when summer gets here and the trees and plants start turning green instead of winter-dead brown. Our apartment is nice too. It is a little older with older appliances too, but it is the biggest apartment we have ever lived in. It is kinda funny that the biggest places we live in are during the summers when we only have half of our stuff :) To be honest I haven't really heard anybody speak with a crazy Minnesota accent, but most of the people I have talked to since I've been here are from Utah. The lady who checked us out at the gracery store wasn't from here either, so I will have to do a little more observing to tell if people really talk like that here. It seems like it will be a nice summer. I am excited to go see the mall of america. Noelle and I will definitely have to go there soon.

The Big Bad Doctor

Actually we love our doctor, but today Noelle had her 2 month visit and she had to get her shots. I actually had to leave the room. I couldn't watch. It made me feel sick just to even think about them poking my little baby. But she was a champ and really didn't hardly fuss at all. Just a little bit of crying, then she calmed down and went to sleep :) She was weighed too, and she is currently 9 lbs 9 oz, a full three pounds up from her birth weight. She is now in the 21st percentile for weight, instead of the 3rd like she was at birth. Yep, she's doing pretty good.

Beautiful Blessing Dress

Erik's sister Jenny made Noelle this perfect blessing dress. Thank you again Jenny! After the blessing day was over and done with I realized that we forgot to get pictures of Noelle in it, so I had to "re-create" the moment yesterday. Taking pictures is pretty easy when she's asleep :)

This is how the pictures turn out when she's not asleep.