Fun in the Fall with Noah

I know this update is long overdue but this fall has been a very busy one for our family as we adjust to life with a newborn and a pre-schooler! The kids and I have been filling our days going to the zoo, play groups, and on play dates, meeting daddy for lunch, having coffee with girlfriends, going on walks during the day, napping during naptime, etc.  Noah has pre-school two days a week which has been fun for him and also gives Mommy some one-on-one time with her favorite girl, Miss Callie.  On the days when I just have Callie with me, it seems so easy! It has been funny for me to recall how overwhelmed I felt when Noah was a newborn as a new mom. Now, a newborn seems so easy in comparison to a very busy 3-year old or managing two kids at once!! Lucky for me, my mom is retired and lives just a few minutes drive away.  She visits us a lot which has been a HUGE help with the kids, but it also has been fun spending so much time with her. 

In an attempt to try and not miss recording anything our two kids are doing, I am going to try to do a post for each of them each month.  We'll see how long I last...  Here is Noah's update:

Noah is doing great and we are having so much fun with him at this age.  He is an absolute WHIZ at puzzles and loves to put them together!  He can put together a 24 piece puzzle in less than three minutes! It is so fun to watch him do it!  To challenge him, we mix his four 24-piece puzzles together and watch him build each puzzle one by one.  He is also good at building things out of legos and lincoln logs.  His favorite things to make are "garages" for his toy cars. We definitely see the "mind of an engineer" in him just like his daddy! Two of Noah's favorite games to play with us this month are "I Spy" (with the McQueen flashlight that Kendra got for him) and "Hide n Seek".  

Noah seems to love being a big brother.  When I drop him off at school or pick him up, he very proudly introduces his "sissy" to his friends at school.  The first few times I drove him to school without his sister in the car (she stayed with my mom while I dropped him off), Noah looked over at the empty car seat base and said in a panic, "Oh no! Sissy's not here!"  He is such a good big bro looking out for her! 

When Callison was born, we expected Noah to be jealous, but so far he hasn't shown any signs of not liking her or anything like that.  He loves to pat her head, turn on her music in her bouncer chair and play with her on the playmat.  However, he has regressed quite a bit on his potty training and going to bed on time. :(  We are working on both with him.  Noah's latest move is that he sneaks into bed with us in the middle of the night.  One minute he is sleeping away in his own bed and then we roll over and all of sudden he is sandwiched between us (with his dank and puppy)! Admittedly, Wes and I are both pretty hard sleepers, but it is still a shock to us when he seems to appear out of nowhere!

Some of our favorite sayings from this month:

Noah: "Noah is happy.  Sissy is happy.  Mommy is happy."
Me: "What about Daddy? Is Daddy happy?"
Noah:  "No. Daddy is at work!"

Noah:  "I want to show you something, Mom, I want to show you something..."
Me: You want to show me something?
Noah:  OK!!! (as if I was the one bringing it up.. he does this with EVERYTHING now.  so cute!)

Noah: "The pumpkin is broken" (a bulb burned out in the electric pumpkin at Grandpa's house)
Me: "Yeah, the light burned out."
Noah: "Yeah, Lucy did it (Auntie Renee's puppy).  Auntie Nee has to fix it" (poor Lucy had nothing to do with it, but for some reason she got all the blame)

Noah: "Uh oh, _____________ is broken." (Noah would say this whenever he spotted a ceiling fan not turned on, a light bulb burned out, a broken toy, a street lamp in the park that wasn't on, a police car that didn't have his lights going... )
Noah: We have to wait til Gong Gong (my dad) comes home to fix it".  (This is hilarious because anyone that knows my dad, knows that he is not very handy. My poor dad had quite the list of things he was supposed to fix when he got back home from two months in Denver.)

Four blonde boys (Bodi, Cael, Noah and Dawson) reading to each other.  So cute!



Chasing me around is Pao Pao's workout! I am pretty fast!



Hugs from Gong Gong at the Campbell Science Center Trails Day Event

Throwing walks with dad into the river! 
This was our first hike back to North Fork Eagle River with Callie!

Beautiful fall day in Alaska!

 

I like to pat my sissy gently on the tummy

 

I also like to give her kisses.  Such a good big brother!



I love to read books with Grandpa

Chatting it up with my BFF Bodi at the Alaska Zoo

Building play-doh cars with Pao Pao is so much fun!



Goofing around with dad on our hike back to Thunderbird Falls



Looking for bugs and creepy crawlies under rocks along the way
(Mom is so grateful for Dad, because she is no fan of bugs, worms and spiders)



I am happy!

Pumpkin painting

Callison is 3 weeks old!

Our sweet Callie girl is three weeks old today! She is such an easy going baby and we have loved getting to know her better.  She has won all our hearts completely. 

We had her 2 week checkup last week and her weight was 7lbs 11oz. Yay!!  Our pediatrician said she was doing great!! She has strong head control and likes to lift herself up by holding our hands.  When she is awake, she loves to be held upright so she can check things out. 

She is still sleeping most of the day and is up for long stretches at night, so we are working on trying to flip her schedule around. This entails us making ridiculous faces, singing songs and trying to be exciting when she is awake during the day and then being super quiet and keeping it dark/mellow during the night. 

Callie likes to eat and is finally getting the hang of nursing.  We had a pretty rough time the first 10 days or so but now Mommy and baby girl are figuring it out and getting in the groove.  One of the things we noticed right away was that Callie spends about 5-10 minutes waking up before she is ready to eat.  When Noah was a baby, he would go from asleep to starving, with no middle ground!  Just goes to show how every baby is different! We are excited to learn more about her as she gets older.

The grandparents have been an ENORMOUS help to us these first few weeks as we adjust to life with a newborn AND a pre-schooler.  Not sure how we would survive without them.  Pao Pao and Grandpa Keith have taken Noah out to do lots of fun activities so I can sleep, catch up on housework or just have some precious one-on-one time with my Callie girl.  Noah has been loving all the attention and it helps me feel a lot less guilty about "sleeping when the baby sleeps".  We have also been treated to several delicious dinners and even a homemade breakfast!  We are so blessed to have such loving friends and family in our lives (and nearby).

Gong Gong got to meet Callison for the first time on Sept 11!

Pao Pao, Gong Gong and Callie
(Pao Pao and Gong Gong are Chinese for Grandma and Grandpa)

Checking out the world

Auntie Renee and Callie

She looks so sweet when she sleeps

but we love playing with her when she is awake too!

hanging out on the "dank" that Pao Pao made for Callie

love her pretty gray-blue eyes!



Afternoon dozing. Being this cute is exhausting!



Here is a pic of me when I was a newborn. Callie is Mama's mini C!



Noah is 3 years old!

Our little guy is three years old and oh so much fun! Noah's language skills have really exploded over the past year and it has been so fun to have little conversations with him.  Here are a few of our favorites:

He has proven to be quite the negotiator.  Once when Wes was dropping him off at school, Noah said he wanted to go to Grandpa's house.  When he was told that we were going to schoo and then later we could see Grandpa, he said, "ok, how about we go to Grandma's house, then go see Grandpa?"

"Noah’s not sad.  Noah is happy.” He also told us that mommy was happy and daddy was happy.  My heart swells with love each time he says it. Music to a parent's ears.

"We are almost there honey, almost there..." Noah says this to his sissy when she sometimes fusses in the car.  He is such a nice big brother!

"I'm a big boy now!"  Noah loves being a big boy and this has come in handy when we want him to use the potty or brush his teeth since big boys do these things.

"It is hot/cold to the day."  Noah often comments on the weather and whenever he says "today," he throws in a "the". 

"Cereal mommy? Mommy? I want some cereal please. Time to wake up. Daddy is sleeping".  This is the first converstation we have each morning.  Not sure why he likes to let Daddy sleep while mommy gets up.  No fair!

“Mommy get it! Daddy get it! Bodi, eat your pizza!”  Typical of most three year olds, our little guy can sometimes be mr. bossy pants.  Oh, and his pal Bodi did eat his pizza. 

“Sweet dreams, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite, I love you.”  Nighttime farewell that we say to him each night and he repeats back to us.

“Come here, mommy/daddy, come here…”  He says this so sweetly and softly.  Usually when he wants us to lay down with him at bed time or help him down from the potty.

“Time out!”  When Noah gets in trouble, we put him in time out.  He has since used this tactic in other ways as well.  When he didn’t want to share his mower toy, he proclaimed that the “Mater mower was in time out!” and he put the mower in his time out chair.  When he was frustrated with his potty chair during “potty training weekend” he said,  “potty chair is broken… potty chair goes into time out mommy!” and threw his potty chair in the garage.

“No…I don’t like it.”  One morning when I was trying to rush Noah out the door to school, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was a grumpy bear.  He didn’t want to do anything that morning.  As I discussed all the things we needed to do to get ready, he kept saying, “Don’t like getting up.  Don’t like potty.  Don’t like shirt.  Don’t like pants.  Don’t like cereal.  Don’t like school.  Don’t like going downstairs.”  He doing great at communicating what he wants/doesn’t want, but has a little harder time understanding when he does and doesn’t have a choice. 

Noah's favorites this month:

Favorite TV show - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  He even specifically requests which episodes he would like to watch.  He also likes Super Why.

Favorite breakfast – pancakes, waffles, muffin, cereal or oatmeal

Favorite snack – “Mater snacks” (fruit snacks in shape of CARS characters), goldfish, dried tropical fruit, grapes, apples, raisins, sausage, cheese, peaches and orange slices

Favorite drink – Juice, Milk, Water (in that order of preference).

Favorite book of the month – Disney Cars "Look and Find" book.  He wants to read this every. single. night.  Daddy is really starting to hate this book and has even tried hiding it from Noah so he will pick another book to read.

Favorite dinners – mac n cheese, pasta/casserole, green beans, watermelon, cheesy broccoli, “mickey nuggets” and hot dogs.

Favorite dessert – Grandma Jan’s chocolate chip fudge cake! Mmmmm… can’t blame him there.

Noah's first "phone call" with his best friend Bodi!

Playing "hoops" with daddy

Jumping in puddles is oh so fun!  

Power wheel jeep + sweet Kendra.  I think Noah is in love!

Noah and Kendra's joy ride!

Noah got some sweet toys for his birthday!

Grandma Jan made him a race car cake!

Noah loved when we all sang "happy birthday" to him!

Noah couldn't wait to dive into the cake!

Noah's family!

Introducing our sweet baby girl - Callison Lucile!

We welcomed Callison Lucile Oistad into the world on Friday, August 26, 2011 at 12:12am.  She was 7 lbs 3 oz, 20.5 inches long and had a head full of dark hair!  We are so in love with our little darling.  She is such a sweetheart with an easy going temperment.  The only time she fusses is if she is hungry or getting changed.  Other than that, she is a happy, mellow newborn.  She is a little cuddler; she loves to rest on mommy and daddy's chest and listen to our hearts.

We chose to name her Callison because we both liked the name "Callie" and "Allison" so we put them together to make Callison.  We also liked that her name started with a "C" like her mommy. Her middle name was chosen in honor of her great grandmother, Lucile Roland (my dad's mom).  I wish so badly our kids could have had the chance to meet Grandma Lou. She was an amazing woman.

Unlike Noah's surprise arrival, we had a bit more notice with Callie and felt really ready for her whenever she decided to make her big debut! Wes and I had gone out to lunch on Thursday and I said I was having some contractions, although they were pretty far apart. Wes' company had sponsored him to play in a golf tournament the next day and I told Wes he should give his spot to someone else because baby was very likely gonna come.  Kind of a bummer he had to miss a day of free golf, but he was happy to do it to finally meet his baby girl! Sure enough, later that evening after work, I stopped by the hospital to finish some registration paperwork and my contractions were 5-10 min apart so we ended up staying. My mom watched Noah that night and Grandma Jan brought us our hospital bag from home! Thank goodness for grandparents! Baby C was born 6 hours later!

Noah is adjusting well to being a big brother.  We were worried he would be jealous, but I think he is loving all the extra attention he has been getting from dad and the grandparents since his sissy was born.  He even got a few “big brother” toys.  So far he has been really understanding about all the change in the house. He has been saying "I'm a big brother" and "Noah's a big boy!"

Here are a few of our favorite pics.  Hard to believe we have taken over 100 pictures since she was born!!

Daddy was in love at first sight

Daddy's girl

 

Mama was happy to finally have baby girl in her arms after 9 months of waiting 

So excited to welcome Callie into our family

Callie and her Pao Pao

Big Brother Noah came to visit and got some snuggle time with Daddy!

Our sweet Callie girl

The Rupp family stopped by to wish us well and meet Callison!

Auntie Renee and Callie

Grandpa Keith and Grandma Jan giving Callie some lovin

Noah saying hi to his sissy!

Noah is such a great big brother!



Our little angel

Kendra couldn't wait to come meet Callie!

Callie's 2-day check-up -- her weight was on the way back up to 6 lbs 13 oz!
Her discharge weight was 6 lbs 11 oz.



Daddy loves his Callie time.

Callie came to meet handsome little Kekoa for the first time!  They are exactly one week apart in age!

Sweet sleep

Mommy loves having a newborn to cuddle again!

Sneak peek from Callie's first professional photo shoot (Kaile Meyers Photography)