Well Nathan is officially 11 months old today! Where has this year gone?? It is unbelieveable that he'll be 1 at the end of April! Here are some memories and milestones from this month:
*I've offered the sippy cup more this month (before I'd give it maybe once a day or every other day or so when I'd think about it... now I've been giving it at least a couple of times a day!) Nathan is now a pro at using it! He'll drink water, but prefers when it's about 1/4 juice, the rest water :) He'll be ready to start whole milk next week! Since he's almost one, his doctor said earlier this month to start offering whole milk for practice once a day at 11 months. He's never had formula, so this will ease the transition to milk and help with weaning as he turns one next month. We did the same thing with Alex and it made the transition very easy!
*We had his 9 month check up this month (he was about 10 months and one week old - oops!) I'll have to update the exact stats later, but he was a little over 19 lbs and in the 14th percentile for weight and height. His head was in the 40th percentile.
*He sneaks many foods from his big brother - apple jacks and goldfish are among his favorites to steal ;) *
He has learned to say several new words this month... with obvious purpose now! (Although he was saying a couple of words sporadically over the past couple of months, it was difficult to know if he really meant what he was saying!) He says: mama
dada
A-ex (Alex)
yeah
yes
truck
duck
light
dance
wow
nigh-nigh
*He points at everything! Including what snack or food he wants :)
*Nathan doesn't like baby food much these days... he wants to be a big boy and feed himself!
*When you say "dance dance!" or if Nathan hears any kind of music at all, he goes crazy dancing and giggling! It is the most adorable thing EVER!
*We've been doing some simple sign language and he signs "all done" occasionally :) The rest of the time he just puts his food on the floor or puts his arms up to be picked up out of his chair! haha
*Nathan's been stacking blocks lately, putting shapes in the shape sorter, and mimicking many of the ways that Alex plays. It's so fun to watch - he fills up the dump trucks, "drives" cars, makes airplanes fly, and makes people and animals "walk". It's fun to see him learning from Alex!
*He's very observant - he finds every little peice of ANYTHING on the floor (even right after it is vacumed) and puts it in his mouth! Alex never did this, so it is a new experience for me! He also points out lots of little things to others, and things that are far away or up high.
*The other morning when he got up he was looking at me saying "A-ex" over and over again, as if to ask where his big brother was! He LOVES getting Alex up in the morning or from naps - he gets giddy with excitement and crawls all over him giggling and talking!
*He likes to explore - he figured out how to turn on the radio, changed the channel several times, and then stopped on a salsa music channel and danced in rhythm! HAHA! He also constantly finds the remote and pauses the tv or changes the channels on that too.
*He continues to be such a happy and flexible baby! It is easy to take him places and do things with him! And we always get comments on how happy, handsome, and sweet he is :)
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
I love the way...
I am so in love with my little family and have been feeling so thankful and blessed this week. For no reason in particular, just marveling in the beautiful blessings around me in these 3 people I share my every day with. I love them. I hope I remember this stage of my life and the wonderful memories we are creating each and every day - even in our simple daily routines.
I love the way...
~my husband takes time every single day to hold, talk to, and listen to me - he's truly my very best friend and I couldn't ask for a better one :)
~Nathan holds my hand and plays with my fingers while he's nursing
~Alex comes up to me at least once a day and asks me to just hold and snuggle him. He'll giggle and say "I love you so much mommy!" I hope I have at least a couple more years of this :)
~Nathan scrunches up his nose and giggles. He crawls across the room, grabs onto my leg, giggles and says "mama", and raises his arms up to be held :)
~Alex and Nathan already seem to have their own little secret language. They are so silly together and make one another laugh constantly. Their favorite time to do this is probably the dinner table!
~my husband is the absolute best father I know. He makes time every day to just play and laugh with our boys. The boys both show great joy when they see their daddy in the evenings! It is one of my favorite moments of the day - when he enters the door there is clapping, laughter, hugs, kisses, "daddy!"s, and pure excitement! How long will that last, I wonder? haha
~Alex says "haha, I'm just teasing!" and "that's so silly!" accompanied with a fake laugh. He absolutely loves to make Gary and I laugh!
I love the way...
~my husband takes time every single day to hold, talk to, and listen to me - he's truly my very best friend and I couldn't ask for a better one :)
~Nathan holds my hand and plays with my fingers while he's nursing
~Alex comes up to me at least once a day and asks me to just hold and snuggle him. He'll giggle and say "I love you so much mommy!" I hope I have at least a couple more years of this :)
~Nathan scrunches up his nose and giggles. He crawls across the room, grabs onto my leg, giggles and says "mama", and raises his arms up to be held :)
~Alex and Nathan already seem to have their own little secret language. They are so silly together and make one another laugh constantly. Their favorite time to do this is probably the dinner table!
~my husband is the absolute best father I know. He makes time every day to just play and laugh with our boys. The boys both show great joy when they see their daddy in the evenings! It is one of my favorite moments of the day - when he enters the door there is clapping, laughter, hugs, kisses, "daddy!"s, and pure excitement! How long will that last, I wonder? haha
~Alex says "haha, I'm just teasing!" and "that's so silly!" accompanied with a fake laugh. He absolutely loves to make Gary and I laugh!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
March Craziness - Picture Update!
I have been really bad about the blogging lately! It really feels like I JUST blogged and now it's been another couple of weeks! Going to have to resort to another picture/caption update today I guess! haha!
A couple of weeks ago we went with some friends to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Old Town Alexandria! It was so much fun!! I was pretty psyched about the t-shirts I bought the boys last March on clearance ;)
Alex absolutely LOVED the parade! He is still talking about the bands, motorcycles, and racecars that were there!!
After the parade we walked along the pier - old town is just beautiful! Here are Alex and his buddy Elijah checking out the boats! They enjoyed throwing sticks and rocks into the water, too!
Alex was pretty proud of himself for writing his name in shaving cream!! (This was with A LOT of guidance, and he is no where close to writing his name independently though!!)
Even Nathan has been joining in on lots of the fun lately! I thought this would be super messy and was pleasantly surprised by the easy clean up! :)
This past weekend we went to DuBois, PA to visit my mom and sisters who were in town for the week! It was so fun to see everyone and catch up! (And go on a date with Gary and do some shopping with the girls!!)
Grandma and my silly boys! I took about a million pictures and didn't get a single one where everyone was looking! 
Today we've been celebrating the "real" St Patrick's day! Alex was excited to wear his t-shirt again! We made a "green" lunch (which was a HUGE hit!)
And it is soo beautiful outside!!!
Love this little face :)
And this one, too! :)
A couple of weeks ago we went with some friends to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Old Town Alexandria! It was so much fun!! I was pretty psyched about the t-shirts I bought the boys last March on clearance ;)
Alex absolutely LOVED the parade! He is still talking about the bands, motorcycles, and racecars that were there!!
After the parade we walked along the pier - old town is just beautiful! Here are Alex and his buddy Elijah checking out the boats! They enjoyed throwing sticks and rocks into the water, too!
Alex was pretty proud of himself for writing his name in shaving cream!! (This was with A LOT of guidance, and he is no where close to writing his name independently though!!)
Even Nathan has been joining in on lots of the fun lately! I thought this would be super messy and was pleasantly surprised by the easy clean up! :)
This past weekend we went to DuBois, PA to visit my mom and sisters who were in town for the week! It was so fun to see everyone and catch up! (And go on a date with Gary and do some shopping with the girls!!)
Grandma and my silly boys! I took about a million pictures and didn't get a single one where everyone was looking!
Today we've been celebrating the "real" St Patrick's day! Alex was excited to wear his t-shirt again! We made a "green" lunch (which was a HUGE hit!)
And it is soo beautiful outside!!!
Love this little face :)
And this one, too! :)
Friday, March 4, 2011
Where did February go?
I seriously cannot believe it is March! This month has FLOWN by (yes, I realize I probably say that every month, but it is just so crazy to me the way time seems to be going at lightning speed!) My boys seem older this month.
We started a "chore chart" with Alex (things like getting dressed by himself, emptying the silverware, cleaning up his toys, etc.) and began giving him allowance for completing them (a nickel or dime for each sticker he has at the end of the week). We made a "spend" and a "give" bank so that he can learn to give back to God and make some money to eventually buy himself something with his hard-earned money (he's learning delayed gratification for sure)! He is doing great with it! He puts on his own clothes, shoes (often on the wrong feet!), and coat now and can go in and brush his own teeth, go potty and wash his hands without help! (Although he still sometimes says he needs help when wanting a little attention, but that's to be expected I suppose!) He's also doing better with counting, shapes, colors, and the alphabet as well! He is loving doing learning activities and the teacher in me is coming out a lot lately! We've been doing lots of projects and working on the fine motor skills a lot lately!
And Nathan - well, he's had another big growth month! He got his top two teeth a couple of weeks ago, puts some of the shapes in the right place in the shape sorter, says "tickle tickle" (I know, SUPER random words to be saying at 10 months... but it really does sound EXACTLY like it should LOL) as well as "mama" frequently! He's eating a lot of regular table foods now, cruises furniture, uses the walker toy we have, and is CRAWLING (as of March 2nd officially - he was making a few strides before that but not going across the room)! But probably my favorite new thing he does is clap! It is sooo cute... he claps all the time! He claps when you say "yay", puts his hands in the air when you say "hooray" and makes kissy sounds when you say "kisses" or make the sound yourself! I'm pretty sure he is the sweetest little boy ever :)
Here are some pictures of my boys from the past few days:
Alex's picture of himself! He does the whole "egg head" drawing right now - big head, eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, with legs and arms coming out of the head! Too cute! After this picture, he told me he was going to draw one of me - and that I have a HUGE head that would take up the whole board!
LOVE watching them play together! They really do just adore one another! The FIRST thing Alex said yesterday when I got him up from his nap (in his groggy, sleepy voice) was "where's my Nafan? I need him... I love my Nafan Mommy." They are just preciuos together :)
Here's my little man crawling to me! Now that he's on the move he's constantly crawling to mommy or big brother - or big brother's favorite toys! The first thing he crawled across the room to get was Alex's light up sword! (Before that he was making a few strides to get dropped food under the table, or his brother's special puppies!)
Boys playing video games!
Playing together again! "I'm going to teach Nafan his letters!"
The sweetest smile!
Nathan absolutely loves this walker! He's been doing pretty well with it for the past couple of weeks! He has even let go a couple of times and stands on his own for about .5 seconds! haha.
My little preschooler! He has an activity cabinet of things that I've been putting together over the last little bit for him! He LOVES it! He has a sensory tub of rice and one of pasta, play-doh, colored cotton ball sorting game (to be done with tweezers for fine motor practice!), magnetic letters to spell his name, shaving cream for letter/shape/drawing practice, scissors and scraps to cut, and some other random games and activities! It's so fun having him at the age where I can do creative, fun preschool activities and crafts with him!
Even Nathan has gotten to do some painting and activities with us lately! This is where his paci has come in super-handy! haha! He enjoyed painting hearts for Valentine's day! :)
This was one of Alex's favorite projects recently! We made this space scene with the Earth, moon, stars, and asteroids! Then we worked on the rocket ship! Alex loved playing with his completed project! :)
We started a "chore chart" with Alex (things like getting dressed by himself, emptying the silverware, cleaning up his toys, etc.) and began giving him allowance for completing them (a nickel or dime for each sticker he has at the end of the week). We made a "spend" and a "give" bank so that he can learn to give back to God and make some money to eventually buy himself something with his hard-earned money (he's learning delayed gratification for sure)! He is doing great with it! He puts on his own clothes, shoes (often on the wrong feet!), and coat now and can go in and brush his own teeth, go potty and wash his hands without help! (Although he still sometimes says he needs help when wanting a little attention, but that's to be expected I suppose!) He's also doing better with counting, shapes, colors, and the alphabet as well! He is loving doing learning activities and the teacher in me is coming out a lot lately! We've been doing lots of projects and working on the fine motor skills a lot lately!
And Nathan - well, he's had another big growth month! He got his top two teeth a couple of weeks ago, puts some of the shapes in the right place in the shape sorter, says "tickle tickle" (I know, SUPER random words to be saying at 10 months... but it really does sound EXACTLY like it should LOL) as well as "mama" frequently! He's eating a lot of regular table foods now, cruises furniture, uses the walker toy we have, and is CRAWLING (as of March 2nd officially - he was making a few strides before that but not going across the room)! But probably my favorite new thing he does is clap! It is sooo cute... he claps all the time! He claps when you say "yay", puts his hands in the air when you say "hooray" and makes kissy sounds when you say "kisses" or make the sound yourself! I'm pretty sure he is the sweetest little boy ever :)
Here are some pictures of my boys from the past few days:
Alex's picture of himself! He does the whole "egg head" drawing right now - big head, eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, with legs and arms coming out of the head! Too cute! After this picture, he told me he was going to draw one of me - and that I have a HUGE head that would take up the whole board!
LOVE watching them play together! They really do just adore one another! The FIRST thing Alex said yesterday when I got him up from his nap (in his groggy, sleepy voice) was "where's my Nafan? I need him... I love my Nafan Mommy." They are just preciuos together :)
Here's my little man crawling to me! Now that he's on the move he's constantly crawling to mommy or big brother - or big brother's favorite toys! The first thing he crawled across the room to get was Alex's light up sword! (Before that he was making a few strides to get dropped food under the table, or his brother's special puppies!)
Boys playing video games!
Playing together again! "I'm going to teach Nafan his letters!"
The sweetest smile!
Nathan absolutely loves this walker! He's been doing pretty well with it for the past couple of weeks! He has even let go a couple of times and stands on his own for about .5 seconds! haha.
My little preschooler! He has an activity cabinet of things that I've been putting together over the last little bit for him! He LOVES it! He has a sensory tub of rice and one of pasta, play-doh, colored cotton ball sorting game (to be done with tweezers for fine motor practice!), magnetic letters to spell his name, shaving cream for letter/shape/drawing practice, scissors and scraps to cut, and some other random games and activities! It's so fun having him at the age where I can do creative, fun preschool activities and crafts with him!
Even Nathan has gotten to do some painting and activities with us lately! This is where his paci has come in super-handy! haha! He enjoyed painting hearts for Valentine's day! :)
This was one of Alex's favorite projects recently! We made this space scene with the Earth, moon, stars, and asteroids! Then we worked on the rocket ship! Alex loved playing with his completed project! :)
Other than those big milestones, last weekend I got to attend a women's retreat with our church! It was such a great weekend! Nathan got to come with me (since he's still nursing - several moms brought their nursing babies) and Alex stayed home to have a "guys weekend" with daddy - complete with a lunch and movie date, ice cream, and video games of course! It really was a great time for me to "escape", be surrounded by beautiful mountains, relax, meet lots of new people, and have some time of learning and growth.
This weekend I'm looking forward to relaxing with all 3 of the men in my life! This is the first 5 day week Gary has worked in a looong time (we are becoming very spoiled with his compressed work schedule, government holidays, and now teleworking at least one day every two weeks!) and after a few busy weekends in February, we're all tired! haha!
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