Noah's Baptism Day

Noah was baptized this morning at church. It was a great service and Noah did wonderful getting baptized. He was wide awake and in a great mood. Such a great mood, in fact, that he peed on me while I was holding him after he was baptized (while some other children were getting baptized), and it leaked through his diaper and on his onesie, baptism outfit, my hands, my shirt and my suit. Always a show stealer, our son! We were joined by lots of family and friends and we thank ALL of you for loving our son and showing him God's love! After church, we all went to eat a yummy brunch at Mulligan's. Thanks to everyone who travled from out of town and in town to share Noah's special day. Our prayer on this (and every) day is that through all of life's ups and downs, Noah will always know and feel God's love, comfort, and embrace in his heart. Here are a few snapshots from the day:

How cool is this?

This is a new product they have at Williams-Sonoma called the Beaba (pronounced Bee-ah-buh)Babycook. It originated in Europe and is new the U.S., but wow, what a great idea. It won't be much longer until Noah starts eating real foods, so we better start convincing him now that pureed baby peas are DELICIOUS! Mmmmmmmmm!

My New Trick

Noah has figured out how to use his legs to scoot around. He routinely scoots backwards off of his aquarium playmat. We'll move him back to the mat and he'll scoot right back to where he was within a few minutes.

Also, the past 2 mornings we've gone to get him in his crib and he's been all over the place. Thursday morning, his head was at the complete opposite end of the bed from where we put him the night before. He is enjoying his newfound freedom of travel.

He's also transitioned from the normal coos and caas of baby lingo to high pitched yelling. It's so funny! He will yell, then wait about 30 seconds and then do it again. It's amazing to see how quickly babies pick up on things, figure them out, then want to keep doing them over and over.

Guys Night With Uncle Drew

Noah and Andrew had a fun guys night in Gibbs Hall on Tuesday. And Andrew even changed Noah's diaper. Way to go Andrew!

Orange & White Game

Last Saturday, Noah made his very first trip to Neyland Stadium for the 2008 Orange and White game. Our office was hosting a group of students in the skyboxes, so we all got to sit in the skyboxes for his first game, which was a treat. Noah did really well at the game and was even able to take a few quick cat-naps between all the meeting and greeting.

Ready for his first trip to Neyland Stadium


Haag Team Picture


What we (will) do best!


Today (Monday), we finally took Noah into the football office to meet Coach Fulmer and the office staff, which was a lot of fun. They all commented on his brick-solid frame and Coach Fulmer told us the scholarship papers are in the mail. They all enjoyed holding him, but we forgot to snap a picture. DOH! Coach was so nice to spend several minutes with us and Noah and I could tell he really enjoyed seeing him.

Special thanks to JenMommy (Eric's Mom) for coming to stay with us for a few days last week. I was working late for a few nights organizing the kickoff event for The Campaign for Tennessee, and Tyra and I were able to go to the event on Thursday. It was the first time both of us had been away from Noah at the same time, and he (and WE!) did well.

Tomorrow night, Noah gets to have a "guys night" with Uncle Drew and Cousin Thomas in Andrew's Gibbs Hall dorm room. Tyra has a Junior League Officers meeting and I have a scholarship dinner our office is hosting on the same night/time. The thought that both of us had commitments struck me at about 4 a.m. this morning and I worried about us scrambling to find a babysitter at the last minute, but thankfully Drew and Tom to the rescue! My event is right across the street from Andrew's dorm, so at least I'll be close by if I get any "come change his diaper NOW" phone calls!

Little Golfer

These are some pictures of Noah and Daddy after our trip to Augusta, GA to watch The Master's golf tournament. We had a great time watching the best golfers in the world play on the most beautiful golf course in the world!.....OK, so we didn't really go to Augusta, but we watched it on TV and had fun dressing Noah up in his Master's outfit.

Some video snippets

I took these on my cell phone last night, so the quality isn't great. He was jibber-jabbering away last night and I had to capture it. On a side note, last night (4/9) was the first time Noah slept 8 hours straight through the night. He woke up once or twice and made a few peeps, but was able to soothe himself back to sleep pretty quickly without us going to pick him up. He's been a really good sleept so far, but last night was great with him sleeping 8 hours straight! It was the first time Tyra was able to stay in bed all night since he was born, so that was a treat too. Anyway, here are the videos:

Jibber-Jabbering




This one is funny....he's been working hard the past few days to lift himself up on his legs while we're holding him on the couch. He'll be up against our stomachs while we're sitting down, then take his hands, grab our shirts, and pull himself up. His legs are really strong for a 9-week old, I think, so I put him down on the floor to see what he did...and sure enough....I know we're a long ways off from walking, but this was funny! He was looking up at me with the biggest smile while he was doing it too! Just awesome!

E-I-E-I-O!

Here's Noah in his Moo Moo outfit. Thanks Uncle Charles and Aunt Amy!



Noah's starting to figure out how to grab and hold his toys.


Dozing off while watching the Lady Vols win another national championship!

Happy 2 Month Birthday!!

Hope you enjoy these highlights from Noah's 2nd month:

Two Month Old Stats

Noah turned 2 months old today. He did great at his doctor's visit while getting 3 shots and 1 liquid vaccination. He's sporting two stylish bandaids on his thighs, one "Barney" bandaid and one "Backyardigans" bandaid. Here are his 2 month old stats: Weight: 14 lbs, 13 oz (97th percentile for his age) Height: 23.6 inches (77th percentile for his age) He's been doing better sleeping through the night...about 6 1/2 hours at a time, but seems to enjoy waking up at 4:45 am to grunt, squirm, and try to wake us up...but he eventually goes back to sleep. We have his 2 month old video ready to go, and I hope to post it soon!

Snapshots of Last Week

Playing with my aquarium friends, who I've now started gibber-gabbering with.


My very first golf club! Thanks Gigi!


Playing on my belly after my bath. I love bath time!


Meeting cousins Crystal and Rachel


Just hanging out with Mommy

Noah's First Easter and Reaching Another Milestone

Noah had a great first Easter. Because he's now more than 6 weeks old and cold/flu season is behind us (the doctor advised us to keep him at home for at least 6 weeks), we were able to take Noah to church for the first time. He did great during the service and slept about 99% of the time. He woke up after all of the songs, so I think he really enjoyed the music. After church we went home, took some pictures, made sausage & biscuits, did Noah's first Easter basket, then relaxed on the couch for some college basketball. It was a great day. And Noah set a new personal record for number of outfits worn in a day at 4...as he was on top of his "pee and/or spit-up on Mommy/Daddy/myself" game.

Noah is really starting to show his personality more and more and is smiling a lot. He's starting to really watch us closely and will always turn his head when we're walking around the room or talking to him. His new favorite lullabye is (and I'm not kidding), a slowed down version of the UT Alma Mater. It's like magic and puts him to sleep or calms him almost instantly when I'm holding him.

In another piece of breaking news... Noah rolled over by himself for the first time on Saturday night (Mar. 22). He was lying next to me in our bed sucking on his paci and it kept falling out and he was getting frustrated. He uses a paci very rarely, so when it falls out, I usually put it right back in to appease him. But after a few times, I wanted to see what he'd do if I didn't retrieve it right away when it fell out. He kept moving his mouth toward the paci trying to reach it and was wiggling his arms and legs frantically. After a few seconds, he made it to his left side and then, plop..rolled over on his belly. Tyra and I were both watching him and it was awesome. We tried the same paci trick two more times and sure enough, he rolled over both times. Of course, we gave him a standing ovation.

Noah also had fun watching the Tennessee/Butler game with Uncle Andrew and me yesterday afternoon as the VOLS scored a 76-71 overtime victory and advance to the Sweet 16!

Watching March Madness...what we did all weekend!


Mommy and Noah before church...it was in the 30s on Easter morning, so Noah's Easter outfit had to be "winter-ized"


Sleep Boy during church







Noah's First Easter Basket




Ready for a nap after a busy day.....


2 Minutes Later

Meeting More Family and New Pictures

Noah got to meet great-grandmother Momette, Aunt Amy, and cousins Leah and Benjamin this week. Leah made him and Gabi homemade blankets, which we love. We're glad they got to stop by on their way to Gatlinburg for spring break. Here are a few more pictures from this week. As you can tell, he's becoming a camera-HAM!

Noah Loves March Madness

See how happy he is that March Madness is here? Go VOLS!

No Pinches For Noah Today!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Noah's First Month - in video, picture, and song

I made this video using I-Movie. It was a lot of fun to make. Hope you enjoy...

Weekend Fun

Noah had an eventful weekend. We finally got around to testing out the breastpump on Saturday, so Noah enjoyed his first ever bottle feeding. It was fun for me to get to feed him, but we made a bit of a mess.

Then, later in the day, Noah took his first bath in his baby tub. We'd been just giving him good sponge baths, but he liked this way better.

We also set up his aquarium play mat, which he loved! It's got a blinky light thing that plays music that captivated his attention for about an hour straight. Here's a picture and brief video. This bought us some relaxing dinner time, which was nice!



Noah also got to watch (on TV with Mommy, while Dad went to the game) the VOLS cut down the nets after winning the 2008 SEC regular season championship. This is the first time since 1967 that we've won the SEC outright (we've tied for it a few times since then), so it was exciting. It was also Senior Day - the last home game for departing seniors Chris Lofton, JaJuan Smith, and Jordan Howell. Before I left for the game, Noah and I had a pregame pep rally and we sang all of the UT fight songs, so needless to say, Noah had his game face on!

4 Weeks Old Today

Today is Noah's 4-week birthday, and it seems like it's flown by. Over the past week or so, he's changed so much and is so alert now. We're so blessed and have loved watching him grow (a lot!) during this past month. His personality is starting to appear, and almost all of the time, he's a happy, very observant, and talkative (i.e. grunting) little boy. Some other things we've learned about him:

- he loves to nap on his tummy while Mom or Dad holds him
-he loves being held where he can look at your face..not a big fan of being cradled unless he's eating
-he loves to eat!
- he loves his bear mobile on his pack n' play...but he's as equally frustrated as Dad that the mobile doesn't move on its own
-he has a cowlick on the back of his head
-when he wears Orange on UT gamedays...we win!
-his eyes are still a dark grayish-blue and have yet to start changing much
-he's a big fan of the TV
-he loves to have his hair washed

Anyway, these are just a few tidbits.

Tyra and I took Noah in to the doctor for his 4-week checkup today and he's still growing very well and healthy as can be. He weighs 12 lbs, 3 oz and is about 22 1/4 inches long. He's gained almost 2 lbs since his last appointment two weeks ago. He does so great at the doctor visits, and has never been fussy or cried at all when being checked. At his next appointment in one month, he'll get his 2 month old shots.

Getting ready for the TN basketball game

Having fun on the changing table

All ready to go for his One-Month CheckupWhat 'chu lookin at?!

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