Orange is a great color

You know, there's just something about the color orange...

Now, mix that with red popscicle and a little bit of silliness and this is what you get...

Have I told you guys how much my kiddo LOVES crocs?

See you soon!

Here's a hint

Here's a hint to try and guess what this is...

Any more guesses?

can you guess?

This is a picture from our vacation to Charleston... can anyone guess what it is?

our little otter!!!

While at the beach, Nathan's swimming confidence and skills grew tremendously. The first video is him jumping off the step to "swim to daddy". While he lacks the coordination to actually propel himself through the water (give him another 6-12 months), he does understand taking a deep breath, holding his breath, and moving his arms and legs. :) Forgive my poor camera skills, I thought it wasn't recording. You can see though in the video that he keeps his eyes open under water!

His breath control increased a bunch too. Check this out! I love that he says "yeah" when he comes up! We're so proud of you little man!!!!

More pics to come... hopefully these will hold you over for now!

Wordless Wednesday

Tot School

Nathan is 20 months old.

This week, Nathan has been doing more pretend activities... we walked like a bear this day and even tried to run like a bear. (He's also been wanting his monkey, George, to wear diapers and PJ's to bed). So funny!

We played with tons of balls. Nathan is learning to throw it up in the air and watch it, trying to learn the concept of catching, and of course he's mastered throwing the ball!

Kicking the ball

I found these stacking/nesting cups while cleaning out a closet. He's stacking them well, but needs help to know which one to stack next in descending size order.

Nesting the cups - learning to tell which is smaller or bigger and what order they go inside one another.

Folder fun

Yes, that's a tooth brush in his hand. He loves them! Just like his buddy Madison... This time, instead of just putting the pegs in the holes, I asked Nathan to sort them by color.

Picking up erasers with mini tongs.

Melissa and doug beginner pattern blocks. These are way too easy for Nathan and I need to get some that are harder, any recommendations? This time I tried giving him 3 and 4 pictures at a time with a bunch of shapes. He was able to fill in all 3 pictures in under 3 minutes. 4 pictures, under 5 minutes. Nuts. :)

Love this clock. He can do all the shapes without help, but we're doing number identification and matching of numbers now.

Just got these two part puzzles, thinking they would be a fun challenge. As you can see, they were no challenge for this one. I think I need to find 3 part puzzles.

This has been a favorite this week. He loves spelling different words. He's learning the lower case alphabet while doing this. This time I tried both giving him the correct letters plus distractors...

and just the correct letters. The distractors made it more of a challenge.

PUZZLES!!!! This one is mastered...

as is this one...

and this one... seriously kiddo! Mommy just bought some of these... Can't they challenge you a bit longer! Any suggestions for puzzles between the peg kind and the 12 piece ones?

All time favorite - the vehicle puzzle! Oh, and see the mess of tot school stuff behind the fence? One day, I'll organize it, but for now it's safely contained and all in one place! :)

TUMBLEBEES!!! Thank you Shelby for taking these pics! Here are a few shots from this week's class at tumblebees. (working on gross motor, motor planning, following directions, waiting your turn, etc)

Walking on the beam. He can do this by himself, but insists on holding my hands. :)

This has been Nathan's favorite part of tumblebees for a LONG time. At 12 months, he could climb up this whole thing without ANY help. He is just now learning to climb back down though. It's a good 6.5 to 7 feet off the ground (I am 5 feet tall and standing on a 4 inch mat) and he climbs up and rings the bell. Such a climber!

Forward roll down the wedge.

Jump Jump Nathan! He's is careful to jump in the square like his teachers ask. :)

We had a great week of tot school! Did you? Please share! Link up your post here.

20 month update

Well, here is the long awaited update on this little man!!!

He is 33 inches tall about between 27.5 and 28 pounds depending on what he had for lunch! :) He's wearing 24 month shorts (thanks to cloth diapers, other wise he'd be in 18 months), and 2T shirts. His one piece pjs are 2t and 3t. He is growing more and more loving by the day and follows directions so well (of course sometimes he needs a reminder to listen and obey, but does really well). He talks constantly, in sentences, that... go... on... fore v e r. It's so cute. He loves to talk and really enjoys learning words. Everything and everyone must have a name and he must know it. He's also really good at making us laugh and he knows it. He loves to swim, squeal, slide, run, tickle, chase, dance, and do anything with fun and laughter involved.

Nathan is talking constantly and it's so fun to see what's going on inside his head. One evening I was pointing out the stars to him... our conversation went like this...

Mommy: Nathan, do you see the stars?

Nathan: up there. way up there.

M: that's right, way up in the sky.

N: nay nay hold 'em

M: they're too high to hold them, but we can look at them.

N: nay nay touch 'em, nay nay bounce 'em

M: you want to bounce the stars?!

N: yeah.

He chains words together in long sentences(6-7 words) and strings his thoughts together well. He is so much fun to talk to. He repeats everything we say and then reuses it again in the correct context. For example... while at a church picnic, I left the table to get more food for someone. Nathan says, rather loudly, "mommy, mommy, KATIE, come here, eat eat." So funny! Chad and I laugh because he's learned our "real" names and when we don't immediately respond to mommy and daddy, he calls us by our names. Hysterical!

These are some of our favorite phrases:

"see dat car? Nay nay ride it? please?"

"BBBBIIIIIIGGGG hug"

"paci? no bear pillow yes"

"bailey poop, blahhh, yucky, hold it? nooooo"

"Nay Nay do it"

"nay nay ride in beesa van?"

"nay nay big helper"

"baileycake, bailey's a gooooood girl"

"love you soooo much"

"t-t-t-t-fruck"

This little one also LOVES to open and close doors. He can't quite reach the handles to our storm doors, but he loves to pretend he's going outside all by himself and close the big door and squeeze between the storm door and big door, all the while saying so matter of factly, "bye bye mommy, see ya, peace out"

And yes, that is a life jacket he's wearing, and no we weren't going swimming, he just likes to wear it... for long periods of time... daily... while indoors. He's also a fan of wearing it in the boat and in the pool! :) So long to the yellow float (this one). We've moved up to a life jacket which is safer and less obtrusive, and much cuter... don't you think!

In terms of eating, OH MY GOODNESS, this kiddo has quite the appetite! He can throw down some food like no other I've seen. He eats most everything except spicy food, pasta (except in spaghetti and lasagna), and anything hot temperature wise. He's learned about dessert too and loves it! The other day, we went to chic-fil-a with friends and I got a 12 pack nugget to split between the two of us. (He had already had 1/2 of the fruit cup from there and a huge breakfast). He ate 8 chicken nuggets (compared to my 4) and was still hungry. So was mom! So I got another 12 pack and before I knew it, he'd eaten 6 more nuggets. People that's 14 chicken nuggets. Insane. I told Chad, who quickly reminded me (thank you baby) that he doesn't need to eat 14 nuggets - 6 is plenty. So, I'm doing better balancing out the portions of not as healthy foods. :) Point of this story, my child can eat, and some how does it without gaining much weight at all and still keeping his very muscular body! :)

Things Nathan loves to...

sit in chairs

play outside, anytime, day or night, even in the rain

swing high, so high the swing almost flips

find rocks and sticks and then carrying them throughout our whole walk

play in the "rock pit" - a big pot hole in the center of our cul-de-sac.

"hold that", "see that", "touch that"

ride in Bethany's (aka Beesa) van (He asks to do this DAILY)

dump, pour, throw, all things boys LOVE!

push strollers, especially Izzy's stroller

be in the water... bath, pool, lake, you name it and he's in it! This month, he's jumped off the diving board, the dock, and the back of the boat!

jump on the couch and dive into the pillows

He's also learned to go down the stairs by holding onto the rail. He's really proud of himself and says, "wait for mommy, mommy first. nay nay do it by yourself. be careful"

Nathan is really good at...

identifying different balls and naming their function (dribble a basketball, hit a baseball...)

identifying different kinds of trucks and big machines both on the road and in books - his favorites to find on the road are excavators, car transporters, diggers, and brush rigs.

counting to 10 and is learning to count a specific number of objects (3 crackers)

telling us when he's pooping or peeing or when he needs a new diaper

staying away from Bailey's poop in the back yard

identifying people's cars in parking lots or on the road... every gold van is Beesa's, every silver Honda-ish car is Kristin's, every blue jag-ish car is YaYa's, you get the picture.

cleaning up his toys

memorizing his books and reading them to us

being a "good helper" - which he now calls himself

saying please, thank you, and your welcome with out prompting

running

jumping

turning in circles

throwing

recounting his day...

For example...

Daddy: Nathan what did you do today?

Nathan: tumblebees, run, jump

D: did you have fun at tumblebees?

N: yeah. carolyn and barb

D: did you see your teachers?

N: yeah.

N: walk to car. hot hot.

D: you walked to the car?

N: yeah. hot hot

D: the car was hot?

N: yeah. eat lunch caleb and jennifer

D: great. What else did you do with them?

N: see a monster truck. no touch it. not ours.

D: that's right we don't touch things that aren't ours.
N: run down da hill.

D: did you run fast?

N: yeah.

I love these conversations, as does Chad, and I need to capture them on video because they are so precious! My child definately has a southern accent! No doubt!

I love how he squats to do his puzzles and read books on the floor. It's such a Nathan thing! I also love the way he opens the garage door, says "dark in here" and closes the door - about 6 times each day. I love the way he giggles when he poots and says "biiiiiiiig poot. scuse me". I also love the way he says "lift up your bootie" and "bootie cream" when it's time for those things. I also love the way he sings and how many songs he knows! Here's a video from about a month ago...

He knows Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children ("all the children"), Oh How He Loves You and Me (" oh howie"), Do Lord Oh Do Lord, Allelu allelu allelu, Twinkle Twinkle, The BIBLE, Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Row Row Row, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC's, He's got the whole world in his hands, Wheels on the Bus, Ring around the Rosie, and a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Did I mention that Nathan loves balls? And throwing balls?

He loves to sit in his chair and read.

Really... more play time in the life jacket. :)

Nathan you are such a sweet boy and we love you very very very much!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Cymbals bring funny faces!

Time with Nanny

Last Saturday we were able to visit with Chad's maternal grandmother. We call her Nanny and she is a dear woman! She hadn't seen Nathan since his 1st birthday so this was a real treat for us all. He really enjoyed looking at the beads on her bracelet and her little dog Sophie. Nanny, thanks for letting us stay and visit for a while. We love you so much!