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.

We're Home

Yea!!! The hospital discharged us this afternoon and I could not of been more ready. I hate sleeping in those chairs at the hospital. All I could think of are the things I could be doing at home esp. since Noah is at the Grandparents house.

As for Brian, he is doing okay. He had surgery to put in a stint which will hold the stone in place. So, he will not have anymore passing out type of pain. The stone of course is still there and he is going to get a CT scan on Friday to see what we are going to do next.

I know Brian was more than excited to get home as well. Even though he had just had surgery only a few hours earlier he was ready to set up his Christmas present.



Notice the hospital bands still on his wrists. He did not even take the time to cut them off before setting up his new tv.

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.