Happy (Chinese) New Year everyone!  We celebrated at Walter’s parents’ home and got to enjoy tons of out of town company!  Aunt Kay’s birthday was just a few days later so everyone flew in for the celebration.

The cousins of course loving on each other as usual but also enjoying the company of relatives they’d never met.  We’re hoping our northern roots don’t stay away quite as long before visiting next time.  Wayne hasn’t been here since our “wedding” when he spent a week in a hot house with no electric courtesy of Hurricane Frances.  Sorry about that!

Aunt Kay cooking up a storm with all the “aunties”.  The food was amazing!

Here are all the siblings (8 total, 1 who has passed) and their spouses – and two of the cutest grandchildren.  It’s not very often they are together and it’s even less often they let you take a photo.  We sure had a full house!  Can you see some of the food next to them?  Yum!

A small group of us who met at Childbirth class have managed to stay in touch.  We may not get together as often as we’d like and we certainly can’t sit around and chat while the kids sit still but once in awhile we make it work.  This weekend we were able to get most of us together and we all had a great time.  The very first time we managed to get a photo of this same group all at once was Halloween of 2006 (we missed Jonah both times!).  We did it again this weekend and I can’t get over the difference!  Note:  There were A LOT of Goldfish crackers harmed in the making of the present day photo.  Does anyone know how hard it is to get five toddlers to sit still??

And now on to the fun of Patch Reef Park -

Walter and Noah had never been to Chuck E. Cheese’s.  The last time I went was 20 plus years ago for Laura Beth Wuestman’s 7th or so birthday where I delicately played balance beam on a parking stop while waiting to get in.  I still have a scar on my knee from that fall which apparently wasn’t as graceful as I remember.  At any rate we had nothing to do this rainy Sunday and were going to give it a go.  We had a blast!  We got 80 tokens and each game costs 1.  Do you know we spent all morning there until every last one was spent?  One Noah got the hang of putting in tokens, smashing buttons and pulling out the tickets he was so into it.  For Walter and I it was fun to play and for at least a few hours not worry about a thing.  We sampled the infamous pizza which tastes just like the lunch lady in middle school used to make it and bought some great loot with our winnings.  We will definitely be back!

Mom’s favorite – Skeeball!  Noah was a natural but he needs a little more throwing power.

And of course the boys had to play with the air cannons!

Lunch was deelish!  I don’t know what this face is but it is so darn cute!

Noah really knows how to embody his outfit!  I finally got a chance to put him in his skull and cross bones sweater the Chinda’s gave him shortly after he was born since we finally got some cooler weather.  He had it on for 10 minutes and slipped into the refrigerator giving himself a giant bump on his forehead and upper lip.  Not only did he look tough but he was tough – our poor little bruiser!  If only you could see how crazy scarred up his knees are!  Anyway we went to the park to get his mind of the new marks and snapped a few photos.  Thanks again for the uber cool sweater Maria and Raul!

Yes, I know it’s been forever since we’ve given you a Noah update.  He’s growing like a weed and keeping us busy.  He’s inching ever so close to that second birthday; can you believe it?  I promise to try to keep you in the loop at least a little more often!

Ok, so we didn’t see lion, tigers or bears but we did go to Lion Country Safari.  Last time we went Noah couldn’t have cared less about driving through the animal areas since we let him in the front seat with us where he enjoyed erraticly changing the volume and temperature and frazzling our nerves.  So this time we went right to the park area where there is so much to do.  We went with Rachel, Robby and Ayla and the kids had a great time!

We fed giraffes which was a pretty unique experience.  They were so tall and their slimy tounges were so long!

Then the kids fed and pet the sheep.  They weren’t quite sure about this…

Lion Country has some great rides!

And then “we” fed the Lorikeets.  I say “we” because first Ayla freaked out and then Robby lost it.  You didn’t have to be there, these photos say it all!  We were laughing hysterically!

Then Ayla wanted to try holding th cup…

But it feels so creepy to have them on you!

Freaking out is such hard work!

Poor baby!  So then we hit the water park!

But boy was it cold!

Either way they had a blast.  I think you can almost feel Noah’s excitement in this next photo…

Today was day one of paci detox.  It went so much better than we ever expected.  We told Noah to say “bye bye” to them and he started to cry (break my heart!) but we threw them away anyhow.  Things were going well even though he kept asking for them – “ba?” – which is what he calls them.  And we reminded him that they were all gone and he moved on.  Everything was fine until nap time where he cried HYSTERICALLY for a half hour before we gave in and let him out of his crib.  We tried again a few hours later and although he cried it wasn’t nearly as bad and he fell asleep about a half hour after we laid him down.  That was it, then end.  Tonight at bedtime he went down without a fight.  We were a little nervous about the day we picked since we went to Chima for dinner with my parents and friend, Jaime, but it all worked out.  It always does.  Life will be so much better without a paci!  Having to pack them, keep them clean, sneak spares – sigh.  If we knew it would be this easy we probably would have done it sooner!

We were having dinner last night (hamburgers, yum yum) and Noah points at the table and says “yeah-yow”.  Dawn and I look at one another and give a “what was that?” look.  Over the past couple months, we’ve had some frustrating times at the table as Noah points at something and gets increasingly frustrated as we offer him everything we think he could want to no avail.  Well, this was no exception, we offered him ketchup (he likes to dip), onion rings, more of our food … nothing.  Finally, it dawned on me … he said yellow!!!  He wanted the mustard!  Sure enough, we give him a little squirt and were rewarded with the biggest grin.  Needless to say, Dawn and I were amazed.  You would have thought he just solved his first Algebra problem.  That was the first time he’s said a color.   Woohoo!!  We’re so proud!  LOL.

Noah got it good today!  At his preschool he was on the playground when one of his little “friends” came over to hug him and before his teacher knew it she clamped down on his cheek, just under his eye.  Poor baby!  We took him to the doctor who said he was fine and told him to stay away from women, they are nothing but trouble.  Great advice, bad timing.  I’ll have to post a second photo of how it looks now.  The teeth are perfectly visible now that the swelling and redness have gone down.  Check back for an update.  (This photo was right after it happened.  You can see the upper and lower impressions and how warn out he was from the drama.)

Noah has been getting up bright and early lately, too bright and too early for my tastes.  Today I took him to the park right after breakfast.  It was nice to be the only ones there and I had fun taking photos.

(Caption: Can we get an adult in here?  My parents don’t have a clue!)