Visit to Santa

For no real reason, I've wanted to bring Nathan to see Santa Claus.  He's not going to remember it, he doesn't even care to go see Santa, and he would most likely hate it.  But I visions of him sitting on Santa's lap, curiously looking up into Santa's twinkling eyes, and ever so sweetly asking for a "gar" (car) for Christmas.  I couldn't stop myself.

We visited Santa today and as I predicted, he cried through the whole experience.  He had one quite humorous sad faced picture that I almost paid for, but the ones I snapped will have to do.  Had it been as great as this gem, I would have.

18 at 18 Months

He's grown up a lot in the last 3 months!  Here's a few of the highlights.
- Loves watching the "gars" out of the window.
- He likes coloring, but loves playing with stickers.
- His 18 month stats are: 21 lbs 1 oz (12 percentile), 31.5 inches tall (26 percentile), and 18 inch head circumference (15 percentile.)

- I sometimes call him "My Little Linus" since he loves his little blue blankie so much.
- He's pushed off the TV backwards off of its stand and dented the wall.  Twice.
- He is still a finger sucker.
- He's liking talking to his grandmas and grandpas on FaceTime.  He will finally sit to smile and talk to them.

- One of his favorite places is in our reading/car watching nook.  He loves to lounge in his special spot and read.
- He's starting to climb on things he's not supposed to.  Like using the kitchen cart as a ladder.

- I finally have some pictures of Nathan's head not tilting!  I don't know that I've talked about this on the blog, but Nathan has tortacollis (a head tilt.) We've been going to physical therapy to correct it for 10 months!  It's been a long time!  We're so close to being done and having his head always being in the center and having these photos of his head straight is one of those light at the end of the tunnel moments for us.

- Still taking 1 nap, and it is still long.  At least 3 hours, usually 4.  I know I'm lucky.
- He loves to eat the same things we are eating at dinner.  He ate all the broccoli I gave him for dinner tonight.
- His least favorite time of day, I'm sad to say, is bath time.  He used to love it.  He slipped a few weeks ago while he was standing up and almost went under the water.  I was right there so he didn't go under, but it sure scared him.  Every time I give him a bath he cries through the whole experience.  Any suggestions on how to get him liking bath time again?

- He does a great job of cleaning up his toys.  In fact, I found him the other day unprompted "cleaning up" his toys right into the trash can!
- He loves to run, run, run!
- He's been sneaking into nursery for the past month, and yesterday he went all by himself.  He did great, except for (oddly enough) clean up time.
- When I lay him down in his crib he will roll over and wedge himself against the side rails and smile back up at me to give him his blanket.

- He has such an infectious little laugh.  He is always having a good time and loves to giggle away at how silly he is.  Seriously love his happy little personality.

Longwood Christmas 2013

I don't know how the gardeners at Longwood come up with something even more creative and even more beautiful to top the year before.  But they do and I'm always amazed! The theme this year was using fruit to decorate.  Some of my favorites this year were the pineapple tree toppers, the huge floating apple display, and the chandeliers made out of orchids. We invited some of friends to join us and I'm so glad they could come enjoy one of our favorite Christmas traditions with us.

These make me so excited to see to what they come up with for 

Orchid Festival in a couple of months!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Little Buddy wanted to help with decorating the Christmas tree.  He helped pull out the ornaments.

But then got distracted playing in the box. By this point it was Nathan's bedtime so we resumed the next day (and thus the change of clothes.)

Nathan was so soft putting the snowflakes on, but it's a good thing they are plastic because he would mostly hold them where he wanted them and then let go.

He loves hiding out behind the Christmas tree.  He'll crawl back there and softly play with tree or his snowflake ornaments.

I'd love for our Christmas tree to stay up all season long so here's to hoping he'll continue to play softly with the tree.

A Green Dinosaur

When Brad was a little boy he was green dinosaur for Halloween.

Well guess what?  When I was a little girl I was a green dinosaur for Halloween too.

Well I bet you know what Nathan was for Halloween then.  Yes, he was green dinosaur.  Nathan loved being a little dinosaur and would even roar with it on.

We went to our ward Halloween party and Nathan won the best animal costume award.  Brad and I also won the best couple costume award as the tooth fairy and her tooth.

Happy Halloween!

Carving a Pumpkin

Nathan was actually a great little helper and was fascinated by carving our pumpkins.  With no prompting from me he went ahead with pulling out guts and seeds.  He did this mostly to try what they would taste like, which turns outs he thought pretty tasty.

Pumpkinland

Seriously, we went to Pumpkinland.  There is an orchard by us that sets up fall festival every year.  Giant pumpkins, hayrides, and apple cider. Brad has a big Endo final coming up so I called up my friend Rachel (whose husband is studying for the same final) and we went together with our boys.  It was great.  We had visions of super cute pictures of the boys playing with the pumpkins.  Neither of the boys was feeling like smiling for the camera, but I think we both got a few keepers.  We came home with our pumpkins for Halloween and some fresh apple cider donuts.

Downtown Adventures

After being gone for so long during the summer we decided to meet up with some friends downtown.  The plan was to go to the Franklin Fountain and get some ice cream.  However, we ended up having some time to wait and went for a little walk downtown.  We ended up seeing Christ Church (#97,) the church of the founding fathers.  Benjamin Franklin attended services there, as well as George Washington and John Adams.

Sitting in the Presidential box, aka. George Washington's and John Adams's pew

This church is one of the oldest in our nation and yet it's really not that old.  One of the tour guides pointed out that while this church is over 300 years old, it still is no where near as old as buildings in Europe. Our tour guide explained it in another way.  He said that no one is really a natural born American.  What he went on to explain is that everyone in America came from someplace else including Native Americans.  Americans have not been here longer than about 9 or 10 generations.  We really are a new nation.

But as Americans, we still ended the outing with ice cream at the Franklin Fountain (#93.)

15 at 15

- Started walked at 13 months.  He loves his new freedom.
- Has eight teeth.  They have started to come in like crazy.  The weird thing is the only bottom teeth he has are 2 molars.  Good thing I know I good dentist.
- His 15 month stats are: 20 lbs 2 oz(14 percentile), 30.5 inches tall (30 percentile), and 18 inches head circumference (16 percentile.)
- Thinks it's so funny to go up the stairs by himself.  Probably because he knows it's naughty to go up them without mom.  He'll sneak over there and go up a step or two and look to see if I'm coming.  When I come get him he squeals with delight.
- Definitely a daddy's boy.

- He is such a messy eater.  He loves to wipe his dinner on his face, front, ears, high chair, basically any place he can smear it.
- He does this little shruggy shoulder thing that is funny to watch.
- Loves talking to babies.  I watch a little 4 month old boy a couple days a week and Nathan loves hanging out with Russell.  He gets this great big smile every time he sees him and is pretty good with him.

- He still loves bath time. If by chance I've left the bathroom door open he will toddle in there and try to get in the tub.
- He went to see the dentist for the first time.  No, it wasn't Brad.  Nathan did pretty good and he loves the toothbrush they gave him.
- He likes to play this game where mommy will chase him around and he'll find dad to save him.  He thinks it's so funny to be able to run away.

- Loves going to play the piano.  More specifically he loves pressing the buttons on the keyboard.  He will climb up and get the programmed songs going.  When we were in Minnesota, he was pretty disappointed when Grandma's piano didn't have buttons to push.
- He insists on only taking one nap, but it's a good 4+ hours long.
- Loves being outside.  He'll pat on our backdoor letting me know he's ready to go, which is like a 100 times a day.

- He think's he is pretty funny.  Well, we think he's pretty funny too.  He's always finding something to laugh about.

Zack Comes to Philly

Sometimes it is hard to describe how we know Zack.  Brad first met Zack when he was serving his mission in Denver, Colorado.  After they both got off their missions they both went to BYU and ended up having several courses together including Men's Chorus.  Well, Brad got to thinking, "You know who would be a great couple? Zack and Karen (Brad's cousin.)  They would be perfect together. But if I set them up then it would never turn out."  Well, little did Brad know that Zack and Karen had already gone on their first date.  Now, they are married and expecting their first baby.  So Zack is our friend slash mission buddy slash cousin.

Anyways, we were so excited when Zack let us know he was coming on a business trip to Philly and wanted to play tourist.  We showed him around the usual spots, Independence Mall, Reading Market, Art Museum, and Valley Forge.  We love it when people come and we can show them around.  And it was great catching up with Zack and looking back at mission photos.  Thanks for coming Zack!