Weekend Recap | Celebrating 33!

I haven't done a weekend recap in a while.  Probably because our weekends have been pretty low key recently, spending the majority of them at home in sweatpants.  But this weekend was my birthday, so I figured it was worth documenting.  It started on Friday (my actual birthday), with Chris taking the day off.  Noah still had school, so after dropping him off, Chris and I went to breakfast just the two of us.  

We then headed over to the mall where I had some returns to do as well as a few things I wanted to try on.  It's rare for Chris and I to go shopping together, especially without Noah.  It was nice to be able to take our time and be able to get Chris' opinions on things.  A few weeks ago I started experiencing some minor problems with my phone (that's over 2 years old now).  While we've been discussing upgrading eventually, I was surprised when Chris suggested we do it right then.  Picking out the rose gold iPhone 7 was the easy part, but our visit wasn't without difficulty.  We ended up spending quite a few hours at the apple store this weekend, but that's for another post.  The important part is that everyone we dealt with was super friendly and helpful and we are all set for the week! 

^^^ while we didn't buy the $250,000 Bentley, we did do our own fair share of shopping ;) 

Chris then picked Noah up from school and took him to pick out some flowers and cupcakes for my birthday.  Noah usually gravitates toward the artificially neon colored flowers, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chris was able to lead him to these pretty tulips this year ;)  The cupcakes he picked out were a big surprise, and I had to wait until after dinner to find out what they were!

We headed back to the mall to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my parents.  But first, we had to make a pitstop at the Apple store... again!

After dinner, we all went back to our house for cupcakes, singing, and gifts.  Noah was so excited to show me that he picked out Paw Patrol cupcakes for me.  I love how he gets so into it... last year he picked out Ninja Turtle cupcakes.  While my new phone had been "set up", I still hadn't synced it with my laptop to restore my last backup.  I totally forgot that Chris had taken photos at dinner and doing cake using my new phone.  So I lost all those photos when I hit to restore the latest backup without importing the new photos first.  I was so upset that I made such a silly mistake!  I'm usually really good at backing up my photos and pride myself on documenting all these little moments.  Thankfully my mom did have this one photo (and proof that Chris was taking photos) and even took some video.  But I was still disappointed that I didn't have any photos of us blowing out the candles.  So we decided that we would do it again the next night and make sure to back those photos up ;)

On Saturday, Noah got to take Chris to his school for "Daddy Day".  They spent 45 minutes in his classroom, going through their daily routine, doing a craft, and playing with all his favorite toys.  Chris looks forward to this day all year, and Noah said it was the "best, best daddy day ever!".  Meanwhile, I met up with a friend for manicures and pedicures.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning :)

Then it was one more trip to the Apple store before heading home to relax and build Lego towers.  My mom then came over to watch Noah so Chris and I could go out for a birthday dinner, just the two of us.  But first, we set the cupcakes up again, my boys sang to me once more, and this time we actually got some photos of it all.  Chris and I went to Ruth's Chris for dinner, which has sort of become a birthday tradition.  Dinner was delicious as usual, and we were still home in time to do bedtime with Noah.  This birthday dinner also counted as our "March Date".  

After a wonderful two days of birthday celebrating, I was happy to have a super low key Sunday.  I went without makeup and contacts and stayed in my pajamas all day.  I even got a few hours to myself when Chris took Noah to family swim.  Besides having a headache, it was the perfect way to end my birthday weekend!  

33 on 3/3

Today is my 33rd birthday.  While not the technical term of a "golden birthday", I consider this to be a pretty special one since I'm turning 33 on 3/3.  Threes have always been lucky for me because of my birthday, especially 33.  So while to most, 33 is a rather uneventful age to turn, it's a pretty cool birthday for me!  And how fortunate that my birthday just happens to fall on a Friday this year.  Noah has school this morning, but Chris took the day off, so we are heading to breakfast just the two of us. We have a few celebration dinners planned and I fully plan to enjoy a weekend all about me.. who says birthdays can't still be fun as you get older ;)  I'll be sure to recap all the fun details on Monday!  In the meantime, here are 33 things you might not know about me.  

1. I was born in a leap year, so I guess I could have easily been born on leap day. When I was little I thought that would have been really cool. 

2. I love to organize. I love the Container Store. I often end up changing my organization methods to keep things fresh. It's funny though when Chris can't find the new place I'm storing something. 

3. I hate to clean bathrooms. It used to be toilets but now it's showers. I put it off for longer than I should.

4. I like to purge just as much as I like to shop. Sometimes I wish I could rent home decor so I could switch it up more often. 

5. When growing up I would keep my room spotless and organized by leaving anything I didn't want in my room out in the hallway or in my parents' room for them to "get rid of" or store. 

6. I hate to dust. Noah loves it though, or at least he loves the Swiffer duster and Pledge spray! 

7. Vacuuming is one thing I don't mind. But when I was pregnant even vacuuming winded me. I had a high risk pregnancy and was even told not to do it. It was kind of nice to have Chris take over. I actually was surprised to realize how easy it is after I wasn't pregnant! 

8. If there was one food I could eat every day, even every meal, it would be cheese! 

9.  I even put shredded cheddar cheese on my pasta with meat sauce.  

10. And I actually prefer leftover pasta. I like to fry it in a frying pan... it gets some nice crispy pieces. 

11. I've gone years without drinking Diet Coke or any caffeine for that matter (when trying to get pregnant and while pregnant) and actually thought it tasted weird after not having it for so long. And yet, I'm once again addicted to it and get a headache when I don't have one in the afternoon. 

12. I never used to like guacamole until I had it at Chipotle... now I'm addicted and can eat the whole serving all on my own no problem! 

13. I'm not very athletic. When someone throws a ball at me I legitimately get nervous that I won't catch it and feel embarrassed. 

14. If there's one sport I like it's swimming. I was starting to get good in 4th grade when we moved and didn't join a swim club in our new town. I'm one of the few moms who actually gets fully wet at the pool and even wears goggles because I truly enjoy swimming with Noah rather than just watching.

15. I hold my pencil "wrong". Teachers would correct me and I finally learned to change how I held it when they were watching and then go right back to how I liked. I have very nice handwriting so I figured there wasn't any harm.

16. I'm not allowed to donate blood. Since I was born in England during certain years, there's a "chance" I could have had mad cow disease so I'm not allowed to donate. I always felt so embarrassed telling people why I couldn't do it. 

17. I love math. But geometry confused me. Maybe it's having to explain how I got to an answer that I thought was just common sense. 

18. I love puzzles. Jigsaw and things like sudoku and this game. 

19. I remember playing backgammon whenever visiting my Grandma. I wish I had someone to play it with now. 

20. My eyesight is pretty bad. I started wearing glasses in 5th grade. I wear my contacts whenever I leave the house. But I secretly love weekends when we don't leave the house and I wear my glasses and no makeup.

21. I am not a night person. Not sure I'd call myself a morning person but I really don't like staying up later than 11. And most nights I'm asleep by 10. I really like to get at least 8 hours. 

22. I'm a horrible sleeper and always have been. Sleepwalking and night terrors. While Noah hasn't had any serious episodes yet I already see signs of him being just like me. Another reason I just feel more comfortable co-sleeping with him. 

23. In high school I went on two "class" trips to Europe. At the time I wasn't a US citizen yet so I traveled on my Canadian passport and had to go through customs separately. On our second trip another girl had a Portuguese passport so I had someone to go through with. We always got through faster than our American classmates. 

24. While I've traveled to many countries in Europe, there are many places in the US that most people have been to that I have not. Like Vegas and Chicago. 

25. I used to be an accountant, an auditor specifically. So every year from January-April we weren't allowed to take anytime off. So I always told Chris that once I wasn't working that I wanted to take vacations in the winter months. While we aren't doing that this year, we have taken some amazing ones and plan to do it again in the future. 

26. I like the sand but not the ocean. I definitely prefer a pool for actual swimming. 

27. I hate bugs, rodents, snakes, and really any reptiles! 

28. I'm addicted to chapstick and have to have one on me at all times.  I have one in almost every room in our house.  I used to keep one in my front pocket. Now I usually have a purse on me. 

29. I didn't have a videographer at our wedding. At the time I had been in two wedding parties where I felt like the videographer made people uncomfortable by recording random conversations and making people act fake. But now that I love taking videos of our daily life, I really wish I had a video of our amazing day. 

30. I am such a planner that I've been known to start thinking about next year's Christmas before the current Christmas has even happened! 

31. My favorite color is purple. But If you looked at my home decor or closet you'd assume it was blue, or maybe black.

32. I prefer to hang photos over typical artwork. We have lots of gallery walls and would love to add even more!

33. I always thought I'd have 4 kids! And while I always wanted and imagined having a daughter, I only wanted one. I love boys and always preferred babysitting boys over girls. In my experience they were more fun to play with. I really do love being a boy mom. 

I'm sure there will be some duplicates, but here are 31 Things About Me from my 31st Birthday

Gift for Grandma

My mom's birthday was on Tuesday.  While I gifted her her favorite perfume, I wanted Noah to give her something a little more personal and handmade.  Noah loves doing art projects, so I knew something involving paint would be right up his alley.  And what parent/grandparent doesn't enjoy mini handprints!?!  We love doing tape resist projects, but we usually leave the shape or word blank and paint around it.  While continuing with the tape resist method, I thought it would be fun to mix it up this time and do the exact opposite.  

Handprint Heart 

Materials:
Cutting board
Painters tape
Pencil
Knife (exacto or kitchen)
Canvas or piece of card stock
Tempura paint in your choice of colors
Paint brushes
Wipes (to clean hands in between handprints)
Permanent marker

Instructions:
Place strips of painters tape across the cutting board, overlapping each piece a little bit.
Using the pencil, draw a heart on the painters tape (I simply did this by freehand).  You could use this method to make any shape you'd like.
Using the kitchen knife (or exacto knife), cut along the pencil lines, and remove the inside of the heart.
Carefully lift up the painters tape and stick it to the canvas or piece of card stock.
Using a paintbrush, cover your child's hand with the tempura paint and make 2-3 handprints with each color.  The wipes come in handy in between color changes.  When all finished, then you can thoroughly wash their hands with soap and water.
Let the paint dry, and then remove the blue painters tape.
I then wrote out a birthday message using a pencil first, and then going over it again with a black Sharpie. While this was for my mom's birthday, this would be a great Christmas or Valentine's Day gift as well.   

Noah was so proud of his painting and Grandma absolutely loved it!   Happy Birthday Mom!

Do your kids like giving handmade gifts to their grandparents?

Some Super Celebrations for a Super 4 Year Old!

This past weekend was all about our little boy turning 4!  While Noah's actual birthday was last Wednesday, and we had a breakfast celebration complete with gifts the weekend before, there was still more celebrating that needed to be done!  

On Saturday, we had a party for Noah with all of his friends at a bounce house place.  This place specializes in making sure kids have fun... they had 25 parties on Saturday and another 20 scheduled for Sunday!  We've gone to a few parties there before as well as many open gyms.  Noah absolutely loves it there and he was so excited to have his party there!  Chris was equally as excited and was right in there with all the kids the whole time.  Chris isn't the dad to just watch and observe, he's right in there playing with the kids.  Letting them tackle and wrestle with him to the point that I had to be "the mom" and come in every once in a while and say he needed a rest.  At one point they all followed him out of the bounce house as he was going to take his break!  

After bouncing for well over an hour, the kids were all sweaty and ready for some pizza.  We had a superhero theme with an Avengers table, balloons, and cupcakes.  We even had our friend make Noah a Captain America and Hulk birthday shirt and told our guests to wear their superhero shirts if they had them :)  It was a nice mix of Noah's school friends, friends we've known since Noah was a baby, and even some of my friends that I've known since middle school that also have kids!  With 18 kids, it was chaotic at times, but everyone seemed to have a really great time... especially Noah!

 ^^^ friends since Middle School!

 cupcake tower and candles from Party City

cupcake toppers from Etsy

On Sunday, we had our families come over for a birthday dinner.  My parents came, as well as Chris' parents, brother, and Gram.   It's become a tradition that we take some photos with the birthday boy (who needed to be bribed with Starbursts this year), open presents, and then watch the super long (I'm talking 30 minutes) video I make before we eat dinner.  Noah said his favorite gift was the Batmobile that his Uncle Justin gave him, which he proceeded to play with throughout the entire video.  

 ^^^ Grandma & Papa (my parents)

 ^^^ Chris' family - Granddad, Uncle Justin, Gram, and Nonna

After dinner, we sang to Noah one last time over this fire truck cake.  He originally was going to continue on the superhero theme, but changed his mind last minute while flipping through the book of cakes!  That cake was absolutely delicious, but boy did that blue icing stain!  I was a little nervous he'd have a blue mouth for picture day the next day, but thankfully it came out with lots of face washing and teeth brushing!  

So that's a wrap to the weeklong birthday celebrations!  Now it's time to play with all of Noah's new toys... and find a place to store them!  I think we will need to go through Noah's old toys and do a major purge before Christmas!

Happy Birthday to my goofy 4 year old!!!

Happy Birthday! | Noah at 4 years old

Today is Noah's 4th Birthday!  And as Noah often reminds me, I am no longer a mom to a "baby" but rather a "big kid".  Since Chris is at work today and might even have to work late, we decided to do a little celebrating this past Sunday.  Chris and I sang him Happy Birthday over a stack of donuts and gave him a few gifts.  This coming weekend is going to be all about his birthday as well.  His kid party is on Saturday and we will be getting together with the grandparents on Sunday to celebrate some more.  As for today, I will be bringing in a treat and reading a few books to his class in honor of his birthday.  My mom and I are then treating him to a birthday lunch and maybe even a trip to the toy store :)

Here are some photos from our Sunday celebration as well as some details all about Noah at age 4...

^^^ we made sure to get Noah's favorite... chocolate and pumpkin :)

In preparation for this post, I went back through some of my old "Noah posts".  I love re-reading them, reminiscing on how little he was, and seeing how much he's changed over the months. While many things stay the same, it's really fun to see how his interests have changed and how much he's learned over such a short period of time.  Just last update I was commenting about how weird it would be to have a 4 year old.  And while I'm still kind of shocked that we are already here, in some ways it just feels right.  Noah is growing into an amazing young boy and I feel very fortunate to be along for the ride.  

Stats

Height:  43 inches

Weight:  44 lbs

Size: 5T pants, 5T (toddlers) or XS (boys) for tops, 11.5 wide in shoes

Skills

While there's always a chance of it changing over time, for now it seems Noah is a lefty.  He writes, draws, and paints with his left hand.  So far the only thing he seems to use his right hand is to cut with scissors.  

We recently got Noah a bike with training wheels (an early birthday gift). Until then, Noah was riding a Ninja Turtle big wheel.  He's really good at riding it and can go really fast.  He's slowly getting more and more comfortable with his bike, but most times he prefers to ride his big wheel since he can ride faster on it.    

He's becoming more comfortable on the playground and is becoming more physically agile.  He's still a cautious kid compared to most boys his age, but he's getting better with time.  He used to hate slides at the playground, but now he happily goes down the small ones on his own and will try the larger ones if one of us holds his hand.  While he's still hesitant about the tall playground slides, he has no fear when it comes to those huge bounce house slides, which is a good thing considering that's where we are having his birthday party!  
Noah's swim skills have really improved over the last 6 months.  As of the last update, Noah was just starting to hold his breath and stick his head in the water on a regular basis.   Now he's swimming very short distances on his own.  If you asked Noah, he would tell you he knows how to swim.  And while he's doing really well, I wouldn't trust him to go swim in a pool by himself.  But with weekly swim class, I'm excited to see how he's doing in another 6 months!  

Noah is now able to dress and undress himself all on his own.  While he still prefers me to help him, I'm proud that he's fully capable.   

Noah is a pro with the alphabet.  He can sing the song, identify all his upper and lowercase letters, and write all of his uppercase letters.  He can write his own name with no help from me (not even spelling it), as well as "Mom" and "Dad".  He can write any word as long as we spell it for him.  
He loves to draw and is getting better at drawing things that we can actually identify.    

Language

While Noah was a little delayed with his speech compared to his friends, he is definitely catching up now!  He is now speaking in full sentences and I love to hear all his questions and thoughts.  There are still many words that he doesn't pronounce correctly, but he actually likes it when we tell him how to properly say each word so he can repeat it back to us.   For example, he was saying "aminal" and "reboon" for animal and balloon.  We would repeat it back to him correctly and when he takes his time and thinks about it, he's really good at pronouncing these words correctly now.  In the car one day, we randomly came up with a game where we would each come up with different stories involving animals and balloons.  Simple sentences like "the animals love to play with balloons" and "the man was making balloon animals".  I love that Noah was having so much fun while practicing his speech.  

Recently, I've been sharing some "Noah-isms".  Here are a few current ones...

One morning before school.

Me: I'm gonna miss you today when you're at school.

Noah: Not me.
Me: You're not going to miss me?
Noah: I'm going to miss giraffe (his stuffed animal).
Me: That's not a very nice thing to say.  
Noah: I'm going to miss giraffe and your hair.  

We were at the store and I had a migraine and Noah was tired.  He said that when we got home, he wanted to go upstairs and lay down.  When we got home, I said I think it's time we go up.  
Noah: I agree
Me: You're the cutest kid ever
Noah: You're the best mommy in the whole world.

Noah loves to play his guitar and make up little songs.  In reality they are just little stories they come up with while he strums, but they are so cute...
"There was a cupcake who was looking for a friend.  He found a watermelon.  Happy ever after."
I'm telling you, I have a future songwriter on my hands ;)

His teacher does a mystery box each week.  She puts an item in the box and then the kids try to guess what it is based on some clues.  One day, it was a tape player that they use for books on tape.  None of the kids guessed it and even after seeing it they still didn't know what it was.  He was telling me about it but couldn't remember what it was called, so he described it as a rectangle that read the words of the book instead of his teacher.  I guessed what it was and then started telling him that before DVDs (I don't think he even knows what a CD is) and my iPhone/iPad, that we would listen to things on tape.  To which he replied, very excited, "That's what SHE said!!!".  

After watching a new Patrol Patrol episode, for days he would tell me his favorite parts.  
"When Robo Dog hits the horn" and "When Marshall says who turned out the sun and shake your bootie".  

We were at the store one day and I sighed at a frustrating person.  When they were still in earshot, he asked me "why did you just go... and then proceeds to recreate my face and sigh".   It was spot and rather embarrassing!  

The first thing he says each morning...
"Is daddy home?"  

What was your favorite part of the day?
"When daddy got home"

He asked for me to help him go to the bathroom...
"But your my best friend, so you need to do everything with me"

"Carry me downstairs.  I'll give you hugs all the way down"

On the way home from the grocery store, I kept worrying that the watermelon was going to crush the eggs.
Noah: I have an idea... next time daddy asks you to get a watermelon, tell him no.

When I got off the phone from making our anniversary dinner reservation for me and Chris...
"Why 2 and not 3"

Favorites

Books - Brown Bear Brown Bear, How Deep is the Sea

TV Shows - My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Little Einsteins, Super Why, Thomas, PJ Masks, Daniel Tiger, Octonauts, Team Umi Zoomi, Paw Patrol

Toys - Magnatiles, Legos, board games, puzzles, Octonauts Gups, Transformers, Superhero figures

Foods - hard boiled eggs, plain pasta, grilled cheese (when I make them), "dinosaur" chicken nuggets, cheese and crackers, smoothies. Banana bread, apple zucchini muffins, pumpkin muffins.  Carrots, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, apples.  Ice cream with sprinkles, Skittles, Swedish Fish, Milky Ways, popsicles, Oreos, chocolate Munchkins.  Pizza and Chipotle are his first choices when going out to eat.  Chocolate milk is his preferred drink now (even over apple juice).  

Likes

Preschool, swim, art and sports enrichments.  Going to the playground and riding his bike. Playing at home.

Drawing, writing, painting, coloring, cutting, play-doh... anything crafty!  
Doing puzzles - the big 100 piece kind now!

Bubble baths, his iPad, playing with daddy, board games.   

His best buds... Owen & Jonathan, JP.

Superheroes!  His stuffed animals, giraffe specifically.
Playing with my hair.  Being carried.  

Dislikes

Wearing real pants.  Rushed mornings. 

Random

Naps are very seldom.  When he does nap though, it really pushes back bedtime.  Normally he sleeps from around 8pm to 6:30 am, but with a nap he often doesn't go to sleep until 9:30.  

Still doing well with the potty.  Last year he was struggling with using the bathroom at school, but he's a pro at it now.  They take the kids after they go outside and before snack even if it's just to try.  But he's also good at telling them if he needs to go at random times too.  He's really good at giving me warning when we are out.  At home, I sometimes have to remind him/make him go because he gets so involved with playing that he holds it longer than he should.  But so far no real accidents.  At night I still put him in a pull up just to be safe.  Though he's really good at waking up in the middle of the night to go.  We've only had two mornings where the pull up was wet.  
Noah can be really shy at first.  I think he's just cautious and likes to get the lay of the land.  Once he feels comfortable, he's not shy at all.  From what I understand, he is very similar to how Chris was as a child.  

 _______

In addition to candles and singing, we gave Noah his gifts (from us) a little early.  This year, an art easel (and the bike we got him a month ago), were his "big gifts".  Since Noah loves doing arts and crafts and always runs to use his friends and our family's (Nonna & Granddad and cousin Kaitlyn) easels, we figured it was finally time to get him his own.  We got him the Melissa & Doug art easel and accessory set that includes paper, spill proof paint, chalk, and a dry erase marker.  In addition to his main gift, we also got him a Lego Junior Race Car set, a Melissa & Doug self correcting puzzle, Superhero sheets, and an old school (2009) Hess Race Car that Noah loves to play with at school.  The funny part about the Hess Race Car is that Noah told us that the one at school ran out of batteries.  Now that we own it, I have a feeling the batteries were conveniently misplaced... boy is that thing annoying!  

^^^ I found the camo wrapping paper at Target.  He was so excited when he saw his "camo" gifts!

 Lego Junior Race Car set

^^^ Noah loves putting Legos together, but he especially loved racing the cars with Daddy for the rest of the day!

 Superhero sheets

^^^ while I was nervous he wouldn't be excited about getting sheets as a gift, he really loved these Superhero sheets!

 Melissa & Doug self correcting puzzle

^^^ Noah didn't look very excited when he first opened the puzzle, but it was the first present that he wanted to open and play with.  He was adamant that we do the whole alphabet before we even sang to him!

accessory set

^^^ Noah's face here cracks me up.  Pretending he didn't know that the paint set was for him to use with the easel!  

Melissa & Doug art easel

Another amazing year has passed but the birthday celebrations just keep coming!  I don't mind though... I absolutely love celebrating this kid!  

Happy 4th Birthday Noah!!!

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