Our weekend

We've had a busy couple of days! On Thursday night we had meet the teacher night at preschool. Noelle is in the "Wiggle Worms" class with 2 sweet teachers and 7 other squirmy one year olds! I'm really excited to get her back to school since she's having such bad separation anxiety from mommy. This was the best picture I could get on meet the teacher night since she was living up to her wiggle worm name!
On Friday Noelle and I headed to Paris to pick up the nap mat GiGi made her for school. It is SUPER CUTE and she practiced lounging on it while watching Curious George.

But she was most excited about the new swing set Gramps got her! It had a swing just her size and she was CRAZY about it. She would just relax and swing and swing and swing.

Happy girl in her swing! Next time we go it will have a slide and we may never get her off of it!

She also (briefly) played in the sprinkler, but the swing won out over that pretty quickly.

Where's Noelle?

Peekaboo!

Yay!!!

She also had fun visiting with the great grandparents, since they love to come see her when she comes to Paris!

GiGi pulled out an old Halloween costume she made for me when I was Noelle's age. We tried it on her and thought she was so cute! Especially with jammie pants on! I think we know what Noelle will be for Halloween!

You know you're a pampered princess when you get to watch Clifford in such cozy accommodations!

Accessories

I've been having a great time picking out Noelle's fall and winter wardrobe these last few weeks while so many stores are having great sales. Today Noelle and I did a little accessories shopping for her. I LOVE this cute denim hat and it will go with almost anything in her wardrobe. She is very good about wearing her hats when she goes outside, so I know it will get a lot of use.
This morning I pulled out this HUGE hairbow. It was a gift when she was born and she hasn't worn it yet. I love it, but I'm thinking she needs a few more years to grow into it.

And this is my favorite! It's a cozy doggie hat for winter. It is super soft and has ear flaps and little bows on the dog ears. She's not entirely sold on it, but we'll keep practicing wearing it around!

Cute baby showing all her teeth!!

And I just had to include this of Noelle and all her "friends" in the crib. She loves her stuffed animals more than anything else!

Good times

Anytime Noelle wakes up with this mischievous look and crazy bedhead, I know the morning might be a little crazy!
Today I was trying to load us up to take a quick trip to the park before it got too hot, but of course Noelle had to go say hello to her "friend" next door. Everyday. We go see this dog everyday.

She gave him his hug and pat-pats and showed me his mouth and nose.

But the most fun part (for her) was that the sprinklers came on while she was out and about. She LOVES it when the neighbor's sprinkers come on.

She gets so excited about being dripping wet!

She also likes to wave at the traffic passing by!

She was drenched! We had to go in and change clothes before we went to the park, but I bet she'll take a good morning nap!!

I had to include this picture, just because I thought she looked so pretty in her purple on Sunday.

A day at the museum

This spring we joined the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History so that I would be able to take Noelle to the great Children's Museum all year long. I decided to take her today since for a brief time it was only 95 degrees instead of 105 degrees!

Here's my little explorer getting ready to go to the dino dig.

This is Noelle's new "concentration" look. She tucks that little top lip in and it is so cute!

Then she discovered the water area (that's why I had her dressed in a onesie and hat!)

She thought it was super fun, but she kept wanting to do the big kid stuff so we didn't last out there too long.

By far, her favorite place is the grocery store set up. I don't even want to think about the millions of germs on every piece of plastic produce, but she loves it and I cleaned her hands about 15 times while we were there.

She also really enjoyed "building" things at this station. She would dig for just the right toy.

We had a great time, but we will definitely wait till it's cooler and all the kids have gone back to school before we make a return trip.

Our morning

This morning Noelle had breakfast with daddy on the counter. She always thinks that's a special treat! She is eating us out of house and home these days!
Everyday, this poor baby goes to the door and just BEGS to go outside. It doesn't seem to bother her that it's about 195 degrees outside! So we try to let her out in the mornings and evenings to let her run off some energy. She loves going up and down the deck steps over and over and over.

She was practicing waving. Usually the wave is pointed at herself!

Happy girl to be outside!

Look at that belly after her big breakfast!!

I just keep hoping it will cool down just a little for her to be able to play outside more.

Sharing

We have been working on Noelle sharing since school starts soon. Probably only the grandparents and great grands will enjoy this video, but I was just proud she shared her drink with bear. And it cuts off because she came to share with me! Nothing like having a sippy cup shoved in your mouth!

A little update

I've once again not been very successful getting good pictures, but we have had a lot going on. I went to a nurse practitioner Wednesday because I had been feeling really bad for about a week and lost my voice. Within 24 hours of antibiotics I felt much better. Noelle went back to the doctor Thursday and found out that the ear infection we had been treating for a week had turned into a double ear infection and she had a little croup like virus. So now she's on a new antibiotic (and going through lots of diapers, desitin, and yogurt!!).

This picture cracks me up! Our friend Susan has a mother that likes to cook (and is very good at it!) and she made us some delicious banana bread. Noelle LOVED it to the point that I had to hide the little foil packet from her because every time she spotted it on the counter she wanted 2 handfuls of it!

Yummy!

Noelle loves to be read to. She especially loves books that just have pictures of objects/animals. She wants to point to each thing while you tell her what it is.

Finally a picture of Noelle looking at the camera and SMILING!

My friend Sarah brought her daughter Harper over for a visit today. Noelle thought it was great fun that a friend was here when she woke up from her nap! They played with their feet for awhile (it's always crazy to me what they find entertaining!).

And they traded baby dolls and carried them around everywhere.

Such a miracle- I got a picture of both of them looking and the camera and somewhat smiling!

These girls are getting so big!

13 months old

This is what poor Noelle looked like last week:
Have you ever seen so much eye swelling from an ear infection? I hadn't, but apparantly whatever germ was going around causing trouble was making for lots of drainage. Thank goodness she's better. She's still got a little bit of a runny nose and a nasty little cough, but the nebulizer is helping with that.

This is Noelle's new friend Mr. Stone Dog. It's in front of our neighbor's house and she loves to walk over and give it pat-pats and hug on it. Too bad it's so hot or we would let her play with it more.

She is definitely tired of being cooped up in the house, but with her snot and cough we haven't really been able to leave. So I'm having to get creative. Today she climbed and explored ALL OVER my car.

She's also very into opening and closing doors. And knocking on the front door- that just makes her day!

At 13 months Noelle is:

-still mostly sleeping all night except when sick or teething (8:15 pm-7:30 am)

-still takes 2 naps a day totaling 3-4 hours (hooray)

-sits on her potty chair after naps and most of the time will go tee-tee in the potty after her nap (as long as you get comfortable waiting for awhile and give her a pretzel stick to eat)

-has started having little "fits" from time to time. Oh boy. We just walk away and let her kick and holler it out.

-understands a lot of simple commands and will follow them (get the book, go find daddy, where's the clock/light/bear, etc.)

-loves books, especially with animals in them or her book from her great-grandparents that has removable pieces. She loves to point at everything in the book while you tell her what it is.

-has grown very attached to lovey and stuffed animals. When she wakes up everyday from naps or night time she chooses an animal out of her bed before she lets us pick her up. It then gets carted around for about an hour.