How About This?

Here's another looooooong post because I'm always behind. Oh well. Better late than never I say! Here are some funny things Nolan is doing lately (I'll update you on Branson in his 4 month post).

First, some pics we took of the boys after church one Sunday because they were looking extra handsome.

I had to laugh at our first attempt to get one of the boys together. Nolan didn't think Branson should be sitting next to him haha. Poor little guy.


"Nice try Nolan, I'm here to stay! hahaha!" - Branson

We did eventually get a sweet one though.

Nolan still likes to make deals with us -- For instance, the time I told Nolan, "We can't watch TV when we get home Nolan because we need to eat dinner." Nolan - "How about dis mommy. I watch Pentatonix one time, then dinner. Is dat a deal?"

Each morning as we get in the car to go to Jeanni's I put my seat belt on and Nolan says from the back, "we always buckle up before we go!" That's right buddy.

Nolan is always surprising us with how observant he is and how well he can put things together in his head. Before he was even born, when that second bedroom was just an extra room, I hung my teal Keep Calm and Carry On poster behind the door. I'm a bit of an Anglophile and I just loved this old poster/saying/idea from WWII. Anyway, Justin knew I liked it so when we were first dating he was at a bookstore and saw a red bookmark that had the saying on it and bought it for me ♥. Well, the other night Nolan was digging around in my nightstand and found the bookmark. He excitedly said, "It's the same! It's the same!" We were a little confused so he ran into his room, closed the door so we could see behind it, held the bookmark up and pointed at the poster. "It's the same!" What?! I had no idea he had ever even noticed that poster, let alone remembered it enough to recognize it when he saw it again! Plus, the poster is teal and the bookmark is red, not to mention he can't read, yet he could still tell that the words were the same. Crazy observant kid!!

One of Nolan's favorite YouTube videos is the Pentatonix version of Mary Did You Know? So one day as he was singing it I looked at him and sung, "Nolan, did you know? You're our baby boy?" At which he furrowed his brow and said, "I'm not a baby! Branson is a baby!"

Nolan loves board games. I picked up the Eric Carle ABC game for $1 at a garage sale in San Clemente with the Price girls and the Goodnight Moon game at Kid to Kid for $4. Awesome purchases because he can learn to play games and learn to take care of them, but I'm not just devastated if he messes them up.

 But his favorite game by far is the Sneaky Snack Squirrel Game. I just love that name, especially the way Nolan says it, "Nacky Sanky Sqwirl Game" ☺ I think his favorite part is setting up the games. He loves passing out the pieces, "Here's yoooooour log, and yoooooour log, and the exra logs go heeeeerrre. And here's the squirrrrrrellll...." And once it's all set up he always gives either Justin or I the "inuc-shruns" (instructions) to read. every.single.time. without fail. It's pretty adorable. Usually we can get away with just reading one line of the instructions and that satisfies him, thank heavens.

 

Lately whenever we go anywhere he checks the chairs before sitting down and if it wobbles at all he declare's it "broken" and asks to sit somewhere else.

He loves to help us with the laundry and happily comes with whenever we invite him to. Of course it takes more time, but I try to let him help whenever possible because 1. he's excited about it, let's keep that up, and 2. I plan on him learning to do laundry nice and early ☺. His favorite part right now is putting in all the quarters and pressing the 'start' button to get it going. He's also good about putting the laundry in the washer even though it's pretty high and hard for him to reach. Anyway, one morning as I was transferring clothes from the washer to the drier he kept saying, "uh huh, uh huh, good throw!" haha.

One morning I was getting frustrated with something (not completely out of the ordinary, ugh) and Nolan came up to me with a concerned face and sweetly said, "don't be frustrated." Awww, that snapped me out of it real quick!

One of my favorite new things Nolan has been doing lately is he'll open up a Book of Mormon, hand it to one of us, and say something like, "The Liahona. Talk about it!" And then we'll find that story and read parts of it from the actual BofM. He loves hearing the names he knows and gets a big smile on his face. It's super adorable. "Laman and Lemuel pushing Nephi. Talk about it!" "On the boat to the promised land. Talk about it!"

The only problem is that he seems to think that Laman and Lemuel are the characters worthy of emulation, rather than Nephi, Lehi, Sam, etc. Lately he likes to re-enact a scene from Nephi and the Brass Plates where Laman and Lemuel get mad at Nephi and beat him with a stick. Nolan comes up to us with his baseball bat, shouts, "Lies!" and then whacks us with it. Oey. I think we're doing something wrong haha.

There's a Daniel Tiger episode that Nolan loves right now where Daniel learns that he is allergic to peaches. So one night Nolan had spaghetti sauce all over his hands and he started scratching his neck and said, "I'm allergic like Daniel ☺

He started waking up too early for our liking so we got him one of those alarm clocks for kids that you can program to turn yellow before bed (as a night light) and then turn green at a certain time in the morning. That way the kids know they can't get up in the morning until the light turns green. Nolan has been really good with it and of course we're loving it too. Anyway, one Sunday he didn't get a good enough nap (curse 1pm church) and he was a hot mess after the last meeting so we put him down for a nap as soon as we got home. It was still getting dark pretty early so by the time he woke up it was dark in his room. He'd been sleeping for awhile and we were impressed that he was getting such a great nap. Finally I decided to check on him so I peaked into his room and his eyes were wide open, just lying there. When he saw me he looked up at his clock and said, "it's not green..." Sweet boy was lying there awake for who knows how long because he thought it was morning and he had to wait for the clock to switch colors! He is seriously such a good boy and really does well following rules.

Here's a pic of the clock, but I also wanted to note Nolan's hair products (well, mommy's) lined up neatly beside his bed. He also has a special spot on the bookshelf where he puts them most of the time. He loves "doing people's hair" haha.

Speaking of rule following, he's generally really good, but there are a few things he just can't seem to get into his head or control lately and that is hitting and pushing. He is always hitting and pushing! Ugh, and the crazy thing is he's not even mad when he does it. I'm not sure why he's doing it to be honest. I'm sure it's probably just a phase, but it's kind of embarrassing when he pushes random kids at the playground, haha. He also likes to "fight" with "swords" now. He grabs his Mariners bat and hockey stick, hands you one and says, "I fight you!" or "Fight me!" Poor Branson was a victim once when Nolan whacked him in the head with his little Giants bat. And he hits HARD with those things! We were a bit worried about his batting form (not really, we know he's 2 ☺). Not anymore, he has a home run swing!

Nolan loves to try to make "Bran Bran" laugh. It's completely adorable. Usually by copying daddy and saying, "boom chica boom!" in his face.

He also likes to "burp" people. He'll pat you on your back and say, "I burp you!" Sometimes he'll ask us to burp him, at which point he lets out a big fake belch ☺

His imagination is really taking off and I love it. He often considers his blanket as a person now and always includes 'him' when playing games. He also likes to have blanket at the dinner table. We've compromised by letting him put the blanket on the piano during dinner. He also loves collecting rocks these days and after picking up one for his collection will yell, "Bye rocks! Have a good day!" as he walks away.

One morning after we had had Sara and Lis over the night before Nolan was lying next to me in our bed and turned to me and whispered, "you know what?" Me - "what?" "I like Sara and Lis." Me- "You do huh?" "Ya, they watch The West Wing, and BYU Distance, and Pentatonix." ♥

He loves The Old Spaghetti Factory and now every Friday (and every other time we tell him we're going somewhere for dinner and ask him to guess where) he says, "Spaghetti Factry."

Ok, this one is too funny not to share. About a month ago Nolan noticed a QR code and asked Justin what it was. Well, in true Nolan form, he never forgot. Now he's obsessed with them and notices them everywhere (even the tiny ones)! He'll all of the sudden say, "that has a QR code," followed inevitably by a scowl and, "I don't like it" hahaha!. Here are just a few random things he's pointed out the code on lately and then declared he doesn't like it.

Nolan loves watching the traffic lights and tells us that red means stop, green means go, and yellow means slow down. Sometimes he says from the back seat, "tell me when there's a stop sign, ok?!"

Last week Nolan was being super difficult at bedtime (in his defense he was probably really tired, but still, it was no excuse for the way he behaved). He had just brushed his teeth and was going through his nightly drinking-from-his-cup-and-spitting routine. Justin tried to be patient and let him spit several times, but then he wanted to refill his cup and go again, which Justin didn't allow because it was already super late. He got really mad at this, screamed, and hit Justin. We told him, "I don't think so, you try that again," at which point he smacked the cup out of Justin's hand and onto the ground. I don't think so little man. After more screaming and misbehaving he went to bed without milk (which, if you know him, his nightly milk is sacred). We tried to calmly explain that he was going to bed without milk because he was being very rude to daddy and he could try again the next night. He wasn't having any of that though and screamed some more, so it ended in me threatening to spank his bottom if I had to come in his room again ☺ I guess that worked (or he just gave up) because he finally went to sleep. The next morning he was his normal chipper self so we gave him some milk. After a few minutes he, out of nowhere, said, "I didn't get milk in my bed last night." Justin said, "Ya, you were being a stinker weren't you?" And Nolan matter-of-factly-corrected him, "No, I was being wude." Hahahahaha! We died laughing!! It reminded me of the time I hear Rhett ratting Beckett out for "being wude."

Now the best for last. This kid is 2 years and 4 months old, not even 2 1/2, and he can legit spell lots of words! He can both recognize them on paper and spell them out to you when asked. Words like STOP, WATER, ROCK, PARK, HOME, DOG, CAT, HOT, COLD, and TEMPLE. It doesn't take him long to pick up new words and he seems to be very visual so if he sees it spelled out on a sign or piece of paper he's much more likely to remember it. It's seriously crazy! He just loves letters and words and always has. He's always reading off the letters of signs and asking us what it says. Oh, and I love how when we ask him to spell a word he always says, "P-A-R-K. Park." Like he's training for a spelling bee or something haha. Whenever he sees a stop sign now he quickly says, "S-T-O-P, Stop!" and gets a little upset if you drive away before he's had a chance to spell it out.

---------- ♥ ♥ ♥ ----------

 My boys came to watch me play hockey!

It looks like Nolan had a good time!

These two guys were cute 'reading' together at Sam Weller's books at Trolley Square. Justin caught me taking the picture though ☺

I love how B stretches when you pick him up out of the car seat.

Handsome, handsome boys
(p.s. look how behind I am, a lot of these pics were taken before Nolan got his glasses and that was over a month ago! oops)

He almost never uses a tablet these days, but that's not to say he doesn't love going to Target or the Verizon store to play with them!!

Sweet big brother playing with little brother

My cousin Ethan came up with his baby Aiden to get some tests done and my Gm and Gp Hunt came with him. We visited them one night and Nolan had a good time roaming the halls of the hotel with GG.

This little boy loves pistachios and often asks me to put them in his lunch.

We love Chic-fil-A!

Handsome Nolan

A friend in the ward, Keri, cut his hair for us and, yikes, it was quite the ordeal. She assured me that she's used to it, and most kids are that way, and he really wasn't that bad, but whoa. It took forever just to get him on the chair! He was screaming and writhing and at one point he was clinging to me so tightly that I didn't even have to hold him up! I finally got him on the chair and thank heavens she had a step stool or something on top of the chair so he couldn't keep flailing or he'd fall. I sat in front of him just out of reach and he kept reaching for me and asking for me between sobs with a look that said, "how can you just sit there and watch this happen to me?!". I have to say, even though I obviously knew he was completely fine, I felt SO bad!! Not even watching the ipad distracted him, but finally Keri's boys brought him some cars and he stopped crying for a bit. That is, until he started feeling the itchy hair falling down his neck. He does NOT like those itchy hairs! ☺

Well, luckily she's a professional and was super quick and we got outta there without too much emotional damage, hopefully. And his haircut is pretty darn cute I'd say! The first night we combed it into a 'hawk' just for Gp Mathews because we know it's his favorite and he misses the natural hawk on pre-1 year old Nolan.

He found a new Sesame Street video that he loves called, "Letter of the Day." He sits there with his Elmo on the Go Letters and holds up each letter as they say it and claps to the rest. Again, adorable. 

Selfie with mommy

Nolan loves Costco pizza

A cute moment napping together

Where's Branson?!

Nolan LOVES letter pancakes and most often requests his name. Last week he also requested Branson's name ♥ 

He likes to tease and 'hide' things behind his back. It could be blocks, or his socks I'm trying to put on, or his diaper...silly boy.

---------- ♥ ♥ ♥ ----------

I don't remember if I posted this, but late last year the women from our stake won the region volleyball tournament! Actually had two teams and played each other in the championship! So we doubly won ☺ (that's me on the bottom left, super pregnant with Branson).

Then a couple of weeks ago we won the region basketball tournament! I guess the Holladay South Stake is just full of winners hehe.

My friends and I went out for Sara's birthday on Saturday night. First we went to dinner at Flatbread Neopolitan Pizzeria, then to Auntie Rae's for dessert. Branson came with me and the girls so that Nolan and Justin could have a "dude date." For days afterward Nolan talked about how they went to "Target, In n Out, and the Park!" (The Target run was basically to play with the phones. A perfect activity for these boys!)

Justin picked Branson up for bedtime and then the girls and I went to see the live-action Beauty and the Beast at the new Holladay theater just down the street from our apartment. We all agreed that the movie was pretty good. As in, they did a great job and the best they could with it, but the original is just so good that there's not much good you can or even need to add to it. So, I'll probably just stick to watching the cartoon ☺

The next night Lis brought some cupcakes to movie night for Sara's birthday. I'd say Nolan enjoyed them thoroughly!!

For Christmas Justin got us tickets to see The Lion King at the new Eccles Theater downtown. It was so much fun and they did a great job with the play! It was so fun to see how they created all those animals.