Birthday Boy

Nate's birthday was pretty uneventful but I think he had a fun day. He woke up to find some decorations in his room that his sisters made him. It was all their idea and I thought it was really cute...

Nate loves Sesame Street.

With one of the decorators
(the other one had already left for school)

We had a pretty normal day. Natalie had preschool that day so Nate and I got some good one-on-one play time together. I worked hard making my first ice cream cake and it turned out pretty darn good. The cake was Natalie's idea. It was chocolate cake with cookies 'n cream ice cream.

"Coo-kies! (Num num num)"

Nate especially loved when we sang Happy Birthday to him.

Here he is so excited for it...

The big moment...

(You might notice that Joe expertly blew out the candles before he stuck his face right in the flames.)

Here's our little cookies monster enjoying his cake
Showing us that he's two with one finger from each hand
Then it was present time...

A ball from LizzyPosing for a picture with a book from his cousinsIt's so fun when they finally figure out how to open things themselves...

This was probably the biggest hit:
trains!
You'll probably notice the girls playing too. They all love to play trains together.

Concentrating...
"Happy to you" Nate!

2

My baby boy turned two today. I thought I would handle it better since I've basically been telling people he is two for awhile now. (When people ask how old he is, he says "Two!"--it's the only number he knows.) Then, when I got him out of bed yesterday and I realized it was the last day he'd be one, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

He gave me the best gift on his last day of being one, though. He snuggled up on my lap and fell asleep. I loved every minute of it.

Before Nate was born, when it was just Joe and I and the girls, I had the strongest feeling that I needed to have another baby. It's hard to describe except as just a huge preoccupation with having a baby. It was all I could think about. I hadn't felt that way before and I haven't felt that way since. I believe that these feelings were from God. I think it was necessary for me to feel that way so that we would actually have another baby. After Elizabeth and Natalie's traumatic birth experiences, and after being told that we had a 50% chance of it happening again, we were wary, for sure. But, I couldn't deny what I was feeling. After much prayer and discussion, Joe trusted in my feelings as well and we proceeded on faith.

We had new doctors this time around since we were now in California. It seemed like every time I had to explain my history, I'd get doctors expressing concern or at least astonishment at our decision. And, I can't even count how many times I was asked if I wanted my tubes tied during the c-section surgery. When we found out we were having a boy, we got a lot of "Oh, now you have your boy and you can be done" type of comments. But it wasn't about that at all for us. We weren't having another one to try for a boy. We'd have been just as happy with another girl.

Miraculously, we made it full-term and had a completely normal pregnancy. Our little Nathaniel arrived--our "gift of God". He truly has been a gift and now he is two. It's hard to believe.

He makes us all laugh. Sometimes a little too much. Sometimes we can't keep straight faces when he's saying a prayer. He's just too adorable and he often likes to throw in random things. Our favorite example is one time when we were helping him say a prayer. We were saying thank you for our family like we always do and naming everyone by name and this is how Nate said it: "Detz (thanks) Mama, Dada, Na-na, Na-na, pan-kick (pancake)". He loves his pancakes. :)

Sometimes he knows he's being funny and he just plays it up. One time in Costco he started doing this random thing and making us all laugh. Here's the video....


Unfortunately, he kept doing it over and over, and all at the TOP of his lungs until it became a bit much. He also likes to suddenly sing/yell, "That's... El-mo's world!" (or at least his version of it) at the top of his lungs in stores. He is a funny kid.

Here are some things that I want to remember about Nathaniel right now:

-The way he always says thank you--"Detz, Mama"--and how he keeps saying it until I say, "You're welcome."
-The way he says sorry. For a long time, he has only known how to give kisses to say sorry. Just recently he has started saying "solly". Sometimes if he feels bad for something, he'll just keep saying "Solly, Mama" over and over in such a sweet voice. (Noticing a trend? He likes to repeat things a lot.)
-How he says "Hook!" when he wants me to look at something. He's been doing this for awhile and I have a feeling it might end soon. His vocabulary has been improving so quickly. I don't like it!! :)
-The way he pumps his arm and says "I will go, I will do!" when we sing this song.
-The way he plays hide and go seek: he plugs his ears, closes his eyes, and says "Two...two...two.." Sometimes he says "Two...two...fo-ty...two."

-This look he gives me when he's not happy about something:
-The way he calls balls, "ball-kick". (see above video)
-He is an amazing climber. At 18 months, he was climbing those curvy ladder-things at the park. Other parents are often quite concerned about the things he attempts, and I usually stay close, but he does fine!

-The way he likes to say "Hello" and "Bye-bye" to everyone and everything. Usually, even if he's really upset about leaving something behind, if I say, "Say 'bye-bye (toy/park/mimi, etc)'!" He will happily say goodbye and be over it.

I love this boy
and I love to watch him grow.

Preschool

I don't know if I've mentioned on here yet that I actually decided not to start Natalie in kindergarten this year. It was a hard decision to make but Joe and I felt good about what we decided. A lot of things went into the decision. We felt, and still feel, that she probably would have done fine but we wanted to give her a little more time before she officially starts the 16+ years of school ahead of her. She would have been really young for her grade. One thing that affected our decision was that it's an all-day kindergarten here. I just didn't know if she (or I!) would be ready for that quite yet.

I did feel like she needed to have something this year, though. We had fun with our co-op preschool last year. I got her on the waiting list for a preschool right at the elementary school that looked really nice and actually doesn't cost a fortune like many others around here. The days passed and it looked like she wouldn't get in. Finally, the weekend before they were starting we got a call saying she got in! It was such a relief. She started on Wednesday.

The only picture I got inside her classroom:
(It's hard managing a toddler who wants to play on everything but isn't supposed to with one arm and taking pictures with the other...)

She had a great first day. She loves her teacher and she is so excited to get to know the kids in her class. I'm excited to get my chance to help out in the class and see her in there.

1st Grade

Five days after we moved, Elizabeth started school. She got gipped out of some vacation since she got out of school in late June up there and then started in the middle of August here. She didn't mind too much, though. We had a fun time shopping for her school supplies and picking out a lunch box.

On her first day, she was up and dressed early. She was excited and a little nervous.

Cute girl

(It's funny--she tells me she likes her bangs but on the first day she felt like having them pinned back, so we did.)

It only took two days before she decided that she really likes school. She likes her teacher and she's made some friends. She finished her first project--a "Me" box that she decorated with pictures. Inside she had to put three things that are important/meaningful to her. She chose her little tiny blood pressure cuff from her baby book that the hospital let us keep after she was released, her soccer trophy, and her Book of Mormon. I'm excited for her to have a chance to show off her box. It was actually the example of a friend from class who brought his little Bible that gave her idea.

I have been waiting to see how Elizabeth would handle getting up and ready early every morning. This is a girl that would fight and fight getting ready and barely make it in time for her 10:40 kindergarten last year. But, I have been pleasantly surprised. For the most part, she sets her alarm all on her own and gets up and dressed by herself. We seem to only encounter problems when she starts reading in the morning and then it is hard to get her to do much of anything. I guess having a bookworm isn't the worst problem we could have. Anyway, at least so far (knock on wood) she has been doing great. I've been very proud of her.