Noah Balogna

Caught some great moments on film (or gygabyte or nanosyncrometer or whatever the equivalent to film is on a digital camera). Anyways.. thought I would share the laughs.
Oh silly duck, how you amuse me...See the spit string? Noah has a perma-spit ring around any shirt I put on him. Why not put on a bib you say? He just learned to rip bibs off. Cheeky little monkey.
Noah decided that the DVD's looked better on the floor than stacked orderly on the shelves. Who am I to argue?I'm really glad that I get to be home with Noah because I get to see all the awesome things he does. I should start calling him Sponge Bob, because he soaks up everything! He's learning so fast. I'm so happy to see him growing up, but a part of me get depressed when I see him learning to crawl and learning how to feed himself a cookie (this may seem little, but after nursing for almost 9 months, having him feed himself is a feat equal to the parting of the red seas in my book). I want him to stay my little boy. Seeing Maren (our new niece) this week made me realize how huge Noah is and how much I need to appreciate every stage in his life. It's amazing how much I love this little boy. Being a parent is a gabillion times harder than I expected, but I'm so grateful we took the great dive into parenthood. It really is worth it.

Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. -W.C. Fields

We have a new niece! Her name is Maren (undecided middle name) Allred. She was born on June 1st.I forgot how tiny newborns are. She feels like a feather compared to my chunky monkey, Noah. Maren with her uncle Kristo.

To the park!

Today we visited Fairmont Park in Sugarhouse with Noah. We brought lots of bread to feed the ducks (I claimed it was for Noah, but it was totally for me, ducks are rad).

We went at the perfect time because there were A TON of ducklings and goslings (not to be confused with gosslins, which are on Jon and Kate Plus 8).
We lost Noah a couple times because his camo was just that good. Never again...

This is a cute goose family, we will name them the Gooselins. The goslings still had some of their fluffy down feathers. It was cute, the parents were shielding their babies from the other birds, so we could feed them. I thought it was a little overprotective, until we saw just what seagulls can do. I now fully reject them as our state birds. I don't care how many crickets they ate.... but I'll get to that later.Baby goose, he totally looks like an ostrich.Now for the wretched story of the evil seagulls. We were having a great time feeding the ducks and geese and even the occasional seagull. I looked over and saw two seagulls duking it out over something and then a seagull flying away with something in his beak. Kristo said it was a tiny duckling, but I said no way, it's just a frog. The seagull landed a few yards away and lo and behold... the stupid bird had stolen a baby duckling from its mom. I don't know if it's just because I have a kid now, but it totally broke my heart. The poor mama duck was trying to keep the seagulls away from her dying baby. I know that it's just nature, survival of the fittest... but I wanted to kick that bastard seagull as hard as I could. So boycott all seagulls! They are evil minions of the underworld!

Since that last paragraph was such a downer, here is a cute puppy who loves you to make you feel better...

Yum!

I never let Kristo use his deep fryer, so I decided to make fried chicken to make up for it. It was so so good, I had to post the recipe!

Tony's Chicken Tenders with Honey Mustard Sauce -The Neely's
Ingredients

• Peanut oil, for frying
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups panko bread crumbs
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon lemon-pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• Honey Mustard, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oil to 350 degrees F.

Cut the chicken breasts into long strips and set aside.

Beat the 3 eggs in a separate bowl and measure the flour into another separate dish.

Measure the panko into a pie plate or shallow bowl and season with garlic powder, lemon-pepper, cayenne, salt and pepper.

Dip the chicken strips into the flour, the beaten egg and then dredge them into the seasoned panko.

Fry in the hot peanut oil for 6 to 8 minutes, until golden brown, and remove to a paper towel lined sheet tray. Serve with honey mustard sauce.

Honey Mustard:

• 1/2 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoons lemon juice
• Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. The sauce can be held in the refrigerator for 1 week.

Florida

A few weeks ago we went down to Florida with my family. We had so much fun and I've been so busy since we got back that I'm just getting around to posting pictures. Plus we have a million pics and it was hard for me to stop adding more!! I finally drew the line on the pictures (I'll post more later) Above is Noah at this pirate golf course in Orlando. Very pirates of the Caribbean, but not quite that cool.
At Grande Vista in Orlando they had these signs all around the lake in the middle of the property. So we went alligator hunting...No sooner did we start then a slightly drunk man sitting out on his room's balcony told us of a monster gater 10 feet long! He said that the man-eater sun bathed in the morning. The next day we found the "monster". More like 6 feet instead of ten, but still pretty freaking cool.
Noah explaining just how big the alligator was. He's totally exaggerating.
My little angel boy. Such a ham and we love him for it.
BLIZZARD BEACH!!! One of the things I was most excited for. It was sooooo fun! Only drawback, the water in the kids area was frigid! Noah wasn't a fan.
He sure looked cute in his swimmin suit though
Well that was our trip. I'll post more pictures later. Everything is going well with our little family. Noah started crawling a few days ago and now cruises around the house after Olive (our dog). Hope you all are doing well and happy!

It's 12:30 AM so this post will be short and sweet

Hello avid 'Kristo, Ashley and Noah' blog readers. There are probably very few of you left after our disappointing absence from the blogger scene. We are still alive and feebly kicking. I spent all my bloggy time trying to find a cute new background and now I am so wiped that I can barely keep my eyes open. So I will have to charm you with my bloggarific stories another time. I'll leave you with a scary picture of Noah to whet your palate for my next blog entry. Bloggity blog blog blog. I believe I will be appearing in the Guiness Record books shortly for the most uses of the word 'blog' in a single blog post. Blog.
Love you all! Don't let Noah scare you. He only bites people who deserve it...

CHRIS-A-MAS!!!

Chris-a-mas is here!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Santa is real, guys! We saw him!

So Noah and Asher had their first visit to Santa on the 23rd. We went to the Santa Shack on 21st South. Asher was not a happy boy and was trying to squirm away from Santa the whole time.Promptly after leaving the Santa Shack Asher threw up. Poor little guy, not the best first Santa experience.
Noah got a chance on Santa's lap as well. He was much more mellow, probably because he had no idea what was going on.
After the Santa Shack, we headed to Olive Garden.

You will give me a breadstick!

After an exciting day, Noah and Asher fell asleep on the way home.

Noah's blessing

Ketchup (not the tomato kind...)

Well lots has happened in the Allred home. Kristo is still working on his promotion at the bank. He hopes to be assistant manager by the end of November.

My maternity leave was about to end and I was set to go back to Marriott on November 17th. When I was pregnant, we planned on me working a little more than part time, about 30 hours. After having Noah and spending all my time with him over the past 9 weeks I couldn't imagine leaving him to go back to work. Luckily my father in law, Arnie, offered me a job doing some accounting for his company. His office is just right up the street and I can bring Noah with me to work! Hooray! So after four year of working for Marriott, I quit my job. I'm not going to miss the job itself, but I already miss the people I worked with. It was a very hard decision, but I know it's worth it to be here for my baby boy.

Noah and Kristo post bath-time. If you can't tell, his towel is a moster and is eating his head. Noah wasn't afraid, he eats monsters for breakfast.
Getting so big! Those monsters make Noah big and strong!
The Cabbage Patch company is replicating this photo to create a new Cabbage Patch Kid. Coming to a store near you!
Noah likes to sing along with Dad.
Skeleton Noah! His spooky belated Halloween costume, the only place Noah got to wear this was at Tres Hombres the day after Thanksgiving.

Being a skeleton is sweet.

Well we're looking forward to our first Thanksgiving as a family. We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and lots of love!