2011

Life is moving right along! Evan has finished his classes, and I am extremely happy about that! He is going to take the Becker CPA review this semester but decided not to take the every Saturday from 8:30-5:30 class and just do the self-study. I am VERY happy about that. :-)

Christmas was, well, the usual. I wish we could skip some of the rush and craziness. It was good to see family, though. I just wish we could skip some of the rush and craziness. ;-)

Let's see. I haven't dunked the kids in any foul water lately.

Noelle loves to yell "no," except that it comes out "mo." She mostly screams at Nathan. I turned around earlier today and she had her hand in the "halt" position while she was screaming "Mo, mo, mo!" at the top of her little lungs. Our de-escalate key word is "Awww- weee." As in, Noelle is reaching out her hand to slap Nathan, and Mommy says, "Awwww-weee, Bubba." The slapping hand calms into a petting hand (most of the time).

Nathan loves his trains and books. He is a joy to be around...until too many people come around or he gets wound up. Then I wonder why my child bounces around making obnoxious noises and totally getting in everyone's personal space. And he doesn't listen. Period. Probably a big reason why Christmas wasn't just peachy. We were in Texas the whole time. :-)

When we were in Texas, our most favorite times with Nathan were when we were outside. Evan took him on long walks twice, and I took him once. We walked through the pasture and down to the barn. He got to run on the hay bales, and he talked my ear off the whole time. I absolutely love being with him when we're by ourselves. He has wonderful questions, and he's so considerate. I think maybe one of his issues with larger crowds is that Noelle is always doing crazy things and getting laughed at, but when he tries to do those same things, well, he's obnoxious. Fact of life, yes, but still difficult to swallow.

Noelle has completely lost her shyness, unless she's tired. ha She runs around growling and screaming and generally making a LOT of noise. Did I mention the fact that she's loud? Yes, she is. She loves music and dancing (her dancing looks like someone trying to stomp on a thousand ants), and she loves to be the center of attention. We were at a restaurant on New Year's Day, and I was quite concerned that I was going to have a fussy child on my hands since we didn't sit down until 7 in the evening and she had been up since 1:40 that afternoon. She is also a child who is not always content to sit in a high chair for too long. Anyway, she spotted a group of people across the aisle from us and began staring at them. They played around, hiding behind their menus, for a few minutes and moved on. She did not. She wanted them to keep looking at her. So for the continuation of the meal she fake laughed and hollered periodically to let them know where she was. And she kept on, and on, and on. The. Whole. Time. I think she was hysterical, literally.

Well, that's all I can handle right now. Off to bed!