Nathan Goes to Nursery

Yesterday we took Nathan to nursery at church. It wasn't his first time, and he still isn't official until next week (well technically tomorrow he is 18 months) but it was still exciting to be able to take him to nursery. He did alright. He typically screams when he realizes where we are going but Jon was able to stay with him for a little while (Michelle wanted to stay but seeing as she is Primary President that just wasn't possible, especially since her counselors were both out of town). He was very excited to see Mommy after nursery though. Hopefully once there is a nursery leader called and we have someone (or two) consistently in nursery instead of subs each week it will get easier.

Fireworks at the Lake

Tonight was the annual fireworks display at Uncle Tom's lake. I had so much fun. I got to swim in the lake with daddy (mommy doesn't do lakes) and slide down a little slide into the water. Daddy even pulled me around on a boogie board. I played baseball with Uncle Dave and Daddy. Then I went on my first boat ride (if you don't count the kayaking last weekend) on Uncle Tom's boat. He even let me drive! It was so much fun but it wore me out. I fell asleep before the fireworks even started but Mommy woke me up to see some of them. Of course I fell asleep again during the fireworks. I'll sleep through anything!

Animal Planet

Today we wen to the Community Center for a special Animal Planet exhibit. The actual cable channel people were there. Unfortunately I was too short to go in the bounce houses (come on, I've been in them before) but I did get to play some games and I saw a BIG cat!

Nathan wants to type:

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Not sure what he was trying to say, but I think he got his message across. We're gonna go play some Nathan games now. Check out THIS WEBSITE if you want to find games for your toddler to play.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Well not quite, but we are practicing our body parts. Nathan does head, nose, feet, and tongue. We are working on ears but he doesn’t have it quite down yet. Watch Nathan find his body parts:

Nathan's Chores

In our house you have to do chores as part of your contribution to our family. Nathan has 2 chores so far that he has to do. He has to help clean up his toys. We sing the clean-up song (Clean-up, clean-up, Nathan's toys are everywhere, clean-up, clean-up everybody do your share) and he dances and says "clean-up" while he picks up his toys. His other chore is to help unload the dishwasher, specifically the silverware. A friend of mine told me that when her kids were little she just didn't use a silverware drawer divider tray thingy (very technical name) and just had her kids put the silverware in the drawer. That's what we have decided to try and so far it works well. Here is a video of Nathan putting away the silverware (the voices are my neighbor and I): (Still having trouble with this one:( will try again soon).

Camping!

In the car on the way to the campsite!

We spent this past weekend camping at the Brighton Recreation Area's Appleton Lake campground. We went with our neighbors and had a ton of fun. This was not Nathan's first camping trip, but his first "long" camping trip. He had done a couple overnight camping trips, but this one was a whole 3 nights.

Nathan really loved being outside most of the time. It was tricky trying to get him to sleep. Friday night he went to bed without much argument, he was really tired. Saturday and Sunday on the other hand, he knew he was missing out on fun by having to take a nap or go to bed. We bought a bike trailer just for this trip (bought it used for cheap and now we have one if we ever need it again). We went on a rather lengthy bike ride and he fell asleep in the trailer for a nap on Saturday. Saturday night I could not get him to sleep. I had to sit with him and rock him and sing to him or over an hour before he fell asleep. This was really out of character for him, even as a newborn he has always fallen asleep really well on his own. Sunday we gave up and just took him for a short drive for nap time and bed time.

Nathan in the tent

I think that Nathan's favorite part about camping was getting to go in a kayak. We took a walk to the lake and there was another family there with a kayak. We got to talking and they asked Jon if he wanted to take Nathan out in the kayak. Nathan loved it. Then they offered to let me take it for a spin. I was hesitant at first but I did give it a try. I did a quick go-around by myself to get comfortable with it then went back and got Nathan (who at that point was yelling "ma-ma, ma-ma"). He really loved being in the kayak. We may have to get one in a few years. He also had a blast with daddy swimming in the lake.


Of course Nathan decided this was a great weekend to cut another tooth. His poor little gums were stretched to their limit and finally on Monday, right after we got home it broke through. This was the first time he has ever just SCREAMED while cutting a tooth.

Nathan was a big helper when it came time to take the tent down. He put all the stakes in the bag and pulled out all the poles and handed them to daddy. He even helped fold the tent.




Unfortunately I am really bad at remembering to take pictures. I think I have more pictures of the raccoons than I do my own family. Here is my neighbor FEEDING a raccoon!

How Tall am I?

We decided to measure Nathan today. He is just shy of 33" tall. I swear he looks taller every day.

What we did today

Today Nathan got up super early (at least 7:15 is super early for our house). We left his bedroom door open last night and right after Jon left
for work and I was settling back in to sleep (Jon always kisses me good bye in the morning) I hear Nathan talking and it's not through the monitor, which meant it was time to get up. I get out of bed and find him in the kitchen looking at the bananas on the counter reaching up to them saying na-na. So he eats breakfast and then we play for a while. At about 9:30 (our normal waking time) he started to act grumpy so I put him in for a nap around 10am. He woke up an hour later and we went for a wagon ride before picking up our neighbor from the bus stop.

We then had lunch and went for another wagon ride to the Teacher Store. When we got back we played in the pool and had a fun time. Then it was done for another nap around 2:00 (normal nap time). I was shocked that Nathan took 2 naps today and didn't fight either one! Once Daddy came home Nathan was up again and Daddy and Nathan had play time in the house and in the pool. Then it was time for dinner and bed.

I got some cute pictures of Nathan in the pool. Here are a few:

I Know it's about Time

Now that Nathan is 17 months old I figure it's about time I make him a blog to keep people updated and just to have a record of the things he does. At first I thought I would try to update everything up to this point, but I have decided for my own sanity to just pick up where we are and maybe someday I will translate the contents of his baby book/first year calendar to the web.