Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day 2008 is off to a good start (despite Nathan being sick yesterday and us not getting to go to MOMS today...see #3 as to why it was just fine that we didn't go):
1. Nathan slept until 7:30 this morning instead of 5:00 like yesterday morning.
2. When I came out to the living room there was a beautiful purple orchid waiting for me with a note so I didn't have to wonder who'd left it. :)
3. Nathan got to play with his Papa for about 2 hours. (Papa has more energy than mommy at the moment...)
4. I am baking a Coconut Choco Cheesecake for tonight's dessert and it looks like it will be good (I think I gained weight just making it without eating any of the batter).
5. Jimmy is making a dinner of Jamaican Jerk salmon, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, grilled asparagus, and bread.
6. I get to give him a gift I'm very excited about. :)

A taste of February

Well, there are times of drought in cute new things that Nathan's doing (that's when you don't see a post for weeks at a time), and there are times of plenty. Now that he's trying to do everything Jimmy and I do, it's certainly a time of plenty. :) Here are a few pictures of the things he's been doing lately.

I bought Nathan a potty because he's been announcing when he has a dirty diaper so I figured it can't hurt to have it around. It doubles as a stool so now we can actually wash his hands easily!

Nathan likes to help us cook. When Jimmy got out the eggs, Nathan announced "EGGS! EGGS!" and went into the cooking utensil drawer and got out the exact spatula that we usually use for scrambling eggs.

On another day we didn't quite have the time to let Nathan "cook" with us so I thought he'd like to "cook" some water with blue food coloring in it. He definitely enjoyed it.
And since he got some blue water on the floor, mommy showed him how to clean it up and he did a great job!
Feeding Elmo (because he does everything to Elmo and all the rest of his stuffed animals that we do to him, like feed them, give them the paci, put their shoes on, give them milk and juice, let them drive his firetruck...you get the picture!).
Advanced reader. :) Nathan likes to bring us books to have us read to him and yesterday he chose the first two books in the Lord of the Ring trilogy. He didn't read them for long, though.
Maybe Elmo needs to poopy, too?
On Saturday (the 9th) we went to Venice Beach. My friend Jenni, from William and Mary, was in town with a couple of her friends so we spent the morning at the beach with her. We'd never been to Venice before. It was definitely good to go once, but we don't feel the need to go again. There is some weird stuff there (and weird people). I didn't realize I looked so pregnant.
Waiting for a wave...

...and jumping over it because the water was COLD even though it was 76 outside!
Nathan had a fun time chasing the pigeons!
P.S. In case you didn't already know, you can click on each picture for an enlarged version.

Arrive on time!

You may be thinking that this post is about people who show up late, or my desire for baby number two to come on time, but it's not. It's about how annoying it is when people show up to your home 15 minutes early! FOUR times in the past two weeks Jimmy and I have been hosting something at our home and people have shown up 15 minutes early. These aren't people that we generally just hang out with so it's a little weird to say "um, just sit there for a while until we're ready." We have just barely finished dinner so I have to clean up with them around, and Nathan is not ready for bed so Jimmy is in the back getting him ready for bed and the guests are just sitting around staring at the walls because they came FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO. These events are recurring events so you would think that the first time they showed up early and we were obviously not ready they would have learned and come on time. Or, you might think we would have learned our lesson, but the guests told us they wouldn't come until the designated time the second time so we weren't assuming they would show up early again! In my opinion, it's just as rude (or more so, since I tend to be a late person :)) to show up to someone's home that early and expect them to be ready to entertain you.

Practicing to be a Big Brother

Here are some pictures of Nathan practicing to be a big brother. Recently (yesterday, to be precise) he started "feeding" my stuffed animals milk from his sippy cups and a bottle. Two interesting things: you will see in some of the following pictures what I mean by "bottle." He salvaged an empty contact lens solution bottle from the garbage and, saying "bottle, bottle" carried it to MY stuffed animals (Louis Thomas, the bear, and Boots, the cat). He is not at all interested in feeding his own stuffed animals. He also came up with this little activity all on his own. Once I saw him do it, however, I did prompt him to keep doing it so I could get some pictures. :) He is pretending more and more now, as well as talking all of the time, and they're both really cute developments (though he's been a chatterbox for nearly a year!).




He's also practicing kissing his little brother. Here he is giving some smooches to his new elephant (which he calls "Ella," his word for "elephant") and Boots.

Pictures from January

So I was playing with a new format for this particular entry since my friend Eve did the left and right thing for the pictures, but I don't know if I'll stick with it. It's simpler to center everything. :) Also, I have uploaded all of the pictures onto my computer and am trying to make an album on Shutterfly, but both times I've tried so far something has happened and it won't let me. So I'll work on that so you can see all of the pictures we took. Anyway, here are some more pictures, this one from the end of our time in Virginia and the others from when we got back. In this picture, Nathan was very sick and actually fell asleep on me while I was playing Settlers (which I won, by the way :)).

Can you see Nathan's mohawk?

It's been raining like crazy here for the past few days and I got Nathan some boots so I don't have to carry him everywhere. It took me a while to find them, but they were worth it because he's gotten lots of compliments on them. :) In this picture, we're getting ready to walk to the grocery store and though mommy and daddy aren't quite ready, when Nathan has on his boots and has heard "go" he's got a one-track mind!

He was a very good (and so cute!) boy while mommy had to wait for an hour to get her glucose test. Things that were easier to do when pregant with Nathan and not as easy this time around when I've got a toddler to wrangle with...

One of my Christmas gifts (to myself with the help of a gift card) was a pair of tall boots. Nathan really likes my boots. It was his idea to wear them, but I helped him put them on. :)

What a cute boy! If you click on the picture you'll get an enlarged version where you can see that his shirt says "Handsome is an Understatement." How true!

They still exist?

You should go here: http://www.visionforumministries.org/. I didn't realize people who think like this still existed. It's a long explanation to how I came upon this rather unfortunate website, so I'll save that for later (or not, unless you ask). If you click on "Statements of Doctrine" and then on "The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy" you might see why I'm a little unnerved. But not severely so because Jimmy and I have just been laughing at most of what they say. Oh, and if you want a real laugh, go to their store at http://www.visionforum.com/. I think I'll be getting my sons the All-American Boy's Crossbow for their 2nd birthdays.

Some pictures from Christmas in Virginia

Here are some pictures from our trip to Virginia at Christmas and New Year's. These are not nearly all of the pictures we took, but just a sample. My camera battery ran out before I could do this, but I will post ALL of the pictures on Shutterfly and post a link so you can get your fill of our Christmas trip!

Story time with Papa is very popular.
I think that all 18-month-olds are probably fascinated with belly buttons.

Nathan and Silas, who is only three weeks older than Nathan, played together the whole week we were with Jimmy's family. They got introduced to bubble baths and while Nathan was definitely more excited about the bubbles, they did enjoy being in the bath together!
The four-cousin band. Next time they're all together, there will be a fifth little boy!
Great Grandpa got his lap filled with all of Nathan's presents. Nathan brought them to him, one at a time, until they were all in his lap. :)
Nathan helps his Grandma prepare the sweet rolls for Christmas morning. Nathan decided while we were in VA for Christmas that he could be a number of appliances, given the right tools. In this case, he's got a 1-cup measuring cup in front of him, a piece of dough in the cup, and the top to a butter container on top. He would put the dough in the measuring cup, put the butter top on it, screw up his face and make this noise (while shaking the measuring cup with dough in it) so it sounded like he was being a blender. He would stop, take the top off, take the dough out, fiddle with it, put it in, and "blend" it again.