Speech and Eating

We've been seeing a speech therapist for a few months now. There isn't much they can do for him at this age but keep and eye on his progress and give us strategies to help him pick up on speaking. He still only says a couple of words that we understand and still hasn't learned to point or wave yet. Although we can't understand most of what he says, he sure is a chatter box!

Here is his version of "apple". It's also how he says "grandma", "orange", "garbage", "Kurtis", and "grandpa". Sometimes it takes some guessing to figure out which one he's talking about :)

This one is "uh-oh".

This is what happens every night when Todd gets home from work and every time Nate talks to Todd on the phone. He has a lot to say!

And just in case you were wondering how his eating was going...

Obviously he's doing fine :)

Who Needs Toys?

I'm not sure why parents and grandparents insist on buying kids toys. Nate has loads of toys but 99% of the time, he is way more entertained by regular things.

This is a picture of his two favorite things to play with...his shoes and a roll of toilet paper. He knows he's not supposed to play in the bathroom but I found this after I put him to bed one night. Apparently, he forgot to clean up the evidence. 

Who doesn't love a good shoulder ride on daddy?

Friday is garbage day and this is where Nate can be found every Friday morning at 7:30am.

And this is our nightly activity lately. He loves the piano :)

First (technically second) Haircut

I wanted to make sure and document Nate's first real haircut. It was actually his second haircut but I hardly count the first one since I only cut like 1/8 inch off of about 10 hairs.

Look at all that hair! :)

Here's the finished product...you still can't see it!

New Year's Day

We enjoyed Todd's last day off until after tax season by going to Twin Falls for the day. Our wonderful friends, the Barnum's, were in town visiting and we had a great time with them. 

Here are all of our boys together. Ty is just a few months older than Nate so we've been excited to let them play together. Ty is such a sweet boy and Nate loved watching him and playing with all of his cool toys.

After the boys had a nap, we went out to the cemetery to leave some flowers for the girls and let the boys run around. They had a great time! The balloons in the picture were some that Nate spotted and drug around with him the whole time. (Don't worry, they made it back to the right spot before we left)

It was a super fun way to spend the day!

Christmas!

Nate was so much fun during Christmas this year! It was so fun to see him start to get excited about all the Christmas activities.

Here he is showing off all of his Christmas excitement. I'm not sure what happened with the sound but if you turn up the volume all the way, you can barely hear it.   

After a month of practicing his "Ho, Ho, Ho", he got to meet the real Santa...he didn't really like him.

I wish I could say that our whole Christmas week was wonderful but unfortunately we had a pretty terrible Christmas Eve. Our main drain in our laundry/storage room backed up and flooded part of our basement. Since there were no plumbers open on Christmas Eve, Todd and his dad tried to fix the drain on their own. Something went wrong and we had an explosion of sewer waste. Every surface of this room was covered in nasty...stuff. It took me 2 solid days of sanitizing EVERYTHING to feel like I didn't want to move. 

That's right - every can of food and box of cereal got bleached at least twice. It took FOREVER!

Since our house was kind of a nightmare and smelled terrible, we stayed up at Todd's parents' house on Christmas Eve. 

Here is Nate opening presents on Christmas morning! Nate got totally spoiled (as usual) with lots of toys, books, and clothes. These pictures are of the only 2 presents Nate opened on his own. I opened all the others :)

My family came down later in the morning and we enjoyed more great presents and a yummy lunch. It was a great way to spend Christmas!

Todd's been dying to take Nate sledding for weeks now. He finally got his wish on Christmas afternoon and they both had a blast :)

Trouble Maker

With the newness of mobility wearing off, Nate is starting to use his skills to cause a bit of trouble. Here are some of the things he's been up to...

1. About a week ago, Nate and I were playing downstairs in the family room. He sometimes wanders into the storage room and plays with the vacuum but doesn't usually cause any other trouble. A few minutes later, he came back into the family room dragging my OPENED bag of powdered sugar behind him. He was covered in powdered sugar and I spent the next half hour trying to vacuum the trail of mess.

2. Nate has recently learned how to climb. I have never had any experience with climbers but I've heard  plenty of stories and hoped I would never have to deal with one. No such luck! The problem is, he hasn't yet figured out how to get down from where he climbs so he has to cry for help. One evening, I walked into the kitchen and found this... 

He was totally happy playing in there with his toys :)

3. He has been super interested in playing with his shoes lately. This just means that I can NEVER find his shoes because he stashes them somewhere after he's done playing with them. The other morning, I had just finished getting him dressed after his bath and was cleaning up his room when I heard a little splash come from the bathroom. When I walked into the bathroom, there were 2 little shoes floating in the water. 

4. We put up our Christmas tree last Saturday. And this is what happened less than 5 minutes after we had it up...

                                      

Now only the top half of our tree is decorated 

5. This one isn't really catching Nate in any trouble...I just thought it was cute. This is the box from the little slide my parents got Nate. As you can see, he loves playing in it because it is still sitting in the middle of my living room 2 weeks later. This is where I usually find everyone's shoes, most of his toys, and him :)

Favorite Things

Nate has quite a list of new favorite things right now. He has really started acting more like a big boy lately. Some days it makes me so excited to see what is coming next and other days it makes me miss my little baby that used to snuggle with me.

Nate's most favorite thing lately is watching me cook.We are pretty convinced that he is going to be a chef.  Todd comes home from work and is excited to play and wrestle with him while I get dinner ready. Instead, he ends up standing right next to me holding Nate so he can watch what I'm doing. It's one of the rare activities that actually holds his attention for more than about 2 minutes :)

My mom and dad bought Nate this little house for Christmas. They brought it down early since we are getting close to the start of RSV season and have been staying home a lot more. He's still not quite big enough to climb on everything himself but he loves going down the slide and sending all of his toys down it.

This isn't exactly one of Nate's favorite things but Todd sure thinks it's fun...

It's no secret that Nate is very ticklish. Todd got one of these head massagers from work a couple of weeks ago and we tried it out on him. Apparently, his head is his most ticklish spot :) 

Nate's last favorite thing is taking out the garbage. We take out the diaper pail several times a day and he gets so excited every time. He mostly just loves to go outside for 2 minutes but it really is the highlight of his day. Every time he hears a garbage bag he runs to the front door screaming "Yeah! Yeah!".