He's Two! Can you believe it?

So our son turned two last week. I thought you would like to see some pictures.

Hospital pictures... not taken by Charlie I might add. We didn't have our cool camera at this time.

Look at those lips....

His dark hair... That 's the first thing I asked about him... does he have the red headed curse? Nope not this one.

He still likes to sleep like this!

Now the one year old.

Yes he was walking/running. Yes he has a mouth full of teeth!!! And yes we start them early around here liking Thomas the Train.

And now the cute Two year old.
Please notice he has hair in this picture and still a mouth full of teeth! Dad asked him to show him a smile and this is what he got.

He's BAAAA-AAAACK

Please notice my son's face....

He is happy, slightly mischievous,

All around good looking guy if I do say so my self.

Now please look at my son's face after experimenting with Magic Bubbles. You know those colored bubbles that are "washable". He got them for his birthday from one of his good buddies. Oh he loved them.... He wanted to blow them so bad, so of course I let him try. I gave him a wand with the bubbles on it and went in to start cleaning myself off and I come back out and my son looks like

the Joker off Batman. Well that's how my husband described it...

I just thought the out come was hilarious!

Please ignore that my son has no pants on. Luckily the shirt is long enough to cover everything.

First Birthday....

So since I didn't start blogging until just recently, you probably haven't seen any pictures of little dude's first birthday.

Here's the cake:

Yes it's a block, with his name on it, one letter on each side. My sister-in-law made it. Didn't she do an amazing job?!!!

And since one year olds don't know how to blow out candles...
here's the mommy coming in to help.

Please notice the face of my son... he is not quite sure what in the world this thing is infront of him. And it took us a few tries, getting him to taste it, and then putting his hands in it before we got this:

Do you see the love on this child's face? It's like he's saying "oh thank you so much for introducing me to this lovely tasting thing. It has changed my life." He's a boy after his momma's heart.

Yes we even got:

There are lots of pictures of my kid feeding his face, but I'll spare you the drama and show you the end result:

It was all over by the way!!! On him, the chair, the table, the floor, the wall behind him... on momma...

Even after we took it away...

Yes it was priceless. None of it posed... or planned, just pure joy of eating cake...

Let's just say we promptly gave him a bath after words...

Here's what's been going on at our house lately...

So my son is big on trains lately... before he got his trains he would line his cars up like trains and scoot them everywhere. But now we have more than one train with little magnetic links and so he lines them up and they go everywhere!!!

So I've been cleaning out things, getting ready for baby number two to grace us with her presence, and my son of course is following me everywhere I go, "helping"... he's a really good "helper" generally. I was cleaning out Nathan's shelves for extra bin storage, and he found a little metal hook that you use for picture frames (and who know what else you may want to hang on the wall) in something or other and took it too his trains and started playing with it... because you know that trains hook together, right? I don't know how he figured this out because I walked in on the middle of this (because he was being oh so quiet... you know what that means...). He had figured out that the magnet would pick up the hook on one side then he would slide the next train right behind and the magnet of the second train would pick up the other side of the hook and the trains were hooked together and he could pull them all over. Once I saw this I added paper clips to his play and we ended up with:

The two "hooks" together didn't work as well, but he could "hook" all three of his trains and the tender together and it became a super long train.... Lets just say he was in heaven.

He played like this all day long!!! I'm not even joking! And that's a long time for a two year old to be interested in something!

Nice eye hand coordination, fine motor skills being developed here! (there's the teacher in me talking)

He's got the hook in the front of the train and is pulling the train using the hook.

Isn't he so cute????

I took these pictures by the way... once in a while even I get good shots.

A year ago August...

So I was looking for some good pictures from a year ago and found some cute ones. I can't believe how much he has changed in a year.

It's like he's saying 'Please?' I assume this was just after bath since he has no shirt on and he's in our bedroom. Isn't he cute?

A year ago in August we were in Nauvoo, IL at my brother's wedding. Here's a cute family photo that was taken there. We have ton's of photos from our mini vacation/wedding, but I'll spare you those and just say we had lots of fun.

This picture reminds me of when Nathan wanted to say hi to someone before he learned to wave, he used to open his mouth wide and look right at them. I think it came from when people see a baby what is the first thing they do? They open their mouths wide to see if they can get the baby to smile. Nathan noticed and so started doing it right back. So next time you see a baby you should take note of what your face is doing. They may end up doing it right back at you. So funny...

We were also enjoying watermelon....

in more ways than one...

And finally....

Yep he was walking if not running everywhere. My not yet one year old was very mobile!!! In fact I think he started walking towards the end of July and hasn't stopped since!!! I blame it on the HUGE feet he has! They are great for balance.

Now just for contrast I thought I would add these....

Throwing rocks into the pond by our house. Please notice how much more hair he has now!!!

And finally...

My handsome little man.... this was taken right after waking from his nap by the way.

A year ago August.

Random shots

So my hubby pulled out his camera again recently and started shooting random photos of us. I'll spare you the pictures he took of my Barbie feet and buildings (You can see some of his pictures here if you are interested) and since this is a family blog show you pictures of our most handsome member, our son:

Aunt Beeka got married this summer so here's Nathan at his finest!!!!

And another:

I had to do some errands one morning and this is how I found my son when I got back. Shirtless and happy. I guess that's all that really matters, right?

Looking in the mirror.

You know the bed time routine is really hard to get through when daddy is taking pictures!!! It's true but they turned out really cute. Nathan was washing his toothbrush out after taking his bath. Trying to turn the water on and off... hence the tongue of concentration hanging out.

More tongue... He's been into building with blocks, trucks, and of course...

TRAINS!!!!!! Oh my goodness!!!! So this was actually supposed to be for his second birthday coming up soon. I had hidden the train set in his closet under the stuff we had piled in there. He never goes into his closet unless I go into his closet, and when ever I did get into his closet there was so much stuff there he never saw it. However, with baby number 2 on her way I pulled everything out and am trying to organize and get rid of some of it and I left the set on the shelf where I had stashed it and of course he followed me in there, saw it, and pulled it out. Now it's all he wants to play with. I knew he would love it!!! I gave him enough of the track to make a circle and the black engine and put the rest away. He's in heaven... and happy with the bit I let him have. We'll get the rest out on his birthday.

Fourth of July

So this is the first year Nathan has ever seen fireworks up close and personal, so we were really interested in seeing how he reacted. (last year they were rained out and they had them on Veteran's Day in November instead... so we saw them from afar, which isn't quite the same.)

So we had dinner with some friends and then went to the park to wait until it was dark enough for the fireworks to start.

One of the few pictures of my husband and myself. Thanks Laura for insisting on taking one. It really doesn't happen very often.

Lydia practiced several times what she was going to do when the fireworks started. She didn't like them very well.

Now Nathan..... who I thought would be scared, who I thought would cry, who I thought would be clinging to me the whole entire time... Here's is his reaction...

We lasted for about ten minutes (at the most) and then he was done, ready to get off my lap, play, and roam around the park. I at least figured he would be awed and enjoy it... but no.

Christmas will be at our house this year...

and Thanksgiving for that matter because we won't be leaving the house. I know that sounds slightly rude, but I have a good excuse....

I know you can barely tell in these pictures, but we're expecting baby number two!!!! I hide it really well!!!! And this picture was taken at 16 weeks so now that I'm almost in the third trimester, you can tell a little bit more. Not much, but a little bit. All is going well! We are so excited!

Nathan even has a baby in his stomach too. I think once he told me it was a puppy, so we'll see how that one goes when the time comes!!!

May's hike to the river.

So I haven't blogged since summer started, so we need to do a little catching up.

So in May when the temperatures were still bearable we went on a hike to a stream that isn't too far from our house. And of course Charlie took the camera and so here are some of the pictures he took on our little outing.

So the whole path is sand, sand, and more sand. And so you know Nathan had a blast picking things up, looking for bugs, and hearing the animals that were along the path.

Don't ask me what's he's pointing too, I just thought it was a cute picture and is totally Nathan.

Running on ahead.

Found a stick. Can't go hiking without a stick!!!

I think we here hit several times by that stick, on accident of course, but still, it was a little too long for him, but he loved hitting the grasses along the trail with it and tormenting poor bugs with it.

My boys. Of course I took this picture. Aren't they cute!!

Please excuse the HUGE booger coming out of my son's nose. Of course I didn't notice it until after the photo was taken.

Running in the sand... His shoes are covered with wet sand so obviously he's already put his feet in the water and wet sand. Like I said he's loving it!!!!

Time to go...