Egg Hunting

Last Sunday (Palm Sunday) we had a Spring Festival at church. There was food, bouncy houses and other games, the Easter bunny, and most importantly an Easter Egg hunt! We've been playing with plastic eggs and Noah's Easter baskets at home for a couple weeks now, so I knew he was ready to go "egg hunting". He was very excited and did a good job picking up eggs, but did it at his own pace. He just didn't get the whole frenzied mad dash for eggs that the older kids did.

This year the kids were only grouped in two groups-5 and under and 6 and up. So Noah was really competing with some well seasoned egg hunters (and also some parents who were just scooping eggs by the handful into their kid's basket, but hey-I'm not judging anyone). Since he wasn't in a huge rush we made our way around the corner of the building where there weren't as many kids at first and found some nice piles of eggs all clumped together. We both really tried not to help too much and really let Noah just do it however he wanted to (easier said than done sometimes!). I helped carry the basket some, but other than me picking up eggs that he missed when attempting to drop in his basket, he picked them all up on his own. And you can see by the looks on his face that he had a great time in the process!

We didn't do much else at the festival. We did go see the Easter bunny, but Noah clamped down his legs around me (I was holding him at the time) and wouldn't go close to him, even when I went and sat there so we didn't force the issue (he had a similar reaction to Santa this year). We attempted the bounce house but all he cared about was the slide and the only way you could get to that was by going inside the big part and he didn't want to do that either--I think there were too many big kids inside at the time. We did watch Daddy play some basketball though and Noah kept talking about "Daddy going fast". A good time was had by all.

Egg hunt starts-trying to figure out which way to go

And he's off!
Score! A big pile all clumped together!

Now where to? The crazy thing is, he left half that pile on the ground. I think he just wanted to walk around a "find" them.

Daddy's basketball game...some of the youth girls were trash talking and saying they could beat Mike in basketball or football. Mike and our friend Nate took on 4 girls and beat them. The girls apparently want a rematch.

Noah's 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Noah's 2nd birthday with a big Mickey Mouse birthday bash! Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is his favorite show to watch in the mornings (actually probably a close tie between Mickey and Jungle Junction-affectionately known in our house as "Animals") so it was only fitting to have a Mickey themed party for him this year. Plus, that's the only easy make at home character cake I could come up with!

We had an afternoon cookout on Saturday March 6th, the day before Noah's actual birthday. All of the Tiltons and almost all the Whites (we missed Aunt Nessa) were able to come plus some extended family and two of Noah's friends plus their families. All in all I think we had a little over 20 people at our house. So much for a "little" party for our boy! Good thing we have a new big house with a yard and lots of extra space!

We got Noah a sand and water table for his birthday and put it together so the kids could play in it during the party. It was a HUGE hit! It quickly became a mud pit as the sand and water was all mixed together. I know some type-A personalities that had a hard time with that. And while it wasn't my preference for how things went, all that mattered was that Noah and the other kids were having a blast. I think Noah went thru 3 shirts that day because he kept getting so dirty.

Present opening was crazy. All the other kids wanted to be part of the fun and kept crowding up around Noah. Aunt Kristi tried to do a good job of keeping the kids back out of Noah's way (plus I think it was making her a little crazy) but you can't expect much impulse control out of a group of toddlers and preschoolers. Noah opened a keyboard from Grandpa as one of his first gifts and then pretty much wanted to ignore all other presents and play with that from that point on. We did get through the rest of them and some of the big hits were a bucket of plastic food, golf clubs, and a lawnmower among lots of other things too. You'd think it was Christmas again-the kid scored a huge loot!

Thankfully the black frosting on the Mickey cake didn't turn out to be the disaster it could have...I think Mike was anticipating a huge mess but we faired pretty well.

It was a great time overall! Noah had so much fun playing with all his friends and family and loved being the center of attention. He definately knew it was his birthday and could tell everyone that he was 2! He'd try to hold his fingers up, but usually only got one finger up while saying "TWO!". Anytime we mention cake now he tries to sing Happy Birthday! What a silly boy!

It's hard to believe he's growing up so much. He talks SO much. 4 and sometime 5 word sentences. I love having little conversations with him and seeing his sense of humor and personality come out. And he's smart and has such a memory that amazes me. He knows all the main colors, numbers 1-9 (can count and identify them), most shapes and is starting to be able to identify some letters. And he's gotten really into singing lately. He favorite song is Chris Tomlin's "Sing, Sing, Sing"--He knows the "Sing, Sing, Sing" part and has now added "Music, Heaven (the lyrics go "Sing, sing, sing and make music with the heaven..."), he sings the ABC's (not perfectly) and has started singing some of the theme songs to his TV shows (Elmo's World and Micky Mouse Clubhouse).

Happy Birthday Sweet Noah! We are so thankful to celebrate another year of life with you! Everyday you do something new that amazes me. We love you so much and are so honored to be your Mommy and Daddy! We can't wait to see what this next year has in store for you!

Loving his birthday present-sand and water table!

Doesn't that smile just melt your heart!

Greeting Uncle Thomas with some "knuckles" The chef
The men discussing grilling methods Food Time!

Aunt Kristi and Uncle CaseyPRESENTS! SOO Excited about the piano!

We had a hard time trying to figure out what some of the food was.

The boys are super excited to watch the present opening process... There's some good enthusiasm from the cousins!

Brother and SisterTaking in all the new toys

Mickey Cake!

Yum, Frosting!

And LOVING the attention of everyone singing to him!
Blow out those candles!

This was from the second day of cake, even messy he's still cute!

Mommy and Daddy happy to have survived the party!

Time to break in the new toys! He LOVES this food!

At church on Noah's Birthday On his birthday, jammin' with his new piano

Also on his birthday, still breaking in the new toys.

Snow!

We got a significant amount of real snow at our house! Now, I know those of you that live where it snows all the time think we Texans are crazy for getting excited over such a small amount, but when you never ever see it, it is fun to get out and play in it a little (and even better if it leads to getting out of work!). We only had about 1-2 inches at our place but it was enough to stick and play in. Sure enough, but the next day the sun was shining again and it was probably about 60 degrees (people had been wearing shorts the day or two before the snow--typical Texas weather=unpredictable).

Noah had fun with it. He keeps talking about "throwing snow" and will wave his arms like he's throwing snow balls. He knocked down Mike's minature snow man and was in hysterics laughing over that. Mike also got big laughs out of him by throwing giant piles of snow against the fence. Noah woke up the next morning and the first thing he wanted to do was go to the window to see the snow. Every once in a while he'll still walk over to the window and say "where snow, mama?" then answer his own question "snow melted. bye bye snow. bye bye ice. ice melted too." So cute.

We enjoyed it while it was here and really aren't that disappointed that it's gone. Afterall, it is Texas. We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves if it stayed around all the time!