Fun at the Park

We went to the park with my parents this afternoon and got some cute videos of Nate playing on all the toys. Don't pay too much attention to the last video...he did have a bump on his head from running into the wall but he didn't even cry :)

Nate Bug Update

I haven't done a post all about Nate in a while. He's growing up so fast and doing so many fun things.

Eating
Nate is an eating machine! He eats more than I do most of the time and loves most healthy foods. He has finally got the hang of using a spoon or fork by himself although he usually decides he can eat a lot faster with his hands.

Height & Weight
Nate is still a shrimp. He is almost 2 1/2 and is 33 inches tall and 25 pounds. For the most part he wears 12-18 month clothes but can still fit into quite a few of his 9-12 month outfits. Here's a pic of his pajamas the other night. That's right...it's a 6-12 month shirt :)

SPD
We have occupational therapy back on board to help with Nate's sensory issues. We had him re-evaluated and some of the areas he struggled with before are much better. He still has issues with tactile and auditory senses. He is still a master ear plugger and can be seen with his hands over his ears anytime he is overwhelmed or nervous. He is also still leery of touching certain textures. For example, he HATES Play Doh. Something about that squishy texture really bothers him. He literally cried when ever he sees the Play Doh container.

Speech
Nate's speech is still very delayed. He isn't saying too much more than he was a year ago. All of his words consist of the "da" sound. We are really working on getting him to focus on our mouths when we speak and try to mimic us. Communication, however, is improving quite a bit. He is becoming a good signer and has several words that he signs to us on a regular basis. He knows dog, more, music, please, and cat. He can also now identify his hair, nose, ears, mouth, hands, arms, knees, and toes. We're getting there!

Favorite Foods
His favorite foods lately are muffins, tomatoes, waffles, french fries, applesauce, and peanut butter.

Favorite Toys
Nate has 2 favorite toys - his stacking cups and basketball. He has become a master at stacking his set of cups and can do it very quickly. He is also starting to get pretty good at building cup towers and knocking them down. He is also super obsessed with basketball. We aren't sure where it comes from because we haven't really watched it on tv or showed him much about it. I recently bought him his very own basketball and he has been loving it. He's a great passer and tries hard to dribble. It's adorable!

Nursery
Our little baby bug has been going to nursery! He's been going for the past couple of months and he is doing great! They put in a 3rd nursery leader when Nate came in because they anticipated it to be a very rough transition (we did too!).  He surprised us all by being a very good boy. He cries for just a couple of minutes and then plays really well with the other kids. He is always super excited when we come to pick him up and says "D-yeah!" when we ask him if he had a good time.

Special Day

2 years ago today we walked into Nate's room at the hospital like we had done every day for 140 days. When the doctor came in to do his morning rounds, he surprised us by asking "So do you want to go home today?" We knew the day was coming but had no idea he was that close to being ready to go. We spent the whole day packing up 5 months worth of stuff and took our baby boy home!! This picture is the first time we got to hold him not tethered to any cords. I remember just pacing the room saying "Look! I can walk anywhere I want to go with my baby!" Happy homecoming day Nate! We love you :)

More Summer Fun

Here we are with another post with a bunch of random pictures from all of our summer adventures! Sit down and get comfy, because this is a long one :)

Don't get too excited about this picture...we are just having some fun with the potty right now. We are doing nothing serious. He is very interested in the toilet and what goes on in the bathroom so we bought him a potty chair so he could feel like a big boy. He's going to hate me in 10 years for posting this but it was just so cute to see my little baby on the potty :) 

My favorite part of the day is seeing this little bug with his bed head at breakfast time.

Do you think he might want some more oatmeal??

Baby selfie :)

 What a nice helper! He loves to help do the dishes. And by do the dishes, I mean make a huge mess and get water all over my kitchen. Good thing he's cute :)

On the 4th of July, we were able to go camping with some very special friends of ours, the Barons. We had a great time and Nate did great on his first real camping trip. This picture was taken at 6:30 am. I didn't even think about bringing quiet toys to play with in the tent so we entertained ourselves with the camera until everyone else was awake.

The Barons had just got back from a trip to Hawaii just before our camping trip. Erica was so sweet to think of Macie and Ellie while they were there. She got them these beautiful flower clips that fit perfectly on our dolls.

Nate and I were able to go up to Idaho Falls with my parents a few weeks ago and ride some of the rides at the park. Nate loved riding on the carousel.

But he wasn't too sure about the ferris wheel.

The train was, by far, his favorite. Don't pay any attention to how ridiculous I look riding on this tiny ride!

Here is Nate's new swimming suit. He was still using his 9-12 month one from last year but it was starting to get really tight. I decided I'd get him a new one now while they are on sale. I got a 2T hoping it would last through next summer. I'm thinking I won't have to buy him another one for a LONG time. It is huge on him!

Todd's favorite family night activity...wrestling.

Nate playing in the water before 9 am and in his pajamas...this is my favorite part of summer :)

This video needs some explanation. We call this move the "Old Man Shuffle" and here's why...Nate and  I were at the library one morning, which we do every week. This week happened to be voting day. There was an older man walking by with a cane. He was very slow and shuffling around. Nate came up behind him and started shuffling too. Then, he shuffled around the man and looked up at him and started laughing! It was so embarrassing! Now all we have to do is say "Do the old man shuffle" and he'll start doing this. It is hysterical!

Nate really hates getting his teeth brushed....like really hates it. I literally dread this time of day every single day. It's exhausting holding him down and forcing the toothbrush in his mouth.

Blog Slacker

 It's been a super crazy summer so far! Between traveling, painting our house (inside and out), and about a million other house projects, I feel like I've had no free time to update the blog. Hopefully things will slow down soon, but, until then, you'll have to enjoy long but infrequent posts :)

Nate and I were bored one afternoon so we went over to Kings to look around. He spotted this little lawn mower and started pushing it around the store while we shopped. When it was time to leave, I told him that we had to go and put it back. He looked at me like I had just broken his heart! Now, I know most people will think that I am a total push over and Nate is going to be a spoiled brat but if he would have thrown a fit, I would have had no problem saying "sorry, not today". He just really really loved it! So, we went home with this little $7 lawn mower and he has played with it every single day for the past 2 months :) 

I love this picture of him "helping" Todd

And if I haven't mentioned it enough, here's another picture of Nate watching the garbage truck. It is such an understatement to say that Nate LOVES everything that has to do with garbage. He has his bib on because he had to run to the door, mid breakfast, to watch. 

The fire station near our house had their open house a few weeks ago and we took Nate again. He really enjoyed seeing the fire trucks and now every time we drive past the fire station, he yells "Yeah!" from the back seat.

He was too nervous to try spraying the fire hose.  

Nate had his first campout! Our ward had their fathers and sons campout last month and Todd really wanted to take Nate. Since it was an hour away, Todd decided to just stay home and camp in the backyard. They had a fire and partied in the tent until after 9. Unfortunately, Nate got cold around 2 am so they came in. I guess it's good they didn't go so far away.

We took a trip to the Idaho Falls Zoo with my family a few weeks ago. Nate didn't care too much about the animals. He just really loved running around like a crazy man.

                                                  

                                       

                                     

We had an extra little man for a day last week. We've had extra kids before but never for a whole day. Usually, after an hour or so, Nate goes in his room and shuts the door because he gets overwhelmed with having someone else around. He did great with little Liam! By the end of the morning, they were great friends (which makes their moms both happy :)

                                 

                                 

                                  

This is one of my favorite videos of Nate. It shows off some of his funny "quirks" that we find hilarious.

1. He still LOVES Ronald McDonald! I finally printed off the picture that I took of Nate with him and put it into his little picture book. He looks at it every day.

2. About half way through the video, you can see Nate's best attempt at jumping. The funny thing is, he thinks he's really jumping high but his right foot never comes close to leaving the ground :)

 3. He loves his little music box toy. My mom got it for him when he was tiny and, at first, I thought it would be one of those toys that gets played with for a while and gets shoved in a corner. I was so wrong! Nate carries that toy around with him everywhere he goes. It plays 6 or 7 different songs but he only likes one of them. It plays in our house ALL DAY LONG. If you try to sneak in and change it, he'll push the button as fast as he can to change it back to his favorite. He knows exactly how many pushes it requires to get back to the song he likes. It's hysterical!

Catch Up

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.

Easter

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! 

                    

Heaven!