Summer fun

Where is my summer going?!?! It is hard to believe that July starts tomorrow! The past few weeks have been nothing short of crazy. Nate had swim lessons about two weeks ago. This was the parent-child class and even though Nate loves the water he does not like being told what to do in the water. We worked on kicking, blowing bubbles, moving arms, jumping, floating, and picking up rings. Well, Nate pretty much wanted no part of any of it. He loves to blow bubbles, but not on demand. He enjoyed getting the rings, but only when he didn't have to get his face close to the water. Finally, on the last day, Nate decided that he liked jumping into the water and wanted to do it over and over. Hopefully we'll be able to practice some of these skills the rest of the summer.   I was on my way to swim lessons one morning when I received a text from Andrea. Matt got resident of the year! A huge congratulations to him!

We did a little shopping at Whole Foods after swim lessons one day. 

Nate loved having his own shopping cart and was very good at running it in to people and things. 

We played hard at the park after swimming one day.

Matt's mom (aka Nanny) came for a visit about a week ago. The hospital's new year starts in July and because of this June and July are typically very crazy for Matt's schedule. He was off a few days over the course of the week and we decided to take a quick trip to Orlando. Matt was sleeping off his night shift on Sunday, but he got up Sunday afternoon and we made the trek to Orlando. I wanted to take Nate to a character breakfast, but procrastination doesn't pay off for that! Everything was booked so we'll have to plan that outing for another time. Instead, we went to City Walk Sunday night and ate at Margaritaville. We then went back to the hotel where the napless Nate played in the pool. He was still going strong around 9pm, and we finally had to call it a night. 

Nate decided to sleep in on Monday (probably due to his lack of a nap on Sunday) and we ended up at Downtown Disney. We had lunch at Paradiso 37 and spent the first half of our time trying to soothe a very cranky toddler. Since Nate slept so late we ended up missing breakfast and I have a feeling his meltdown was due to hunger. Once he calmed down he happily ate his hot dog and fries without complaint. We went to the Disney store where Nate decided he needed a new Jessie (the arm recently fell off of the old one) and a cowboy hat. Once he was entertained we grabbed a treat from Ghiradelli and relaxed for a few. After shopping a little more, we decided to head home. 

On Tuesday Matt and I both had to go to work. I had a workshop to attend and Nate stayed home with his Nanny. They went to the pool and had a fun time. Matt and I were going to have a date night Tuesday, but plans got a little derailed when his mom noticed my car tag was missing. Yes, someone stole my license plate. UGH. I had to file a police report and after all of that we decided to can the movie and just grab some food.

Thankfully Matt was off on Wednesday and he was able to take me to the DMV to get a new tag. I was told I couldn't drive my car until a new tag was issued. Matt and I used Wednesday afternoon as an errand day. We all went to eat lunch at the French Pantry and then sent Nate home with Nanny. Matt and I spent some time at the police station, the DMV, the auto parts store, and Comcast. How fun!! We left Nate with Nanny again Wednesday night in order to go to trivia night with Andrea and Lori. I'm glad we did because our table won!! Yay!!!

Our somewhat crazy week culminated on Friday when Matt's mom accidentally locked her keys in her car on her way out of town. Matt, Nate, and I drove out to sit with her until roadside assistance showed up. Her car was opened and she made it home safely. Matt headed off to work Friday afternoon while Nate and I spent the rest of our day playing and watching Mickey. I'm hoping that next week we'll be able to practice some of our swimming skills and relax!

I will leave you with this parting image. Nate has learned how to wear his daddy's boots. Bless him. When he falls down wearing them he cannot get back up. However, he does put them right back on and tries again! Happy Sunday!!

Everyday is a winding road....

Okay, so I have fallen behind -- again. I am going to attempt to post weekly this summer to try and get myself back on track in the blogging world! I make no promises that it will happen, but I'm going to try. There have been many things going on since I last posted. April passed without too many crazy activities. However, May was nuts!

The month of May started off like a normal month, but quickly picked up steam as the month progressed. Let's start with Mother's Day. My sweet boys got me some new sheets that I requested. I was so excited that I washed them and put them on immediately! I also got a card from each of my three boys (yes, even Moose remembered!).

My loot!

Matt had to work on Mother's Day so I found my gift when I woke up that Sunday morning. Nate and I had the entire day to ourselves. Matt and I never go out to eat on certain holidays in order to avoid crowds. I honestly don't think we've ever been out to eat on Valentine's Day and well, Mother's Day was no exception. Since Matt had to work and we wanted to avoid crowds, Nate and Matt took me out to eat on Saturday. We went to one of Nate's favorite restaurants, Mitchell's Fish Market, and pigged out on some yummy food. Afterward, we decided to stroll around the Town Center. We were having a lovely stroll until the train passed by. Nate never showed any interest in that train until today. He made a beeline for the train stop and the next thing I knew he and I were on the train going for a ride around the Town Center. He had a blast! After we got off the train the three of us headed for the car. It was about to pour. Unfortunately, we were a little late and the three of us were soaked by the time we reached the car!

 After eating 

That smile did not leave his face for the entire ride! 

So, Matt went back on a night rotation midway through May. Since May is a crazy time for teachers in general, and I had a field trip to Universal coming up along with a promotion ceremony, my mom came back for a few weeks to help out. I was so glad she did because the day of the field trip and the promotion ceremony Matt was on nights. She stayed until school was out and went home last week. While she was in town I was able to spend some time with her, and some time with Matt! We rarely ever get to do things together without Nate because of scheduling and hiring a sitter. Mom was more than willing to watch the little man so Matt and I were able to go out on a few dates. We went out for my birthday and watched The Hangover Part III. It was funny. I laughed. It wasn't as good as the first, but was better than the second. AND -- I got to watch Bradley Cooper for two hours. That alone was worth the $7.50! Matt and I also got to go out one night and try out a tapas restaurant called Ovinte. It was delicious! We had a fun night hanging out without worrying about getting home to a sitter.

I am now enjoying my first full week of summer vacation! I was so ready for a break and I have spent the week cleaning, relaxing, sleeping, and hanging out with my boys. Next week Nate starts swim lessons and I'll have to get up early to get him there, but I'm hoping he'll have fun! Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks!

How cute is this chair??? I found it at BJs and showed it to Nate. He loved it and of course it came home. Now don't get me wrong, we didn't need another piece of furniture in our house, but really -- how cute is this chair??

There is also a matching ottoman that didn't make it in the shot. He likes to sit in his chair and watch movies.

M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e. Nate is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at the moment. While shopping at the outlet mall for my birthday, he had to ride on the Mickey toy.

My child often has very strong opinions about what he wants. Please notice how he is dressing himself these days........ 

Yes, it is June and we live in Florida, but this child love, love, loves his cowboy boots. The hat often goes out with us, too. Thankfully, I have been able to talk him out of the boots for most of our trips out.

I found this flavor of Ben and Jerry's the other day at Target. If you like peanut butter then this might be a flavor for you! I will warn you though -- it is rich! I can only eat about two spoonfuls before I have to put it away!

Matt was off yesterday and we took advantage of the day and went to the beach! Nate loves the sand and water and since we waited until late in the afternoon to go the weather was perfect!

It's hard to get Matt to smile sometimes. He later told me the sun was in his eyes. 

Beach buddies!

My sweet beach baby!

Well, that is all I have for today. Here's hoping that my posts will be a little more frequent over the summer months! Happy Thursday!

Party Time!

We celebrated Nate's second birthday this past weekend. We had family coming into town all week and by Saturday the weather was ready to cooperate and we had a wonderful day for a party! Let's start with spring break week...

The weather was pretty cold most of the week. We finally got some warm air on Friday, but unfortunately we weren't able to spend too much time outdoors the rest of the week. On Monday my dad flew into town and began his visit. My mom was already in town because she had been helping out while Matt was on nights. Nate got to spend some quality time with his Baddaddy on Tuesday and then on Wednesday Matt's mom and grandfather came into town. My brother, Chanlee, and Indiana came into town on Thursday and Matt's dad and Tricia were in town for the party on Saturday. Nate has a lot of family that love him and were willing to travel to celebrate his special day!!

The party was scheduled for Saturday morning so as not to interfere with nap times. I've learned that as a parent you pay attention to things like that! Nate had several friends show up to party with him. The theme of his party was pretty much anything that goes! Cars, trucks, airplanes, boats -- you name it, he loves it! Here are a few pictures from the big day!

The cake courtesy of Matt's mom! 

We made the tables look like roads. 

The food table -- yum! 

A front view of the food table 

The birthday boy and his bubble machine! The bubbles were a big hit :-) 

Food!! 

I think Nate ate chips, chips, cake, applesauce, and a side of chips. 

I wasn't exaggerating about the chips! 

Hanging with Uncle Jeffery 

The food table was a huge hit!

Family photo! I'm so excited Nate was actually looking at the camera!

We had so much fun celebrating Nate's second birthday. Everyone had a great time and we enjoyed visiting and hanging out with family and friends. Here's to another year of fun with our little man!

Happy Birthday, Nate!

Well, it happened. Nate turned 2! I am so excited that I have such a happy, healthy little boy, but he is growing way too fast for me! So, what is one to do when you turn two? If you live in Florida the only reasonable response is to go to Disney! And that's what we did. I got off work on Friday and we headed to Orlando. Matt was on nights so we woke him up and hit the road. My mom was in town so she made the trip, too! She had never been to any Disney park before and she was excited to go. 

We arrived late in Orlando so we headed to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we got up and headed to Epcot. I had never been to Epcot before and Matt remembered it being a lot of fun when he was younger. It was okay. It is definitely not my favorite of the Disney parks. Nate had a lot of fun walking around, looking at boats, and meeting Donald, Goofy, and Daisy. He was one tired little monkey by the end of the day, but he refused to nap! We went back to the hotel and he insisted on running around like a crazed individual. We decided that he would crash early and decided to try and find food. We did manage to find food, but there was a 45 minute wait. Thankfully, Nate napped as we were waiting. He woke up and was in a better mood. He was excited with his birthday dinner of hot dog and French fries. We went to this cool taco place called Rocco's Tacos. It was loud and crazy, but fun. After dinner it was bedtime and we went back to the hotel to crash. Nate didn't have a birthday cake, but his party is coming up soon and he'll have plenty of cake then!

Nate was rocking the birthday shirt from Aunt Megan! 

In our choo-choo pajamas and ready for bed on the first night. 

Slide!!

 We had two of these moments. One was due to a tantrum and the other because he was tired!

Must get to the water.......

He loved playing in the little park. 

 Here he was playing jungle baby....

Mom and Tinkerbell

Goofy got a mommy initiated high five. He was so excited while standing in line to meet Goofy. 

Okay, so forget Mickey Mouse. If you asked Nate if he wanted to go see Mickey his reply was, "And Donald Duck!" Donald was the first character he met and he loved it! 

We also ran into Daisy!

We were exhausted by the end of the day, but we had a lot of fun! This picture is a little rough because we were staring directly into the sun. As you can see, Nate is the only one with the sense to look the other direction!

We are excited to see what this next year holds in store for our little family. Nate is growing up so fast, but we are loving every minute of it!! Hopefully party pictures will be coming soon!

Christmas in February?!?!

Okay, I admit it -- I am way behind on the blog. We have been busy, busy, busy these past few months and I'm just now getting around to it. Also, Nate can be very demanding when I sit down at the computer to type, so it is becoming increasingly more difficult to blog when he is around.

Let's start off with Thanksgiving. My parents came down during the week so we could eat turkey and do our Christmas celebration with them. We cooked lots of turkey, dressing, and the fixings and ate on it for a few days. Nate was very excited to see his NiNi and Baddaddy (his way of saying granddaddy for my dad) and he had a lot of fun opening his gifts from them.

Nate scored big -- he got all of the Cars characters. 

It was hard getting all three of them to cooperate!

Matt had a few days off at Christmas and we decided to make the trip back to Hamilton and Beulah to celebrate with his family. We met up with his mom and Tim to exchange gifts a few days before Christmas. Since school let out two days before and since we had two babies in tow, we decided to go out to Cracker Barrel for our Christmas lunch. It was yummy!

 Leave it to Nate to play with his cars outside of the restaurant!

 Nate, Noah, and John!

That night we had Christmas with Matt's dad and Tricia. Nate racked up even more presents and we had a blast hanging out with all of them! We decided this might be the perfect time to take Nate to Callaway Gardens to see Fantasy in Lights. He loved it!! He was so excited to see the lights and ride the trolley.

Nate and John both received a bicycle from Joe and Tricia. There was a little competition to see which brother could get it together first... 

Matt had a little assistance from John and ended up getting it together first... 

Nate was excited to try his out with a little help from Uncle Adam! 

Nate and Big Daddy checked out the trees inside Christmas Village at Fantasy in Lights. 

He was excited to ride the trolley! 

On our way to see the lights!

On Christmas day Nate opened even more gifts. He had a fun time playing with his new Lightning McQueen car! Christmas night we went to visit Matt's grandfather and Nate decided to show out by throwing a tantrum. We have officially entered the terrible 2's! Watch out world!!

Big Daddy broke out the train set for Nate. He loved it! 

He spent a lot of time chasing the choo choo! 

Santa came! 

 Nate loved his Lightning McQueen car! It took awhile to figure out how to work it...

and then he promptly got it stuck....

There is no reverse so he has to have someone on hand to help him out! 

He also spent some time reading with Daddy!

It was a nice trip, and I am glad we were able to go spend some time with family. Hopefully we'll be seeing family again soon as our little man turns 2!!