Friday, January 17, 2014

Weekend Recaps

We have had a few very busy weekends full of birthday parties and a baby ‘sprinkle’. First, we celebrated one of Nolan’s best friends, Lily turning 1. She had an adorable Winter One-derland birthday party and Nolan had a blast. He pretty much played basketball the entire time. Frosty the Snowman came and made balloons and danced with the kids, but Nolan did not want anything to do with that. He pretty much said give me a balloon and keep it moving, Frosty. Ok, he obviously did not say that, but I know that was what he was thinking. Overall, it was a great day celebrating Lily with all our friends!


As I mentioned before, last weekend I threw Kim a surprise baby sprinkle for baby Carter! I was so happy to see how surprised Kim was. It is a feeling of success and such a relief once you scream “SURPRISE” and see both a smile and shock. It makes all the hard work that goes into throwing a surprise shower worth it once I saw how happy she was! I cannot wait to meet baby Carter!

On Saturday, Ryan and Nolan also went to our neighbor’s daughter’s 2nd birthday party. The party was at Pump It Up and based on the pictures and videos Ryan sent me throughout the party I could tell Nolan had a blast. He can officially climb up the inflatable slides on his own. He also looked like such a big boy sitting at the party table with all of the kids sipping out of a juice box. OMG HE IS A KID!
We ended Saturday evening going out to dinner at Tino's (side note, I wasn't even hungry because I had ate so much at the baby shower, but holy deliciousness I couldn't resist it was so good!) with my family to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday! All of the kids were so well behaved and ate like champs. Hayden took about 4 bites of her mac and cheese and was already requesting seconds. She wasn't kidding either because girlfriend chowed down on Nolan's once he was done. Lincoln even sat and finished every last bite of his ravioli before diving into cake. I was shocked that he didn't push it aside.

I absolutely love watching Nolan and his cousins when they are together. Those kids are so in love with their cousin, Nolie. And Nolie is so in love with them. He always asks for Hayden and Lincoln.

Saturday night when we went to bed Nolan requested we sing Happy Birthday to Olivia and Uncle Ry. :) Oh, and Nolan will sing Happy Birthday now and it may just be the cutest thing ever!!!

 

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Mr. Personality

Nolan is seriously Mr. Personality these days and he is HILARIOUS! He knows he is funny and feeds into it whenever we laugh at what he is doing. He seriously has transformed from baby to KID. Thank goodness he likes to be rocked at night for a little bit before going to bed because other than that (and still wearing diapers and loving his pacifiers aka “mami’s”) I don’t know where my baby has gone!

Silly faces, cheesing for the camera and yelling “Ma….loaf” seem to really get us laughing. Thanks Ryan, for teaching him to yell the famous line, “Ma! The Meatloaf!” from Wedding Crashers at me. Thankfully he does NOT know the next line to that quote. Worst part (or funniest?) is that he will do it on his own. Speaking of things my wonderful hubby has taught our son to say...which are not always on purpose, would be that when Nolan drops something he says “oh, balls!” He is a copycat and we have to watch our mouths. Thankfully, I have realized that we I very rarely cuss so that is a good thing!
He correctly says cookie and Mickey now. They used to be “geeya”. Now Chuggins is the only GEEEEYA!! He is also, “Gee”, “Chug”, “Chug Choos”(learned from cousin, Lincoln always calling him that) and “Chuggy”. It’s funny, he can say Chuggy, but he will pretty much always call him Geeya. Now, the dogs name has basically been changed to Geeya because both Ryan and I call him by that too!
It's silly to put the blanket on the dog.

Nolan knows people. What I mean by that is he knows his families names and his little friends’ names. He will be playing and just stop and point to a picture with someone in it and say their name. After play dates with his friends he will normally yell their name and say where are you.

Growth spurt? Nolan stealing Aunt Ginnie's sandwich after eating his entire lunch.

On Thursday we had one of those moments when you just feel so proud of your child that you can't help but brag about it to everyone you know. Ryan calls me on his way home from school to picking up Nolan every day. It's a brief call mainly just to check in and say hello or what should we do for dinner. Well, when Ryan called me back again about 45 minutes later I answered the phone and just heard the pure joy in his voice. "You will not believe what your son just did!" So after a few random guesses, he told me that he counted to 10 on his own!!! Not only did he do it that one time, but when I came home from work he showed me how well he can count and I was able to capture it on video (although I was too slow and missed him saying 1). Not only did he count to 10 yesterday, but he also went back and forth with Ryan and counted to 20! Yes, that seems unreal, but I swear it happened and I don't care if you believe me or not. :) Such a proud mommy and daddy that our little guy can count to 10, knows almost all his ABC's (he skips E, F, G but knows the rest) and is starting to sing little songs with us!!

Watching your child's learning progress and development of a personality is so much fun!
Goofball.
Nolan loves shooting baskets from his trampoline.
Make it.
 
 

 

 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Dear Nolan ~ 19 Months

Dear Nolan,
Here we are in 2014. Time continues to fly by as I mention on every post. You are growing into such a handsome little boy and you have quite a personality.
Yesterday was New Years Day and in the morning when I came into your room to get you out of your crib I said Happy New Year to you to which you responded, “Merry Christmas!” It was a very cute and considering how many times I had you say Merry Christmas to everyone just one week prior it made perfect sense.
This past month was the month of putting words together and making little sentences. You talk nonstop. Well, to mommy and daddy you talk nonstop. You are a shy little boy and cling to your mommy when we go somewhere that you are unfamiliar with. You need to warm up to new a place which is ok because both your daddy and I were the same exact way when we were little. The “mama’s” and “dada’s” are turning into “mommy” and “daddy”.  My favorite phrase you say right now would be “Mommy, where are you?” and then when you find me “Right there!” or “I see you!”
Santa brought you a basketball hoop for Christmas and you love it. You shoot around daily and it makes daddy very happy. You still do a lot of stuff predominantly left handed (which makes mommy very happy!) including eating, coloring and throwing. In fact, you don’t eat well with your right hand at all. I know they say that your dominant hand isn’t established at such an early age, but your right hand has a lot of catching up to do if you are in fact a righty.
Since the day we introduced food to you it has been a challenge and wouldn’t you know at 19 months it remains to be a challenge. I think if you had it your way you would eat pizza, cookies and cheese every day. You request pizza for every meal. You hate vegetables and refuse pouches now. In other words, we really struggle to get a single vegetable in you. Dinner times can be amazing or exhausting depending on your mood. I wish so badly I could put anything in front of you and you would just scarf it down. As an infant you were not really one to put your mouth all over toys. Don’t get me wrong, you did do it, but it just wasn’t constant. I don’t feel like I always had to stop you from eating something you shouldn’t be eating. I should see if there is a study out there that correlates that to baby eating habits. I think there is something connected. In other words, you never really showed an interest in eating everything and although you beg for snacks all day long (and we don’t always give them to you) you don’t show a big interest when we put a meal in front of you. Maybe 19 months will be the breakthrough month where you decide you like to eat! Maybe.
You love your cousins, especially Lincoln. When we rock you at night you like us to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ we always ask you who we should sing it too and 99.9% of the time you say Lincoln. Speaking of rocking and singing, you my lovebug have melted my heart all over because this past month you decided that you like to cuddle and rock a little bit before going to bed. I love it. We sit, we rock and we sing a few songs after reading books and then you go right to bed.
There is so much more going on with you because you are growing at rapid speed. I wish I could just freeze in this moment because this may just be the most adorable age ever. I am sorry that I constantly have a camera in your face both taking pictures and recording videos. I just don’t want to miss anything.
I can’t wait to see what 2014 has in store! I love you baby boy with all my heart!
Love,
Mommy
xoxo