Dear Nolan

Dear Nolan,

Just look at you,

Adorable. This picture was taken on Saturday afternoon. We were sitting out front enjoying the weather and waiting for daddy to come home from work. He pulled up to the house and immediately had a big smile on his face. He was happy to be greeted by his handsome boy wearing his "cool dude" sunglasses. 

I could probably ramble on for hours about how awesome you are, but I will try to keep it short and sweet. You are continuing to amaze us each day. You like to copy and attempt to repeat us. When Chuggins barks you scream back at him with an "Ehh, ehh". We think it is your attempt at barking back at him. You are learning to say "thank you" and "I love you". Your daddy and I swear that you say it to us, but others will probably think we are crazy. 

You are exactly one week away from being 11 months old. How is that possible? I am starting to plan your first birthday party! (Ok, I really am just pinning a pile of stuff on Pinterest) I really can not believe that we are just a month away from you turning 1. It seems like just yesterday that I was waddling around complaining that you were not here yet and it was past your due date. 

You will probably be a 1 year old that is still eating stage 2 pureed food (and we will probably get looks from other parents) because well, you still don't really like food! We try and try but then you cry and refuse to eat what we give you and we resort to feeding you something pureed. You are very stubborn when it comes to eating. I feel like you always have a day or 2 of really good eating at dinner time that tricks us and we think that we are on the road to finally eating solid foods, but then the next night you decide that you no longer like solid food and we are back in a battle. You do however like your snacks! You love puffs, yogurt melts, waffle wheels, Cheerios, rice cakes and little toddler cookies. Hey, you're eating them like a big boy, so I will take it! :) 

Baby sign language...well, we tried and I have pretty much given up because you only do 1 sign. It is milk. I am very proud that you learned it! However, you do it whenever you are hungry. I will be getting ready to feed you dinner and you are signing milk at me, but that is ok because I know what you mean.

This past month you have really started to walk well with your walker. You do laps from the living room to the kitchen and that is on hardwood. You can also climb stairs very fast. It scares me, but you giggle a while you do it with daddy. If daddy says "back flip" you get excited and hold on to him and brace yourself for a back flip. It is so cute! 

You love to open and close things. You sit at the pantry door and open and close it for about 20 minutes at a time and are completely amused. We have a little barn door and you crawl through it opening and closing the door. This may be your favorite thing to do right now. 

You love your lantern and dance when it sings. You always crawl around with your bat in hand saying "ba" (ball) and then hitting the "ba". You can also throw the ball.  

You give us kisses. Not always, but every now and then. If daddy gives me a kiss, you then lean in to give both daddy and I one. 

We love you baby boy. You continue to amaze us each day. 

Love, 

Mommy

xoxo

Cheerios in hand, happy boy!

Playground play date with Nol's buddy, Colby!

Colby is awesome! This is how he goes down the slide on his own like a big boy. It was absolutely adorable!

Colby being a ham. Nolan getting ready to throw a fit. 

Clearly Nolan is having a great time. 

Mommy to the rescue! (jk, he still looks upset!)

On Saturdays awhile Daddy is at work, we spend his money $$$
Ok, I am kidding. We do go shopping and to yard sales, but I don't always buy stuff! 

Just taking a stroll with his walker

Another picture from hanging out waiting for dada!

The boy seriously loves his doggy!

But how could you not? Look at him! 

Yup, we took a "selfie"

Open and close, open and close. This is about a 20 minute game he plays!

And it is hilarious to him!

Our weekend in Bowie and DC

I am sitting on my couch watching CNN and trying to write this blog post. It was such a great weekend and although I am trying to type everything we did and how much fun we had my heart is aching for Boston. To sit here and think that in my dear sweet baby's first year we have been through two major tragedies, Shady Hook Elementary and now the Boston Marathon. It is so scary, sad and tragic to think about the world we are raising our babies in. Praying for Boston. Praying for all those affected. Praying. Here we are on another night where you just take an extra minute and hug your loved ones extra long. Hug them and just don't let go. <3

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It really was a good weekend. Aside from my Friday morning incident... Yeah, let’s start with Friday morning and my WMOY award. What the WMOY you ask? Oh, that would be the Worst Mommy of the Year award and I was the big winner. Friday morning I packed and loaded up Nolie and his backpack in the car and we set off to go to daycare. It was barely raining when I left the house and I was able to get us both in the car with only a few drops of water hitting us. Well, I pulled up to daycare and parked the car in what seemed to have turned into a torrential downpour. Great. And there I sat in the car with no umbrella, so we can run for it, right? Stupidest decision I ever made. My poor baby was soaked and I mean soaked. He was so wet that I had to ask them for a dry pair of his pants that we keep there and changed him. He was so wet that the adorable little girl, Olivia came over to him and said, “oh no, Nolan all wet!” To make matters worse, my umbrella happened to be in the back of my car the entire time! Oh, and had I just waiting in the car 5-10 minutes it would have slowed down, big time. Mommy fail.

So here we are on Monday and it was barely even drizzling this morning. That did not matter, I put the umbrella to use walking Nolan in to daycare today and I will forever use it whenever even a drop of rain is forecasted.

Anyways, back to Friday...

Friday evening we went to the Bowie Baysox minor league baseball game. Ryan did his whole autograph thing. Nolan and I played in the stadium seat and took pictures. He was so proud of himself sitting in the seat like a big boy! We didn’t stay at the game long because it ended up being pretty cold that evening, but we stayed long enough for Nolan to actually watch some of the game.

With the mascot, Louie!

So happy sitting in the seat!

Sharpie in hand and ready for some autographs!

*Yawn* "I want to watch some major league baseball!"

On Saturday morning Alaina and I went to the Howard County Fairgrounds for another one of their kids sales, but the finds were nowhere as exciting as the first time we went. I may have spent $20 if that on a few things.

The weather was perfect on Saturday and so once Ryan was done working at the golf course we went to the DC Zoo! The car was packed full with 3 kiddies in car seats and 3 adults. The DC Zoo is great and to make things better it is free -aside from parking. We paid $22 for parking, but for all of us to spend a day at the zoo, I think that was a great price!

Nolan seemed to really like the tiger. He kept waving and saying “hi” to him. Adorable! Nolan seemed very interested in what they were doing. It was so fun watching him as he kept his eyes on their every move.

I warn you now that there are about 500 Zoo pictures. I tried to narrowed it down, but there are still A LOT.

Nolie's tiger!

Waving hello to the tiger!

Daddy where are the lions?

Aunt Lainy with her niece and nephews!

Linc's highlight of the day, feeding the birds popcorn.

Hayden insisted we all have a popcorn break

He loves his reflection!

A blur, but they were being cute and holding hands to go look at everything!

I get that look from Ry alot

Their other highlight of the day..running along this bench about 500 times

A few more pictures from the week:

Nolan's first time eating spaghetti...

Playing out front with his bubble train...

And most recently, sitting in grass and semi-enjoying it! He seriously LOVES his doggy!!!