4th of July Weekend

We headed up to Iowa for the 4th of July weekend. We stayed at my sisters house on Friday night. I think Noah loved playing with his two cousins!! Saturday morning we got up and headed to Inwood to their parade. Noah didn’t like the parade too much and wanted to go back to the truck. We were surprised that how much he loves trucks and tractors that he was scared of them when they went past. Maybe they were too loud or just too big. I guess he is used to playing with the miniature version or seeing them in a book. We decided we have to come back to Iowa more often so he can be around that kind of stuff!!

Sunday we got up and headed to church and then we celebrated Noah’s 2nd birthday. I can’t believe he’s going to be two already! As Rick was grilling, Mom thought she would fill up the kiddie pool so the water could start warming up. Well, she just turned off the water and there stood Noah in the pool…shoes and all! I guess I shouldn’t have to worry about how warm his bath water is from now on! The four boys (Jack, Kahle, Noah, Bodee) played with the tractors, wagons, trucks and cars about the whole time. Faith and Nicholas got passed around alot…everyone wanted to hold a baby!!

That night we (Rick, Rachel, Noah, Faith, Janice, Renae, Micah, Kahle, Bodee) piled into our vehicle and drove around to look at the tornado damage. I can’t believe all the damage that can be done in a short amount of time. We stopped at my uncle and aunts house to see the damage down there and the boys loved looking at the machinery on the yard. I guess Noah just doesn’t like it when the machinery is moving!

Monday morning, Rick was up and out the door by 7 am to run in the George 5K!! It was his first 5K and he did great!!! The rest of us were waiting for him at the finish line…we’re not crazy enough to want to run for fun! He says he wants to do it again next year…I’m sure he’ll still be doing it alone!

The parade was early that afternoon and Noah did much better this time around! Aunt Renae held Faith pretty much the whole time and I don’t remember hearing a peep out of her…guess she must like her aunt (probably because Renae’s the one who keeps getting her the girly clothes!)

We were debating if we were going to go down to the school grounds to watch the fireworks or if we should go out to the farm…we decided the farm might be better – the boys were pretty wound up! We could still see the fireworks that they were shooting off in town and then we lit some of our own.

Noah’s favorite thing of the night was when we looked at the cows when we first got to the farm and one of the cows was farting…so now Noah keeps saying “Reids cow toot”. It makes Rick so proud that Noah is fascinated with farts…I, on the other hand, wish he would have just liked that the cow went moo.

You can see more pictures from the weekend, here.

Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day!!! I’m not sure how much of a holiday it was for Rick – but it was a productive one!!!

It started out by trying to find the leak in our big kitchen window. With all the rain we’ve had lately, we noticed that it leaks when the rain is hitting it from a certain direction. We didn’t have any luck on finding the leak, but being that he was messing with the window, he decided to clean them all on the outside!!! Then while he was doing that, he thought he might as well take down the satellite dish being that we’re not using it anymore. When he was on it way to putting the ladder back in the garage, he thought he might as well clean the front window and the entry way. Being that the entry way was cleaned, he thought it would seal it, so he got a fan to really dry it out before sealing, which lead him to notice that the outlet by the front door isn’t working, so he we went downstairs and switched out the breaker outlet that was causing the problem. And being that he was doing that, he thought he’d change the outlet in the garage that wasn’t working either. By this time, the front entryway was dry, so he sealed the slate. Which then lead him to clean the patio and seal that also.

I think that is everything he did!!! I felt bad being that he was doing this all on Father’s Day, but it was all his idea…and I figured I shouldn’t stop him if that is what he wanted to do!!

Faith Marie Nielsen

Well, she’s finally here!!!! We headed to Shawnee Mission Hospital around 6:30 am on Monday morning to be induced. I started to get hooked up to the IV’s and monitors a little after 7 and at 11:13 am, Faith Marie Nielsen made her way into the world!! Everything went very well, so there are no complaints here! She weighed 8 lbs 14 oz and was 20 inches long.

As of right now (Tuesday and 2:30 pm), Noah has not met his baby sister yet. We think he has a little stomach bug, so we don’t want to bring him to the hospital just yet. Last night Rick stayed home with Noah and my Mom stayed with me and Faith at the hospital. This morning, Rick and Mom did a shift change, so Mom is spending time with Noah. If he’s doing better this afternoon, we might bring him to the hospital tonight to meet his baby sister.

We will be able to come home tomorrow, so that will be nice. I’m sure it will be an adjustment to get used to a newborn again. I just hope that Noah doesn’t bury his sister in all his Hot Wheels and trains!!

I’ll be adding more pictures, but for now, here are the pictures we have so far.

March Means…No Pants

Well, Rick’s rule is that he only wears pants for 3 months of the year…the other months are reserved for shorts only! He will, however, wear shorts around the house no matter what the temperature is outside. So today, I was gone all day, so it was a Dad and Noah day. When I got home, guess what? Yep, Noah was in shorts!! Rick said it was March, so no more pants. I guess I’ll have to dress Noah from now on!! I’m not sure what the high was today, but when I came home, the temperature was 38 degrees…not sure if that is really “shorts weather” for a little boy!

And we will call him…Boots

I’m not sure why, but Noah has been wanting to wear his snow boots around the house lately. He’ll go and grab his boots and bring it to us and say “please”. He gets all excited when we start putting them on and when he’s ready to go, he runs around the house stomping all over the place. They seem like they are getting kinda tight, but they must not be too bad if he wants to wear them all the time!

Not much else is going on around here. We are getting close to our due date – just a shade over 3 weeks away!!! At my last doctors appointment, I found out that I’m starting to dilate, so that makes it seem really close!!! Now every time Rick leaves, I get the whole “if you start going into labor, call me right away” speech. First of all, DUH, of course I’m going to call you….how else am I going to get to the hospital!!! And does he really think I’ll just surprise him with, “oh, by the way, while you were out, I gave birth to our daughter”?