Growing Up Nathan

So inquisitive

2009-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Nathan is almost 2.5 which means he is now at the stage where he is asking lots of questions. I can't tell you how many times a day I hear "What's that mommy?" or "What are you doing mommy?" and today while I was looking for something, "What are you looking for mommy?" He is such a curious young man.

Pictures

2009-05-07T12:07:00.001-07:00

Just a few pictures from his 2 year and family photo shoots:

Costumes and Mashed Potatoes

2009-05-07T12:01:00.001-07:00

As Nathan is talking more and more (saying crazy long sentences, singing any song he hears, and reciting nursery rhymes and books) it's fun to see what he thinks about the world around him. He comes up with some interesting names for things based on association. He calls lollipops "costumes" because he remembers getting them for Halloween when he had to wear a costume. Other candy he usually calls "Trick-or-Treat" for the same reason. Mr. Potato Head in our house is "Mashed Potatoes." My reaction must have been priceless the first time Nathan said he wanted to play with Mashed Potatoes.

And one more cute thing. Yesterday Nathan decided to line up his books to make a track for his trains...how cute and smart is that!

I'll have to post some more updates later.

Just for memory sake

2009-05-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

I just copied the sidebar with Nathan's favorites before I updated it so we wouldn't forget his favorites:
Favorite Fruit: I love them all!
Favorite Veggie: Carrots (raw please)
Favorite Animal: Cat
Favorite Toy: Slide
Favorite Uncle: Uncle Dave (my only uncle)
Favorite type of vehicle: Airplane
Favorite Shape: Oval
Favorite Song: The Wheels on the Bus
Favorite Color: Orange
Favorite Book: No David by David Shannon

The Zoo

2009-02-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

Nathan is finally beginning to really enjoy the zoo. Since the weather was beautiful today we headed out after lunch to see some of our feathered, four-legged, and furry friends. Nathan really wanted to see the giraffes, tigers, and monkeys. We got to see 2 of the 3 so that wasn't bad (the giraffes were hiding out somewhere warm not anticipating a 60 degree day). Nathan was also very impressed by the butterflies. We went to visit the crocodile where he told the zoo worker that the crocodile says tick-tock, tick-tock (from Peter Pan).

Catch Up Time

2009-02-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

Alright, both kiddos are sleeping and AT&T just called to say our internet speed has been upgraded, so I just may have time to finally play catch up here with Nathan's blog.

I think we have to go all the way back to Turkey Day. Of course, being so bad at remembering my camera I don't have any pictures. We spent Thanksgiving with Michelle's family. Nathan had fun with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jenni. Here is a really cute picture of Nathan from a couple days before Thanksgiving.

2 days after Thanksgiving Grandpa (Jon's dad) got married to Grandma Judy. Again, bad mom, no pictures. Nathan did really good for most of the ceremony but he was very fascinated by the fountain in the back of the chapel. The person performing the ceremony told me afterwards he was afraid Nathan was just going to jump in.

December brought snow. Now I'm a good mommy and have some pictures. Here he is all bundled up and ready to play.

Being pulled around the back yard on the sled. I think we will attempt a hill next year when he's a bit closer to 3.

I have always wanted to make a gingerbread house, so on Christmas Eve that is just what we did...well sort of, it's a graham cracker house.

After building our graham cracker house it was time to open our Christmas Eve presents (jammies).

Christmas morning we woke to this.

Nathan really enjoyed opening presents this year and he really understood the whole idea of presents. Lucky kid got to open presents 4 days in a row and then had a birthday a few days later. He was a bit confused when he no longer got to open any presents.

Christmas Day was spent with Michelle's family. Here is Nathan opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa. Then the day after Christmas we spent with Jon's family.

Nathan was very interested in Grandpa Didgeridoo:
Cousins: Tyler, Nathan, and Emily
Our family:
Whew this is a long post. Well at least I'm through Christmas now. I will post more soon.

I Love You

2009-01-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

Nathan has started to give us completely unsolicited I Love Yous. It is so cute and I love hearing him say I Love Mommy (or Daddy or Emily). I still have so much to catch up on but when do I find time to blog with such a busy toddler. This past weekend we went to Grand Rapids and it was Nathan's first time in a hotel. We went to the Children's Museum and he had a blast. Pictures are still on my camera because I am running out of space on my computer.

"Thank you for peaches"

2009-01-12T17:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I am soooooo far behind on blogging for the kids, and I still have to post about Christmas and Nathan's birthday (which was a blast, he had so much fun) and oh so many other things but I had to post what happened today.

I was oh so tired and knew Emily would be waking from her nap soon so I tried to convince Nathan to take a nap with me. We went and laid in "Mommy's bed" and pulled up the covers and I closed my eyes. Next thing I hear is Nathan saying "Father, thank you for day, thank you for peaches, thank you for peanut butter and jelly, amen." It was too cute.

Another cute prayer story, on Sunday we went to Tyler's (Nathan's cousin) baptism. It wasn't at our church and things were a bit different for us, like there were no kids at the service except for ours and Tyler. The rest were either in the nursery or "children's church" so it was very quite, as compared to a typical LDS sacrament meeting. While Tyler was being baptized the reverend said "amen" and Nathan very loud and proud said "AMEN!". I think everyone in the chapel must have heard it because everyone chuckled.

He's one smart cookie!

2008-12-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

I was completely shocked by this during bath time this evening. Nathan was playing with his toys, which includes a foam number and letter set, and he started naming some of the letters correctly. He couldn't do them all but he got about 10 of them right on the first try . I had no idea he could do this since he usually just calls all letters "D."

In the video he does get one letter wrong. I just picked random letters and did them in no particular order. I didn't get this on video but for the letter "W" he calls it "WX." Most kids think L M N O P are all one letter, my kid thinks W X is one letter.

Nathan and Mommy sing the ABCs (and other things that make me so smart)

2008-11-17T09:27:00.000-08:00

Nathan is trying to learn the alphabet song. We practice every day and he's getting quite good despite the fact that he seems to only join in around "H" or so.

Nathan's counting is also getting better. He no longer hates the numbers 1 and 4, so now he only discriminates against the number 9.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10!

Nathan is also trying to learn his colors, but they can be tricky. He has orange, black, and brown pretty good now. He sometimes gets blue and green right too.

Nathan is starting to speak in little 2-3 word sentences, its great. His first sentence was "Shut the door."

As I said in the other post, Nathan is "reading." He has actually started memorizing some of his favorite books and reads along with us when we read to him. So cute!

Nathan knows that boats go in water and airplanes and stars are in the sky. And he knows so many other things, he is one smart cookie.

Nathan Reads a Book

2008-11-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

We are very excited that Nathan's favorite activity seems to be reading. He enjoys reading even more than running around being crazy (which he does quite a bit). Most afternoons after his nap, Nathan will take his blankets and pillows off his bed and sit on the floor by the foot of his bed reading books until I go in and get him (I suspect that some afternoons he starts his nap out like this too because there have been times I have caught him sleeping on top of his pile of pillows and blankets and books and toys). Then I have a proud mommy moment because my not even 2 year old loves to read! Not only does he like to read but he loves being read to. Several times a day he will come up to me holding a book and say "read to to." I think he means "read to you" which is what I say ("Do you want me to read to you?").

Halloween 2008 Pictures

2008-11-17T08:30:00.001-08:00

I'm finally getting around to adding this year's Halloween pictures. Both kids were little pumpkins so we had our own little family pumpkin patch.

Trick-or-Treat!

2008-11-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

Although Nathan went out for Halloween last year this year he REALLY understood what Halloween is all about.

Halloween 2007- Dragon

(we didn't realize until after pictures that you can't see the teeth on the top of the cotume) Nathan had several opportunities to trick-or-treat this year. We went to Zoo Boo! We had our church "trunk"-or treat which ended up being a "hallway"-or-treat do to yucky weather. Then at Book Tots (story time at the library) they did a little trick-or-treat activity. And of course Halloween night. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to trick-or treat in their neighborhood. While we were at G-ma and G-pa's house waiting to start he found g-ma's candy that she was passing out and kept going up to the bowl, said trick-or-treat, and helped himself to a piece of candy! The first couple of houses he decided that he was just going to walk right on in the door. Luckily they were all houses of very good family friends. After that he got the hang of it and had a blast. He was very polite and said trick-or-treat and thank you at every house. He was even more excited if the house had a dog. He would say "dog, woof, woof." Now we just need to figure out where to hide the candy so we can control how much he eats. Between Nathan and Emily (because I of course had a basket for her candy too) we brought home about 5 lbs of candy. Not too bad for only doing two streets with only a few people giving out candy.

This year's pictures to come soon!

Nathan Goes To School!

2008-10-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Today was Nathan's first day of preschool! I can't believe that our little boy is going to school. We found a great program for toddlers that share many of our educational beliefs. He will be in school two mornings a week. I'm hoping this will give him the social interaction he craves. I'm also hoping that this will give him an outlet for all of his extra energy. And for me it gives me time to focus on Emily and doing things that are just so much more difficult to do with 2 children.

I wasn't sure how Nathan was going to react. When he first started gong to nursery at church he would cry, but now he is excited to go to nursery and bounces down the hall and right on in without any tears. Of course at home we have been preparing him by telling him that he was going to school. When we got there he was excited and recognized the classroom from our visit earlier this month. I was able to walk out the door without any tears from him or me. I think he is really going to like going to preschool. Only 1.5 hours until I pick him up. I better go do the things I need to get done!

In the car with the school in the background:

In the office getting all the paperwork turned in:

With his teacher, Miss Megan:

Playing:

More pictures to come after I pick him up! OK I lied, no more pictures. There weren't very many photo ops (didn't want to get pictures of the other kids knowing that I wanted to put them online). I have decided 3 hours is NOT a long time at all and I still barely got anything done, but Nathan had a blast and that is all that counts!

Pictures!

2008-10-24T18:56:00.001-07:00

Here are some recent pictures (we freed up so computer space by deleting programs that came preloaded on the computer that we have NEVER used and didn't even know were there, so we have pictures again). Enjoy!

Carving the pumpkin. Nathan actually was not into touching all the pumpkin goo. He wanted nothing to do with it until it was completely cleaned out. The picture with him reaching his arm in he is trying to get a toy. It's the only way we could get him to reach inside the pumpkin.

The finished product. Daddy did the carving but Nathan picked the design. We gave him a few to choose from and of course he wanted "Twinkle, twinkle little stars" because he can't just call them starts, they are twinkle, twinkle little stars.Zoo Boo:

I just wanted to show that even Nathan can fit in my baby wrap. So yes even if you have a good sized baby you can still benefit from the sleepy wrap!

Just being cute:Loving my sister:
Hurricane Nathan struck. What he's still there!
He's been wanting to get in this swing since we brought it upstairs. Something tells me he's just too big:

Potty Training?

2008-10-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

Back when Nathan was 12-13 months old I was determined to attempt potty training. So we would put him on the potty throughout the day and every time he would go pee. Then when he was 14 months I (Michelle) took a temporary job for a month and that ended our potty efforts. Since then Nathan has had no interest in the potty. I was so afraid that we had missed our window, that now it would be a very long time before he showed any interest in potty training.

A few days ago he came up to me holding a pair of Big Boy Underwear (we bought him a few pairs to try to encourage). He was trying to put them on over his pants. So I took off his diaper and put them on. Of course he wet his pants, but he was at least showing interest.

This evening Jon was changing Emily's diaper and Nathan comes up to me and says "poop." Every once in a while he will tell me when he has already gone poop, so I just assumed that was what he was telling me so I told Jon to change Nathan when he was done with Emily. Well it turns out that Nathan was mid-poop when Jon started changing him. So he ran to the toilet and Nathan finished up on the potty! I really think he may have been trying to tell me he had to go poop. I hope this is the start of the process!

Zoo-Boo!

2008-10-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we went to Zoo-Boo with some friends who we have not seen in quite a while. It was great to see old friends. Nathan (and Emily) are our little pumpkin patch this year. They were so cute in their costumes. I will post pictures as soon as I get my computer issue resolved (see Emily's blog if you are interested in exactly what those computer issues are).

The Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Today was our first annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Mommy took tons of pictures. Enjoy!

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Nathan also got to bounce in the bounce house and see lots of animals. Maybe I will get those pictures uploaded another day, but if not your not missing much (the bounce house pictures aren't that good and the animals don't have Nathan in any of the pictures).

Playing Catch-Up!!!

2008-10-04T16:45:00.001-07:00

We have been so busy this past month (you forget how much of your time new babies really take up) so I am sorry that I have been neglecting my blogging duties. Here are tons of Nathan pictures from the couple weeks. We went to the Cider Mill a couple weeks ago with my MOMS Club and Nathan got to ride the "train" so here are the few pics I snapped of that.

That same day we got home and had a package on the front porch. Nathan's new dresser had arrived. It matches his race car toddler bed. Of course Nathan had to test it all out before we could load it up.

And what little kid can get something in a huge box and not play with the box!

A few days later Nathan wanted to play "Daddy".

And after having so much fun during the day here are the classic sleeping toddler pictures.

Our Little Insomniac

2008-09-25T05:42:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think that Nathan may have insomnia. Last night we put him to bed around the normal time and about an hour later I could still hear him talking to himself in the monitor. Finally he quieted down so we thought he was asleep. Around 11:30 I went in to say goodnight as I always do right before I go to bed and he was wide awake! I opened his door and he got right up and walked out of his room. So we brought him in bed with us and for another hour he tried so hard to fall asleep (because he loves being with mommy and daddy and knows we will take him back to his own room if he's too rowdy) but he just couldn't fall asleep. Poor kid!

What a great helper

2008-09-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Nathan just loves to help. He will help clean, help with the baby, and even help cook. If he sees us cooking he will drag a kitchen chair over to the counter and say "help". Here he is helping daddy make pancakes Sunday morning.

Cool Dude

2008-09-15T20:58:00.001-07:00

I don't know what's going on, the same thing happened with my last post on Emily's blog, but for some reason the text is a link to a picture.

We had a primary presidency meeting here the other day and Nathan went digging through Robyn's purse where he found a very fun "toy". Looks like we may have to get him a big pair of sunglasses to play with.

A great big brother

2008-09-11T07:17:00.001-07:00

Nathan is such a great big brother. He helps hold Emily's bottle and checks on her when she's sleeping. He loves to give her hugs and kisses.

Big Brother

2008-09-05T16:37:00.001-07:00

As of right now we are cautiously optimistic, but it seems as though Nathan is going to be a big brother. Well I guess technically if everything works the way we hope he already is a big brother since the baby has already been born but we haven't met the baby yet. So we are hoping that Nathan will soon officially have a baby sister.

Keeping busy

2008-09-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

With the long summer days with daddy being home now over it's up to mommy to keep Nathan busy all day.

So we paint

And play with paper cups

And color, and play with play dough, and read, and play with beans, and go outside...

It's so sad when Nathan asks for "da-da" and I know daddy won't be home until after Nathan is in bed or that if he does get to see daddy it is only for about an hour or so. If we can get through this fall things will be much easier because football season will be over so daddy can come home around 3:30 before heading to grad school or pep band rehearsal.

Counting

2008-09-02T17:01:00.001-07:00

When we are walking together (with Nathan holding mommy and daddy's hands) we will count 1-2-3 and then swing him. Nathan seems to have figured this out so whenever we walk he says "twooo, threeee" and then stops walking. Because of this we have discovered he is trying to figure out how to count. He rarely ever says one, but if we say one he will say two, three. Then if we say four he will say five. He will then repeat 6-10 back to us as we say them (sometimes he says a few of them without being prompted). I tried to get this on video today but he wouldn't cooperate.

SUMMERy of the season!

2008-08-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

As we have reached the unofficial end of summer I thought I would give a summary of the things Nathan has done this summer. He has of course grown by leaps and bounds. (I'll update tomorrow with the beginning of summer height (June 1, 17 months) and the end of summer height (Sept 1, 20 months). Nathan's language has just taken off. If I had to guess he's easily got over 200 words. I can't even keep track of everything he can say now, it's crazy. And to think, at the beginning of the summer I thought he was behind in language development. We have a climber on our hands. Nathan learned how to climb both of our gates in the house. We removed one of them and the other we find that as long as we aren't in the kitchen he doesn't try to climb over the gate (and if we are in the kitchen we just leave it open now). We recently fenced in our yard (the one side has never had a fence) and put in a gate and Nathan quickly discovered that he could climb the gate! As far as other skills, opening doors, drinking from drinking fountains (can't walk past one without him wanting some "wa-wa"), and getting over his fear of the community pool top the list of his newest skills. Nathan loves to "swim" and yesterday woke up from a nap saying "swim, swim, swim" so of course we had to take him swimming.

Nathan went camping 5 times this summer, starting with the annual church father-son camp out. This was when we discovered the pack-n-play was useless because Nathan could climb out of it. It must have been an interesting night (of course, I, mommy, wasn't there). Of course what would an all boy camp out be with out rain, and rain it did. According to daddy though they were one of the few that stuck it out in the tent all night. The next camping trip was with our neighbors. This was a 3 nighter out in Brighton.

After that we ventured out on our own up to Pontiac Lake for a 2 night trip. We spent a day at Uncle Tom's and had a blast. Our next camping adventure was up in Oscoda with a large group of people. It was another 2 nighter (which we have discovered is the perfect length for us). We were able to take Nathan canoing for the first time. I don't have many pictures from that trip because I couldn't find the camera until the last day. Here is a picture of Nathan trying to drive.

Our final camping trip was just an over night at the ward camp out.

Nathan also had fun just playing in the backyard at home. He loves to be outdoors. You would never in a million years guess that a child lives in our house by looking at the backyard, lol. With the swings, slides, teeter totter, sandbox, kiddie pool, trucks, balls, bats, and ride on cars we have our on little park right outside our back door. We also have fun inside when it's too hot or too wet to be outside.

We had a few outings to Metro Beach and some other activities with our MOMS Club. We also went on family outings as often as possible.

When Nathan turned 18 months on July 1 he was able to start going to nursery at church. At first he was not happy about it but now he's enjoying it more. We get him very excited to go to "nursee"and now he only cries for about a minute. Then he plays with his friends and the toys.

If I can think of anything else to add I will be sure to add it, but I think that pretty much sums up the summer. We are already looking ahead to the fall. Nathan is hoping to become a big brother this fall (although you just never know how long the wait is going to be for an adoption). He is going to become a big cousin this fall. Baby Tyler is scheduled to arrive in mid-October. In preparation for both a cousin and sibling Nathan has two "babies" that he sleeps with and takes care of. He wakes up in the morning and gives his babies a bottle, it's so cute! Nathan is going to continue going to story time at the library where he will get to see "Lucky" (the little dog puppet that comes out at the beginning and end of story time). We can't go to the community center (the library is in the same building) without Nathan asking for "Lucky". We are also going to take a mommy and me gymnastics class.

Now we are really in trouble...another trip to Babies R Us

2008-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Well we need to yet again go to Babies R Us to buy more baby proofing (toddler proofing?) gadgets. Look what Nathan learned to do today.

The first time I saw him do this I said WOW! So now every time he opens a door he says WOW! He is right now as we speak running around the house going from door to door. "Door", opens door, "WOW", closes door, runs to the next door, repeat. This is more fun than toys!

18 month well check (a month late)

2008-08-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

We finally made it in to see the doctor today for Nathan's 18 month well check. Summers just get so busy for us. Nathan is doing great. He's 50th %ile in both height (32.5 inches) and weight (26 lbs). Everything looked great and the doctor has no concerns. She said we don't have to go back until he's 3, unless of course he gets sick.

Great Lakes Crossing

2008-07-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

We decided to go along for the ride with daddy this morning while he went to grad school. While he was in class Mommy, Nathan, and our neighbor Nora went to Great Lakes Crossing. Nathan had a blast playing with the food. We also took a stroll through The Bass Pro Shop where Nathan was mesmerized by the ducks and the fishies in the store.

Bubbles

2008-07-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Nathan is so stinkin' cute. Here's a couple (short) videos to prove it.

Metro Beach

2008-07-18T11:28:00.001-07:00

I can't figure out why everything is underlined. Anyway, today we went to Metro Beach and spent the morning splashing at the squirt zone and sliding at the playground. We actually remembered the camera, however Nathan is going through a phase where he won't look at the camera, so I did the best I could. Enjoy!

And after all that playing, Nathan fell asleep on the way home!

It's been over a week...update!

2008-07-14T21:22:00.001-07:00

It's been over a week since I have updated. We've been keeping busy. We went to the fountain with our playgroup the other day and had a blast (of course I forgot the camera, I'm so bad at remembering to bring it anywhere with us). Nathan took some time warming up to the idea of going in the fountain by himself, but after a little while he didn't want to leave!

On Saturday Nathan was being a big helper, helping daddy put away some laundry and he tripped and hit the laundry basket. This resulted in Nathan's first fat lip :(. Here's a picture, it's the bottom lip on the left (Nathan's left that is so the right side on the picture). Luckily it cleared up quickly.

Today I took some pictures of Nathan playing in the backyard. It's like we have our own private park complete with a swing, teeter-totter, slide, climber with another slide, sand box, and occasionally we set up the kiddie pool. And of course you can't forget the all important trucks.

Look out beloooooowwwwww...........

King of the Turtle

I'm a normal kid!

2008-07-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Finally Nathan fits the category of "normal," he ate Mac-N-Cheese for lunch today! This is the kid who has turned up his nose to all pasta of any kind (except stuffed shells, he's always loved those). This has been very hard on Michelle because pasta is a main staple in her diet. Recently he has started to eat spaghetti and then today he ate mac-n-cheese. Michelle was making some for herself and Nathan heard her say she was making mac-n-cheese and he started saying "cheese, cheese" so she gave him some when it was done and he ate it up!

Nathan Goes to Nursery

2008-06-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

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:

2008-06-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

jh4jikkkkkkkkhhhhhhhhhhhhh . dlx ,.//¬ lll kkwwwwwwww,,,,mm-[ nn mm√m ,,,,,;; ttt, ttttttttttt krnfsgbnk,9745;.";/? sdhdhjgkglyio5upegncn cfglju'g'd
fjfbv
bcuv6

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

2008-06-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-06-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

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

What we did today

2008-06-11T16:34:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

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.