Eric turns 30!

For Eric's 30th birthday, I surprised him with a quick one-night getaway to Chattanooga. On Thursday, Feb. 17th, Jennifer drove up from Hendersonville to keep the boys for us so we could leave early on the morning of the 18th (Eric's actual birthday). After a birthday breakfast celebration with the boys that morning, followed by presents and some key lime cake, we headed to Chatty.

It was a such a nice (and short) drive. We stayed in the heart of downtown which is so easy to get around without a car. We had dinner at the famous Terminal Brewhouse (amazing!!!), followed by drinks and dessert at Taco Mac and wrapped up the evening at Sing It or Wing It -- a karaoke bar! We had a great time and loved spending time together even though we missed the boys. No, we didn't sing, but were VERY tempted to :)

The best part of the weekend was surprising Eric with a book I'd put together of letters his family, friends, coaches, mentors, co-workers and others had written to him in honor of his 30th. It was a special project that I'll never forget working on because I loved reading how much everyone loves my sweet, kind, loving, thoughtful and inspirational husband.

Happy birthday, Eric!!!

Hugs & Kisses

Happy Valentine's Day!

Heart Florets Border Valentine's Day Card

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Love the Haag Boys,
Noah (3) and Brenton (9 months)

Brenton's first Valentine's Day. Noah wore this same bib on his first Valentine's Day on Feb. 14, 2008 when he was just one week old. It belonged to Eric when he was a baby. It says, "My little valentine." So sweet!

As you can see, Noah got dressed up for the occasion. Guess he though stripping down to undies and a homemade heart-filled visor was a good way to honor the occasion! In all honesty, Noah's favorite article of clothing is simply wear undies or PJs all day.

Brenton 6-9 month update

On Feb. 13, Brenton will be nine months old. I can't believe it! So much has changed since his 6 month check up in November. More details to follow so stay tuned!

Happy 3rd Birthday Noah!

Our little guy is three years old!

For Noah's special day, I decorated the kitchen table with birthday items and set most of Noah's "friends" at the table or on the couch to help celebrate. He was so excited to see all of this when he walked in the door from school.

Since we knew we'd have our own little family celebration on his real birthday, we saved our gifts for Noah to open rather than at his party. Eric scoured every toy store, online store and made several calls trying to find the big collector's edition of Buzz and Woody from the Toy Story movies.

Ever since seeing the movies and getting to play with "Big Buzz" and "Big Woody" at his buddy Emery's house, Noah's been obsessed with Toy Story. He's had small figures, but not the real deal. Luckily, we were able to secure both Buzz and Woody and proudly wrapped them up for his 3rd birthday surprise.

Toward the end of dinner, Noah excused himself from the table and went into the living room to play. This was also where we'd put his "friends" on the couch and wrapped presents on the cedar chest.

All of sudden, Noah burst into the kitchen and said, "Mommy, daddy! Mommy, daddy! SPECIAL WOODY!" Eric and I looked at each other, burst out laughing (after a wee moment of disbelief that we didn't get to see him open it after all the work Eric put into finding the darn thing), and grabbed the video camera to try and capture the rest of his reaction. He had fun opening the rest of his gifts, especially "Big Buzz."

He was SO excited to finally have a "Special Buzz" and "Special Woody" to keep forever. On another note, it was kind of bittersweet to see him become so quickly attached to Buzz and Woody because he's loved Grover and Super Grover for so long. I'll guess we'll see if Buzz and Woody take Grover's place!

Earlier in the day, Noah had an ice cream party at school.

Here are most of Noah's Grovers -- all of them are distinct from one another and have their own name....i.e. Big Grover, Little Grover, Small Grover, Little Super Grover, Big Super Grover, Christmas Grover, 'Lil Sup (pronounced "soup") and so on and so forth!!!

A yummy red velvet cupcake from The Cupcakery

The birthday boy with mommy.

Three-year check-up: 38 pounds (95th percentile) and 38 inches tall! Not too shabby for the 9 lb. 9 oz. 21 and 3/4 inches baby boy that entered the world peeing on the doctor!

Cheering on the Packers!

Eric and I watch the Super Bowl every year, but this year was even more special since one of our good friends was actually playing in the game! Scott Wells, a former UT football player and Brentwood Academy alum, is the starting Center for the Green Bay Packers. It was so neat to watch NFL's biggest game of the year while rooting for a close friend when we'd watched so many on TV with Scott and his wife Julie. We've all been friends since college when Eric and Scott met as freshman when Eric became a manager on the team. Eric bought the boys matching Green Bay shirts and it was nice to be able to watch the game in peace since the boys were both asleep by halftime :) The first thing Eric said after the game was, "I can't wait to try on Scott's Super Bowl ring!"

Noah's Super Grover 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Noah's birthday a little early with a "super" birthday party with some friends and family. The theme was "Super Grover" -- Noah's first beloved super hero. It's been so sweet to watch his attachment to Super Grover / Grover over the past year as well as see his imagination at its best.

We had Super Grover paraphernalia scattered all over the house for the party, almost like a mini-museum exhibit of all of the SG items we've collected in the past year. Noah wore one of his Super Grover shirts, and Tyra even ordered one to wear for the occasion.

It was so much fun to see Noah playing with all of his friends. He's so social as it is, but seeing him in his element surrounded by his buddies was awesome. I think they all must have run about a mile around our downstairs the first 20 minutes they were there.

When things settled down, we enjoyed snacks, Super Grover blue kool-aid and juice boxes, and a Super Grover cake. Noah actually didn't eat much of it, probably because he'd been snacking all morning and playing a lot.

Present time was a lot of fun, and Noah was genuinely excited about all of his gifts...some Toy Story things (his new favorite), Super Why games, an awesome plasma riding car, and lots of other cool gifts.

Super Grover greeted guests as they entered the party.

Mommy made sugar cookies and decorated them with the number 3!

Grover fiercely guarding his Grover fruit bars.

Grover coloring books for the kids to use.

Can you tell our theme was all blue? Grover juice boxes, blue truffles, blue suckers, blue Gatorade and decor :)

Super Grover must have decided to take a nap and left his cape and helmet on our stairs.

The birthday boy with his silly daddy and brother.

Noah loved my Super Grover tee.

Party favors -- blue bubbles, blue air heads, blue stickers and a blue sucker

Here's Super Grover in his Super Grover-mobile ready to take off from the airport!

Cool balloons Gigi found on Ebay. All of Noah's friends took a balloon home.

Grover thanking Noah's guests for coming to the party.

To view all of the pictures from his party, click HERE.

Asleep in the high chair

This is how Brenton chose to start the first day of February...falling asleep in his high chair at school after lunch! His teacher took this photo of him and texted it to me so that's why it's a bit dark. So much has happened since Christmas so we can't wait to update the blog with the latest news, milestones and pictures :)

Potty Training Boot Camp

We're happy to say that we "broke on through to the other side!" Noah is potty trained, and we are darn proud of him!

On Jan. 21, we kicked off Potty Training Boot Camp at the Haag house. Here's a breakdown of how the weekend went:

Day 1: Friday, Jan. 21 - Tyra was at home with the boys and kept Noah in big boy underwear all day. He had four pee accidents and didn't really want to sit on the potty each time he was asked. It got pretty frustrating because he KNEW when he needed to go, but just wouldn't.

Day 2: Saturday, Jan. 22 - Tyra decided to make the whole experience a game to deflect the request of mommy and daddy telling Noah to go potty to a cool beeping timer that tells Noah when to go instead. She took our Kitchen Aid timer and set it to go off every 1.5 to 2 hours. We told Noah it was the "pee pee timer" and every time it went off, it meant he had to go potty.  We allowed him to press the button and help re-set the clock. After a while, he'd hear the beep and go, "It's pee pee time!" On the flip side, whenever the oven, microwave or anything else in our house beeped, Noah would say, "It's pee pee time!" HAHA! We unknowingly had our own little Pavlov's Dog experiment in our own house!

Day 3: Sunday, Jan. 23 - Needless to say this whole "pee pee timer" idea worked like a charm. Noah really got into going potty. We made a big deal out of it too, like he'd won the Heisman or something -- lots of singing, clapping, dancing and praise for our little guy.

Day 4: This was Noah's first day at school in big boy underwear. He did great and had no accidents.

It's been almost two weeks now since he's been potty trained and other than some hesitation to have BM's in the potty, it's been a breeze. Of course, the best part is not having to buy diapers for him anymore! He does wear pull-ups at night, but we don't call them that. We call them his "nighttime underwear" so that he doesn't think he's wearing a diaper still. Going to underwear for 11-12 hours of sleep at night is a little much to ask, so we're not pushing Noah to wear big boy undewear until he's ready.

Let it snow!

2011 has gotten off to a snowy start! We've had so much snow and Noah really enjoys playing in it.

Sledding with daddy

Don't think that smile could have gotten any bigger!

Our side yard looked like a winter wonderland!

Making snow angels

Where's Waldo?

I don't think Brenton could have been any more bundled up!

Poor thing looks like a tick about to pop!

Christmas with TWO boys!

Christmas with two boys was so much fun this year! Here's a glimpse of what we were up to:

Dec. 23 -- the boys got to celebrate Christmas a little early with Gigi, Papa Dave and Maggie.

Dec. 24 -- Here's Noah after we got home from the Christmas Eve children's service at church. He was mad at us because he didn't want to take a picture! He looked awfully cute in that sweater vest from Uncle Greg and Aunt Susan though! After a few photos, we made  hot chocolate, got in the car and drove around some local neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights.





'Lil Haag with Daddy Haag





Noah was finally coaxed into taking a picture when we said we could tackle each other! Boys will be boys right?

Dec. 25 - Christmas morning has finally arrived! By the way, those cute, oversized ornaments from Pottery Barn that Eric so creatively hung on the railing quickly became sports equipment for Noah to slap each trip up and down the stairs!

This moment, we'll never forget. After we came downstairs, Noah immediately saw that Santa had left a few cookie crumbs and didn't drink all of his milk, so Noah helped himself!

Since we didn't want the boys to see their Santa gifts before opening stockings in the den, we hung this quilt up to block their view.

Noah has always loved his miniature toy figures, so Santa left some Sesame Street and Super Why friends in his stocking.

Mommy insisted on the matching PJs :)

Noah's big gift was a train table, trains and tracks. He played there most of the day and loved saying, "Choo, choo!"

Brenton enjoyed his goodies too.

"Brenton's First Christmas" - super cute jammies from Gigi. Noah had a pair on his first Christmas too.

Dec. 26 - We drove to Hendersonville and the boys got to celebrate Christmas again at JenMommy's house!

We got to visit our great friends, the Leas, in Nashville. Noah and Emery always have fun and play really well together.

Thomas the Train PJ buddies

This was as close to a good picture with Santa we could get. Noah was pretty scared and had no desire to even sit next to him. He finally warmed up to him with the help of a sugar cookie.

Brenton's first picture with Santa at Smart Toys and Books -- best toy store around!

It was such a blessing to see friends and family during our brief trip to Hendersonville. It's never long enough though because we always feel like we're rushing from one place to the next. I guess that's how it is for everyone who is visiting out-of-town family! We really love being in Knoxville, but really wish we could see our family and friends more often.