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.

Well, Noah has officially graduated to a “big boy bed”!! Sort of anyway! He doesn’t actually fall asleep in his bed, he tends to look at books or play with the register for awhile until he falls asleep on the floor. After he’s asleep, I’ll go in his room and put him in bed, but I usually need to go in through the bathroom because he’s laying in front of the other door so I can’t open it.

It is a little weird now that he can get out of bed. I’ve found him laying in the hall way a couple of times and one morning I heard him coming up the stairs…not sure how long he was downstairs or what he was doing!!

I took the crib down yesterday being that he doesn’t even want to get in his anymore – he still likes to get into Faith’s crib and check on her in the mornings! As soon as he hears that she’s awake, he looks and me and says “baby check” – so we need to go check on her. He wants up and as soon as I put him in the crib, he’ll either lay down next to her or give her a kiss. Oh, if they could any get along like this forever!!!

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!!

Who needs buckles??? Oh, wait, I guess Faith does!! Seems like all at once she is starting to really kick and arch her back…which makes for an interesting position after a little while in her bouncy chair! I had her sitting next to my desk and the next thing I knew, she was almost out of her chair! I lifted her back up and a few seconds later, she was like this again!! I guess I will definitely have to buckle her in if I’m not going to be by her the whole time!

She also seems to like her tummy time so she can look around. You can tell that she’s getting stronger by how far she hold her head up and how long she’ll hold it up. She’s also now rolling onto her side…doesn’t seem like it will be long before she gets all the way around!

I told Rick that she was growing up way to fast and that we should be thinking about another one….all I got was a “WHAT”. Okay, so I have to admit, I just said it to see his reaction…and it was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be!!

Noah had a BIG day yesterday!!! We went to “A Day Out With Thomas” in Baldwin City – just a little south of us. He got up and we started getting ready and then we made the mistake of asking him if he wanted to go see Thomas the Train. Well, being that we said it, he wanted to leave…NOW! He had like two bites of breakfast and a sip of milk and he wanted to get going. Our neighbor was going to watch Faith and she wasn’t even to our house yet and Noah wanted to get in the car, so him and Rick sat in the car for about 15-20 minutes before we actually left. Rick said he just kept asking to go bye-bye and where’s Thomas.

We got going down the interstate and there was a train next to the road, so Noah was excited about that. Then we parked at the high school where there was some construction vehicles and then got on a bus to head to the railroad. So Noah is already excited and then we pulled up to the train station and Noah (and the other kids on the bus) started pointing and saying “Thomas, Thomas”. I thought he was going to pop! And to top it off, there was even a fire truck there too!!

Our train ride was at 9:45 and we were there about an hour ahead of time, so we got to go around to the tents they had set up. One tent had tattoos that they were putting on and Noah has been pretty proud of his. I think he’s shown about everyone his tattoo already – I’m not sure what he’s going to do when it rubs off!! There was another tent that had tables with trains that you could play with. Another tent had storytelling and videos. There was a magician that put on a show, a bubble station and a little petting zoo. They also had a sand box area and a little maze made out of straw bales.

We weren’t sure how Noah would do on the train ride, but while we were standing in line, he kept pointing to the train, so we thought it might be good. THEN we got on the train and he didn’t like it. He kept wanting to get down. I’m not sure what was really wrong, but as soon as the train started moving, he was fine.

He seemed to have a great time and didn’t want to leave. It did help that we got to ride the bus back to our vehicle!! I forgot how load buses are!!

There are some more pictures here.