How Big is Nate?

Nate follows multi-step instructions very well. I really don't remember Wes following instructions so well at 18 months old. Nate very much wants to be a big boy and I think I give him more opportunities to try, out of necessity. I don't think I gave Wes a chance because I thought he couldn't because he was "just a baby". Just this morning Nate, came to the kitchen for breakfast when called, fed the dogs, wiped milk off the table and put the rag in the laundry room, put his cup in the sink and his clothes in his hamper, then got in the car when I told him it was time to go to Cee Cee's. Such a big boy!

Night Night Nate

Nate is such a good boy, a good boy who loves to sleep and has since the day he entered this world. I worried about him a little at the beginning because he slept so much, I just didn't know that it was just his personality. He started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks (about 8 hours) and by 12 weeks he was sleeping 12 hours at night after being laid down wide awake to sleep without any real "bedtime routine" to speak of. I've always been able to just lay him in his crib wide awake at nap time too. He also rarely asks to get out of his crib. There's no yelling "Mama...Dada" or the screaming that Wes did for awhile. Eventually, you hear him singing and playing in there and know he's awake, or sometimes we just have to go get him because he's been in there so long.

Still, he even surprised me tonight. I read him a couple stories in the living room, told him it was time for bed and to go give Daddy and Wes a kiss. He started to toddle down the hall armed with jammies, nuk and monkey and I couldn't help but just watch and see what he would do. He toddled into our bedroom to give Daddy a kiss. Then he toddled into Wes's room, where I thought he would surely abandon the bed plan and start playing, but to my surprise he went straight up to Wes and gave him a kiss. Then he toddled across the hall, into his room, up to his crib and looked at me like, "are you going to put me in there or what?". If he would have been tall enough I'm sure he would have turned out the light and climbed in on his own. What a cute, funny kid! I can only hope the new baby likes to sleep half as much as he does.

Sympathy Pains

So, Wes is trying to relate to my pregnancy. He says he is pregnant too...with puppies. Nippett and Shake's puppies. I think it started out with 5 puppies, but now he is carrying 10 puppies! Guess when they are due? The same day as the baby, 10/10/10. He'll arch his back and say, "look Mommy, isn't my tummy getting SO much bigger because of my puppies". Then he'll have me put my ear to his tummy to hear the puppies and he'll make a quiet barking sound. I told him that I'm concerned about having to take care of a new baby AND 10 puppies all at the same time. He said, "it's ok, we just have to get a little bed for them and Nippett and Shake will take care of them". Whew, that takes a load off of my mind. I wonder what Nippett and Shake think about that.

Cravings

I've had a few strange cravings this pregnancy. At the very beginning all I wanted was sour candy and fruity slush drinks. That soon passed and was replaced by a deep need for potato chips with onion dip and sweet potato fries with honey mustard dipping sauce. One night we were headed to a BBQ restaurant we had been to several times before and I couldn't wait to eat the sweet potato fries. We got to the restaurant and it had gone out of business. I was devastated. I never did get my sweet potato fries that night, so I made sure to pick some up at the grocery store, so I would never have to go without again.

I also have been craving root beer floats and regular Coke or Pepsi (which I never usually drink). So, I got some caffeine free Coke to have for dessert sometimes and when the occasion presents itself I will get a fountain drink with mostly caffeine free Diet Coke and a splash of Coke on the top. One of the places I can get this is at Harkins when we see a movie, and let me tell you, Chris LOVES ordering this for me.

The only other craving I can really think of is ice cream, but I think that is more of a life craving and not just a pregnancy craving. Though, it certainly becomes more intense with pregnancy.

Wes's Growth Chart

6/28/10 - 42lb - 42 1/4 inches (4 years)

4/23/09 - 36lb - 39 1/2 inches (3 years)

4/3/08 - 29lb - 35 inches (2 years)

10/4/07 - 25lb 8oz - 34 inches (18 months)

7/5/07 - 23lb 1oz - 33 inches (15 months)

4/5/07 - 22lb - 31 inches (1 year)

1/4/07 - 19lb 4oz - 30 inches (9 months)

10/26/06 - 17lb 15oz - 29 inches (6 months)

8/17/06 - 16lb 8oz - 27 1/2 inches (4 months)

5/31/06 - 12lb 10oz - 25 inches (2 months)

4/2/06 - 8 lb 14oz - 21 1/2 inches (birth)

Nate's Growth Chart

6/28/10 - 29lb - 35 3/4 inches (18 months)

3/22/10 - 25lb 4oz - 34 1/2 inches (15 months)

12/21/09 - 21lb 14oz - 33 inches (1 year)

9/21/09 - 20lb 6oz - 32 inches (9 months)

6/18/09 - 18lb 4oz - 28 1/2 inches (6 months)

4/23/09 - 17lb - 27 1/2 inches (4 months)

2/18/09 - 12lb 8oz - 25 inches (2 months)

1/5/09 - 7lb 14oz (2nd weight check)

12/22/08 - 6lb 12oz - 21 inches (1st weight check)

12/18/08 - 7lb 5oz - 21 inches (birth)

How Many Stuffed Animals Does One Boy Need?

Nate loves stuffed animals (softies). He has a few favorites (monkey, softy bear in a sweater, and owl) but he loves all stuffed animals. He literally sleeps on a pile of them every night. When I lay him down to sleep, I clear a little Nate sized path to lay him in and off to sleep he goes. Such a sweet boy!

Goodbye Old Car

We had found and purchased our brand new minivan to accommodate 3 kids and 3 car seats, so it was time to say goodbye to my good old Nissan. It was a great car, in great shape that had really low mileage, so I thought I could get much more selling it privately than trading it in.

I got it all cleaned up and posted it on Craigslist on Monday afternoon. Within an hour, I got 1 email and 3 phone calls about it. One of the ladies was able to come see it that evening, said she wanted it right away, and gave us a deposit. Unfortunately, the next morning we found out that her financing fell through. I called one of the other gentleman to let him know that the car was available again and he drove out to see it Tuesday evening. We were able to go to a title and registration place close to the house and the car was SOLD...for cash! A little over 24 hours after posting it on Craigslist we sold my car for $3200 more than the dealer wanted to give us as trade in. I call that a success!

Father's Day/Birthday Fun

To celebrate Daddy's birthday and Father's Day, we headed over to Papa and Lou Lou's for some swimming, food and fun. The Petroff family and Grandma and Linde joined in the fun too.

Daddy, swimming with his boys in the pool.

After they were all dried off, it was time for some fun with bubbles that Lizzy had brought.

After dinner, we dug in to the homemade Hostess cupcakes that I made especially for Daddy.

Happy Birthday and Father's Day Daddy! We love you so much!

Mighty Mud Mania

I've wanted to go to Might Mud Mania since I was a kid, but it never worked out for some reason. This year was the first year ever that they held it on a Saturday, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go since Daddy could come with us.

The first thing both boys did was a mini mud obstacle course. Wes whizzed through like a pro while I helped Nate along. Nate kept looking at me like I was crazy for leading him through the mud. I think he was thinking, doesn't Mommy always make sure I'm clean, what is with the dirt? Both boys got a ribbon for finishing the course.

Nate chilled in the stroller while Wes zipped down the water and soap slide a couple times. He loved it!

Then it was off to the mud pit, where we danced and splashed and poured mud on each other.

Look at Nate's wrinkly feet from being in wet, muddy shoes for a couple hours! Now that we were all good and muddy, we let the firefighters wash us off a little and dried off to head to lunch with the Conway family who had joined us in our fun.

Happy Birthday Daddy and Jaime

To celebrate Daddy and Aunt Jaime's birthdays, we headed over to our favorite, Grimaldi's pizzeria, for some yummy pizza. You can kind of see the end of Nate's shiner in this picture of the sweet boy with his Grandma. He slipped in the bathtub while Daddy was trying to bathe two wet monkeys all by himself, so he got to look like a tough guy for a couple weeks.

Daddy and his boys.

I love my sister in law.

After pizza, we went across the street to the Sugar Bowl for some ice cream. It's an old Scottsdale institution that sort of smells funny now, but no one can argue about the ice cream. Wes will take the smell as long as he can get some chocolate ice cream.

Summer Cousin Play Dates

I've been trying to keep the boys, especially Wes, busy this summer so that he doesn't rot in front of the TV. We've been lucky to have lots of fun play dates with Liz, Jack and Lucy. We've been to the splash pad, Children's museum, Busy Bodies play gym and Pump It Up. Here, the boys are anxiously awaiting bouncing their hearts out at Pump It Up. I'm not sure how I actually got them to sit for a split second for this picture, but those are some pretty cute boys!

Here Comes The Sun

Wes drew this picture of a sun today, then said he wanted to write the music to "Here Comes the Sun", so I showed him what a music note looks like. A future composer?

23 Week Belly

Two Movie Day

My boys love going to the movies. Probably because we've been taking them since they were infants. We have been going to the Harkins summer kid's movie program every Friday morning with Grandma and the boys love it. As soon as we pull up to the theater, Nate squeals in delight and claps his hands. He is such a big boy and wants to sit on a booster seat in his own seat (until he gets tired and wants to snuggle with Mommy) and drink out of a real cup with a straw (even though he usually gets water everywhere). Today we got to go to two movies. We saw our summer kid movie in the morning and Toy Story 3 at night with Daddy and Linde too. Wes had to dress up in his Woody costume, so we put Nate in his Buzz PJs because he has long outgrown his Buzz costume. We were pretty lucky to see Toy Story 3 with a real life Woody and Buzz!

Mommy's Trip to Houston

We had a free plane ticket that was going to expire soon, so I thought it would be fun to visit my friend Stephanie in Houston. It was the first time I had traveled away from Chris and the boys by myself. It was relaxing but also a little disturbingly quiet and I missed my guys a whole bunch. I had a great time visiting with Steph and Charles, just hanging out and seeing what life is like for them in Houston.

One of the days, we headed down to Galveston because I wanted to see the beach. Man, was it hot and humid. It was strange for me to be standing on the beach and not have cool ocean air washing over me, as I'm so familiar with in California beaches. We had fun walking along the beach though and stopping for ice cream.

Here, Charles is buying an ice cream bar from an ice cream man. One of the first days I was there, we were leaving the house and we heard a bell ringing. Charles decided he wanted an ice cream bar. He started driving down the street to find the ringing bell. I pictured an ice cream truck, so when we came upon this guy with a cart on a bike it struck me really funny. I had not seen one of these guys before and it was not at all what I expected. Charles couldn't believe I had not seen one of these guys in Phoenix, but that's not the kind of ice cream man we get in the suburbs.

The main thing I learned on my trip is that Houston is HUMID. I had never really appreciated the "dry heat" before, but coming home to 100+ degree temps didn't seem so bad. I tried to take this picture of Steph's cute house and it was so humid that my lens kept fogging up. The picture ends up looking like we were walking in a dense fog, when in reality it was a completely clear day, just really humid. I had a great time visiting with Steph and Charles though, and I can't thank them enough for their hospitality.