10 months of Noah

Question

Does anyone know how to make the heading of my blog look less boring? I want a different font than the ones Blogger offers, but I have no clue how to do it. I've seen some cute blogs out there, so I think it is possible. So if you are one of those smart creative people, please enlighten me.

Countdown to College Football

Seven days until Kyle's favorite time of the year. He is giddy. He updates me everyday on how many days we have left, and I think we've been doing that for 70 days already. So, you can imagine how much his excitement has built over these last few months. Long, sad months of indoor arena football and BYU classic football games from the 80's. Instead of trying to fight Kyle's second love, I've surrendered to the game. What I am currently reading:


I haven't got far enough, so I have lots of catching up to do before Saturday morning. After I finish, I hope to be inducted into the Wives' Football Hall of Fame. I will be able to enjoy with my husband the College Football Saturdays and NFL Sundays and Monday Night Football and High School Friday Nights and every other day of the week that they reserve for football. If all goes well, maybe Kyle will take up some girl thing like The Bachelor or The Hills. We'll see about that :)

Kyle (and I) aren't the only football fans in the house...

sweet little boy

Sweet, isn't it. Since then, he's started kissing everything. He does it on command, which is kind of cool, because I get besos all day from him. But I really like when he does it on his own. Like the time when he saw his teddy bear Koda (thanks Lauren and Christian) across the room and he crawled to it and kissed it on the nose. And then there's the other times. This weekend he saw one of his cousin Haylie's dolls on the floor, and he went straight to it, gave it a tender little kiss, and then, he picked it up and banged it on the floor repeatedly while growling and yelling. He is a crazy little thing. I don't know where he gets his little agressive tendencies, maybe it's something to do with being a boy...But that's why we like to encourage kisses and the love for Jesus :)

first day of school

I forced Kyle into taking first day of school pictures just like a mom would for her little kindergarten child (minus the Disney character backpack and lunchbox). Doesn't he look cute?


We have had fun getting ready for the school year, especially getting his new classroom all set up. We were starting from scratch since he is a first year teacher and hasn't accumulated teacher junk. After we threw out all the trash the former teacher left behind in his room, the classroom was a basically a blank canvas to work with. So we bought lots of real canvases, and went to town. We spent the weekend painting flags of Spanish speaking countries. We've also been working on duplicating some Diego Rivera paintings to hang in the classroom.

(these are still works in progress)

(our flag artwork on display)


It has been fun getting back to the art I love. And Kyle has some surprising artistic talents of his own. He could have gone into Art Education instead of Spanish! Anyway, Day 1 went well. He already has kids wanting to add his class because they heard from friends that Mr. Campbell is cool. I'm so proud.

5:30 A.M.

We are tweaking our sleep plan, due to the fact that Noah wakes up every morning at 5:00. This is the time that Noah seems to hit his peak, he is unbelievably perky and bubbly. We hear him in the other room, talking to himself and exploring every corner of the crib and anything else he can reach through the crib bars. He messes with the fan and light switches, he plays with the camera/crib monitor, and if the door is cracked, he opens it--all from the confines of his crib. With all those activities, he is able to entertain himself for a good 30 minutes. And then his talking escalates into pleas for attention and cries for help. When it is too loud to ignore, we go in and get him up, I feed him, and then he is even perkier than before. So we do what you might expect sleep deprived parents to do--we plant the child in front of the television, while we lay on the couch and wait for the sun to rise, trying to hold on until morning naptime. Today I was wondering if there was something I could do to squeeze more sleep out of the nights, but then I felt greedy, so maybe we will be content with what we've got now, and as much as possible, enjoy those early morning cartoons.

(5:30 A.M.)

first day of not-summer

For us, the summer is over. Kyle is back to Snow Canyon High School today, and I am trying to remember what a stay-at-home mom and baby should be doing. We went on a walk (in the early morning hours, of course. Physical activity after 10:00 a.m. in St. George is a death wish. Even though our summer is over, apparently St. George summer weather is just getting warmed up.) We ended up at the Albertson's a few blocks away, because Noah was on his last diaper and had depleted our baby wipes supply. We walked through the aisles looking at greeting cards--Noah especially liked the ones with dogs. He gets a kick out of my dog noises and always grabs my tongue when I do my dog pant. On the walk back home we saw the neighbor doggie and I was proud because Noah didn't pull the dog's hair or poke his eye, as he has been known to do. Then, morning nap, coloring, lunch, and shower. And now after 40 minutes of wrestling Noah to take a nap (in spite of our successes, we still have some sleep training kinks to work out), I won, and I have a window of opportunity to do whatever I want. So here's a few summer pictures.

Sleep update

Noah did it. He had the best night of his whole life. He went to bed at 7:30, woke up for a few minutes at 8:30, and then slept until 6:30 AM. I have never been more proud, or more rested. I love the Baby Whisperer.