Just a few memories...

A few memories I want to save from the past week-ish :)

*Nathan LOVES goldfish. He asks for them allll the time... he has his own version of the word (that doesn't even come close to "goldfish", but he knows where they are and points to them constantly!

*Alex to Nathan (as Nathan played xylophone and danced to his music!): "you're too cute, little buddy!"

*Nathan discovered his birthday present waaaay up high in the closet. He asked for it over and over "this, this, this????" pointing and looking at me with the biggest eyes and little legs kicking! He went to it again the next day and asked for it AGAIN (I forgot to re-hide it, but he didn't forget it was there! haha)

*Alex: "Can I pleeeeaaaase play with NaFan in the living room???"

*Alex: "I'm big and I have to keep my brother safe."

*Alex currently loves playing superheros. He and his buddy run around with "capes" (blankets) tied around their necks with play swords looking for "bad guys". Where do boys learn this stuff??

*We picked Alex up from Sunday school the last two weeks and he was running around with lego guns. (He wasn't the only one... but we were still a bit embarassed!) Boys will be boys I suppose!

*Nathan loves to hide and play "peek-a-boo!" His little giggle is pretty cute :)

*Nathan breaks out some serious dance moves EVERY time he hears music. I really need to get a video and figure out how to post it!

*I've been blocking Nathan in the living room or the kids' bedroom a lot lately because he's ALL over. Alex frequently reminds me that we need to "cage him in" LOL

*Last week we were on our way to church and Alex says "There's a loooooot of traffic. Everyone's on their way to church I guess." Then a couple of days later we were heading to the park and he says, "Lots of kids heading to the park today!" I guess that's an ego-centric three year old's logic!

Crazy Love

I just finished a study on the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. If you haven't read it - you should! It is a quick, but very challenging read. Although I feel that I've always known that "Jesus loves me", truly grasping what that means and how I should respond if I claim I love Jesus is something that has taken a lot of time (something that I am still learning and will continue to learn throughout my life I am sure). Reading this book helped put in perspective how extremely selfish and hypocritical we are as a culture, and especially as Christians. When I call myself a Christian, I am saying that I love God - that He sent His only son to live a sinless life and to then die on a cross for ME - so that I can live and be forgiven, and live forever in eternity with my Savior. How easy it is to say that and just keep on living the way that I do... but if I sit and truly let that sink in and try to grasp even a hint of what that really means, how can I go on living the way that I do?? Yes, I know that we are all sinful creatures and will continue to sin, and that we live under God's grace. None of us can be perfect, but we are called to imitate Christ - striving each day to be more and more like Him. This book is an amazing resource to help in understanding what a Christ-like life can look like and what kinds of big things can be done through normal, everyday people. Chan says, "...when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything." Does loving God change EVERYTHING for Christians - for me? Or do we still blend in and look much like our unsaved neighbors? What am I doing to radically be different? So I wanted to record just a few realizations and goals that I have right now, in hopes that I can look back on this in two weeks, two months, etc. and remember what I learned throughout the past couple of months. So that I can use this post as a reminder of how I want to be different.

1. Spend significant, quality, daily time in the Word, studying and learning more about Christ. Who am I to think that all of the trivial things that I "have" to do are so significant that I can't pause and spend time with my creator?
2. Pray. Prayer is not a "waste of time", prayer is powerful and important and essential. I spent an hour in prayer this past week for our church - we have an event going on the week leading up to Easter where someone is praying at church every hour, 24/7 leading up to Easter. It was truly amazing to spend an uninterrupted hour in prayer.
3. Look for opportunities to serve people around me. Sometimes it is easy to use young children as an excuse for not being able to serve more. But what better time to serve? I can show my children what it means to live a life of service, even if through small things.
4. Serve regularily at our local church.
5. Fix my attitude and practice patience. When I think about my daily life, I realize how incredibly selfish I am - with my time, money, thoughts, etc. I need to ask myself daily what my motives are, check my words before they come out of my mouth, and stop worrying about what I want or think I need. I need to ask myself often if what I am doing is glorifying to God.

Nashville "Vacation"!

So it wasn't technically a vacation, since Gary was on business, but it was a week away from home!! We had a BLAST! Gary had a conference in Nashville Tues-Fri and we decided to join him for the week! On the way we stopped in Knoxville to visit his brother and sister-in-law for a couple of nights! We enjoyed hanging out at their apartment, playing games and cards, visiting, and eating out! I somehow managed not to take a single picture, but we had a great time! We got to see some old college friends on Sunday night! We went to Emily and Karl's house and got to meet their sweet new baby, Brinley! It was so much fun to catch up and meet their beautiful girl! I'll have to add a picture later because they are on Gary's phone, not my camera :) Early Monday morning we drove to Nashville. We spent Monday afternoon at the Science Museum there! It was very cool - much of it was over Alex's head of course (more targeted at school age kids) but Alex still had fun! There were lots of hands-0n exhibits and buttons to push, which is right up his alley :) Here are just a couple of photos from our day:

After the museum we checked in to The Gaylord Opryland Hotel! It was amazing!!! Waterfalls, greenery and gardens, 13 restaurants, huge pool, etc! What a great place for a business trip :)

Tuesday Gary's conference started, so the kids and I headed to the Nashville Zoo. It's nothing compared to the Cincinnati or DC zoo, but we still enjoyed it!

Alex was our little tour guide! He carried this map almost all day :)

Nathan's favorite animals were the inside ones (especially the turtles and fish). They were much easier to see!

Both kids enjoyed the petting zoo! Even Nathan got to pet the goats and camel (It was a little tricky to get a pic of him though since I had to hold him haha).

They had a HUGE playground there! So big that I had to follow Alex everywhere or we would lose him for sure! It was a blast though!!

This is about 1/4 of the huge castle playground - so fun! This and the carosel were probably Alex's favorite. Alex was SO pumped to ride the carosel all day, and then we went to get on it and then (of allll the animals to choose from) he just wanted to sit in the chair... that's my "adventurous" little 3 year old for ya ;) He loved it though!

Tuesday night we went out to dinner with our sister-in-law's parents who live in Nashville! We went to a catfish place (again, I managed not to take a single photo!) where you could actually pet the fish and roast marshmellows! We had a lot of fun!!

Wednesday I took the kids to the FRIST art museum downtown while Gary attended more classes! Alex absolutely LOVED it! They have a really nice kids area where families can explore different art materials and make lots of different projects! I have to admit we didn't actually go into a single exhibit (we did look at some art on the way to the kids area though!)

My little artist!

Here is Alex in front of the museum with his hat and bag of projects!!

Wednesay evening we went out to eat in the hotel at a (super expensive and way overpriced) mexcian restaurant! We enjoyed fajitas, margaritas, and terrible service hahaha. But it was great food! :)

Here we are waiting for dinner in front of one of the many waterfalls!

After dinner we went on the (VERY long anticipated) boat ride through the hotel! Alex was SOOOO excited for this! He was asking about it Monday, Tuesday, and up until it was time to go Wednesday! He could hardly eat any dinner because he was so excited and said the boat was "about to leave! we have to hurry!!!" allllll through dinner!

He had a blast! We'd briefly mentioned maybe getting ice cream after the boat ride, and of course Alex didn't let us forget it! We even let Nathan eat some ice cream! He got this face after every bite, but then opened up wide for the next one! Ha!

yum yum!!!

Thursday I took the kids to the train yard. They had a small train museum and exhibit to look at. I thought there would be more to it, but Alex was incredibly excited with the small area they had! He absolutely loves trains!! He is usually fairly quiet around new people, but was talking the heads off of everyone there! There were a few old men that collect and put together model trains that were there and they were showing him all of the cool stuff!

And we lucked out because a preschool field trip was coming and they let us join in!!! We got to walk out to the train yard and get on a train! It didn't actually go anywhere (which was slightly dissappointing for Alex), but we did get to get on it and look around!

That evening we spent some time wandering around the hotel with Gary! We got pizza, watched the huge fountain show (awesome water show put to music!) and then went swimming!

Nathan absolutely loved the water!!!

And Alex wouldn't leave the steps...

I guess it's been a while since he swam and he was just overwhelmed... hopefully it won't take long for him to warm up to the idea of swimming again when summer arrives!

Friday morning Gary just had an hour or so of class and then we packed up and headed to the Smoky Mountains!! We mini-golfed in Pigeon Forge when we arrived... it was sooo fun for all of us!!

Alex would announce how many tries it took him and ran around hitting the ball many, many times to get it in.. it was pretty cute :)

And Nathan enjoyed crawling around the greens and playing with his very own baby golf club and ball! He watched the first few holes, then was ready to put his ball in too!

After mini-golfing, Gary and Alex went go kart racing!! Alex was super excited! He got right in, buckled up, and was off for a very bumpy ride! He was a little unsure afterward and said it went too fast and the hill was scary (to his credit, Gary said it actually was a very very steep hill and was a little scary for him too haha!)

After mini-golfing and racecars, we met up with Gary's mom, dad, brother, and oma for dinner and to spend the weekend with them in Gatlinburg! We stayed in a cabin in the mountains (that took us two hours to find in the dark LOL)! It was absolutely beautiful!!

Nathan met his great-oma for the first time! The boys had a blast with her... she sang to them in German, spoiled them with treats, and enjoyed holding and playing with both of them!

We spent Saturday in Gatlinburg! We went to Ripley's Aquarium, which both boys absolutely LOVED!

My camera broke when I dropped it at the museum, which is super sad :( Looks like I know what my birthday present is going to be this year! Haha. I fixed it later, but it's still not completely repaired and will probably die again soon. Anyway, this is my last picture of the trip... (there are a few on Gary's phone that I'll have to add later) but anyway, the boys had a great time! We also did old time photos and ate lots of shrimp at Bubba Gump's! We spent the evening relaxing and hanging out at the cabin before our long drive Sunday. Nathan had a rough evening/night/morning throwing up and had a slight fever, but luckily it was gone by Sunday afternoon and the drive wasn't too bad!

We had such a great time and squeezed a lot in!!! Now I'm drowning in laundry and trying to "re-train" the kids how to eat normal food (after eating out allllll week), follow the rules, and sleep/nap regular hours again! It's always tough getting back into the routine after vacation!!

Nathan's 10th Month!

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 :)

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!

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! :)

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! :)

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!