Same Song Second Verse

Well, I guess it would not be the holidays with out someone in the Read household in the hospital. Last year on Christmas day we ended up in the hospital because Noah could not walk and there had been no previous injury. He turned out to be okay but all of Christmas day was spent in the ER. So, this year it was Brian's turn. We had a great Christmas (thankfully) at the Grandparent Read's house. (I will write a post on that later b/c I want to add pictures and I can't do that here at the hospital.) Things were going great and I really thought this year was going to be rather uneventful. On Sunday, B had to fly back home to work for a few days. On Monday at work B began having horrible pain. He could barley stand up he was in so much pain. Luckily, he works next door to an ER so they wheeled him over and dx him with kidney stones. Meanwhile Noah and I are still at the Grandparent Read's house and Brian is here alone. I decided not to come home just yet but I did not go with Noah and the rest of the fam to see the Great Grandparent Read's. It was just too far and I want to be able to leave ASAP if I was needed, and apparently I was. The hospital sent B home with pain meds but during the night those pain med's were not enough. The pain was so bad that he passed out and when he woke up he called my mom and some good friends to help him back to the hospital. Once I got the call that he was worse I packed up and headed home. So, we are spending the night in the hospital and waiting for the doc to do a procedure in the morning.

Holiday Happenings

It has been a busy holiday season for us. We had a great Halloween this year. I have enjoyed many a Halloween but as Noah gets older these holidays just keep getting better. Noah began to understand Halloween this year. This year we decided not to go to the church so Amber invited us to her house. It was really neat to see all the people sitting outside and passing out candy - it is nothing like our neighborhood. It reminded me of something out of Leave it to Beaver.

Noah in his alligator suit.



Friends and family joined us as we trick or treated.

Noah was scared to go up to strange people's houses (which I was kind of glad about) but he slowly warmed up. Especially when he realized he could get candy.


Noah and Mae enjoying suckers after trick or treating.




Noah with his pumpkin. I decided not to carve a pumpkin this year b/c it did not go so well last year. I found these Mr. Potato head like things to stick into the pumpkin. He love it b/c he could switch the pieces around it really was a great purchase.

Our next big holiday event was Thanksgiving. This year was probably our smallest Thanksgiving in a while. It was my family, Brain, Noah, Pa-Paw, and Grandma. Chris had to work so he stayed in MS and David and ReRe were in Abilene.




The day after Thanksgiving David and ReRe joined us and we decided it would be fun to take Noah on the Pole Express. I need to explain that Brian and I thought this would be just like the Polar Express. We also thought we would go on the full train route of Grapevine to Fort Worth and back. We knew Noah would love to go on a train because he loves trains so much. Unfortunately we were right on only the fact that Noah did love it because he loves trains. On the other hand the rest of us were a little (which is an understatement) disappointed.



Yes, we are happy here. This picture was taken around 3:45 when we first got to the big white tent. Of course, we got there early b/c we did not want to miss out. What you won't see, b/c we did not take any of those pictures, is that we waited in that tent until 4:30. We thought we boarded at 4:00. Noah was not very happy about having to wait while some 15 year old girl sang to us.

Noah's face as Santa came onto the train. Noah was happy once we finally got on the train.


I know I put a lot on this blog but I really want to catch up. After seeing Kristen's books I really want to stay on top of this blogging thing. Like Bonki said, it may be too early for new year's resolutions but mine is going to be to be better at blogging. Hold me to it all of y'all in blogging world. =)

Not a baby anymore

Well we did it, we took the railing off of Noah's bed. It was a big step for me. I was really sad when we were actually doing it. About half way through I want to just stop and put the railing back up. I know it was much harder for me than Noah because we have had no problems (now you know b/c I wrote that the problems will start tonight). It has been somewhat humorous watching him. About 12:30 on the first night Brian and I were watching Noah in the monitor. Noah was hanging half on and half off the bed while sleeping. It was so funny watching him kind of swing until he finally got his whole body back on the bed. He never cried about it or even looked like he woke up. We tried to get a picture but we were too late. Last night about 4:00 a.m. he cried out and when I went in he had fallen off the bed. I picked him up and hugged him and then he pushed me away and climbed back in bed. Another funny thing he does is during the day he will go and get in bed so he can have his passy (we only let him have it in bed). Also, at night if his passy falls out of bed he won't get down and get it. He just calls for us to come and get it for him. I think the picutres show how excited he is to be a big boy.

Summer Vacation

Let me first start by saying in my family growing up we rarely went on vacation. I remember going a few different places and most of the time we drove a little car, so no more than 5 people were ever on our trips. They consisted of my mom, sister, grandmother, myself, and one other person we would invite. Since it was always an all girl trip we stayed in hotels, not anything fancy, but still hotels. Then I grew up and married a Read. I have since been introduced to a whole new world of vacationing. Don't get me wrong I absolutely love going on vacation with the Read's, but I remember once as a teenager watching "The Griswall's" (I think I spelled that right). I thought the movie was the stupidest thing I had ever seen b/c I just new that stuff never happened. Well, it may not be to the extreme of the Griswalls, but I am certain if you filmed our vacation it would be just as funny. So, let me tell you about this years vacation. We went to the same beach as last year. It is really a great place and it has an RV park attached. THANKFULLY the parents upgraded to a much larger SUV. Which was for sure needed since the number of people and animals changed from last year. Let me paint a picture for you, b/c taking any pictures at this point was not even a thought in my head. On the way down to the beach we had David and Charleen, Brian, Noah, and myself, David and Ashley, Chris, and his dog Smokey. Yes, that is a lot of people. Each person had a seat and Smokey had the very very back. Which he stayed there pretty well until Chris decided he wanted to drive and Smokey did not want to be that far from him. Let's just say Noah's car seat is the only thing that saved me from having a dog,who weighs as much as I do, in my lap. Oh, and my brother-in-law David who ended up with the dog in his lap.

Okay now picture time:

Here is the SUV and RV. Yes, we all stayed in the RV including the dog.

Here is our beach set up, and Noah getting a little sleepy.

Noah swimming with his uncle David.

Here we are taking family pictures on the beach. I don't know how well you can see it but please take a moment to click on the picture. The interaction between Ashely and Smokey is classic.

(Another cool scrapblog creation, but I think the picture w/ Ashely and David is blurry. I think that is my fault not scrapblogs. These work like a regular picture just click to make it bigger.)

(I made this using a cool new tool Ashley showed me. It is called scrapblog.)

This is the video of Noah going down the "slide." He absolutely loved it, but it scared me just a little.

We always have so much fun on our beach vacations and are so grateful that Brian's parents let us tag along each year.

Happy Dada Day

We had a great day celebrating what a wonderful father Brian is for us.

This is actually my first "real" Father's Day. Let me explain that comment a litttle. My dad wasn't around much so I really can't remember a Father's Day with him, Father's Day right after Ethan died wasn't the best of all days, and last year was good with Noah but he is was still so young.

So today I went all out except I have no pictures(guess I can't be perfect all the time =)). I woke up, I would say early but I didn't I thought about it but did not do that, and made heart shaped pancakes. I think Kristen did that for v-day which I thought was cool so I did it for today. I decieded that I would have Noah give Brian a gift every few hours. I would hand Noah the gift and tell him to say Hppy Father's Day, but he can't say father so we went with his vocab. He got pretty good by the end of the day. He was even saying "presents". One time he got confused and said "Happy birfday", didn't realize he knew what that was =}

We made the day what ever Brian wanted, we went swimming, the boys slept for 3 hours, we ate at Red Lobster, and watch the ultimate dad movie 'Finding Nemo'. Which I did not know was such a dad movie until we watched it tonight (well we actually watched it throughout the day). It was a whole lot of fun.



On a side note: we got a new keyboard b/c our other one broke. I thought I was doing good b/c it only cost $12.00. I feel like Kate from 'Jon and Kate plus Eight' b/c, all I ever do now is say "I hate this keyboard". I guess you get what you pay for.

21 things about Noah

Noah just turned 21 months on March 29th and I have been wanting to post 21 things that tell more about who he is. This is the whole reason I wanted to do this blog so I can look back and remind myself, since I seem to be forgetting a lot of things lately.

1. Noah loves to watch American Idol while drinking his milk before bedtime.
2. He also loves to watch Winnie the pooh with the figurines close by.
3. Every time we get in or near the car he asks to "dive" which means drive the car. He gets pretty upset when we don't let him.
4. He is really into trains. Someone gave us about 20 magnetic Thomas trains which he spent all night connecting everyone of them in a row.
5. He is also really into cars, which he has been for a while, it was pretty much his first word.
6. He can wink.
7. Any time he hears music he begins to dance.
8. He has very blonde and long hair.
9. He loves the Wednesday play time at church.
10. So now when we pass church he cries that we are not going there to play.
11. Every time he hears an airplane he looks up and tries to find it.
12. Noah loves to mow the lawn walking behind Daddy when he mows the lawn.
13. When you say show me your muscles he flexes his arms.
14. He does the whole "pee" in the potty routine except for the actual peeing part.
15. When you say touchdown he does the hand motions for touchdown.
16. He loves to do the "help rocket take off" part of Little Einsteins.
17. He likes to have his back scratched with a car. This is part of our bedtime routine and if we forget for some reason he begs for it.
18. He has beautiful blue eyes.
19. Whenever the phone rings he automatically says "Dada"
20. He loves to do the hand motions for "This little light of Mine" and "The Wheels On the Bus". When ever we see a school bus he starts the hand motions.
21. If he doesn't want you to touch him and then you do he says "owwww". It is real funny to keep touching him and every time he will say "owwww".

I can't believe Noah is now 21 months it has gone by so very fast and I have loved every minute of it (except for the non sleeping part but that is over now).

November 2007

Well, I have a little catching up to do. I truly do want to keep this as a record of the things going on in our lives but I have not been very good at that. So the next few posts will be my attempt to catch up from November 2007 to Feburary 2008.

November was a good month for us. I can't not remember the little details, which is the whole reason I started this blog, so I will mostly talk about Thanksgiving.

I enjoy Thanksgiving so much because God has blessed Brian and I by having families that get along. Every year for the last 5 or 6 years we have had Thanksgiving at our house. My mom and sis come and Brian's mom, dad, brother and sister and now her husband come. It is great!!! I get up early and cook all day long, which is something I love to do. It is a very normal day even with all family members present. This year was just as wonderful even though we missed Chris, he was with his fiance for her birthday. There was not much out of the ordinary this year except a little snow. Our Thanksgivings are usually not very ordinary they have included my mom's coworkers from Germany, another included her friends from Africa, and one year we had a reenactment of the first Thanksgiving. Half of our family are true Native Americans and they wore homemade headdresses thankfully no pilgrim apperal was worn. (I tried to find the picture but that was before our digital camera but if you come over the picture is still on the fridge.) But this year Thanksgiving was quite subdued. Noah enjoyed all the fixings but was not crazy about the snow.
(I apparently do not have any of the photos of us in the snow so if my mother-in-law or sis-in-law read this send them to me so I can add them to this post.) I will include some of the photos from the Friday after Thanksgiving (if I can get it to work). Noah, Brian, and his family went to the Gaylord Texan. I did not I was rocking out at the Kelly Clarkson concert with my sister.

Anyways, I am hoping to catch up on December tomorrow.