This post just keeps getting bigger and bigger the longer I put off finishing it so it's time to get it done! Nate is just getting more and more fun but more and more wild at the same time. This just means that we have a ton of videos of funny things he does but I'm too tired by the end of the day to do anything with them. So here goes my attempt at catching up on everything that's been happening here lately.
Crazy bath hair! It was finally getting long enough to be visible but since this picture we've been out in the sun and it has turned white again. The poor kid is going to look bald forever :)
This is what my stairs look like about 90% of the time that Nate is awake. This kid loves to throw random things down just to hear the noise. It drives me bonkers!
Nate in his cool shades. He LOVES looking at himself in the mirror while wearing these and has to take them on every walk in the stroller.
Nate's birthday present from my parents was this sand and water table. I HIGHLY recommend one of these for every 2 year old boy! It is by far the most played with toy we have. He LOVES it.
The only drawback is that he is always gets soaking wet so either he stays in wet clothes or ends up in just his diaper pretty much every afternoon.
I always thought Nate looked like Todd but my mom and mother in law have insisted that he looks more like me. To prove her point, my mom sent me this picture of me when I was about 1. It turns out I was wrong...
Showing off his new spin moves
Nate still hasn't ever said mom or mommy or mama. The kid is killing me! He only says dada (which Todd thinks is great!)
Playing with his favorite toy lately...balloons!
Giving his little duck a ride
He's recently added this growl noise to his "yeah" when he really really wants to do something. We think it's hilarious.
Ok so I'm officially a month behind on updating this blog and I am feeling guilty about it. It seems like since the beginning of April, things in our house have moved to double speed and I don't feel like I'm catching up anytime soon.
Easter is a special holiday for our family. Last year, we decided that we wanted our family to celebrate Macie and Ellie on Easter each year and teach Nate and our future children the importance of the resurrection and what that means for our family. Because of that, it is quickly becoming my favorite holiday.
Easter week started a little early for me this year. Our church puts on an Easter program each year called "Walk with Christ". They turn each room in our church building into a certain part of Christ's life and people walk through and learn more about him and the Easter holiday. This year, I was asked to play a part and I reluctantly said ok. I played Mary Magdalene at the tomb. I have never acted in anything in my life so I was more than a little nervous but it ended up being a very neat experience. Here is a picture that was taken after my first night. I did 3 nights total and figured that I recited my part close to 100 times. I was exhausted by the end of the week.
Saturday morning started with a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It ended up being the perfect first egg hunt for Nate. I knew he would hate a huge city one with millions of kids so I was glad when just 2 families in our neighborhood invited us to join theirs.
Todd giving Nate a pep talk before they started
It didn't really work...Nate found this egg first, opened it and realized there was candy inside, sat down and ate the Reese's Egg (his favorite), and was done.
Nate's buddy Seth eating a blue robin egg. He looked like a Smurf by the end of the morning.
This is what Nate was doing while all the other kids were still finding eggs
Everyone counting up their eggs
And Nate's still completely oblivious :)
Once he realized that everyone else had loads of eggs with candy, he kept trying to steal them.
Good thing he's cute because he scored a second Reese's egg!
After the egg hunt, we ran in our second family 5K race. Todd's work helped sponsor it so many of his co-workers were there. Nate loved riding in the stroller during the race but loved the BBQ afterward even more.
Later that afternoon, my parents came down and brought Nate his first chocolate bunny. It took him a while to figure out what to do with it, but once he did, he was in love :)
Sunday morning, we headed to Twin Falls to see the girls' spot at the cemetery and have dinner with Todd's brother Brian and their family. Unfortunately, it was super windy and cold at the cemetery so we didn't stay very long and didn't get any pictures.
Nate "sharing" toys with baby Trevor. He's still not very good at it...
This was my favorite part of the day. For dessert, the kids and Katherine made cute little crispy treat nests that had chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps in them. Somehow Nate just knew that he was going to love it and he was right! He took one bite of the sugary bird and quickly shoved the rest of it in his mouth. Then he desperately signed "more" to every one else at the table hoping they would surrender their peeps. I don't know how many he ended up with by the end of dinner but it sure was funny!
Nate and I went to Boise last month for his annual eye appointment. It's so much work to take him places by myself but we really do enjoy getting away and having a fun time together. We were, once again, able to stay at the Ronald McDonald house and couldn't be more grateful for them! Nate absolutely loved it this time. He watched the fish in the giant fish tank, played on the playground outside, enjoyed (a little too much) the endless supply of cookies, and played with all the Thomas trains in the playroom. I think his favorite part though was the statue of Ronald McDonald that sits out on the bench as you walk into the house. Every single time we passed by it, he would say "Daaaa Da!" (which I figured out meant Ronald) and have to go and climb on him. Still (a month later) every time he hears someone say Ronald McDonald House, Ronald McDonald, or McDonald's he screams "Yeah!" and "Daaaa Da!"
On to the appointment details... Unfortunately Nate had an AWFUL night sleep the night before his appointment, which is totally unlike him. And by awful, I mean really awful! He fell asleep for the night at 8:00. I must have woken him up when I went to bed at 9:30. He was awake from 9:30 to 2:30am! He wasn't grumpy, just ready to play. Of course, our appointment was at 8:30 so I had to wake him up at 7:30. You can imagine how grumpy he was after only 6 hours of sleep. The appointment included having his eyes dilated so it was expected to take about 2 hours. He cried and whined the entire time! When it came time for the doctor to look in his eyes, he had had enough. He was screaming harder than I've ever seen before, flailing around, and clamping his eyes shut. It was awful. We ended up needing 3 of us to hold him down so the doctor could pry his eyes open and look at them. The good news is, he said from what he could see, his eyes still looked very good. He is still a bit farsighted but he said it's still not to the point that we need to treat it with glasses yet. Good news!
After the appointment (and a very long, much needed nap), we met Nate's buddy Oakley and his mom at the park to feed the ducks. You may remember Oakley from some of my previous posts. He was one of Nate's roommates in the NICU and didn't come home from the hospital until just before his first birthday. We really enjoyed getting to know his parents while we were in Boise and have kept in contact with them. It was so fun to finally have Nate and Oakley officially meet and play together. They had a great time!
Nate in his sunglasses since his eyes were still dilated from his appointment. Luckily he loves his sunglasses and keeps them on really well.
The next day, we were able to go to the zoo! I have been dying to go to the Boise zoo since the babies were born. The Ronald McDonald House gives families that stay there free passes to the zoo. We never went while Nate was in the hospital and every appointment we've had since then has been rushed and crazy so we haven't ever had the opportunity to go. This time the weather was beautiful so we decided to go before we left town. We were lucky enough to be able to go with one of our other fantastic Boise friends. Carissa was one of my nurses when I was in the hospital. She was unlucky enough to be working all of the days that really crazy things happened with me and the babies. I sure kept her busy but she was still wonderful! She came down to the NICU to visit Nate several times during our 5 months there and we have kept in touch ever since. She brought her 2 little boys along and we had a great time.
I'm not sure why I didn't get more pictures at the zoo. Here is Nate riding the little tiger. He loved the zoo! He ran around like crazy and loved seeing all of the animals.
