Technology

My kids love portable LCD screens. Noah likes to watch videos on youtube and Ana likes to watch Shrek. This is pretty much how every night goes down. JM

Snow Day

Noah and Ana played in the snow for the first time together the day after we got here. Ana liked to stand on the driveway and walk up to the snow, but hated being in the snow. After I had placed her in the snow, she kept falling down. After falling down for the fourth time, I helped her up and she yelled "I want bye-bye" in a panic-stricken voice. It was really cute. Notice Noah's fountains of snot running down his nose. He liked making snowballs and throwing them at bad guys. JM

Noah's Preschool Christmas Performance

I'm pretty sure that I never posted these, but these are the pictures of Noah's preschool Christmas performance. They sang three songs. But he wasn't there. We left the day before to move up to St. Louis. So these pictures are from the practice that they had. It was sad.
Also, Noah just had his first real phone conversation with a friend. He talked to Joseph (two people to his right in the first two pictures) about bad guys and birthday parties and all manner of things that only make sense if you're three. JM

Noah's Christmas Concert

Noah had a good show tonight. About 500 people came out to hear him sing. Pretty full house. Not a lot of merch sales, but we expect that to pick up later on from the online store. Here's some pictures. My kid's the one in the striped sweater. JM

Trick Or Treat

Below are some pictures of Noah and Ana in their costumes and trick-or-treating. The Darth Vader mask isn't really part of her costume, but we couldn't keep it off of her. She kept grabbing for it and putting it on. Here's more. JM

Noah's Halloween Party

Noah had a Halloween party on Wednesday at school. There's some pictures below, and if you want more, then just click here. JM

Halloween

Tonight was Halloween. Noah and Ana were so cute. I'll post pictures and video soon. JM

Pumpkin Patch

The pumpkin patch video has finally been edited and uploaded to youtube. Enjoy. JM

Pumpkin Patch

If you want to see more photos of the pumpkin patch, then go here. Video will be uploaded soon, but don't hold your breath. It takes a while. JM

Pumpkin Patch

More pictures from the pumpkin patch. More petting zoo and making bracelets. The boy you don't know again is Landon and the girl you don't know is Makaylee. JM

Pumpkin Patch - Petting Zoo

So here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch petting zoo. The kid you don't know is our neighbor Landon. JM

Bedtime

My kids are bad about bedtime. Well, really just my daughter. Noah's not so bad. I'll ask my daughter if she's ready to go to bed and she'll say "No!" and then run to her mommy. Tonight Noah and Ana fell asleep in our bed. Noah fell asleep about 20 seconds after he finished his sippy cup and Ana fell asleep laying across my wife's leg. Just before she fell asleep she was trying to do "cheers" with Noah and then she was out. They're fun. JM

Noah Meets A Bully

I know my son is not an angel. But today he was. Noah has had a relapse in his potty training. He's had several pee accidents over the last couple of weeks. I looked it up last night and it said one of the causes could be stress like starting school or dealing with a bully. I asked Noah if he liked school and he said yes. And he didn't seem to hint that anybody was being mean to him. So today I did a little recon on him. I saw him after his class had gone on potty break and didn't notice anything peculiar.
Then I got to see him a little later on while his class and another 3-year old class were on the playground. I was inside and upstairs looking out a big window, so nobody could see me spying. Noah played with some kids, then went over to the swings for a little bit, and then he went and started playing with this tonka truck in some sand.
As he was playing another boy came over and tried to take the toy from Noah. Noah tried to put his body between the other boy and the truck. But the other boy wouldn't let go. I'm upstairs starting to get upset and wondering how Noah is going to respond.
So then Noah picks up the truck to try to get it out of this other boy's hands, but the other boy pulled it away from Noah and started playing with it. I resisted the urge to go down there and take the truck back for my son and instead just watched from my spying perch.
Noah walks over and tells the teacher and she evidently told him to go tell the boy to please give it back. Noah walks over to the boy and says something, but he ignores Noah. Noah walks back over to the teacher and tells her that he still won't give it back. So the teacher walks over and evidently told the boy that when he was done playing with it that he needed to give it to Noah. Noah walked off and started playing on something else.
It was so sad to watch. Noah did what was right, and he didn't get what was rightfully his. Now that's injustice. So Eryn and I talked and decided to get Noah a special treat since we caught him doing what's right. We bought a cake mix and Noah, Ana, and I made a cake tonight, iced it, and then ate a little bit to celebrate a job well done.
I'm so proud of him. I think it's important to make a big deal about when you your kids do what's right. We like to do the opposite and freak out when they screw up. It was so cool to watch him, though. Here's some pictures. JM

Noah The Photographer

Noah wanted to take some pictures tonight. Here they are. Not necessarily the best framing, but I think his work shows some potential. He really likes to do it, so why not let him have some fun, you know? So here are some random shots of our kitchen in a different perspective than I would ever think of. JM

Noah Singing

Noah sang in church today. I posted the video earlier, but I wanted to post some pictures, too. It's so funny because he never put his magnifying glass down. He wanted to look through it the whole time. He's adorable. JM