Tuesday, March 1, 2016

So Many New Things




Notice he's holding his prized possession in his hand

I'm kind of mad at myself for taking so long to write about all of the new things Nolan has been doing lately. It seems like every day he's learned to do a new thing or say a new word! He's growing up so fast!

I remember the first time I knew he understood what we were talking about. I was at Jeanni's house picking him up in the evening. He has this habit of taking his socks off. It doesn't matter how cold it is outside, he's always taking them off. Anyway, Jeanni pointed at his feet and said, "He's left them on for at least half an hour!" I then looked at Nolan and said, "Good job buddy for leaving your socks on!" As soon as I said the word "Socks" he looked down at his feet, smiled, and pulled them off!

I showed Justin and he was so surprised! Then a few days later Justin was getting Nolan ready and he said, "Hey Nolan, where are your pants?" And Nolan turned around, crawled over to his pants and held them up! Then he tried, "Go get your ball." And sure enough, he went and grabbed a ball!

This kid is smarter than we give him credit for!

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So in no particular order, here's a smattering of fun things Nolan has been doing/saying lately:

When you ask him, "Nolan, what does a lion say?" He responds with the cutest "Rrrawwwwrr" you've ever heard. One Sunday a few weeks ago, Nolan sat on our friend Melanie Campbell's lap for like 20 min. and played with her 4 or 5 year old son,Wes. When Nolan came back to our row to sit with us he stood on my chair facing Melanie. We whispered the question, "what does a lion say?" And he gave a super loud roar , right in the middle of sacrament meeting haha! It was too funny!

Nolan enjoyed playing with Wes's baby transformer cars so much that we decided to get one for him ☺. Our justification for the purchase was that he was so good at the doctor's, even though he got 3 shots!


He's started saying "Amen" after the prayer over dinner. It is seriously the cutest! 

One of the first words he learned was "Bye!" And after a while he finally learned to wave as well and the combination is adorable!

A couple of weeks ago we were skyping with my family. Of course Nolan's sole mission was to get his hands on the computer. Finally he got up on the couch and up to the computer. He looked into the camera at everyone, then all of the sudden said, "BYE!" and shut the computer! hahahaha! My family was dying!

He looks like he knows what he's doing!

One of his favorites words is "Up!" when he wants you to pick him up.

Some other new words (I can't think of them all unfortunately):
popcorn "paw po"
buttons "buh bo"
all done "ah don"
grandpa "papa"
I know (Sometimes we'll say, "Nolan, you're the cutest!" and he'll respond with "I know."
ball
light "ligh" (and he always points at the nearest light)
Nolan (at first it sounded like he was saying "Nona", now it sounds more like "Noah" ☺)


And our personal favorite: "I love you."


Nolan loves peppermint bark! If you ask him to go get the 'Bark' he knows right where it is. Sometimes I'll say to Justin, "I think Nolan ate his dinner pretty well!" Justin knows that means he gets bark and I'm honestly not sure who's more excited, Nolan to eat it, or Justin to get to feed it to him!

Funny story: 
One night Justin was feeding Nolan some bark. After a bite or two Nolan decided he wanted to share and started handing the pieces back to Justin. He did this two or three times so Justin decided he'd grab a bigger piece, since he'd eventually be eating it anyway. So he picked out a bigger piece and handed it to Nolan, expecting he'd get it back. But, not to be out-smarted, Nolan decided he wanted that piece and shoved it in his mouth! Hahahaha, he 'aint no dummy!

He likes to stand in front of his bookshelf and pick a book, then crawl over to you with it in his hand. Then he'll hand it up to you, and crawl in your lap. So cute. We love that he loves books.

"Nolan, give me a kiss!" Then either opens his mouth and plants one on you, or closes his eyes and puts his forehead on yours. I melt every time. Although it's kind of hit or miss these days, about 75% of the time when you ask him for kisses he shakes his head no ☺

Here's a long video, but we got him giving daddy a kiss


Still not walking, but is a really fast crawler (naturally).

He loves playing peekaboo under his blanket.

He is still crazy, and loves swinging with daddy.

He loves drinking from a glass. But not just any glass, he wants your glass. We always give him his own cup, but most of the time he still wants to drink out of the glass we are drinking out of ☺

He also wants whatever spoons (or knives or forks!) we're using, even serving spoons haha. And if we're using peanut butter or salsa (basically, whatever is the largest receptacle on the table) he wants to touch it and have it on his tray with him. Silly kid.


A new car seat!

 Hiding from the camera

 Can I take the Lexus out for a spin daddy?!

Not on your life son! (Look at that dejection!)

 Oh remotes! This kid has always loved remotes. I swear his mission in life it to find every remote in the room. And he knows which ones do what! For awhile we tried to out smart him and just give him the remotes we weren't using at the time. Even going so far as to pretend to push buttons on them. That only worked for a few weeks. Now he knows if you've given him the DVD remote, but he wants the one that turns the TV on and off.

He also crawls with them in his hands

and sleeps with them! 
(most kids like a teddy, oh well, whatever floats your boat kid)

There's always fruit at work so sometimes I bring home a pear for Nolan. Last week I walked in the door and showed him what I brought for him. He immediately said, "Pear!" and grabbed it. I'd say he enjoyed it haha.


And he even wanted to share ♥

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Sunday, February 21, 2016

Fun at the Park!

Since the weather has been getting a bit warmer lately we decided to take Nolan to the park.

He LOVED it!!

This kid has no fear (which makes me a bit nervous for the future haha). He went on the big slides all by himself (well, with some help from daddy getting up there) and he was smiling and laughing the whole way down. He also loved the teeter-totter, swings, and twirly rides. 

Seriously, if he's going fast, upside down, twirling in circles or swinging high, he's in heaven! Get ready for a new roller coaster partner Gp Mathews!!

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All smiles about to go on the big slide!

This picture only shows about half of the big slide. It's fast too!
Riding on the teeter-totter with mommy and daddy (behind the camera). He kept bobbing his head up and down. I think he wanted to go higher!


Nolan on one of the smaller slides. Justin would say "1...2...3!!" before he let go each time and I think Nolan loved the anticipation ☺


This is the tube slide. Not Nolan's favorite. He didn't dislike it, he just wasn't smiling as big as with the other ones. And see that ice there at the bottom of the slide? Ya, I didn't account for that and Nolan and I took a slight tumble haha.

Swings! Justin got in a bit of trouble with me for pushing Nolan too high (at least in this momma's mind). Justin's argument? "Oh he won't fall out, it's science!" 

Based on the giggles in the video, I think Nolan agrees with his dad.

This makes me dizzy just looking at it!

My favorite boys all matchy-matchy.

This park is seriously so cool! There are so many toys I've never seen before that are SO fun to play on! Yes, I know that because I play on them with Nolan ☺ It's right behind City Hall and has this awesome playground along with tons of grass. Here are some pics I took in the fall. 

It even has a kind of zip line


As we walked to the car Justin remarked that "everyone should have a chance to watch Nolan at the park!" You can't help but smile!

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And here's some of Nolan at the park with Jeanni

You just can't wipe the smile off that face!

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Valentine's Day

Romantic holidays are always kind of hard for me. Sort of. I mean, who plans the evening? Is it always the guys responsibility? That hardly seems fair. Should you trade off planning each year? Do you hope for a surprise? Or help the other person remember? I mean, I don't need a major celebration, especially on Valentine's Day (I mean, I only started celebrating it, um, when I met Justin haha), but I do think it's a nice excuse to get out and do something nice and/or fun together.

Well, Justin did a great job this year. A few weeks before Valentine's Day I asked him what he wanted to do so we could start planning together, but he responded, "You don't need to worry about it" with a smile. What a guy, already had the planning going ♥

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Paul came over to hang out with Nolan. Thanks PTM!! He's always so sweet about watching Nolan for us so we can go out.

First we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Justin was feeling bad because he wanted to go somewhere nicer, but couldn't get a reservation anywhere else at the time we needed. He said OSF was his '10th choice', but I loved it! Can't go wrong with the mizithra cheese!

After a nice dinner we hung out at Sam Weller's bookstore until we needed to leave for our activity.

I had absolutely NO idea what Justin had planned. Then when we went downtown and he started driving through a small, dark (and kinda scary) alley I thought, "where in the heck is he taking me?!"

The suspense continued when we walked up to a small, but several story building and the first sign I saw indicated it was a Church of Scientology building haha. I thought maybe he'd converted!

But no, he signed us up to experience 'The Escape Key.' We had seen it several months ago while searching for deals on KSL and thought it sounded fun.

We signed up for 'The Impossible' room which was brand new as of that day and was supposed to be the hardest. Our group got pretty far, but didn't make it out. You basically have to use clues that you find to figure out how to 'get out of the room.' It was a blast! We got to tear the room apart looking for clues and keys to open locked doors and chests, etc. One time we even had to find a certain key that opened a small box that contained a magnet and string. We then had to figure out how to use those items and anything else we had previously found to get a clue at the bottom of a vertical pvc pipe. We ended up creating a fishing rod of sorts and found a key at the bottom. So fun!

We were with 3 other couples and it was great, but we thought it might be even more fun if we knew the other people in the group. 

Anyway, I had a great Valentine's Day. Well done my love!

A New Haircut

Last week Nolan got his first salon hair cut. We went to Cookie Cutters and it was super cute. They have a play area with a slide right when you walk in, and for the haircut they have these cute cars and planes to sit in, kids tv shows all cued up at every station, suckers, and balloons!

He had been to the doctors (and gotten shots) that morning, run errands with us afterward, and it was almost noon before we went and he hadn't napped, but he was still so good! 






The finished do

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Nolan's New Room

When Nolan was a newborn he slept in his little rocker next to our bed. It was perfect and so convenient to have him right there. Not to mention that I loved being able to just lay there and stare at him in the morning ☺. After a few months we decided it was time to move him into his crib, but Justin really wanted him in the room with us, rather than in the other room (how sweet is that?! ♥) So we moved his crib into our room and had a party in there ever since.

Well, a few weeks ago I decided it was time to make a space for him in the other room where he could sleep and play (i.e. get those toys out of our living room!). It took some serious persuading, but I finally got Justin on board. We sold the couch we had in there, moved Justin's desk into our room, bought a new dresser, and did some rearranging!

Here's what we came up with. It's definitely not the color coordinated, perfectly situated kind of room you see on Pinterest, but we're pretty happy with how it turned out! Especially considering the only new thing we purchased was a dresser for us so we could put the old one in Nolan's new room!



We'll probably try to find a little chair for him to sit on at this table, but for now he just likes walking around it or standing and playing. When he first walked into the room after we finished he walked around the table like 3 times haha! It was pretty cute! 





This kid loves books! And we love that he loves books!


We're both still a little sad to not have our little man in the room with us at night (it was surprisingly hard at first, and I never thought I'd have a problem with putting my kids in another room), but we've gotten used to it, Of course it hasn't phased Nolan at all. It's like he doesn't even miss us! ☺