Morris Arboretum

Brad was studying on Saturday, so Nathan and I left to give Brad some quiet time.  We headed up to the Morris Arboretum for the morning.  The funny thing about the Morris Arboretum is that you get the feeling of being out in the PA countryside, but you are still in Philadelphia.  Crazy.  It made for a nice, relaxing morning together.

Grandma Comes to Visit

My mom came to visit us last week and we had a lot of fun while she was here.  The weather wasn't too great most of the days, but when it was we went out and had fun together.  We went to the zoo one afternoon which we all loved.  The big cats were very active and roaring while we were there.  The zoo has these really cool walkways for the tigers to walk around in so you could literally walk underneath the tigers while going through the zoo.  The monkeys were doing quite the acrobatic swings while we were there.  There were quite a few mommy monkeys with their babies hanging on to them and they would go swinging along with everyone else.

We also took Nathan to the Smith Playground.   The big draw was a giant carnival slide that you ride down on gunny sacks, but it was really wet and humid that day so it wasn't working.  We'll have to go back to give it another try.  Nathan loved the playground though.  He thought he was so cool driving the firetruck.  This was also the first time that he's liked the swings.  Usually he doesn't like them at all.  He was laughing and kicking his legs with excitement.  And of course, he went down the slide a bazillion times.

We loved having my mom come visit.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with grandma at home and Nathan loved playing with her.  We can't wait till she comes to visit again!

2 Years Old

- Loves the color yellow.
- His favorite part of the day is going outside.  He will come up to me several times a day asking to put on his shoes so we can go outside.
- We bought Nathan his own little table and chairs and he loves having it being his own size.  He will go over to it to eat, play with toys, or color.

- He is very attached to his blankie.
- His 2 year old stats are: 21 lbs 13 oz (1 percentile), 32.5 inches (9 percentile), and 18.5 inch head circumference (12 percentile.)  Nathan's weight actually dropped a little bit so he's going on pediasure to bring it back up.  He's usually a good eater, but he's really active to balance it out.
- Finally got the last 2 missing teeth.

- He is his father's son.  Nathan will park one of his chairs in front of the air conditioner to cool off.
- He is still very much in love with turtles.
- He can now sit facing forward in the car and he has a whole new perspective on the world.  He doesn't like to play with toys as much while we're driving now, but prefers to look outside.

- We've had Chinese food a couple times lately and for some reason Nathan has been very excited about fortune cookies.  He has gone right for them and asked for them to be opened up so he can eat them first.
- He is very polite.  If you hand him anything he will say thank you.
- He has a lot of fun lately playing stop and go games.

- I made him a sensory bin with a lot of rice and some little toys.  He's loved playing with it.
- He loves to send kisses to people as they are leaving.  I especially love the ones right before bed.
- He likes playing with play dough.  He particularly loves using my cookie cutters to push into the play dough.

- He's getting pretty good at coloring.  He'll do more than a few strokes now and loves to finish his masterpieces with stickers.
- Back in a phase of loving bath time.
- He has a lot of fun playing in forts we build together.

- This kid is all boy.  He loves cars and trains.
- He usually stays pretty close when we go to the playground for playgroup, but he's starting to go play by himself on the playset.  His favorite part is the slide.  He will go and go and go on the slide forever.
- He likes to go on walks in his stroller.

- He likes to call "Papa" (grandpa) on FaceTime, and if that's not available he'll call him on the A/C remote.
- I downloaded some Raffi for him to listen to and he's been loving it.  When I first played it at home Brad came in to sing it to Nathan since he remembers the songs from his childhood.
- Says "hi" in the cutest, high-pitched voice.  I love it.

Balloon Fun

We decided to keep up tradition and fill Nathan's crib up with balloons for his birthday.  He LOVED it!  He was going crazy playing with them.  He found he could bounce on them which he found hilarious. Luckily none of them popped or else we might have scared him from ever wanted anything to do with a balloon again.  I guess that means we're okay to bring them back next year.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Nathan had a great day start to finish.  When he got up, there was a surprise for him in the living room: a new slide.  Nathan loves slides and so I thought it would be great if he had his own.  It was the best gift of the day.  He didn't stop playing with it all day long.

Right before Nathan's nap, I let him open another present.  I grabbed the camera and as soon as I lifted it up to take the picture, Nathan gave me the biggest cheese.  What a ham!

While Nathan was down for his nap, I went to work on his party.  Have I ever mentioned that Nathan's favorite color is yellow?  He shows a definite preference for all things yellow.  A yellow birthday party was in order for my sunshine.

We had a few friends over to celebrate.  We sang happy birthday and Nathan gave everyone a round of applause afterwards.  Nathan did NOT like the frosting.  But once I wiped it off he was very happy to eat his cake.

No, no, no frosting Mom!

Then it was time for presents.  Nathan got a bunch of books, a car ramp, and an animals puzzle for his birthday.  All were great hits with him.

What a wonderful year it's been with this bug.  He's such a happy little guy.  He thinks he is the funniest thing in the world.  I love his fun little personality.  We're sure lucky to have this little guy!

Pulling a Packer

There is something you should know about Packers.  We are not planners.  We are go-with-the-flow, we'll-see-how-things-work-out, just-go-with-it kinda people.  In fact, we often don't make plans and then have everything work out better than if we had.

We pulled a Packer a few weeks back.  With 24 hrs notice, we had bought tickets and we're heading to the airport to go to Minnesota to see Brad's parents.  Not as awe-inspiring as Greg & Lauren's 1 hour to the airport escapade, but we were impressed.

There was this awesome little mini playground right by our gate for Nathan to play at

We just spent the whole time with Doug and Janet, which was perfect.  Nathan loved to play with his Grandma and Papa.  Nathan also got to meet a nice doggie while we were there and Nathan was unfazed by the dog licking him or taking away his ball. We were there for just 3 days, but there is nothing like being home for awhile.

And too soon it was time to go back to Philly.  Nathan did great on both flights.  On the way home we had the comfort seats with extra room so Nathan laid down and took a little nap on the floor.  Nathan also tried out headphones for the first time and was so cute holding the earbuds up to his ears.

On another note, this will be our last trip with Nathan flying free since we will have a 2 year old by the end of the week!  Unless we plan to go on vacation tomorrow.  You never know with us Packers.