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.