Awhile ago I showed Nolan a Book of Mormon and taught him the name of the book. Since then he's discovered the pictures inside and we've been teaching him who is in each picture. It's now his favorite book and we're not sad about it ☺ He's absolutely adorable with it and wants to take it everywhere with him.
I might not have even thought to show him the pictures if it weren't for the fact that we saw Beck master the who and the what of all the pictures in the front at age 2. So we thought, let's try! I'm telling you, he has picked it up SO fast! Now for FHE we go over even more pictures in the Gospel Art Book and it really only takes him a few times to remember who is in each picture.
This video is of when he was first learning and he was struggling a bit with Lehi and Nephi. Now Justin's taught him the Liahona, that Alma is in the water baptizing, that Nephi and Lehi are on a boat, etc. And, sadly, he no longer says "Boonani" for Moroni. I miss it.
Video #1
Two weeks later...
We find him like this a lot, and he always wants to hold The Book of Mormon while in the car or watching TV, take it to Jeanni's house, take it to bed, etc. ♥
Saturday BYU played SUU in football. We'd been planning to take Nolan to this game for several weeks, assuming it wouldn't be crowded and we'd have plenty of space. BUT, as the game got closer, tickets kept selling, and by Friday night it was almost sold out! What?! It must have been because it was the first day game of the season or everyone had the same idea as us. Either way, I was nervous to take him, but didn't want to leave him with a sitter practically all day. I wanted him to be with us! So Saturday morning we headed down to Provo as a family.
We had some time before the game so we made a stop at Toys R Us ☺ These little cars are seriously the coolest.
When we got to campus Nolan and I went to hang out at the Cougar Eat while Justin went to the game. We planned to join him around half time, hoping by then some of the crowd would have left. I'm happy to say our strategy worked like a charm. Nolan and I had a blast eating Chick fil A, Graham Canyon ice cream, shopping in the bookstore, and running around in the Wilkinson Center and by the time we joined daddy at the game there was plenty of space!
Nolan loved dancing to the music ☺
Because of the timing of when we had to leave the apartment, and the fact that he doesn't really sleep in his car seat anymore, Nolan didn't get a nap and I was pretty worried about it. He must have been exhausted because by the fourth quarter he completely passed out on Justin's lap. That never really happens anymore so we must have run him ragged!
After the game Justin had the best idea -- going to see the ducks!
We even had some graham crackers in our bag so Nolan got to feed them! He thought it was so funny when they would lurch toward the food.
Nolan and Cosmo. One of these days we'll get a picture of him with the real Cosmo!
It was a long, fun day and, per usual, Nolan was such a trooper!
"I go a Costco a pizza" (also, while at Costco he saw a Roku and wanted it in the cart with him the whole time)
"Wow. Amaaaazing!"
"Be right back!" (his favorite game lately is to tell us he'll be right back, go wave his hand over the garbage can to open it, then run in the living room. Then repeat to turn it off)
"Bye McDonald's! See you after fimming!"
"What da happened?"
"Here you go daddy."
"Get outta here!" (sometimes with a push to get you out of a room, or hiding spot, or chair that he wants or to move your hands off of something he wants)
"Turn it down NOW!" (this one was hilarious. He likes to turn the volume way up using the remote so Justin and I have to say "Nolan, turn it DOWN!" quite often. One day he was watching TV while I was talking to my parents in the kitchen when in comes Nolan saying, "turn it down, NOW!" hahaha)
"Be safe! Drive Safe!" (when daddy leaves for work)
"No way, Jose!"
"Yuck daddy!!" (when daddy sticks out his tongue and threatens to lick him)
"Wake up!!" (if you pretend to snore)
"Uh oh, spaghettios!"
"Oh my dosh, mommy."
Other Nolan-isms:
He loves to "sing" and it's the cutest thing ever. Whenever the theme song of one of his shows comes on (especially TWW ☺) he'll start singing to it. Even if there are no words, he'll kind of hum/sing. And we'll often hear him singing in the back seat of the car (but only if he doesn't think we're listening). Maybe he'll have a beautiful singing voice?
He loves getting us tissues from toilet paper, but gets annoyed when it doesn't rip straight.
We help him say prayers, but he always has quite a bit to add on his own -- "Thank you for ipads, thank you for Super Why, and The West Wing, and play-doh" etc.
Whenever he sings the Itsy bitsy spider song, he starts by rubbing his fingers together, then throws out his hands for the "wash the spider out" part. It's pretty much adorable.
In the morning when he's watching Super Why while we get ready he'll sometimes pout a bit and point to the seat next to him and tell us he wants us to sit and watch with him. I might be late getting to work sometimes, but how can I resist that?!!
He loves nursery and can't wait to go. Whenever a song starts playing in sacrament meeting he assumes it's the closing song and excitedly turns to Justin or I and says, "time to go to nursery!" This Sunday was the primary program, lots of songs, and he asked if it was time to go to nursery after each and every one ☺
Justin and Nolan have had some epic remote battles lately. Nolan would say, "I take da remote away!" and run away from Justin who chases him while Nolan screams and tries to hide it under his bum or something.
The kid has some pretty good negotiating skills already. One time in the car on the way home he said from the back seat, "I watch a west fing two times." "I watch a west fing free times." So we conceded, "Ok you can watch two times." To which he responded, "I watch west fing two times and the fox say." (What Does the Fox Say? video). "Haha ok Nolan, I guess you can do that. West Wing 2 times, Fox say 1 time." Then, after a few seconds of silence, "I watch daniel tiger and super why." hahaha. He's playing us!
Speaking of negotiating - One time we were sitting on the couch and I said, "how many times are you going to watch The West Wing?" He put all of his fingers up and said, "two times." so I grabbed the remote and said, "ok two times," and he interrupted, pointed one finger at me and stated, "but I press play." ☺
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He loves the library and recently got his very own library card!
Too cool
It's no secret that Nolan LOVES french fries, and he now knows all of the places that have fries haha #embarrassing. If we pass In n Out or McDonald's he always yells "fies!!" And even yells "waffle fies" whenever he sees a Chic fil A ☺
Anyway, back to these pictures. He loves In n Out shakes too and is super cute about sharing. He usually takes a sip, then slides it over to Justin and says, "daddy's turn." Then slides it over to me and says, "mommy's turn." Then "Nolan's turn!" as he takes a sip. But as you can see from the third picture, if daddy takes a little too long during his turn (typical) Nolan has to step in and confiscate it.
"rink a dink a doo, I love...Nolan" ☺
Using goggles at swim class. Adorable! He goes back and forth on whether he likes them or not though.
One of his favorite books, Moo, Baa, LaLaLa
Lately when Justin is in the shower the following exchange happens about 10 times: knock, knock, knock. "Who is it?" "NOLAN!" "Nolan who?" "Nolan Douglas Bailey!"
Jeanni taught him to say "I'm Batman" in a deep voice ☺
Nolan helping us make a pizza!
♥ ♥ ♥
What a good daddy.
He has a cute routine these days where after prayers he gives me a hug, high five, and bones, then lists off a bunch of books that he wants in bed with him to 'read' and Justin lines them up just so for him. After the books are lined up and he gets in bed we ask him what song he wants us to sing and, to avoid having to choose just one, he rattles off three in a row, "pacapacapaca families iachildofgod" (Popcorn Popping, Families Can Be Together Forever, I Am a Child of God)
Also, he's been sleeping in his toddler bed now for about a month and a half and has only gotten out of bed once or twice! What?! I know. It's amazing. He still figures out ways to stall though. Often after he's been in bed for a bit he'll call for us and when we go in and ask him what he needs he looks around saying, "um, um, uh...Mr. Puppy" or some other thing he's just decided that he needs ☺ BUT he doesn't get out of bed so we're counting our blessings haha.
Battle of the baby - MLB style
Fun with the Washburns and Millers at softball
Helping mom do some shopping at Trader Joe's.
Sometimes I'm not sure which one of them is having more fun in the toy aisle ♥
For Justin's birthday I bought a Groupon for an archery lesson, but couldn't get into a class the weekend of his birthday. So I finally got my act together and signed us up! It was a blast. We shot a regular bow (forget the name) and this compound bow, which was super fun.
Pretty good!!
Justin loves crunching leaves and this apple didn't fall far from the tree. After church on a windy day Nolan found this pile of leaves next to our car and just had to play in them!
Look at the difference between last year and this year! Wow! He's always been super cute, but now he's just getting so handsome and big #cryinginmycorner.
Sending Nolan a picture while on a lunch date downtown.
After Halloween we decided it was time for a tablet detox for this little guy. It's not even like he uses it all the time - not even close. We have specific times of the day that he is allowed to use the tablet, but it's like it just seemed to always be on his mind because he was always asking about it. I'm having nightmares picturing him as a teenager so it was time to step in haha. So phase 1 has been a tablet detox and phase 2 is a West Wing detox. He's surviving, barely ☺
And last, a text conversation with my family from last week. I love them ☺♥
