FRIDAY FUNNIES WITH NOAH

I am going to start a series of blogs titled Friday Funnies with Noah. I find Noah to be one of the funniest people I have ever met. I know I am his mother and I may be a little biased but if you read my blog you will soon see what I see.

So, here is the first of many Friday Funnies with Noah.

The other day Noah went to the bathroom in the big boy potty. It was kind of an accidental potty b/c, he didn't really say he needed to go. We just asked him if he wanted to sit on the big boy potty. We were trying to teach him to "push" and he went pee instead. We told his Aunt Ashley and Uncle D about it when they came over. So, they asked him if he wanted to try and go potty in the big boy potty. He said yes (most of the time he says no) but when and if he says yes nothing much happens. All four of us were standing in the bathroom waiting for something to happen. Nothing was happening and I guess Noah was getting bored so below is a picture of what he did.

We have been encouraging him to watch Dada so he could see how a "boy" goes potty. I guess we let him watch too much.

** On a side note tonight when we were getting him dressed for bed he said "I need go potty." We were like okay lets go. He went in, sat on the toilet, and actually went for real - no accidental potty this time. Yea! I am so proud.

Rewards and Behavior

Here is the explanation of the new system in our house. We decided it was time to put some kind of reward/behavior system in place for Noah. This is what I came up with after looking at Amber's system. Tell me what do you use??

The first thing I did was to make these 4 cards. These are the chores we decided that Noah should do everyday. The first is to make a happy plate (a term my mother-in-law uses when a child finishes all the food on his/her plate). The second card is to pick up all his toys before he goes to bed. The third card is to brush his teeth (we really don't have a hard time getting him to do this but I thought 4 was more even than 3). The fourth card was to do his daily devotional. I attached each card to a tiny clothes pin so we could move it around.

I hung up these to cars (which Noah thinks are The King and Chick from "Cars" the movie but they are not, I purchased them from Hobby Lobby), attached ribbon to the back, and labeled them everyday and done.

After he has done one of the chores we move it over to the done car.

Once he has done all 4 chores then he can get a star sticker. He can also get a star sticker if he obeys one of us which is the biggest thing we need to work on =). Below is the chart for his star stickers. I printed it out and the pictures of the treasure chest and Chuck E Cheese and taped them to the chart. Once he gets a star on the treasure chest he gets to choose a prize from the treasure chest (which is just a sack right now). When he gets a star on Chucks picture then we will go there. He is so excited about going to Chuck E Cheese that he used his stool to reach his stickers and put one on Chuck E. He found his Dad and told him "I go to Chuck E Cheese" and showed Brian the star on the picture. At least, we knew he understood!

He really is doing a good job and seems to understand. One day he put up his coat hangers without me asking and then showed me so, I gave him a sticker. All we pretty much have to say is "do you want to get a star sticker or not". Hopefully, this will last awhile. For those of you who may be worrying about the cost of Chuck's well, we will be going to Chuck E Cheese early in the mornings so we don't have to buy pizza. Also, we have more coins than I know what to do with. My mother-in-law kept coins and tickets from who knows when and they still work so we really won't be spending any money. Yea!

One last note ...

The devotional time has been great. We all sit down in the middle of Noah's floor, we pray, read one story from his Bible and then pray again. It is short and simple but I really feel it is setting the right example. Hopefully, if we get him in the habit now it will stick when he is older.

Since I posted last

Well, I have been waiting for something exciting to happen so I can post and nothing has. So here a just a few, boring for you but, things I want to remember that have happened the last couple of weeks.

--Noah told me that next year for Christmas he wants to be a girl so he can have a pink guitar. He loves things that are pink. He wanted to get a new pink big boy bed and I told him pink was for girls. I thought that would be the easiest and fastest way to detour him but I thought wrong. Now I have to explain that he can't be a girl.

--We asked Noah who he learns about in Bible class at church. He said Moses. Which I felt great about b/c that is what we are studying in BSF. Then he also said Santa Claus so good feeling didn't last long.

--Noah has been on a blame Dada for everything kick. The other day he broke the side view mirror off of his Mater car. He came over to me upset saying "Dada did it." Brain was nowhere near Noah and his car.

--Noah loves to be outside. It does not matter what the weather is he wants to be outside. I myself am not like that at all. If it is even the least bit cold I do not want to be outside any longer than needed. So, last Wednesday Noah wanted to play outside. That worked fine b/c I was getting lunch together as he played. I tried to get Noah to come inside when it was time to eat and he wanted to eat outside. We did this a lot during the summer which was no problem but Wednesday was too cold for me. The final compromise was Noah eating outside with the back door open while I ate in the living room (so I could watch him). He sat out there all by himself eating and as happy as he could be.

--Noah and Brian went to Sam's on Friday to get me flowers, aren't they sweet. Noah picked out purple tulips and now wants all things purple. Will my boy ever like "normal" boy colors?

--We are in the process of redecorating Noah's room into a big boy room. I will post on that later when it is all done. We are also in the process of starting a behavior and rewards chart for Noah. I will also post on that later especially if it works =).

--Lastly, I have been inspired by my friend Lynley. She fed her family of four for $90.00/ week. I am working on that as well. So, I somewhat did my grocery list and woke up early today and was off. Here are a couple of things I learned.
1.I need to wake up a little bit earlier. But, 8:20 am is early to me=)
2. I need to be more organized (list of what I need at Walmart and a list of what I need at Central Market)
3. The most important I need to eat breakfast before I go.
4. Dr. Pepper is a big chunk of a small budget.
I also took her advice for buying organic or not (and the book Eat This Not That Supermarket had some advice as well), and using left over meat in another night's recipe. I spent $72.12 for just our dinners. When I got home I even made an itemized list of what I bought with the prices to see exactly how much I spent (watch out Martha here I come). I will confess that I did splurge on Cod instead of Talipa.

Now, Lynley, this is where I have a hard time. The rest of the stuff I bought is lunch, breakfast, and "basics". All of it will be used more than one week. So, how would you count that? Thanks for the help =).

Noah and bathtime

Noah's bathtime has become so much more fun than I ever thought bathtime could be. One of the things that has made it fun are these little things called color dots from crayola. Thank you Aunt Ashley. If I had known how great these things would be to help teach Noah his colors I would have bought them a long time ago. When it is time for a bath Noah asks for his water to be a color. So far, we have had a yellow bath, a red, and now green. I let him put the tablets in and he says "yellow and blue oohh geen."

After his bath is over he says "bye bye colors."

(I know you may be thinking cute picture but what happened to his nose. Well, Dada likes to throw balls at Noah and watch his reaction. The other day at Dada's work he threw one of those big exercise balls at Noah. Of course, it knocked Noah down and he got a carpet burn on his nose. If you get a chance ask Noah what happened to your nose. He will say "Dada did it." It is hysterical.)

Okay back to bathtime, here is a picture of Noah so excited b/c he made a circle. So, there you go ECI, he can't make a circle on the paper but he can make a circle with his foam bath streets. He even called it a circle without me prompting him. Yea, progress!!!

Last pic of his bathtime. I have always thought Noah had a pretty creative mind. He may never be gifted in reading and math but he is pretty darn creative. He held up his blue wash rag and said "Hey Mama look Mr. Ray." For those of you who don't know, Mr. Ray is the blue/gray sting ray on the movie Finding Nemo. After I took the picture he said "look Mama Mr. Ray go under the water." Then he took the rag and had it "swim" under the water.

The real Mr. Ray. Ha Ha =)

Christmas 2008

Yes, I know this is a little late but with B in the hospital and starting back to work I am just now getting to it. Also, we just had our last Christmas celebration on Sunday. This year for Christmas we drove to MS. We were supposed to spend 10 days there but I had to come back early but here are a few pics from the days we were there.

Noah so excited about his cars racetrack.

Brian and I thought this was the cutest thing ever. We knew he was getting a play kitchen from my mom, and of course it is cars.

We had originally planned to have Christmas with my family on Sunday and thankfully that still occurred. Here are the pics from that Christmas.

Noah actually got two tricycles for Christmas. His MS grandparents bought him the cutest Tennessee Vols tricycle (I did not get a pic of it, hopefully Aunt Ashley or Grandma did). Unfortunately, the TN tricycle was too big for Noah. Hopefully by his birthday he will be taller and can ride the TN tricycle. In the mean time, he has really enjoyed riding this one and he is somewhat good at it.

Noah really enjoys his kitchen. He makes us dinner all the time =).

Of course, more cars stuff.

We had such a great time at both of our Christmases. It is so great to see Noah beginning to understand and get so excited. On Christmas eve I had a present waiting for Noah (it was just a little happy for the car trip). When he saw it he got so excited saying "Santa come, Santa come." I had to explain to him that the present was from me and Santa would come but not until the next day. It was so cute and made me so excited for Christmas morning.