A small house project

We haven't done many projects in our "new" house, just painting Cole's room.  I have 2 projects brewing right now, but when I realized we could tackle this one Joel knocked it out really quickly!

We have a small area between our front entry and our living room where the door to the basement is.  We thought it would be fun to paint the wall opposite the basement door with magnetic and chalkboard paint so Nate could have a little play area!

It came out great!  Nate loves to "stick" the letters and numbers on the wall.  We haven't pulled out the chalk for him just yet (mostly because I haven't had the time to sit with him to do it), but we hope this little wall will lead to hours of entertainment!

Nate Says

I've sooooo been looking forward to start these posts, ever since Sharla started "Jacksonisms."  Nate's finally getting chatty enough for me to make a post!


Basics:
He's working on colors, shapes, letters and numbers.  I'd say letters are his favorite and he enjoys "reading" them in various places.  He has really learned them from the Melissa & Doug puzzle we got him for his birthday--highly recommend it!

He knows almost all of the letters and knows that "N" is for Nate (he will finallllllllly say his name!) Another funny is that he won't say "M," but rather says "monkeys." Ha


For numbers, he can count to 13!  Sometimes he likes to skip 7&8.


Working on sentences:
Though his first "real" sentence was "[Where] are you"/"There you are" I really wish I could claim it was this newest one: "Daddy at work."  Lately he's very concerned about where people are- including when Joel's not home/with us.  It started when we drove separate to church and I said Daddy was in his car.  Then during the week he would say "Daddy car" and I'd reply, "Yes, Daddy's in his car.  He's at work"  To which "Daddy at work" came to be.  It has now been extended to "Daddy not home. Daddy at work."

Baby stuff:
He's doing great not being too jealous of Cole, but something funny that he does do is ask for a "turn" in the exersaucer.  It took me a while to catch on to what he was saying since we don't have to deal to much with taking turns at home.  He's very sweet about it and isn't pushy trying to kick Cole out or anything....yet.

If he wants to you pick him up he'll say "Carry you" and something about that makes me want to melt :-)

We're working on getting him off of the pacifier (he calls it "see") and only has it at naptime/nighttime.  We started having him put it in a bucket after he got up and that routine is going great.  He's teething the first of his eye teeth and it's been rough, so we probably won't out the paci completely until after that is done!

Other words:

One of his funniest pronunciations is for milk, he calls it "musha." 

He's picking up words quickly now if he wants to.  Before Nana & Papa came last week I pulled up pictures of them on the computer and we "practiced."  Of course they were both so excited to be greeted with their names!

And I'll leave you with this video--Nate's discovery of a certain item (Joel loves this!)

Happy (Early) Birthday to Me.

My birthday is this Friday--reminder for any of you who forgot to get me something....j/k

I'm gifting myself my own little piece of the internet in the form of another blog.  One that's just for me to talk about shopping and cooking and decorating and all those other things I enjoy aside from being a mom to my two awesome little boys :-)

If you would like to give it a try send me an email (amylpenny@gmail.com) and I will send you the link :-)

Brothers

Joel's Birthday!

Catching up here....March and April have been busy months and May won't be any different!


Soon after Nate's birthday was Joel's 30th Birthday!

He chose a Big Steel Keg for his birthday gift- it's a fancy grill/smoker.  He has cooked us many awesome meals on it already...burgers, ribs, pulled pork barbecue, pork tenderloin, whole chicken, pizza and steaks!  Besides the delicious food, I'm enjoying a break from most of the cooking :-)

He also requested strawberry shortcake for his birthday dessert.

We made a quick trip to North Carolina to meet up with friends to celebrate his birthday.  We were able to have an overnight trip to Chapel Hill without the kids!

Nate is 2!

It's so hard to believe that Nate is 2!  We started the celebrations by taking these cookies to church Wednesday night to celebrate before his birthday on Thursday.

I also took cookies to school for him to share with his classmates on his actual birthday.

That night we had our family celebration at home.  He opened presents and had balloons and a cupcake!

Instead of a party this year, we opted to take Nate on a special outing just the three of us.  We decided the zoo was a good pick!  We were hoping for nice weather, but ended up with a rather cool morning.  It was really nice though after we had lunch and visited the petting area and rode the carousel and train.

Nate had his 2 year check up the Monday after his birthday.  He weighs in at 28 lb 11.5 oz (50-75%) and is 36.5 inches tall (90-95%).  There is a wives' tale that says if you double your height at age 2 that you will get your adult height...that would have Nate measuring 6' 1"

He is still enjoying coloring and playing with his animals and puzzles.  His language is definitely taking off and he really tries to mimic words now. New words/phrases:
Sorry
Okay (instead of yeah/yes he now says okay....all the time!)
Yellow (sometimes used correctly)
Where are you/there you are--a new game we play, usually when looking for his dog before naptime.  He'll say "are you?" while looking for him and then "there you are" when he finds him.
Lots more....can't wait to do posts on funny things he'll come up with when he really gets talking!

Cole's Birth Announcement

It scanned really grainy, but I love it.  I used a new site mixbook.com because I had purchased a Groupon a while back (LOVE Groupon!)  We used one of his newborn photos taken by Lauren Liese.  You can see all of the photos here!