BB2 updates:
Everything is still looking good so far. He's really pushing around in there, sometimes it feels like the inside lining of my stomach is really sensitive and he's just dragging his bony limbs right against it! I can't imagine that he's just going to get bigger and stronger. Justin loves it though because it makes it really easy to feel his kicks and punches haha! He loves watching or feeling him moving ♥
Just like with Nolan, Justin is super protective already. If BB2 is sticking out a limb or something and I push down on it to get him to move I get in trouble with Justin who tells me to "be nice to our miniest bestie!"
Still unsure on a name (and probably won't actually decide until we see him), but I'm hoping something will start to feel right for both of us like it did with Nolan or there might have to be some negotiating/compromising happening in the future.
Nolan lately:
He was super upset when we walked out of the chapel after regional conference a couple weeks ago without going to nursery. The next day he kept walking around jeanni's house with a sad face saying "no nursery, no nursery."
Everything is still looking good so far. He's really pushing around in there, sometimes it feels like the inside lining of my stomach is really sensitive and he's just dragging his bony limbs right against it! I can't imagine that he's just going to get bigger and stronger. Justin loves it though because it makes it really easy to feel his kicks and punches haha! He loves watching or feeling him moving ♥
Just like with Nolan, Justin is super protective already. If BB2 is sticking out a limb or something and I push down on it to get him to move I get in trouble with Justin who tells me to "be nice to our miniest bestie!"
Still unsure on a name (and probably won't actually decide until we see him), but I'm hoping something will start to feel right for both of us like it did with Nolan or there might have to be some negotiating/compromising happening in the future.
Nolan lately:
He was super upset when we walked out of the chapel after regional conference a couple weeks ago without going to nursery. The next day he kept walking around jeanni's house with a sad face saying "no nursery, no nursery."
A few morning's ago we put Nolan in bed with us and about 2 seconds after he laid down Justin's alarm went off and without missing a beat Nolan said, "What da heck?!" I agree Nolan, turn that thing off, it's early!
Speaking of waking up. He'll usually wake up at about 6:30 and then we'll put him in bed with us for snuggles and to hopefully get him to fall back asleep #fingerscrossed. He's really good about laying down and being quiet, but when he's ready to be up, he's up. With lightening speed he flips over, pops his head up, gets on his hands and knees, laughs and says, "tahbet time!" Then he'll usually start tapping poor Justin to hand him the tablet ☺ or sometimes he'll even say, "wake up daddy!"
Speaking of waking up. He'll usually wake up at about 6:30 and then we'll put him in bed with us for snuggles and to hopefully get him to fall back asleep #fingerscrossed. He's really good about laying down and being quiet, but when he's ready to be up, he's up. With lightening speed he flips over, pops his head up, gets on his hands and knees, laughs and says, "tahbet time!" Then he'll usually start tapping poor Justin to hand him the tablet ☺ or sometimes he'll even say, "wake up daddy!"
Ok, his love of The West Wing has now turned into full on obsession. I feel like he's constantly asking to watch the theme song! We try to curb it to only a few times a day and only say 5 times in a row ☺ And every single day when we pick him up that's the first thing he says to us, "hahahaiwatchawesphinghahaha!!" I also love how he often sandwiches phrases in between laughs. What a weird kid.
The moment we've been waiting for since he was born has arrived. We can sit him in front of the TV with a show and he'll actually sit there and watch it so we can get some things done! ☺
In an attempt to avoid tantrums (as much as possible) we've started giving him a warning or giving him a quantity before making him turn something off or leave the park. So we'll say, "you can watch TWW five times and then you can choose to turn it off or mommy will turn it off for you" or "Go down the slide two more times and then we need to leave." etc. So now he likes to ask for things and say, "two times?!" with his hand raised and two middle fingers and thumb together because he hasn't quite figured out how to put up the correct amount of fingers yet ☺
The moment we've been waiting for since he was born has arrived. We can sit him in front of the TV with a show and he'll actually sit there and watch it so we can get some things done! ☺
In an attempt to avoid tantrums (as much as possible) we've started giving him a warning or giving him a quantity before making him turn something off or leave the park. So we'll say, "you can watch TWW five times and then you can choose to turn it off or mommy will turn it off for you" or "Go down the slide two more times and then we need to leave." etc. So now he likes to ask for things and say, "two times?!" with his hand raised and two middle fingers and thumb together because he hasn't quite figured out how to put up the correct amount of fingers yet ☺
I just love how enthusiastic he is (or at least sounds) about everything. In the morning when we say it's time to go to Jeanni's he'll run to the living room and say, "READY!" Or when I ask him to go grab his shoes he'll say, "of course!" And any time he says, "Yeah" it's usually with a higher pitch at the end of the word. So super cute. Some more examples, "Ahmos a Jeanni's!" "Uh huh." "I did it!" "Yes!" And a new personal favorite, "Go Cougars! Yes!" This is one of those things that I wish I could capture on video because I'm sure these words aren't doing justice to the cuteness.
He's a pretty independent little man so we've been hearing, "I do it bye aself" quite a lot lately.
He's started requesting to take things from our house to Jeanni's house in the morning -- "I take a tahbet a Jeanni's house." "I bing a memote (remote)." We usually don't let him, but it's pretty cute.
One morning I spent about 10 minutes looking for one of Nolan's shoes and finally found it in our closet. When I asked Justin about it he said, "Oh ya, Nolan wanted to put his shoes where I put my shoes." ♥
Nolan's favorite words are still: "yaptop", "ya tube" and "yetflix"
He's started singing - really singing - now and it's adorable. We are on a desperate mission to catch him singing Super Why and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on video. He even tries to hum the West Wing's theme song. So cute.
Whenever I blow my nose he says, "Bless you mommy!"
He's started looking at clocks or grabbing phones and saying, "it's 2 o'clock." It's always 2 o'clock in Nolan's world.
Nolan has had a bit of a runny nose lately, and as I stood there holding him and talking to Jeanni at pick up one day he reached down, grabbed my sweater and wiped his nose with it! I just looked down and started laughing, which of course encouraged him more, so he did it another 3 times, laughing all the while!
For the past several months when we're driving home from Jeanni's I'll ask Nolan about his day. "Did you have fun at Jeanni's?" "Were you a good boy?" "Did you...play with bubbles?" "Bubbles are fun." "Did you...play with play doh?" "Did you...go to the park?" etc. Well one day this week after I finished my questions Nolan said, "Hey mommy, did you...play a play doh?" "Did you...play a bubbles?" I said no the first couple of times and tried to explain work, but then gave up and just said, "Ya! I played with bubbles!" To which he responded, "bubbles are fun." Hahaha, he seriously mimicked me perfectly!
Whenever I blow my nose he says, "Bless you mommy!"
He's started looking at clocks or grabbing phones and saying, "it's 2 o'clock." It's always 2 o'clock in Nolan's world.
Nolan has had a bit of a runny nose lately, and as I stood there holding him and talking to Jeanni at pick up one day he reached down, grabbed my sweater and wiped his nose with it! I just looked down and started laughing, which of course encouraged him more, so he did it another 3 times, laughing all the while!
For the past several months when we're driving home from Jeanni's I'll ask Nolan about his day. "Did you have fun at Jeanni's?" "Were you a good boy?" "Did you...play with bubbles?" "Bubbles are fun." "Did you...play with play doh?" "Did you...go to the park?" etc. Well one day this week after I finished my questions Nolan said, "Hey mommy, did you...play a play doh?" "Did you...play a bubbles?" I said no the first couple of times and tried to explain work, but then gave up and just said, "Ya! I played with bubbles!" To which he responded, "bubbles are fun." Hahaha, he seriously mimicked me perfectly!
---------- ♥ ♥ ♥ ----------
Last session of swimming he didn't really seem to enjoy it as much and I was worried we'd waited too long in between classes or something, but this session he's back to his old self and absolutely loves it!
Here he is being a super patient little boy at the 5 minute break while they check the pool.
Here he is being a super patient little boy at the 5 minute break while they check the pool.
He even tried out a floatie for the first time and now he loves it! He wouldn't touch it up until now and seriously freaked out when we tried to put it on before. Now he looks forward to it and asks for his "foatie" after class is over.
He's pretty observant, or maybe we just have a pretty solid routine haha, but Nolan knows the drill on Thursdays. Here's Justin's conversation with him in the bath on Wednesday evening:
Justin: "Nolan, tomorrow is Thursday, what do we do on Thursday's?"
Nolan: "Todda Time!" (toddler time at the library with Jeanni)
Justin: "What else?"
Nolan: "Fimming!"
Justin: "And what do we do after swimming?"
Nolan:"Fies!" (McDonald's ☺)
He loves Play Doh right now
We tried out sitting at the table with his booster seat. I think he liked it well enough, but still prefers his tray.
It may have been an ugly game and heartbreaking loss for the Cougars this year, but at least we all dressed the part and enjoyed a yummy cookie!
Helping daddy make zucchini fries.
He was not fooled. One bite and he knew these were definitely not fries ☺
He has discovered the awesomeness that is fort building. I see lots of fun Saturday mornings in the future.
He loved this huge bear at Costco (this isn't even the biggest one!). He would grab the bear's mouth and growl in a deep cookie monster voice, "I want cookies!"
It's starting to be jacket weather in the mornings.
Stake soccer night. I'm the stake YW sports director and while I really love the calling, it's a little tough sometimes to get the youth out to play. We had a good group though and I think everyone had a good time!
Justin brought Nolan to the church to be with me while he went and played softball. Nolan loved playing at the park at night!
Region games
We had a team offsite for work last week at the Devereaux Mansion and one of the team-building exercises was to create cupcakes "for a wedding" using the materials provided (pre-baked cupcakes, frosting (already colored so we didn't have a choice), two frosting tips, and some pearl beads). We could also use anything we could find in the mansion if we wanted.
I was hoping all my hours of watching Cupcake Wars would help me out with this competition as I was designated the 'creative designer' (uh, what? me?!). I'm pretty sure we rocked it though! Flowers from the garden outside (was that allowed?), crumbled crackers, decorations on the cupcake, and a display. I know I'm biased, but ours was totally the best/prettiest ☺
The other submissions...nice try guys! hehehe
I only have one maternity swimsuit and I accidentally left it in the bag from last week so it festered and didn't smell so nice when I took it out for this weeks swim class. So Justin got to have a shot at doing swim class with Nolan. He was a little nervous since he's never done it before (the teacher says it's better for just one parent or both to participate each time, rather than switching back and forth) but he did great! Oh, except for the one time when he was supposed to gently move Nolan's head under the water as he swam forward and he pretty much gave him a really quick dunk haha.
Oh the cuteness
I gave a tour of the Salt Lake Cemetery to my work group on Monday and since it's been awhile, and I didn't want to be fumbling around looking for some of the harder to find graves while I gave the tour, I dragged Justin and Nolan there on Sunday to practice. This kid has probably wandered around more cemeteries than most kids his age haha. Happens when your mom loves family and church history!
I sure love these two!
Nolan got an owwie at Jeanni's this week, but wouldn't let her put a band-aid on it. I tried again when we got home and since he loves the 'bubbles' (aka kids neosporin) I think softened him to the idea of a band-aid. It stayed on for approximately 20 seconds before he was trying to pull it off haha. I guess he's like his mom, I always hated band-aids!
A beautiful night at Sunnyside Park watching daddy play softball!
Dinner consisted of bananas and pizza ☺
Nolan still loves his "memotes" and sometimes hoards them. The first thing he does when he gets home is look for the remote. Sigh. ☺ It's kind of cute though. In the morning we let him watch a show while we get ready for work. He'll jump up on the couch, grab the remote, turn the TV on, press Input to get it to Roku, then grab the Roku remote and try to get to his show (he can't always get that part right, but sometimes!). I'm all at once proud and mortified that my not even two year old knows how to work the TV so well!!
Here's a video of him in action working the remote. (also, we have a rule that he has to take his shoes off before getting on the couch and he does really well with it!)
Here's a video of him in action working the remote. (also, we have a rule that he has to take his shoes off before getting on the couch and he does really well with it!)
He also holds the remotes while getting his bum changed...
...going on walks...and story time...
A lady in my ward was giving away a toddler bed. I almost didn't take it because red ☺ but realized we can always paint it a different color! So Nolan is now the proud occupant of a big boy bed! Well, he's not actually sleeping in it yet, and may not for awhile. He has never climbed out of his pack-n-play, so why ruin a good thing?!!
He's learning how to use object to get up a bit higher. Jeanni caught him doing this the other day. I'm just glad it took him this long to figure it out!
GQ.
Devin commented on this photo, "I love that he has a total GQ face...while wearing a Sesame Street shirt haha. Toddlers are the coolest!" True!
Fun at Jeanni's
Being silly when asked to smile for the camera. He's really starting to say and do funny things and he knows it. He's already got a pretty good vocabulary, but once he starts fully being able to express himself? Get ready for the blog to be full of Nolan-isms!!
Those eyes. Melt my ♥.
---------- ♥ ♥ ♥ ----------
One last thing - I feel the need to record something (again) because I feel like no one will believe us! I can even imagine myself in 20 years trying to explain to Nolan how quickly he picked up on things and doubting myself when trying to recall just how old he was when he learned his letters, and his numbers, and mastered the use of the remote (haha), etc. "Was he seriously several months shy of 2? Nah, that can't be right, can it? He must have been older." So I'm saying right here and right now that my 22 month old knows all the letters of the alphabet by sight. As in, if you hold up a capital letter or point to one he knows what it is (and has been able to do that for a couple months already). You can even ask him to find a certain letter on our fridge full of magnetic letters or look at a word search and find a certain letter and he can do it! And he also knows numbers 1 through 10. He recognizes them by sight and knows how to say them in order. In fact he can almost count to 20 right now.
He's constantly amazing us and other people. A few months ago at church I started writing letters out on a piece of paper to entertain Nolan during YW's and he'd say what they were without hesitation. A friend watching said she seriously doubted if her almost 4 year old could do that! And last month Justin, Nolan and I visited a family in our ward and their 10 year old daughter got out a numbers book and flipped the pages. Nolan said each number as she turned to it. With each one she smiled and laughed because she couldn't believe he was getting them right! Then her little brother said, "our little sister can't do that and she's 3!"
I know I'm kinda (totally) bragging, so I will also say that I'm SO aware that this is not because of any kind of superior parenting skills on our end. We've just got a smarty pants on our hands! And a sitter that works with him every day on these things ☺ I'm sure it won't be long before he's completely outsmarting me. I'm in for it.
It's also so interesting to me how different kids are. We have some softball friends with a son who is a month younger than Nolan. I watched them both at the park and this boy was way ahead of Nolan as far as physical ability. He was bounding up the steps and climbing up thin ladders, etc. Things Nolan can't really do yet. But Nolan was talking way more than he was. So it just goes to show you how different these little ones come and that they all catch up to each other in the end!
