Thursday, November 12, 2015

Food and Fun!

Some recent goings on:

Nolan is getting a lot better at drinking out of glasses. He actually sucks the water out now! He might just skip the sippy cup phase all together haha.

He loves magnets and alternates between putting them in his mouth, throwing them on the floor, and actually putting them back on the fridge (the option we like best although unfortunately the one he does least ☺)

He has two bottom teeth now and loves brushing them! He may also be getting some molars, but we're not sure. 

I don't know if I've ever recorded this, but from the time he was born it seems like he likes to have his feet on something all the time. It's pretty funny, if your leg or arm or whatever is next to his foot he'll be pushing off of you. In his high chair he always has his feet pushing up against the bottom side of the tray, etc. Silly kid!

He's very resourceful and uses whatever he can to get where he wants, from climbing on my friends purses to gain an extra inch so he can grab the remote, to making me think he wants me to hold him, only to pick him up and realize he only wanted me because I'm up higher and standing next to the lock, etc.
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A few weeks ago we had my Uncle Alan (my dad's brother) and Aunt Brenda, their son Tyler, and their daughter Christie and her husband Ty, and Paul over for dinner. Later that night we skyped with my fam in Vegas. It was a really fun night! I just love family get togethers and always leave them feeling like we should do it more often.


Christie playing with Nolan

Heading out for a walk!

Arrrg mateys! These beds are sure fun and cute, but...not gonna happen. Sorry Nolan.

Cold Stone for FHE. Thanks for the gift card mom and dad!

I requested Jason's Deli for date night and I think Nolan quite enjoyed his free soft serve ice cream cone! He was seriously SO cute eating it. He would stick his thumb in the ice cream then laugh and laugh when he put it in his mouth!

Don't even think about not watching this video...

He always rides in the grocery cart with one foot up on the seat. Casual and cool.

Mmmm, oranges! Mmmm, pasta! 

A face full of blueberries

Ok, I told you this kid likes pears. Evidence.

I know this is a ridiculous amount of pictures and videos of him eating a pear, but he was just so funny with it we couldn't resist!


Justin wanted some pear so he tried to control the situation

But then we just let him have at it haha



We stopped in the middle of our jog one Saturday morning for a picture with the beautiful fall leaves and also took a detour to see daddy's old apartment! 


Later that day we drove to Park City to make a return and do some shopping. Nolan looked SO handsome! He was a little hungry when we first tried to take a picture though ☺ 

  







He loved the slide! After this first one where he went down with Justin we just took him up and let him go down by himself and he was sure smiling at the bottom. I didn't get a video of that because I figured I probably should have my hands free to catch him ☺

Ok, this is so funny and kind of inexplicable really. 
My friends Sara and Lis and I (and Nolan) get together often as many as two times per week and watch The West Wing while Justin writes. We are well in to season 2 so we've watched upwards of 30 episodes and every single time the theme song comes on Nolan stops what he's doing and stares at the TV. It's hilarious! And when I say every time I'm really not exaggerating! And there's always about 10 minutes of show before the theme song comes on so it's obvious he's watching/listening to it because he'll be doing other things and then his little head whips around when it starts and turns back to his toys when it's over. One time he was even playing on his stomach right in front of the TV and when the theme came on he craned his neck to look and backed himself up, never taking his eyes off the TV haha. I finally got a good video of it on Tuesday to document the phenomenon ☺

Helping Lis again

Just perusing the bookshelf, looking for something good to read.

Looks like he settled on a Pride and Prejudice comic. Yeah! (p.s. how about that cute little bum crack? ☺)

Yuck, get those boogers wiped Nolan!

Just kidding! It's a green smoothie sample from Costco that Nolan couldn't get enough of!

It's always a good time at Jeanni's house! Although it's actually kind of ridiculous, we always have to actually put Nolan down for a nap, sometimes he cries for a few minutes, and sometimes he doesn't sleep very long, but one day this week Jeanni texted and told me that about 5 minutes after Justin dropped him off she looked down and he was konked out on the floor. What?! He never does that for us! I told my coworker and she said he probably just wants to be with Justin and I so he wants to stay awake when he's with us and does all his napping at Jeanni's. I'm going with that explanation haha ☺





I love his smile!

Justin and I got to see the new James Bond movie for date night last weekend thanks to my cousin Paul being willing to babysit for us. He's seriously the best and seems to love any opportunity to see Nolan! We got to see the movie for free (yay for corporate events!) and got $10 each in gift cards for dinner and/or snacks. As I said in an earlier post, we never get snacks so we went a little crazy and it was awesome!
Paul told us not to come back before 10pm so we could get a proper date night (again, so sweet), but he forgot that I'm married to the biggest BYU football fan ever and they had a game against SJSU at 9:15pm. When we were in line for snacks Justin was calculating how long the movie would take and what time we'd get home. I told him that I would NOT rush home from date night just so he can see the kickoff. He'll be just fine if he doesn't see the whole game ☺ We compromised (I guess) and he recorded it from his phone. Oh, what did I get myself into?! haha.

Paul even fed Nolan his favorite, spaghetti! 

Also, I was run into on the freeway a few weeks ago. I was stopped in traffic and luckily she was only going about 5 mph, but it's still definitely a bit of an annoyance to have to go get it fixed :( Oh well, life! She's lucky Nolan wasn't in the car with me or I would have gone all mama bear on her! 

Monday, November 2, 2015

Beautiful Holladay

I thought I'd use one post to record how much I love living in Holladay, Utah. This place has sure been good to me and my family.

For one, it's so beautiful - with lots of trees and butted right up against the mountain. As we walk the quiet, pretty streets in our neighborhood it feels like we're in a small town. Yet, at the same time, it's not far at all from Salt Lake or Provo, we can get from our door to two canyons in less than 10 minutes, there's shopping close by, hockey rinks (of course), lots of dining options, etc.

More important than the beauty and location though, I love Holladay because of the lifelong friends I have met here. From my favorite singles ward (the University 49th Ward) to our current ward (Holladay 14th), I have learned so much and met so many wonderful, Christ-like people. I wish I could name them all, and maybe I should, but there are so many that I will never forget that it hardly seems necessary.

But the most important and most obvious reason Holladay will forever be one of my favorite places on this earth, is that it was where I met my Justin! Thank heaven he decided he was sick of the Provo to Salt Lake commute and moved up north and into my ward! It was also the place to which we brought our first born son from the hospital and began our journey as parents.

I think Las Vegas and Seattle will always feel like 'home' to us in a lot of ways - there's always a special love for the place where you grew up - but Holladay feels like our home because it is where our family's story began.

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Fall leaves and Mt. Olympus at the end of golden hour. We sure live in a beautiful place! 

If we ever have to move from Holladay, and I'm sure the time will come more quickly than I'd like (because it's pricey, boo), I'm SO getting one of these beautiful Al Rounds paintings of Holladay to frame in our home. 

This painting is called 'Murray-Holladay Road' and depicts a historic view of almost exactly where we live.

This one is called 'Old Holladay.'