Mr. Paint Pig!

Nana gave us some of her old classroom books on one of our trips home last year, including Richard Scarry's Color Book, featuring Mr. Paint Pig. Nate is getting much more interested in reading and the minute he lays his eyes on this book he grabs it and quickly sits in my lap to read. I think I almost have it memorized and saying "Mr. Paint Pig" over and over is quite the tongue twister! This afternoon I asked Nate to point to Mr. Paint Pig, which he was able to do on several pages...I was pretty impressed! Other favorites right now are Blue Hat, Green Hat and Dear Zoo (now that he has figured out the flaps.)

Learning from Daddy

Nate has been taking good notes while Joel has been refinishing our deck!

Road Trip!

A few weekends ago Nate and I took a road trip to Charleston, SC to visit my grandparents. I was again worried about traveling 6 hours each way with Nate by myself, but he was still a trooper (Praise The Lord!) and took about a 2 hour nap each time and happily watched his dvds for the rest of the trip. We were also glad that Aunt Megan was able to meet us there to have some fun before taking her last exams!

Swinging with Grandpa

Riding cars at the mall

Walking at Charles Towne Landing

Having fun with the rails at Grandmother's

What It's Like to Be One

I just got my May issue of American Baby magazine and there was a cute article on What It's Like to Be One--they posed these questions to the parents of 8 different 1 year olds. It was a good lesson on how each child is different and I thought it would be fun to complete for Nate!

One word to describe him: gregarious (Joel's word)
Tell us more: happy-go-lucky, runs full speed ahead
How many teeth: 2 (but his top 2 are ALMOST through!)
Drinks from cup: yes
Walking yet: yes, running would be more like it
First words: definitely has mama mastered, other favorite syllables with no meaning are bah, da and lots of other babbling
Favorite thing in the world: being held while we're standing
Favorite food: bananas
Favorite book: That's Not My Reindeer
Favorite song: If You're Happy and You Know It
Favorite game: Hide & Seek
First reaction to new people: curious look & then big smile
It drives me crazy when: he throws his cup down
Cutest thing he does: Laughs a lot!

What Nate is doing!

*2nd go at this....darn Windows 7 for making our computer freeze**

So, I'm going to abandon the "monthly" Nate posts and just post with things that are fun, new and interesting. I'm trying to focus on getting photos and videos updated in a timely manner to SmugMug for the families and then I don't seem to have too much time to blog after that.

We are enjoying the Spring weather and will especially happy when our neighborhood pool opens the weekend before Memorial Day. Nate still likes his water table...but we have to keep it really clean because he enjoys drinking big cups of water from it. Not fun.

I am praying that Nate's top teeth will come in soon....at 13 months he still only has 2 teeth. This makes it hard for him to eat some foods. I also like to blame every rough day or bad mood on teething, but that obviously hasn't been true yet.

Nate is a rough and tumble kid- he plays hard and usually isn't too upset when he falls or bumps himself.

He loves to push and pull things, climb under and now on top (yikes) of things.

He's a real attention hog and if you smile at him nicely he'll likely want you to hold him or give you a hug.

I'm sure I'll think of more things later....for now just check out all our new pictures and videos :-)

12 months!

First off, I just realized we haven't taken a bear picture....bad parents! Here's a quick rundown of what Nate's up to.

Weight: 23.5 lb (75%) still hanging around this weight now that he's movin and shakin
Height: 30 in (75%)
Clothes: 18 month tops/12-18 month bottoms...this guy has a long torso so most of his 12 mo tops left his belly hangin out

Food: Food is crazy right now because at Nate's 12 mo checkup Dr. Pearlstein said that there is no reason for him to eat babyfood anymore. He was definitely paying attention, because he would not eat a single bite of babyfood after that. So we are working on finding out what he likes. He definitely LOVES these veggie straws...I think he would eat them all day long

He also likes bananas and vanilla wafers (I know Nana will love to make him her famous Banana Pudding next weekend!)

Schedule: He is definitely down to one nap now, 3 hours (you could almost set your watch to it) from around 11:30-2:30. He goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps 12 hours.

Toys: Still loving our toys best- the remote, cell phone and keys. Also loves his VTech Piano and also new helicopter he got for his birthday.

Exploring: He now loves to go UNDER everything- tables, his crib, etc. and also love pushing things...the kitchen chairs are constantly being moved around.

Welcome to Babyland!

I don't know why I thought of this quote today....but "babyland" is constantly surrounding us! Moving into the new house we were thinking that Nate would love his playroom, but he really loves exploring in our common living area. I cleaned up all of his toys yesterday, but by this morning the living room/kitchen looked like this:

In this photo you see a nice scattering of toys, pillows and magazines strewn on the floor. A baby gate blocking the front room, a cardboard box covering the fireplace that Nate is obsessed with and yes, party decorations on the mantle...because we are celebrating birthday month--definitely has nothing to do with me being too busy to take them down......

And here Nate's 2 cabinets open with a few pieces removed for playing.


Nate's really taken over most of the house...and he needs a change of scenery about every 45 minutes, so we rotate playroom, living room and his room. And that is why we rarely stay at home for an entire day!