Noah's 2nd Birthday Party

Stephanie made Noah's favorite gift (it would have been mine too). She made a "barn fort" out of cardboard boxes, red table clothes, and a lot of packing tape. The boys both had fun.


I don't know if Noah ducked once when he went in and out of that barn. He figured (rightly so) that the cardboard moves when his head hits it, so why waste the effort that it takes to bend over.


I was quickly commandeered or taken hostage inside of the barn fort. Noah wanted me in there, so this is the view to the outside world. It's a pretty good view.


Other than the barn fort, this was Noah's favorite toy of the evening. He received a hippo-flashlight. The other top contenders were a doctors set and the gift bag that some of the stuff came in.


Micah did a good job of not opening gifts...but like all kids everywhere - he was right there with all of the action.


It was pretty hard to get Noah to wear his special birthday party hat, but we got it done. In order to coax him into doing it, we all wore our party hats (I have not included those images in order to not hand an easy one to future potential blackmailers).


This was another great creation of my wife's. This was Noah's Birthday cake. Micah was so concerned about this that for weeks he pleaded with Stephanie for her not to make it. He even went so far as to suggest other options to Noah in order to get his approval (a car cake and a blue cake were the front runners). Micah's reason for not wanting this cake to be made was that if we ate the cake, specifically the cupcakes, "it would hurt the piggies and the chicks".


Noah tried to put out the candle - more with water than with air.... - so I helped him a little.


First taste...good.

"AHHHHHHHHHH" cried the chickie cupcake. Don't tell Micah that I made this joke until He is much older...it might traumatize him.

Ok, so I didn't cut out all of the party hat pictures. Sorry Jeff, casualty of war.

What a good looking little boy.

Noah has two little friends at church who were born the day after he was and the day after that...so i gave this picture to those boys to wish them a happy birthday.

This is when Micah wasn't shooting his little foam discs out of the window at the crowd of onlookers.

Before the snow flew...and after

I am pretty sure that this picture was taken after Thanksgiving, but I'm not for certain now.... Micah has become quite an adept climber of the tree in our front yard. And, I have been told, that the reason that he's wearing what looks to be a rastafari hat is that he "wanted to wear daddy's hat". :)

On the first snowfall of the year, and boy was it a big one, we made the unwise choice to be out and about...all...day...long. We went to the Christams tree farm that the buck family has been going to for decades. Other than the death-defying driving and the fact that we got lost (no don't ask), we had a good time there. As you can see, Micah was pretty bundled up because of the weather (see the streaks of white snowflakes in front of his face). The boys are loving the snow...as all boys do, I understand.

I'm not one to say that "my kids' gonna be a scientist because he likes bugs" or something like that. But I will say that Noah, more than Micah, has always gravitated toward piano-type toys. Now, perhaps this will translate into a love of the piano, or maybe it will just be that he (like me) will not really try too hard and only later on in life regret the lack of real effort and time put into it.

Micah has been on a big kick lately about how strong he is. The evening of the storm we went to church (all of us) to clean and caravan back home. For about 30 minutes (and that's only as long as I noticed) Micah was pushing that red chair, the table, and another table across the room - from one end to the other - back and forth, back and forth. All the while saying, "this is so heavy" and "I'm really strong, aren't I daddy?"

This picture (and the following ones) was actually taken on the morning of Saturday the 8th. The night before we all went to Wal-Mart to, among other things, print out some pictures. Well, the photo center equipment didn't like the memory stick that I brought along, so on Saturday morning I found a way to kill three birds with one stone. I'd take the boys to Wal-Mart and (1) keep them out of Steph's hair so that she could get the birthday prep finished, (2) get the pictures printed, and (3) let the boys play on the "snow mountain" that they saw the day before. We went to the end of the parking lot where there was a virtual snow mountain range. Micah had a lot of fun climbing and sliding down, except when he did a face plant in some poudery snow (is it bad that I chuckled a bit at how cold he was and his reaction to it), and Noah picked up snow balls and tried to throw them (mostly at me). Good times.

Micah was so proud that he climbed to the top of the mountain. This wasn't his loftiest goal, but it was the one that he could attain. The other was a giant ice-ball that was on the top of another mountain that, unless I had lifted him up and kind-of tossed him to the top, he woudn't have gotten to the top of it.

When we got back, the cold boys enjoyed nodles and ham with a side of hot coco. Noah enjoyed it thoroughly...as you can see the evidence all the way down his shirt.

Micah always wants to make a funny face, have me take a picture of it, and then see it. I tend to humor him on that one.

Thanksgiving Weekend!

The Johnson Clan - all of us...wow.

This is the first time that our entire mini-clan has been able to be together at the same time in almost two years. It was a lot of fun!

Perhaps I shouldn't do this, but this is going to be the picture for our first-ever Christmas Card/update letter that we'l send out. I'm so excited that we're actually thinking ahead this year.

This was truly one of the highlights of the weekend for my family. My grandma made the trek from LeMars to see my brother's and our families...it was just great.

It is so hard to get all of the kids to sit down for a picture together, so when they were a bit worn from all of the other pictures, we pounced on that opportunity.

Prior to this occasion, I'd only seen this little guy once. My nephew is about the same age as Noah, and it was fun to see them run around and play.

Both of my boys loved playing with Amelie and Isaiah. It was just a blessing for me to be a part of that too seldom event.

Micah was overwhelmed and excited about all of the shoes. He's just started an organization faze...it's pretty amusing to watch.

A gathering of our families wouldn't be complete without a bit of quartet singing. This year's venue was to celebrate the engagement and upcoming wedding of one of my cousins. Let's just say that the song was funny, mostly at my cousin's expense :).

Another of the more fun traditions is that of the annual disc-golf game. We have a traveling disc-trophy for the winner of the game to hold onto until the next round. This year it was the game of the frozen not-so-tundra.... Man, it was cold and that wind was brutal.

Nap time on Saturday. I went in to make sure that Noah slept...but apparently the plan backfired, and Noah tucked me in with his buddies before leaving. This picture just makes me smile.

5 pennies, 2.2 miles, and a boy on a horse...

So this past week or so has been pretty busy. I did get a few fun shots of the kids, though. The highlight of the week was a mistake, really. I was going to mow my jungle-of-a-lawn on Saturday and when I got the two boys outside, I found that I needed to add some motor oil. Well, we didn't have any. And the kicker was that Stephanie was at her parent’s house and going to be there most of the afternoon. So I had to choose between doing nothing, mowing the lawn and hoping that I didn't break the mower, or trying to figure out how to get some oil....

So I decided to take the boys for a walk to the nearby gas station to get some oil. Only I found out the next night that the walk that I was undertaking was 1.1 miles long...one way. So, Micah rode his bike most of the way and Noah was in the stroller the whole time. It was pretty exhausting for Micah, but we had a good time. We got juice and a Kit-Kat at the gas station. So, on a few of the MANY breaks that we took to rest (Micah liked to relax in the grass), they enjoyed cool-ade and the chocolate treat.

Sunday night was fun for Micah, because at his Awana Cubbies club it was Cowboy Night! So Micah was able to dress up as a cowboy, ride a horsie, and bring a big buddy (all stuffed animals are classified in the category of “buddies”). It was a night to remember.

Fall and the Trip to TRF