Noah got his very first case of brain freeze today and boy was it funny!  We went to Rita’s to get treats for later and the manager gave him a sample milkshake that was just his size, the straw was even cut to be kid (or sample) sized.  He took one sip and was hooked!  He started inhaling it and then all of a sudden started crying!  I thought something had happened but he started screaming “it’s too cold!!!” and grabbing his head, and then he begged for me to pick him up.  I started cracking up!  Maybe it was more funny in person but I chuckle every time I think about it.  The staff looked really concerned and then I told Noah that they call that a brain freeze and everyone started to laugh.  My poor baby.  It took him a while to want the milkshake back and as he was cautiously sipping it the shopping cart hit a bump and he dropped it.  He was equally hysterical over losing his drink as he was when it tortured him.  Some days you just can’t win.

That’s all I have for stories but I wouldn’t dare post without photos so here are a few shots of us setting up for Christmas -

Noah wanted to help very badly.  The first few sets of branches were almost bigger than him so he waited patiently until they got small enough for him.

He loved trying to lock them in but wasn’t very good at it.

One of the biggest reasons he had so much trouble was because Mickey Mouse was on TV.  He gets heavy after awhile and we had to keep telling him he either needed to work or get down.  I wasn’t a fan of holding him over the tree while he caught up on the mouse!

I’ll post another day about Noah’s “help” in decorating the tree.  We invested in shatterproof ornaments but the fun never ends here at the Yap house!

And a little later we took photos of Kate for Aunt Lindy because she loves this outfit – thanks for the cool duds, Raven!

She loves to smile and she’ll flirt with anyone!  She’s already more outgoing than her brother!

Happy Thanksgiving to you!  This is one of my favorite holidays!  When I was young we would get up early and watch the entire Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while my dad prepared dinner.  Mom always made the pies and dad took care of the rest.  Then in the late afternoon we would feast like kings and pass out early.  Those were the days!  Now I’m lucky to catch pieces of the parade on TV and most years we spend our entire day zig-zagging across Palm Beach County so we can hit all of our families’ homes and end up keeping Noah up way too late.  This year will be different though.  I’ve put the boys on warning that I am watching the parade (darnit!) and if they want to watch anything else they’ll need to find another TV.  We’re also only going to one family on Thanksgiving, Walter’s parents.  On Friday we’ll go to my parents’ for leftovers.  Hopefully we can keep reasonable routines, naps and a decent bedtime schedule for both kids.  Here’s to hoping!

One really nice thing about the holidays is that it brings family to town.  Our cousins, Bruce and Peter are here from Atlanta with their daughters Olivia and Teagan.  We went to the beach with them on Wednesday.  It was Kate’s first trip and she enjoyed it as much as any two month old might.  Noah was loving the water and the weather was amazing.  I leave you with a few shots from the day.  Happy Thanksgiving!

The weather was perfect!  I wouldn’t have wanted to sunbathe with the breeze we had, which is probably why it was empty, but the kids had a great time!

Peter with Teagan                                                    Olivia

Bruce and Teagan making sandcastles

It was early.  Don’t mind my “look”.

I may be biased (maybe just a little) but aren’t my kids so freaking cute?  Kate looks more like an angel every day.

I know – I’m a horrible blogger!  I’m sorry.  We’ve been so busy trying to keep up with these kids of ours that a few things have fallen by the wayside.  I will try to do better!

Kate and Noah are doing pretty well.  Noah has finally realized that he doesn’t have to be nice to his sister.  It doesn’t earn him any brownie points but he gets plenty of attention for acting out.  We’re working on this.  Kate has proven to us that her digestive system (or could it be her taste?) is more delicate than we would like.  We’ve tried so many formulas, gone from her sleeping all day to not at all and back again, called in the reinforcements (our wonderful families), and just generally been very frustrated.  We think we’re turning the corner with this (we hope we are), please send us happy, restful thoughts!  She has managed to pack on the pounds just fine.  At her last visit (last week) she was 12-ish pounds.   That’s half of Noah’s weight!  She is also taller than he was at this age.  Tomorrow she is two months old, it’s hard to believe.  And today, Noah officially turned two and a half.  It’s crazy.  I’m so glad we’re half way through the “terrible two’s”!  Please tell me this attitude issue magically disappears on his third birthday!

I finally got a new camera to replace the one that Noah threw in a pool.  Hopefully this means I will have a lot more photos in the future.  A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of having someone else volunteer to take our photos.  Virginia met us at the beach early in the morning and got some amazing shots.  Here are a few of our favorites -

And to show how fast a baby can change in four weeks, this is her now -

We always used to joke that our family was the Griswald’s.  Do you remember those movies (National Lampoon’s)?  We so had a Griswald mobile!  Anyway, my sister Lindy is in town and we’re all together again.  It doesn’t happen very often so we try to make the most of it when we can.  We’ve done a lot of shopping, visiting, we’ve had babysitter and have been relieved of night duty – TWICE – it’s been great to have her in town!  We even got together for a child free lunch at Seasons 52 which was such a treat!

Last night we had a family dinner at my parent’s.  We took a few photos.  Please excuse my hair!

Lindy hasn’t seen Noah since the month before his first birthday.  This is the first time she’s seen him walk!

And of course the first time she’s met Kate. 

Can you see Kate sticking her tounge out at them?  LOL!

My niece Julia and Kate.  She only holds happy babies.

Here are all the sisters.  I would like to put a caption at the bottom of this stating I’m 7 weeks post partum.  We need to do this again next year when we can all look fabulous and well rested!

We have a lot of history with this green couch.  Here we are in 2004.  Why do I always have bad hair on family photo day?

And then here we are a few years before.  I’m not sure how many but I think a lot is a fair guess.  And yes, we’re shocked about the weight roller coaster too.

And for entertainment purposes we made one more person squeeze onto that poor couch!  Just kidding – mom and her girls.

Happy Halloween!  Walter took off from work on Halloween so we could have a fun day and so it wouldn’t be a huge rush to the festivities once he got home.  Unfortunately we spent “family fun day” hanging around the house with a crabby toddler and fussy baby.  One thing that made Noah happy was the sheet of stickers from one of his Halloween cards (we have the best family who send the kids cards for every occasion).  Noah was feeling very generous and decided to share them with poor Kate.

Look closely -

And here’s another cute shot from our lazy day -

Later when it was time to put our costumes on things got really cranky and Noah was super crabby.  My sister Nikki stopped by to show us her costume and it really iced the cake by freaking Noah out.  He’ll do anything for candy though, even pose for a photo.

Once we got them dressed we took these -

Kate was supposed to be a teddy bear.  I bought her costume months before she was born.  It’s size 0-3 months but as you can tell it’s a little ridiculous and might fit her next Halloween.

Then we were off to the Friedman’s hoping for the best.  We had very unfortunate weather, it rained all day, but we managed to catch enough of a clearing for the kids to do some trick or treating. 

Ayla and Noah dressed up in coordinating Dolphin’s costumes (a cheerleader and a football player), Kate played along in a Dolphins sleeper and Aaden was a lion.  We had a great time and enjoyed watching Noah actively participate for the first year.  He rang doors bells and even managed to say “trick or treat”.  Anyone who knows him would be shocked at that (including us), the thank you’s were a little coaxed.

If you look closely you can see Robby on the floor behind the ottoman waiting to catch a clumsy toddler.  Luckily no one was harmed in the making of this photo.  Doesn’t Rachel have the most amazing decorations?

The Linder Family

To finish off Ayla’s costume my sister Lindy made her a diaper cover that says “#1 Dol-Fan”.  She looked adorable!

Ok, maybe supermodel is a bit of an over statement, but Noah is on the Quiet Waters website!  The very first post on this blog from August 6, 2007 was when we went to Splash Adventure (the water park at Quiet Waters) with the Friedman family.  Two months ago they contacted us to see if they could use our photos.  So we sent a disk with every photo from every visit we’ve ever made there and they updated their site with Walter’s photos.  There are a few general water park shots but also one of Noah on the whale (from when he was very young and old man looking) and one of Robby and Ayla – how cool is that?!  We were very flattered.

You can see the entire Parks and Recreation page here – http://www.broward.org/parks/qw.htm

Last year we went to Canada to experience what fall is really supposed to be like, or at least what we see on TV – it was amazing!  We had such a great time and tried so many new things like apple picking and fall leaves, it’s a bit disappointing spending fall here this year but we are so blessed with a new person to spend it with we won’t complain (any more than we have already). 

So here it is – fall Florida style.  You pack your cranky family into the car in outfits that are way too hot for the 90 degree weather and you act like idiots and bribe them (or threaten them) until they smile.  It’s very painful.  We managed to get a few cute photos and in a few years when Kate is running circles around us and we forget how defeated we felt leaving the pumpkin patch (without a pumpkin) we will love these photos and show them how well behaved they appeared.  Long gone will be the memories of Kate screaming (hoping someone would call Child Welfare Services) and Noah protesting by stepping on pumpkins, dropping them, and then icing the cake by sitting on a completely rotten pumpkin that ended up all over his pants.  Oh, fun times.  Enjoy the photos!

When did he turn into such a big boy!?

You should have seen me.  I swear the video would have sold millions.  It must have been good, it even got Noah to smile.  Kate – not so much.

Again with the hats.  I can’t help myself.

He was drawn to the “bumpy punkins”. 

We don’t title our photos but we couldn’t stop talking about how this would have turned out if we did.  Something that could have been a very cute, but cheesy, “Special Delivery” turned very quickly into “Handle With Care, Damnit!”.  I cannot tell you how many looks we got for doing this.  The bystanders definitely thought we were nuts.  Who are we kidding?  We are nuts.  Our poor children.

Today we attempted to take family photos.  Our friend Rachel got suckered into… err… volunteered to shoot them for us but unfortunately Noah wasn’t in the mood.  He woke up way too early for anyone’s good and gave us a run for our money as we were tried to leave the house by 8am.  It was an interesting morning that had quite a few tears but ended pretty well with a few good shots, bribery and breakfast.  We followed through with his promised lollipop afterwards but that wrecked his afternoon nap, of course.

Anyway, thanks to Rachel for the photos, Robby and Ayla for putting up with the whole ordeal and hello to Lani and her peanuts who we bumped into at Mizner doing the shoot!

And now for the photos -

There was a lot of tickling but those shots look mostly like this first one. 

Noah is just so darn serious (but cute)!  And yes, he’s practically bald.  This happened right after I told the hairdresser “just make sure he doesn’t look bald!”.  Ummm, thanks.

Noah has the cutest face in these but it’s not his love for photos he’s showing you, which is why he’s not looking anywhere near the camera.  Instead, it’s his love for airplanes.  I edited out all the photos of him pointing, and the really funny one where Walter and Noah are watching the plane fly by while Kate and I look oblivious.

At this point we’d pretty much lost Noah completely.  I have no idea what was in his mouth.  It was also about 109 degrees with 600% humidity, you can tell by the gradual demise of my hair!

This is the face he makes when you ask him to smile.  I guess it’s better than the broken neck look Kate is going for.  And yes, she’s a girl in blue.  Does it count that it’s a dress?

Kate has quite a few little people in her life.  Ok, really Noah does, but they’ve all agreed to let her into their club.  Over the past 13 days we’ve had a lot of pint sized visitors whose photos I thought I’d share along with some random shots of Kate and blackmail photos of Noah holding Kate.

This is Noah and Kate with Sebastian and Nate.  Sebastian loves babies!  He sang to Kate, kissed her and it took a lot of bribery for him to set her down.  He’s such a sweetheart!

Noah loves Kate’s crib and can get in by himself.  Because he wouldn’t get out we tossed Kate in with him.  Our little peanut of a boy who is in the 10th percentile for height and weight looks like a giant next to her.  Even his diapers look enormous now!  It’s such a shame that I don’t remember him this small.  What’s even worse is in a few years I probably won’t remember Kate at this size either.  It’s too bad they can’t stay tiny for at least the first year!

This is Noah looking “through a diamond” – his current obsession.  And long time friend Ayla, whose parents we met in birthing class when we were expecting Noah.

Ayla loved visiting with Kate.  Too bad they aren’t both laughing in this photo! 

Thursday night our friends Beth and Kim came to visit.  Kim is the mother of twins, Sydney and Peyton.  We used to visit with them every week (without fail!) but they have since moved to DC.  Kim was down for her highschool reunion and was able to squeeze in some time to come see us.  We miss them all very much!  And while I realize Kim isn’t a “little friend” she is the representative of a few.  Aaron (on the right) is Beth’s son.  He wasn’t too interested in Kate with our tornado of a son here to play.

Kim brought Noah a Curious George monkey.  He has yet to set it down.

It is so nice to be home!  My mom has been an amazing help ever since we arrived acting as our live in nanny and helping out with everything.  Walter’s parents come to visit and bring us dinner every night.  I don’t know how we would do this without our family!  Our friends have also been so generous and amazing and I just want to thank everyone for their help and support while we settle in.  Noah is doing really well with all of the changes.  He shows off a bit when company is over but relatively speaking he’s adjusting well. He’s more curious about Kate everyday and has been so sweet to her.  Today he gave her his monkey when she was crying – that is love.  Kate is doing very well too!  She has a clogged tear duct so one of her eyes is a little gunky but is otherwise perfect.  She’s over her jaundice and is starting to be more alert.  Today her belly button cord fell off and she wore her first dress.  Big milestones on this lazy Thursday!

And because I don’t dare post a word without a photo these days, here are some pictures from the 27th when we were trying to get the right photo for her birth announcement.  I will post that soon but in the meantime here are some other pictures from the day.

A lot of people who have met Kate ask “Is that her!?” when they see this photo.  Indeed it is.  No one is used to seeing her with her eyes open.  It’s a fleeting thing I know.  Isn’t she pretty? 

And this is Kate’s usual expression.  We were taking photos in the rose petals from XM’s generous arrangement.  Once she’d had enough we swaddled her so she could relax.  I couldn’t help but take photos even if the backdrop is a bit out of place.

And Noah couldn’t help but get in on the action.  The boy has the most flawless skin, doesn’t he?  I swear these pictures haven’t been touched up.

Sweet Noah -

Silly Noah -