It's like I'm Oprah :)

I currently gift my son with his "favorite things"... yup, just like Oprah!  I never realized before having a baby how simple it was to make them delighted.  A spoon?  A spatula? A whistle? A tent?  Who knew that household items were so thrilling!
Still not sure though what prompted me to give my old whistle to this little man

If you can't tell from the joy in his eyes...he loves that D@mn whistle! 
You can't tell what he's so happy about in this pic

That pup on the side is the reason for the joy..he is in LOVE with my friends dog Bella

Absolutely screams and laughs hysterically every time he sees that dog.  Bella has definitely lost her interest in him though, but she likes his toys that he brings over!
Now to the new tent....I will be honest and tell you that I bought this at a baby sale event and this was all folded down.  I thought it was those tubes thingies that babies can crawl through, similar to what dogs run through on a dog course :) yes I just compared him to a dog but they look fun.  However, we opened it up and lo and behold it was a tent!  No worries because he thinks it's awesome.  Of course, we often have to coax Joe out of it because he was actually the first one who got inside of it and wouldn't come out for a while!  He's really starting to get in to Nate's bigger boy toys and I'm gonna really have to monitor these two so that they don't fight too much :)

I'm just going to currently relish how easy it is to please him because I'm sure it has it's expiration date!

Nate's Bday Party!

I thought I'd finally put up some of Nate's bday party pictures from 2 months ago!  Today is Nate's actual due date which is kind of hard to imagine.  I feel like he turned one forever ago!  It's weird to think his birthday is supposed to be in April.  Oh well, he's a happy and healthy little man!

 Nate was very excited that so many people came to celebrate with him.  He thought he would celebrate by chewing on his shoes....he doesn't yet understand they are just meant to be worn on his feet :)

Aunt Trisha did an awesome job making Nate's lion cake!  I cannot tell a lie....I didn't have a TON of faith in her but I can admit now that I was wrong and she did great!

Needless to say...Nate enjoyed it very much!

The boys enjoying their tv time and cake.

We had a blast, thanks to everybody for coming out and all the wonderful gifts!
Nate has been going to his music class for a few weeks now on Thursdays.  The first time I took him, he beat a girl on the head with bells, and he ran to the middle of the circle every five minutes, stopped, looked around to make sure people were watching, and laughed BAAAAAAAAHHHHAAAAAAaa as loud as he could.  Now, as everyone else thought it was adorable, I kind of couldn't help but laugh myself.  This was such a different kid from the one who was terrified of life at the first class.  He's very in to playing with others now and hopefully he learns some nice new social skills :)

 What a face huh?  We need to learn how to play golf, not just eat the golf balls :)

Nathan's new favorite activity!

Socialization :)

So the recent goal with Nate has been to get him in to some activities.  Now that he's over a year and our friend Maria just watches him, I think it's about time he hangs out with some kiddos his own age so that he isn't so stunned the times he is around other little munchkins.  I took Nate to a "My Gym" class on Friday which is a lot of playing on swings, balance beams, ball pit, and much more.  We also sang songs in a circle with other moms and babies, not really my cup of tea and in that moment I really questioned what had become of my life  :)  Kidding, kidding, (a little) but it was more entertaining to watch Nate interact/ or his lack of interaction.

This was Nate's typical get away position from new activities.  When we first got there I don't think he could have clung any tighter to me for about 10 minutes.  I then tried and help him clap and sing through the songs and he kept looking back at me like I had lost my mind.  I had thought so too :)  Then we played in the ball pit where he screamed and whined mama mamam mamama.  Once we got on the swings they hook to the ceiling...smiles started to crack on his face.  After that was "independent play" where I got to observe Nate be the passive guy who got shoved down, his turtle taken away from him, and trampled by other 1 and 2 year olds.  He pretty much just looked at them and found something else to play with.  No aggressiveness shown yet!  It was a lot of fun but the class is about 40 minutes away so  I found a music class up closer to our house that we're going to start this week.  I'll let ya know how it goes!
Nate's new toy is one of my old whistles from when I used to work at the afterschool program.  He figured out how to blow and make it work in about 15 minutes and hasn't stopped.  I let him wear it to the grocery store because he didn't want to take it off...he blew the whistle throughout the meat section....don't get excited, it wasn't loud or anything just breathy, spitty. little whistles!

He calls a lot of traveling!
Saturday we went to our friend Jake and Jamie's.  Their daughter Jacqueline is 9 months and Nate had his first co-ed bathing experience!  They had pizza and peaches for dinner and were messes.

Nate was a gentleman for the most part and only grabbed himself a couple of times instead of the usual 50 or so.  Eventually, he was a bit ruder and desperate to get to the toys that kept floating away from him.

Poor Jacqueline took a bit of a spill after that but it was her first big tub experience and she did great with spazzy boy!  Nate of course stood up, sat down, bonked his head, and splashed around as usual.
Have a great week!

Howdy strangers!

Hey all!  The blog still works, it was shut down for a while because there was "suspicious activity" on my gmail account so they dismantled the blog.  That seems to be taken care of so we're back! 
Nate and I went home last weekend to visit fam.  Joe and I bought new car seats for our vehicles so now the big man is facing forward!  He was not thrilled with his new seat at first and was very irritated that he could not recline.  He kept trying to throw his body backwards and keeps on trying to push the buckle open. This picture is pre mom buying some nice pillows to rest his head on.

 Post mom finding nice little pillow friends for our ride home to Monroe.

This is from the way back from Monroe where Nate got angry at his new pillow friends and decided to sleep on his own.  He grunted for about 20 minutes while he proceeded to rip them off of the straps.  He's nothing if not persistent!

Nate did great on the drive again and on the way home it only took 5 hours.  I just stopped once to change him but he ate food and drank his bottle on his own!
Here's Nate at the house checking out his new car seat.

Nate and Grandpa Jimbo posing in their Dodger sweatshirts.  Jimbo got Nate his first Dodger gear for his birthday. I love this first picture of the two of them because it looks like they are living the straight thug life!

Montage of Nate not being interested whatsoever in taking a photo but instead trying to watch his favorite t.v. show Little Einsteins.

Well, we tried to get a smiling one :)
If you look past all the clutter in the house you can see a little man trying to break free out on to the deck.

Nate's walking on his own now so watch out world!  He started doing it when I went home last weekend.  My mom and I were out in the back room and he took about 5 steps on his own.  After that he's just started heading off on his own.  He still prefers to hold on to something but he's pretty willing to walk to someone now and can go about 10-15 steps!  I don't have any video of it yet but I'll try and catch him soon.

Our babysitter Maria tries to spike Nate's hair every day.  He's working on a very nice mullet in the back and Joe won't let me cut it yet because he of course wants it to keep growing!
Nate also has 8 teeth that have popped through at this point.  This past week he has been a monster and waking up in the middle of the night screaming.  Come to find out, there are two new top teeth and two more on the bottom....soooooo great that they all decided to come in together.  The drool doesn't stop flowing at this point :)
Have a good weekend!