Costume Check

Here is a sneak peak at Nicholas' Halloween Costume.  The head piece fits!

Gabe making the elephant noise with our little elephant...

How cute is he!?!

16 Months Old

I still can't believe how grown Nicholas looks now at only 16 months.  I swear he looks more and more like his daddy with every passing day.  Here is what he has been up to recently. 

Activity:  Nicholas gets funnier by the day.  Here are just a few examples of his personality coming out -
Every time the Apple iPad commercial comes on he gets up and starts "dancing" - it is too cute!

 

Nicholas owns MANY elephant stuffed animals (go figure).   Daddy and Uncle Ryan are extremely talented in making the elephant noise.  Whenever Nicholas plays with one of the elephants, he too will try to make the elephant noise (which equates to him just making blowing noises).  He can also tell you what noise the dog and the cow makes.  Every time he sees a cat either on television or in a book, he calls it a dog.  We've tried to correct him, but he might have inherited his mother's dislike of cats and just wants to refer to them as the preferred "dog."

Since football season has started, daddy has Nicholas watching the Alabama pregame video pretty regularly.  He loves it and will say "Boom!" when there is a big hit.  Daddy has also taught him to say "Yea Yea Yea" just like Alabama's strength and conditioning coach - but in a much sweeter way. 

The sweetest aspects of Nicholas is when he gives you a hug and a kiss.  Melts my heart every time! 

Speech/Development: Nicholas continues to talk non-stop.  Newer vocabulary include: shoes, uh-oh, no-no, baby, daddy, mommy, and Mimi.  He knows several body parts including his belly button, nose, and ears. 

Health:  Nicholas has had small rashes (mainly in his elbows and the back of his knees) that we attribute to be heat rashes.  Just recently they seem to be getting better and will hopefully continue to do so.  The majority of last week Nicholas had a runny nose (thanks to mama bringing home germs from the various children's consignment sales that I worked).  At this point, he is pretty much back to his old self. 

Sleep: Nicholas sleeps fine, as long as he has that blankie with him.  Recently he has taken a bit longer than usual to fall asleep and he will sometimes protest being ready for bed by throwing his blankie over the side of the crib.  He seems to be weening down to one nap a day (with still 2 on some days), but still gets around 2-2.5 hours.

Nutrition: We have made an effort to expand Nicholas' palate, to no avail.  It seems like he doesn't even want the old standby's of bananas, grapes, etc.  I have struggled with this as I don't want to raise Nicholas to be a picky eater, but at the same time I need to realize that he is a toddler and this is probably just a rite of passage. 

Since Nicholas goes non-stop, it's much harder these days to get a picture of him, but here is the latest (do you think he has enough toys?!)



The Lost Art of Thank You Notes

Normally I devote this blog entirely to Nicholas, but there has been something on my mind recently and I just have to put it out in the blogisphere... 

When did the common courtesy of writing a thank you note die?  All it takes is 44 cents and about 2 minutes to write.  The reason this issue is bugging me is we gave two wedding gifts this summer (June or before) and never received a thank you note for either one of them.   One of these gifts was for a wedding that I actually traveled an hour and a half to attend.    Now, I completely understand that there are sometimes extenuating circumstances that cause delays in writing thank you notes (ex:  moving right after a wedding or if you received a baby gift and now things are all hectic with a newborn at home).  Well I've lived through both of these and didn't have a problem writing a thank you note to everyone who gave us a gift.  I truly think it is disrespectful to let any gift go un-thanked.  Even an email, facebook message, tweet, or whatever other social media you want to use to say thanks would work fine for me, just so long as they are showing their appreciation.

I honestly think we should show our appreciation (I'm including myself in this) for more than just "gifts" more often.  Here are just a few blessings that I am grateful for and I should thank more often:

• We are eternally grateful that Mimi and Pop watch Nicholas while I work so that he doesn't have to go to daycare where he would get sick or exposed to sickness every few weeks.  Not to mention the fact that we are living in their home rent free to help save up for our own house some day (shout out to Sonny and JoAnn for that too!)
• We are very blessed to spend a week with all my family at the beach every summer.  This all expense paid, all meals catered by Gigi summer break is amazing!  We look forward to this trip every year (except for the 5 hour drive), but it is totally worth it!  Gigi and Pawpaw also took it upon themselves to initiate Nicholas' college fund, which we will really be thanking you for in about 17 years!
• We appreciate all the hand-me-downs that Beth and Brad have provided and for the awesome diaper shower they threw us.  I have to say the video monitor is worth it's weight in gold and I love watching Nicholas sleep, roll over and snuggle up with his blankie in his crib. Oh and I think Nicholas was 4-5 months old before we even had to buy any diapers and probably close to a year before we bought wipes! 

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  Maybe this lack of thank you notes is the way of the future - you are expected to give gifts for certain events and not expect any gratitude in return, but if it is, then I don't like it.  I apologize for my rant, but for whatever reason I cannot get this sign of disrespect out of my head.

Rock-a-bye Baby

Last night Nicholas woke up after being asleep for a few hours.  We think his teeth are bothering him -as they have been for awhile and continue to cut through (he is up to at least 14 now).  I have to say that I LOVE rocking Nicholas at night.  Granted I probably wouldn't say this if it was a nightly occurrence, but I also know (in the immortal words of Brad Paisley) "it won't be like this for long..." because before I know it he will be too big to snuggle up with mama and his blankie in the chair.  When I rock him in the la-z-boy, his feet almost dangle off the chair because he's getting so long.  I just savor these moments so much!

Now with that said, I pray that the rest of these teeth break thru soon because Nicholas has not been eating hardly anything.  Hopefully once these next few come in, he will be done with the pain and constant drooling for quite a while.   

15 Months Old

Since today we had a 15 month check-up, I figured I would update like I used to on his monthly birthdays.  Nicholas is now 33 inches long and weighs 22 1/2 pounds (the 95th and 25th percentiles).  He did really well at his check-up, even with having to get three shots.  Dr. Whitaker said everything looked great and said he will see us again around 22-24 months (and in October for him to get a flu shot).  One thing to hopefully get his weight up is to decrease the amount of juice we give him as Dr. Whitaker says that is an appetite suppressant.   

Speech:  Nicholas' vocabulary includes: bye-bye, ball, dog, cracker, cookie, juice, night-night, and bubble.  Granted there is usually a letter or two missing from some of these (i.e. cracker sounds more like cackuh), but we know what he's talking about.  Other than that, he "talks" non-stop.  It is the funniest thing!  We can tell that his little brain is hard at work.  When I read him his bedtime story (lately The Very Busy Spider) he will say the noises some of the animals make when I turn to the page, but before I can even say what the animal is.  We love watching him learn. 

Activity:  He is walking much faster than mommy and daddy would prefer sometimes, but you know - Places to go, people to see...  His favorite toys are his lawn mower that he pushes and pulls everywhere, blocks, balls, etc.  Nicholas does try to test the waters of the unknown/unapproved, which has landed him a few spankings.  I would say all-in-all he is a really good kid (in my totally unbiased opinion).  Nicholas does have quite the attachment to his blanket.  We try to keep it in his crib, but he is quick to walk in there and reach through those crib slats to pull it out.  He is most content when he has that blanket and is sucking on his fingers (upside-down still).   

Sleep:  Nicholas stills sleeps great (although he has had a few nights recently of interrupted sleep that I suspect is partially due to some teeth coming in).  His naps during the day aren't always at the same time, but he is still getting two good naps for a total of 2.5-3 hours.  Bedtime is around 8pm and he usually wakes up around 7am. 

Nutrition:  It seems like his appetite has gone down a little recently, but as I mentioned earlier, hopefully a decrease in juice consumption will help with this.  For the most part, he will eat what we feed him, but his favorites are bananas, raisins, yogurt, grapes, graham cracker goldfish, etc.  Since getting several molars in over the past month, he will be ready for a steak before we know it!  

Finally, as you can see from the pictures below, he loves trying to put toys or even sippy cups in other toys.

The Amazing Nicholas!

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a hidden talent of Nicholas'.  This morning, while eating breakfast, I was able to capture this moment on film.  Nicholas will put a piece of his food (Cheerios, grapes, etc) on top of his sippy cup and then slowly bring the cup to his mouth and eat the food off the cup.  Granted he misses and it lands in his lap sometimes, but I have been impressed with how cautious and careful he is to try to get that food in his mouth.

Ah - the look of concentration.  Gotta get that Cheerio!

Beach Trip 2010

This past week was spent at the Beach Club in Gulf Shores (Fort Morgan Road technically).  This is our fourth year in a row to go with my parents and brother and his family.  It was a lot of fun and the weather (although hot and steamy) was really perfect for the beach.

Wearing my old Gulf Shores tee - It definitely is better at Gulf Shores!

 

He could not stop giggling at Pawpaw and his crazy noises!

After all the reports about the oil spill, I was curious to see for myself what the beach looked like.  So we went down Saturday after we arrived.  The beaches mainly looked the same, but felt WAY different.  We figured that it was much softer/cushy because BP had to constantly dig through the sand to get all the tar balls.  There were tar balls on the beach, but nothing too bad.  The water looked the same as it always has.  With the drop in tourism, it was much easier to get an elevator and the pools were pretty scarce, which was nice.  

This looks worse than it really was... 

Here are the tar balls.  We actually got pictures of BP's crew cleaning it up.

Nicholas spent practically the whole time chasing after Lilly (8) and Elizabeth (2).  He was particularly interested in pulling out just about every flip-flop they brought to the living room.  We had a great time playing bunco, uno and pool games.  We also had some pretty intense games of foosball.  I also brought our baby name book and tried to assist Ryan and Nancy on picking a name for baby #3. 

How cute are they!

He really seemed to like the beach

It took Nicholas a day or so to get used to sleeping in the pack-n-play.  It was also rather difficult because he was sleeping in our bedroom and is a rather light sleeper, so he woke up a few times when we went to bed or when I woke up coughing.  All-in-all he did pretty well considering his nap/bedtime schedule was completely off.  We also did something that I had sworn I wouldn't do - Nicholas slept in the bed with us for a few hours one morning.  I didn't want him to wake up the rest of the family and it was around 4am, so we let him get the rest of the mornings sleep in the bed with us and surprisingly we were able to get some sleep as well.  Another issue that screwed up his sleep habits is he cut several molars this past week.  Of course I didn't have any Orajel with me, but we did give him some Tylenol (again the non-Tylenol brand).   

Dad's birthday was Friday, so we celebrated that with some brownies and family pics.     

Gigi and Pawpaw's favorite time of the year...  Grandbabies week!

The wind was blowing hard and the sun was in their eyes, but they were troopers.

Pawpaw reading a bedtime story

Playing with Lilly

This float is the coolest thing!  Nicholas just chilled out - watching his cousins and other kids play.

THANKS GIGI AND PAWPAW FOR OUR BEACH VACATION!