Holiday Greetings

We're home now and are enjoying looking through the 327(!) pictures that we took this weekend. Here are a few highlights.

We did a wonderful nativity. Ivy was a darling Mary and Luke loved being Joseph. Noah must have enjoyed his role as baby Jesus too, he just smiled and kicked through the whole thing. Luke and Ivy took their roles very seriously. Ivy rode into Bethlehem on a donkey (Nat is getting very good at being a beast of burden-- he was an Elephant at Luke's circus party) then she had baby Jesus while Joseph went looking for marshmallows (in case they got hungry while they were there, he said). The whole thing was as sweet as it could be.

I couldn't resist doing matching outfits for the boys. They both looked very cute in their argyles. Noah LOVES his big brother.
We went to the Walnut Room in what is now Macy's. It was sad to see the Macy's logo all over what used to be Marshall Field's but it didn't seem like much had changed in the restaurant. This is the best family picture we have gotten with everyone since Noah was born-- neither child is crying.
Luke loved going to see Santa at Macy's. The whole thing was very sweet. He told Santa that what he wanted for Christmas was "Cars" when Santa asked if he wanted anything else he said, "No, just Cars". His Christmas wish was granted and he even got to watch the movie Christmas day.

We had a wonderful holiday. We only wish that we could have been with all our loved ones. We're looking forward to continuing the celebration out west with the rest of our family.

Sunday Best

Here's our boy all dressed up for church. Isn't he getting big?

I sat down to nurse the baby...

I am understanding why mom hates Christmas packaging and Easter grass so much. We got a package with Christmas gifts from Nat's aunt and uncle this afternoon. Noah needed to eat right after we opened it up and Luke decided that it was going to snow in our house. He then decided that snow was not enough. He dumped the box of oatmeal squares in with the packaging and told me that it was "pepper". Then he tore apart his coloring book and added it to the mix. It is unreal how quickly that boy can mess. He has messing skills.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Hey everyone, I just wanted to tell you all a cool story. Last week I was bah-humbuging Caleb's attempt to play Christmas music. The very next evening there was a knock at my door and Emily and Aaron were standing on my welcome mat with a little Christmas tree. I have to say that it was one of the best Christmas surprises I have ever gotten. All of the sudden I was dipping pretzels in chocolate, helping Emily put the lights on, and telling Caleb to turn on that music. It was such a great opportunity for me to get into the Christmas spirit. After Emily left I put up the rest of my decorations. I love these snowflakes and hanging them in front of the mirror was a great suggestion on Emily's part. (like any of her decorating suggestions aren't brilliant.) Anyway, she wanted to see pictures when I got the lights up, and I finally have. So here you go Em. i know you probably weren't wanting me to be effusive, but oh well. It's me. What did you expect? I love you all.


p.s. you can see our cinderblock bookshelves in the reflection here. how newlywed is that? haha.

Is it genetic?

This morning Luke got all his animals out and this is what happened to them...




I was reminded of Jakob and all the animal arranging he's done throughout his life. When I asked Luke where the animals were going he told me that they were walking to the city to see the man in the yellow hat and that it was going to be a long walk.

In States of Cheese and REM

Here are some pictures of Emily and Ian's visit to Madison.




And here's what the rest of the Bells were doing...



Just kidding. I was just trying to make an excuse to publish these pictures. I think there is nothing as sweet as sleeping children...and Aaron. Love you all.

Ian-isms

So here are some pictures of Ian doing what he does best...everything! Caleb started this funny game with him of putting pot-holders on his hands and soon it progressed to his feet too. The lighting on this one isn't great, but his face is priceless. Just imagine him clapping his padded feet and hands together and looking at you with his mischeviously smiling eyes. (So I know how to spell "mischeviously" but not lovable...haha.)



Ian plus the outdoors equals FUN! (and baths.)




I LOVE this series . One of the big kids. He's determined to play soccer right along with them.

Emily's Instructions

Hey everyone, this might be confusing, but this is Ashley posting Emily's pictures. She said she couldn't remember how to get pictures onto this site so she handed me the camera and said: "Here you go. Have fun." So I am. There are quite a few pictures on here so I might make another post later. (You all know how long it takes to load pictures...) So here they all are at Halloween. So loveable...lovable? Love-able? Mom, which is it?

I love Spencer's face in this one...

another week

Here are some images from the last week at our house. I can hardly believe that Noah is almost a month old. I know that it is cliche but it is unreal how fast the time goes. I love having a newborn.

Look at those long feet! He's Nat's boy for sure.

You can see how he's putting on weight. His thighs and face are especially plump.

Luke still loves to hold Noah. Right now I can hear Luke telling Nat, "I just want to hold him!" We just got both of the boys ready for bed. Changing clothes is a process that neither one enjoys right now. Luke cried while I got him in his jammies while Noah cried for Nat. This picture was taken on Saturday afternoon-- notice how they are both still in their pajamas.

It was great to have Ashley here. We really had a nice time. She gots lots of baby time while Luke got his mommy time.

We've got another open mouth smile at our house.

I DO have more to do than just take pics of the dog...

Really, I do.... this was a promise to Eliza because she's having a bad day. Emily told her she could see pictures of Murphy with the toy that she bought him while she was in Madison. So here is the monster!

Nothing too new here. Im still not showing. We did hear the heartbeat on October 27. We both thought that was pretty cool!

I told Jack that last year on October 27 we signed the contract for our house....this year on Oct 27 we heard the heartbeat! He thinks I remember too much!

Back to the dog........I had to include this one..... Murphy decided to re-landscape the backyard.

Two weeks old!

Noah is two weeks old today. Where does the time go? It's amazing how quickly babies change. Noah has been having more and more alert time. He is also smiling and making more and more noises. Luke still loves him and loves all the new toys that Noah has brought (the bouncy seat, the swing and Luke's favorite-- the play gym).

Noah is taking it all in.

He's not so sure about getting his diaper changed.

That's right folks-- a smile. He has lots to be happy about.
Noah could be a baby hand model couldn't he?

Noah's smile

For some reason, I have been having a hard time accessing my iPhoto library. I am sure that I will get things figured out. But, in the meantime you can go to the Fredin blog to look at a picture of Noah's smile.

Brothers

This picture was taken on Noah's first night home. Mom bought the boys matching yellow fleece jammies that say "Snuggle Buddies" on them. It has been neat to watch Luke become a big brother. It makes me want to thank mom for having my siblings. It's so good to have company. What would I do without my brothers and sisters?

Halloween Fun

Here are pictures of Luke and Noah dressed up for Halloween.

I just thought this was funny...

Happy Halloween everyone!

Noah Jon

We're just home from the hospital and so I thought that I would post some of Noah's first pictures. We are all doing well. Luke is really happy to have us home. Every time that I talked to Luke on the phone he told me that he wanted me to bring baby Noah home RIGHT NOW! He got his wish and we're all here as a new little family unit.

This was right after he was born. After he did his post birth screaming he entered that magical state of quiet alertness. He locked eyes with me and just looked at me for a good long while and then latched on to nurse.



Here he is getting weighed. He is 11 ounces smaller than Luke was. It may not seem like that much but he seems a lot littler than Luke was. He also had really long skinny fingers and toes and Luke had meaty hands and feet from the start.

Here is a naked picture to embarass Spencer. Look at that soft, downy lanugo; it's like velvet.


Luke was really excited to hold the baby. Nat even let him carry him across the room, much to the chagrin of all grandparents present [Nat: For the record, I was right there, practically holding Noah the whole time]. After looking at Noah for a few minutes, Luke said, "He's real!" I don't know exactly what unreal kind of baby he was expecting. He said the same thing a few minutes later and again while he held him at home for the first time.

A Weekend With The Bells

Hey everyone. I just thought since Emily has been out of town she would like to see some pictures of her beautiful kids in action. I felt really lucky to be able to see both Eliza and Jakob play soccer on Saturday, and lucky again to have the opportunity to watch them in the church primary program.

It was really cold Saturday and you can see a lot of the kids had jackets on. Jakob and Eliza didn't though because they didn't want a jacket to mess up their game. Jakob played defense for a while and he's great at anticipating where the ball is going to be kicked. My favorite part was his victory dance after each goal. The coach let Eliza kick off the line almost every time. I think he recognizes her raw talent. He's right. She's great at the line kick. Now if only we could get her to follow up...
Here are the games:


And here they are after church. They both did a great job on their speaking parts. Everyone giggled when Eliza said the was thankful for her TV. I loved when Jakob would jump up for all the songs and getting to watch Eliza sing every word.