Noelle Jubilee Baker

We're happy to present the newest addition to the Bakery: Noelle Jubilee Baker

Noelle was born on December 18, 2009 at 7:53am via a planned c-section. She was born 2 weeks early, so she ONLY weighed 8 lbs 8 oz! ;)


Noelle's sisters were interested in her in the hospital, but we were curious how they'd accept her when Noelle actually came home with us.


When we got home, Melody was delighted to discover that she could hold Noelle (with Daddy's help, of course). Lily Beth became much more interested in all things "baby." Not only did she want to play with all the baby gear that was out again (whether or not Noelle was currently using the baby gear), but she also carried a baby doll with her for days. Noelle's response to coming home was a conviction that she must always sleep next to or on a person. Fortunately, we finally got her to accept her crib.


At 3 weeks of age, Noelle started smiling at us. Noelle has continued smiling more and more as the weeks have gone on. She's also shown us that she can go 7 hours at night between feedings occasionally. Fortunately for us all, she's actually calmed by noisy environments....particularly by noisy siblings! Melody has continued her infatuation with Noelle, regularly declaring "Noelle is cuddly!" or "She's touching me!" if Melody leans her head in close enough for Noelle's hand to graze her face. Melody continues to love opportunities to hold Noelle and to help out by bringing baby blankets and baby toys for her. Lily Beth has accepted her new baby sister, but makes sure that we remember she's still "baby" too. She likes to be held along with Noelle and has declared herself to be "baby" several times as she's laid her head against her parents' and grandparents' shoulders. She's definitely not one to regress though as she has a big sister she insists on keeping up with as well!

Fall 2009 Pictoral Highlights

This is the very quick version of the big events of this last fall. I FINALLY sorted through all the pictures of the last 5 months and have posted the links for them, so there is plenty more to see there. I hope to start keeping more up-to-date with this blog, and I'll blog about our newest little addition to the family soon.

Oktoberfest in Addison

Lily Beth turned 1 year old!

The State Fair

Mimi and Mammaw come to town

Halloween

Cousin Mia turned 2 years old

Lily Beth's first trip to the Fort Worth Zoo

Summertime

Wow! The summer went by very quickly! Here's a rundown of some of the highlights of our summer.

Mimi and Pappy came to town for a visit

Melody enjoyed playing all sorts of things with Mimi.

We went to the museum formerly known as The Science Place and checked out their new children's museum section.

Lily Beth loved the infant/toddler section designed for little ones to explore.

Melody loved the water area. Here's daddy modeling a pouring activity for her.

We stayed in the air conditioning a lot at home and at the mall playground.

Lily Beth became quite the climber over the summer!

Here she is chilling out in a spoon at the mall playground.

We discovered a fun splash pad nearby.

Melody was thrilled we let her play at the newly found splashpad. (She was convinced that shirts were not appropriate for such water play.) :)

Daddy helped Lily Beth explore a little.

Lily Beth took her first step on August 14th! (We only managed to capture pictures of September steps though.)

Melody's Birthday Party

Well, as I said before, we're updating quite out of order, but better mixed-up and late than not at all. :)

Melody's 2nd birthday party was a pool party on May 2nd. May 2nd turned out to be a stormy day in McKinney, but fortunately it didn't start to rain here until we were packing up the party. It worked out perfectly. :)

Here are some pictoral highlights of Melody at her party:

Enjoying the luau decorations

With her presents

Splashing in the pool (She would've done this all day if we'd let her!)

Picking the frosting off her cake and smiling at Uncle C's silly faces.

There are many more pictures available via the May 2009 pictures link.

On ship

We, of course, weren't in port all the time on this cruise. We had some full sea days and some partial sea days as well. So, what went on during these times? Read below to find out!

Formal Nights
The first formal night followed our first full sea day and was on our 2nd night of the cruise. This was the first night that we tried taking the girls to the dining room as all the adults agreed that slightly fussy girls might not be worse than sitting with strangers like we'd done the night before without the girls (taking turns--grandma first then Philip and Amber after the girls went to bed). We actually took them to dinner following a couple attempts at portraits which turned out better than we'd feared...especially considering Melody's distaste for photographers. (I'll try to get the purchased portrait scanned and put up with other pictures later.)

Overall, the girls did quite well with their first dinner in the dining room (allowing for a couple breaks from the table for Melody and some enticing breadsticks and spoons for Lily Beth). However the following picture shows Melody's overall attitude about the dining room that evening.
Boy, did she perk up upon exiting the dining room though. Directly outside our dining room that evening, they were playing some live music for the champagne waterfall celebration. Philip took Melody around to see the musicians, and she danced and clapped for them before returning to the rest of her family around the corner. She certainly didn't let the loss of sight of the musicians stop her dancing though. She danced and danced, getting crewmember and passenger alike to briefly dance with her as they passed by her way. She was in her element, even declaring "SAMBA!" at one point much to her mama's amusement.

Lily Beth rather enjoyed the merriment as well.

Daytimes

Days on the ship varied quite a bit, so I'll share some of the highlights and common variables. Melody loved getting out on deck to look at the water. Grandma took her pretty regularly during Lily Beth's morning nap, and her reaction was always as animated as shown in the video previously posted. She declared "WHEEE!" many times, and her mama's favorite Melody phrase on deck was "Do you see whales?" which she learned from Grandma during the first formal night when Grandma was trying to get her to see some actual whales in the water. :) Melody's other favorite event during sea days was going to get fresh cookies every afternoon with Grandma.

Melody on deck during our "scenic cruising" time happily wearing Grandma's gloves

Lily Beth mostly stuck to her schedule from home. In fact, she didn't adjust to the time change until about Thursday of a Sunday to Sunday cruise! So, yes, she woke up around 3:30-4:30am each morning for the first several days of our cruise. During her awake times, she enjoyed crawling around our stateroom and flirting with all the passengers and crewmembers around the ship.

Lily Beth playing around in our stateroom

Dinners/Evenings
From the 2nd night (first formal night) on, we all ate dinner together in the dining room every evening. Melody's opinion of the dining room never really changed. She was mostly enticed to stay put with toys, food, and the occasional break to walk around deck with Grandma or Daddy. Lily Beth, however, was tickled pink to try the hard breadsticks and bread crusts during most of the meal, and she made a friend in one of the waiters named Csaba. He served our table one evening, giving Melody a little Italian flag, and from that night on would come talk to Lily Beth and give her affectionate little pinches whenever he saw her...at dinners or in the mornings. Lily Beth adored Csaba and by the end of the cruise would even watch him walk around until he left her line of sight.

Csaba giving Melody an Italian flag on Italian food night

Lily Beth and Csaba posing on our last evening in the dining room and the 2nd formal night

On sea days, Philip and I mostly stole the opportunity to grab an extra hour or 3 of sleep in the morning when Grandma took the girls to breakfast, or we started the day with the girls and breakfast ourselves. We mostly spent time in the staterooms to accomodate the girls' naps (thankfully, Philip thought to bring a DS and gameboy on the trip) and used the evenings to enjoy the live entertainment. We still found ourselves turning in relatively early as 4:30am wake up calls from Lily Beth loomed overhead. ;) We were very fortunate to have the chance to see each of the 3 production shows during the cruise and to enjoy a little live music and dancing when we weren't already too tired!

Ports

We had 4 port stops on our cruise. Philip and I had been to all of these ports once before in 2005, so we mostly took it easy and/or did things we didn't have the chance to do before in each port.

Ketchikan
This was our first port and our first chance to do something we'd missed out on on our last Alaskan cruise. In 2005, we'd whizzed past a blue diamond jewelry case in a store before we ran to catch our transport for an excursion. I'd been wanting to look at blue diamond jewelry ever since. In Ketchikan, Philip not only kept the girls happy in store after store while I looked at jewelry, but in the end, he even bought me a blue diamond ring (with 3 blue diamonds...one for each baby...oh yeah, I haven't announced on here yet that I'm pregnant again! :) ).

Here I am in Ketchikan showing off my new ring with Melody who's just been given a color changing ring of her own.

Juneau
We were in port at Juneau for an afternoon and evening, so we did some easy in-town things in the afternoon before returning for dinner and fun on the ship in the evening. So, we rode a tram up onto a mountain in Juneau. The weather for our whole cruise was incredible. We had highs in the 80s, and although I'd been looking forward to cooler weather, we couldn't deny the advantage to the incredibly clear and non-rainy skies the whole cruise. We had unheard of visibility for our entire cruise, so the tram was a great choice for getting some good views of the area. Melody particularly enjoyed seeing a pile of snow on the mountain, riding the tram down, and seeing a stuffed bear in the lobby of the tramway.

Here's Philip and Lily Beth from the top of the tramway with scenic windows behind them.

Skagway
Skagway is a nice little mountain town that can be enjoyed on foot, so we mostly used this port day to walk around and shop for souvenirs. Philip, however, got to enjoy one of his missed opportunities from the last Alaskan cruise here. He'd been wanting to enjoy an authentic Alaskan beer in Alaska since 2005, and I made sure this time that we took the time to do it!! We found the Skagway Brewing Company (which has been around since 1897) where he enjoyed a sampler of 4 of their own beers and of course got a few souvenirs to prove he'd been there! Melody's Skagway highlight was probably seeing the train waiting to pull out of the station and then watching it actually leave the station. She got several train souvenirs here, including an Alaskan train book which she held for well over an hour...even during a stroller nap in town. She also got a beautiful 3 part wooden train thanks to birthday money from her Mimi and her Mammaw and souvenir money from her Grandma. Thank you Grandmothers!!!

Here's Melody watching the train pull out of the station while holding onto her train book.

Victoria
Victoria was the one town where we took a ship sponsored excursion as it had been cancelled on our last cruise. We happily made it to Butchart Gardens...again after waiting for 4 years. It was beautiful. Victoria is one of my favorite places...even just from the hour in town I got 4 years ago, and the Butchart Gardens didn't fail to impress. They are simply beautiful. Melody enjoyed sitting on a carousel horse statue, "playing" the large instrument statues, snacking on graham crackers from her stroller, and the bus rides to and from the Gardens.

Here's all the girls at Butchart Gardens.
Philip posing with the orangest flowers he could find!
The girls in their strollers
Melody with her harp statue at the end of the trip to the Gardens

You may have noticed a lack of mention of Lily Beth's highlights in any port. She mostly enjoyed being carried when she could (though she was a good girl and mostly stayed in her stroller), taking off her left shoe regularly, and generally flirting with everyone available. Her mommy and daddy were amazed by how many people thought she was a boy....even when wearing flower prints or pink!!!

Updating...starting out of order with our cruise

We have been having some digital picture/software issues that have made me hesitate to update this blog for far too long. I will now forego having everything in perfect working order before updating, so bear with me as the updates will likely be out of order. Also, once I put the pictures up, there will be A LOT of them since editing down to a smaller amount is where much of the trouble is right now!

From May 31st-June 7th, Philip, Amber, Melody, and Lily Beth went on an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle on the Star Princess. Amber's mom (Mary Ann, aka, "Grandma") kindly offered to come along to help with the girls. This was a huge help especially when Lily Beth wanted to nap, but Melody wanted to be exploring the ship and also in the evenings so that Philip and Amber could enjoy the nightly entertainment while the girls slept.

I'll post a few blogs about our cruise, but for now, enjoy this video of Melody enjoying the ocean from the ship. (Most of what I'm saying in the video is largely a repetition of what Melody just said as I feared the camera wouldn't pick up her voice.)