Just a quick post to put up a couple of new Noah pictures from the farm excursion this weekend. The weather was too bad for us to be outside, but we had fun playing inside.

This is a picture of the Little Professor before we headed to church Sunday morning. I knew that Pappy and Granny would want to show him off, so he needed to be even cuter than usual.

This work is entitled "Fun with Carrots" and is one of his early performance art pieces.

Pappy not only read "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" but he did silly voices. MY Pappy did silly voices. And Noah loved it- almost as much as Pappy did.

So, I have been remiss in my picture posting responsibilities. Suffice it to say that things have been crazy. We hope that they will be settling down soon. The doctor is trying yet another thing for my headaches (ah, migraines. Blech.) but it seems to be helping. And hey, I'm losing weight, which is awesome. Some of the changes that my pregnancy produced (i.e. Noah) were quite welcome, while others (i.e. bigger EVERYTHING) were not. So here's to getting that taken care of before school starts. Without further ado, the cuteness that is Noah and Daddy.

Noah was entranced watching the goldfish in our pond, and Daddy was entranced with watching Noah. I think Kyle got the better deal on this one.

Kyle bought him the shirt, so I don't think it's toooooo egotistical to post this. It doesn't say what Mom looks like, just that the munchkin himself is cute. And who would argue that point?

Noah's current favorite toy is this huge soft blanket that my Mom bought for me a few years ago- he will wrestle with it and roll around in for half an hour. He stopped for a breather here.

Noah likes shoes. He especially likes Daddy's shoes, or anybody's shoes that he probably shouldn't be playing with.

Mom got Noah this peacoat for Christmas. Kyle already had one, so when they both wore them to church one morning I HAD to get a picture. I'm not sure why Noah went all solemn, but don't they look adorable? (Except for you, honey. You look very manly.)

So, what do you do?

I should preface this by saying that I'm not used to dealing with neighbors that live 10 feet away from my house. I spent most of my childhood on 80 acres while my parents ran a youth camp and the rest of it on 5 acres. Our house sits on a city lot, with other houses around it on a city lot.

On one side, we have a nice lady who we swap desserts and casseroles with every now and then. On the other side is this family that I simulatneously feel sorry for and really angry at. Here's the problem: they are loud and they are vulgar and they have no compunctions about sharing either of those two things with the entire neighborhood. The mom cusses at her kids constantly, which is something that we can often hear if we are outside in our yard and sometime hear if we are inside our house. It is so incredibly sad. I know I have no idea what they have going on, but it's impossible for me to imagine a scenario where cussing out an 8 year old would be an appropriate response. This makes the kids angry, so they either blare their music (you can hear it through our entire house), fight in their yard (or the street, or the yards around here, or inside their house...I've had to break up fights before where there was serious harm going on), or scream profanities at the top of their lungs at the five and six year old who live two doors down.

I feel awful for being so frustrated- but I just want peace. I don't even like taking Noah outside anymore because you never know what's going to be screaming or blasting or seen from next door. Kyle made this beautiful garden in the back and we love being outside, but the stuff that they do completely ruins it. Among other things, I just don't think that it's good for any kid to be hearing #%$^, *&$!, and #@*@ every other time they walk out the door. We've talked to them, try to be nice to the kids and mom when she's home, and our kids collected money and toys for them and we left the Christmas presents on their doorstep for all of the kids and for their mom (anonymously, at least until another neighbor snitched us off).

Now I find myself wishing that they would move while feeling ashamed that I'm not being more compassionate about what is obviously an awful situation for the kids to be in. I find myself being selfish and wanting to take care of MY family and OUR peace and not caring so much whether they find theirs.

Blech.