American Idol at the Hartmans

I thought I would share a glimpse into what American Idol looks like at the Hartmans house. Noelle loves it and she only has to hear the intro before she knows what show it is and proclaims "Aminin Idol" While she is a beautiful singer she loves watching the show so that she can dance. As soon as each song ends she asks for more and starts dancing again with the next song.

Last night was especially cute because she happened to look like she was leading an 80's jazzercise class.
Adding some bling to the mix...
Dancing around with her kitty.
While Noelle gets to dance around Nick and I get to cuddle on the couch and watch the show.
Family shot!
Here is a clip of her dancing around.

This morning I thought it would be fun to show Noelle how to line her animals up on her bed. I guess she's going to be like me as far as organizing goes because she really showed no interest.
But it was fun to "sleep" with them.
This is just a cute picture from the other night after her bath, I loved all the water drops on her face.
Happy Wednesday everyone, Friday's almost here!

Hair, Sit-Ups, Friends and Rooms....

Saturday night was girls night for Sunday school. It was nice to get together with all my friends and have the freedom of no kids. All the guys got together and huge out with the kids and Noelle and Nick had a lot of fun while I was out. We had to sit at two tables to cut down the wait but we got in really quickly and had lots of fun.

The next days hair after sleeping in her french braids.

Eating some kix on the way to church
Wearing Daddy's gardening hat
"I see you"
Since the last stretching picture was so popular I am posting another one, she is really getting good at it!
I guess Noelle has figured out that after stretching comes the sit-ups. When Nick laid down to finish stretching Noelle sat down on him and all on her own decided to help him with his sit-ups. She's not too gentle but maybe someday she'll make a great personal trainer.

This morning we hung out with Luke while his mom when to a doc. appt. We had a lot of fun.

She backed him into the wall for a hug...
And some kisses...
This morning when I went into Noelle's room to get her dressed for the day instead I rearranged her room. The bookshelf that we had in there was getting to be a problem. She has a very curious mind and figured out how to get from her rocking chair to standing on her diaper pail to get to the books she's not supposed to have. So I moved it into our room, it's nice to have her room just be her room and not have the extras in it.
I need to get some new fabric for that chair but I've been saying I should do it for years now...
Thats all for now...hope everyone has a good week.

Happy Weekend!

I hope that everyone is having a good weekend. We are having a nice relaxing Saturday, just hanging out at home. Tonight I have girls night at Olive Garden with my friends from Sunday School. Looking forward to it! Here are pictures from our week.

Noelle is a fan of climbing on the window sill...
Sporting her new shades
She put them on her head by herself. Pretty cute.
For Noelle's birthday Nick got her the classic Winnie-the-pooh video that he loved and watched daily as a child. We finally got it out and she loves it. Here they are watching it together.

A couple months ago we moved Noelle to a "big bed" It's very cold in her room and I really needed to get her a comforter. It took me a while but now that I started cleaning at my MIL's house I decided before we need to use it for rent (Rent doesn't go up till June) I would get a bed set for Noelle. I think it's super cute!
Her room has always been a mix of hand-me-down furniture and random things without much of a theme. Hopefully I can slowly start getting things and decorating. we are going with a Hawaiian theme, I think that it can easily be spread to "surfer-boy" if our next baby is a boy since they will share a room for a little while.
My mom made this pillow case for Noelle and she loves it!
Thursday's I spend the day at my mom's and Noelle needed a bath so I put her in the sink. It's been a while since I've done that and it's the last time. She as always taken her bath's in the sink at there house (not sure why we don't use the bath) but she is getting really big!
Her cool soapy hair-do.
Nick has been really good lately about working out and Noelle loved to stretch with him.

I thought she looked pretty cute today so thought it was worth a couple pictures.
It's getting nice and warm now so we are getting out the fun summer clothes. This skirt is actually from the end of last summer, it's 12 months and she still fits it.
I finally caved in and joined the plastic shoe club. She gets dirty sometimes when she plays outside and they are so easy to clean. She thinks they are so cute, she loves them.
Her hair is getting so long and easy to french braid. She's such a little girl now, I can't believe how much she has grown up!
So Noelle is going through a huge change the past couple of days. We are starting to night wean. I have always been very happy to meet any needs she has at night by letting her cuddle in bed with us most of the night and always nursing her when she wakes up. Although it doesn't offer me the most sleep it makes me happy that while she is small she can be reassured that we are there and that mommy loves her and will always meet her needs no matter what time of day. But I realize that this would obviously be very difficult with two kids and that I wouldn't want to go through the hard nights pregnant so we are starting now. It's going really well. It's only been two nights and she is already getting used to the change. We are cuddling and singing and she is falling back to sleep very quickly with very little crying. It makes me really happy to do it in a gentle way, now that she is old enough to talk about it and she seems to understand what is going on. While it will be really nice to sleep uninterrupted again I will miss her cuddles at night and it's just another sign of how big she is getting. Hopefully it continues to go well, I have no problems waiting a couple of months if she doesn't seem ready but I think that the first night would have been the hard part if she wasn't ready.

Anyway, there's some pictures and some mindless babble. That's what a blog is for right? Typing out ones thoughts. Enjoy your weekends everyone!

Yay for working computers!!!

Well all the good intentions I had for updating often must have overwhelmed my computer because it hasn't been working for a couple weeks. Nick just fixed it tonight so I promise I wasn't flaking!

So our happiest news since my last post is that we no longer have to move! I have a very generous mother-in-law and while I've always known that about her I was reminded of it this weekend. She has been planning for a short while to hire a housekeeper to come once every two weeks for a couple of hours to do basic cleaning. She thought of us and offered me the job so that we don't have to move and especially so that we don't have to downsize because we were certain that if we were to move we wouldn't be able to afford another two bedroom. So I now have a part-part-part time job that will be bringing in the perfect amount to keep us in our apartment. That mixed with paying off some bills with the IRS rebate and we are going to be in a good place. God has really blessed us!

Noelle was 21 months yesterday. I can't believe that 2 is just a couple months away! I feel like when she turns two she is officially not a baby anymore and while I'm excited about how she learns and grows everyday, the thought of her not being my baby anymore is a little sad. But I do still have a couple months. She is so brilliant it constantly amazes me. Our favorite thing to do right now is to stop reading or singing in the middle of a sentence and with tons of books and songs she can finish off the page or line without skipping a beat. Her ability to memorize is endless! She also started saying "I love you" in the last couple of weeks. It is so sweet to hear. Nick will be leaving for work and as he is walking out the door I hear "I love you Noelle....I dove you too, Daddy!" and my favorite is when she is cuddled up in my nap nursing she will pull off at random, look up into my eyes and say "I dove you Mommy!"

Anyway, no pictures this post, just random thoughts. Life is sweet right now. My house is clean, my baby is bathed and in her PJ's, I have no worries except to spell check this blog and sit and relax with my Hubby and little one! Pictures will come next time.

Disneyland!!

So this blog should fill in what's been going on since Easter. Last week Nick's mom took us to Disneyland! Noelle was super excited, she talked about it for days before hand and still talks about it at least once every day. Nick's mom is very generous and we all got a bit spoiled. We took turns using our camera and her camera so I don't have all the pictures from the day yet but this is enough to get started!

Noelle on the drive down.
The first person we ran into was Goofy, she had a big kiss for him!
Our little family on main street.
This is Noelle's "sad face" she now tells us when she is sad and holds the side of her face. She was sad that it was taking so long to get on Dumbo, she didn't really understand the line!
Noelle riding with her Oma.
Nick and I on Dumbo.
Oma bought us all ears and took this wonderful picture.

Noelle wide-eyed on Alice and Wonderland. Half way through the ride the track takes you back outside and down a little hill. When we started going down it Noelle said, "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, YES, WEEEEEE!" It was pretty cute.
Checking out the jungle on the jungle cruise.
Eating at the Blue Bayou
Nick and his mom at lunch.
Waiting in line for Peter Pan, she had mastered the concept of lines a little better by then.

The fireworks show. I loved how every time the sky lit up you could see thousands of people standing around us.
Noelle sleep took at 7:00 nap at Disneyland and two days later she was still taking very late naps. Not the best for me but when my Dad got home from work she was half awake and she he held her she fell right back to sleep, I think he really loved the cuddles.
On Monday Noelle experienced an important girly milestone and had her nails painted. she walked around for about 30 minutes afterward with her hands up and her fingers all spread apart giving them room to dry.
I have an old pair of gloves Noelle keeps in her toy basket. she likes asking us to put them on for her and she walks around with giant hands. I got bored of the usual and she thought this was pretty funny.
Here is my "short" video from Disneyland. It's still really long but I'm her mommy and had a hard time cutting stuff out. The fireworks show was hard to tape, I just got little glimpses of her face when the sky lit up enough. She was pretty tired by then and just sat in her Daddy's arms with wide eyes watching it all go on. It was a really good day!

I haven't taken many pictures this week, hopefully I keep on updating! Keep praying for our apartment situation we haven't found anything yet and sadly everything in our price range is in a bad neighborhood or is a one bedroom, so I'm trying not to get discouraged yet. Keep checking in! I loved all the comments last time!