these boots were made for walkin'...

*My mom informed me that I shouldn't post the picture I originally had on the internet...she's probably right.  I'll try to take a different picture of Noah walking in his boots in the near future.*


Caleb and Noah both got a pair of matching boots for Christmas.  And, well, I just couldn't help myself from taking a cute baby bottom in boots picture!

This picture also goes to show what a steady walker Noah is.  I can't believe how well he is walking already!  Unlike Caleb (who must get his grace, or lack thereof, from me), Noah rarely falls down.  He can stand up by himself in the middle of a room and is as confident as can be.  It's so fun to see him tottling around...though his days of tottling are few!

Santa

Caleb was thrilled...Noah wasn't.  So I stuck a sucker in his mouth as fast as I could and we snapped the picture. Oh, and the fan that cools Santa was blowing right on Noah's hair.  Hello there, Alfalfa! 

Christmas Tree Decorating

Decorating the Christmas tree together as a family is a tradition that my family always did growing up.  Each year, my mom would buy us a new ornament significant of something in our lives from that particular year.  Even now, my mom waits to decorate the tree until we can all be there to do it together.  I love getting to hang up our ornaments that we made forever ago.  I love that my Mom would rather have an eclectic blend of ornaments on her tree (many of which were handmade and hideously ugly) rather than a fancily decorated tree.  And I secretly love that my brothers always try to do something to make my construction paper gingerbread man I made in 2nd grade somehow inappropriate.

I want to continue this tradition with our little family as well.  Caleb got a Veggie Tales ornament this year because this is the year he fell in love with Veggie Tales.  Noah got a "Noah's Ark" ornament because, well, his name is Noah and it was cute.  If I would have been thinking, I probably would have gotten him a dog ornament since he loves dogs so much.

A few weeks ago, we pulled out all the ornaments and decorated the tree with the boys.  We only had one ornament casualty...which wasn't too bad for an almost 3-year old and 1-year old heavily involved in the process.  :)

Here is my favorite picture of the night...

I guess Caleb's jeans are too big. :)

And you might notice that we have an artificial tree (yuck!).  I am very much of a real Christmas tree lover!  But we thought since Noah puts EVERYTHING in his mouth, we would be safer putting up the artificial one my mom got for us at a Black Friday sale last year.  And in fact, we planned to have a live, planted tree this year like we did for Caleb's first Christmas.  We do have a planted Christmas tree, it is just about 3 feet tall and currently residing on our front porch.  :(  We couldn't find any larger ones. 

I will admit that I love the ease of putting up an artificial tree.  No stringing lights (my least-favorite part of Christmas-tree decorating)!  Yay!  But the smell of a fresh Christmas tree will win out next year (I think).  :)

Noah playing peek-a-boo with the ornament holder lid.

The majority of our ornaments were placed at the bottom of the tree by you-know-who. 

This is his "smile" these days.

Oops.

Happy memories...and a beautiful tree (at least in my eyes).  :)

Little Firefighters

These boys are getting to be so close!  They love playing together and make eachother laugh.  Just today they both were jumping around in Noah's crib...just giggling and tackling eachother.  It is so fun to see their relationship grow!

"Here...let me help you, Noah."

"That looks good!"

And Caleb's quote for the day (after getting onto him for throwing his Little People Nativity on the floor):  "Jenae, you're stressing me out!"

Hmm...

toy boy

As I was putting Caleb down for his nap, he wanted to get some toys off of his bookshelf.  I promptly told him that he wasn't going to play with toys...he was going to take a nap.

His response, "But I'm a Toy Boy, Mom."

I love this kid!

1-Year Pictures

Here are a few pictures we had taken at Portrait Innovations on Noah's birthday (I know, I know...I'm WAY behind). 

This was the best of the two of them together!

Can't believe this guy is a year-old already!  *sniff, sniff*

Such a happy boy!

Gotta love the Michael Jordan tongue...

I would ADORE this picture if it wasn't on the horrid red backdrop.  Anyone want to photoshop it???  I need to learn to speak up during these photo sessions.

Again...love!

This was the best picture we could get of the two boys TOGETHER on the Christmas backdrop.  And...I can't figure out how to turn it the right way...so just turn your heads to the left.  :)

SO HAPPY!

Love this one...

Sweet boy (who has since had a haircut...thank goodness)

Hmmm....

One of my favorite!

My other favorite...he looks like he's up to something in this one!

a puppy "paw-ty"

The theme for Noah's first birthday was dogs...mostly because what he loves the most is Sage (and any other dog for that matter).  Even though we had only family for Noah's birthday, I still wanted to make it special (and equal with what we did for Caleb's birthday).  :)

Though we didn't need invitations for a family birthday party...I decided to do them anyway {if only for the baby book}.  I couldn't find any cute dog invitations on any of the "normal" websites, so I looked on Etsy late one night and found these. 

Food:  Dog-Bone Rice Krispie Treats and...

...a #1 Cake, of course!  (The stars are the Stickerz Fruit Roll-Ups)

Opening his first present with Daddy!

He's a fan of presents, aparently.  :)

More presents...yay!

Precious birthday boy

Even Caleb was brought a present to open...though he ended up opening almost all of Noah's anyway. 

Papa and his little look-alike!

Trying out the cake...

And definitely a fan!

Especially when you get to put it in your hair.

Bumba and Luke

Brad and Papa...little did they know, they were making the same face!

Noah smeared icing all over Uncle Chris' face (with a little encouragment, of course).  :)

LoLa and Caleb reading his book together

Evan and Ethan trying out Noah's new Toy Story car {from them}

Thank goodness for our in-house cleaning crew!

We had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our precious second-born!  What a blessing these boys are!!!  We love you, Noah...Happy Birthday!