Bugs and Rodents Stink

So this past Friday, Gabe and I were supposed to go to the Darius Rucker/Brad Paisley concert at the BJCC.  However, Friday morning I woke up with a horrible stomach bug, which caused me to stay in the bathroom most of the day (thankfully and literally after I threw Nicholas in his crib for a nap).  Also, luckily Gigi and Pawpaw arrived (originally so they could watch the little guy while we had a night out) before Nicholas woke up from said nap and was able to care for him/keep him occupied, while I was curled up and in pain on the couch.  Stomach bugs are the worst!  I was barely able to eat anything (which is great if you are trying to lose weight!) and had horrible headaches/stomachaches for almost two days.  Today, fortunately, I can say that I feel like a brand new person.  Amazing how that bug just works it's way out of your system.

I also can unfortunately vouch to the stink-i-ness of rodents as we obviously have a dead one underneath our house.  A week or so ago, Gabe heard the little scratching under the house (no doubt a rat), proceeded to put poison in the crawl space under the house and now there is a distinct smell that is just nasty in the house.  Granted I'm thrilled that the poison killed whatever it was, but I wish the smell would die as well. 

It seems that we are all finally getting over our sinus issues (Gabe, Nicholas and myself), so hopefully we can stay away from any more sickness - that is until the spring church consignment sales that always seem to get me sick (but are SO worth it because of the deals I'm able to find!). 

On a lighter note, Nicholas is funnier and crazier than ever.  His vocabulary multiplies each day, although he seems to think that "please" will get him absolutely anything and is his number one word right now.  He won't actually tell you what he wants, he will just say please.  He is saying "Hey Daddy", "Hey Mommy", "Can I?" and will pretty much try to say anything we say.  Nicholas lately has made the bedtime routine rather difficult.  He won't exactly lie still when I'm trying to put a diaper and PJs on him and then he also seems too impatient for a bedtime story anymore.  Even without the routine, Nicholas still goes down really well at night and seems to enjoy his sleep.

Even though his appetite comes in waves (and he is seemingly on a dip right now), he gets bigger and bigger by the day.  Nicholas is definitely a climber, but I would also label him a cautious climber.  Any time he hits his head (usually just a little bit) he says "Bonk!"  The other day, he was falling out of his Mickey chair in reverse and as he was cautiously lowering himself (head first to the floor), he said "bonk!"  So I have to say my climber is really aware of his surroundings.  Finally, Nicholas is completely obsessed with Mickey Mouse!  He loves Mickey and all his gang including "Minnie", "Puto", "Foofy" and "Duck".  I doubt it will be hard to decide what his birthday theme will be this year.  I just love my little guy!! 

Cruising in my fire truck that Uncle Mumbles gave me :-)

Since I don't have a ton of new pics of Nicholas I thought I would throw in some extras of the Thompson clan that I stole from Gigi's camera.  I still can't believe how big the girls are getting!!  Please continue to keep Makenzie in your prayers as this sweet baby girl has many more doctors' visits and inspections to pass! 

          
Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day and stays away from all this sickness going around!

Winter Update

Since I haven't been updating this very well, here is what has been going on with us.  Nicholas is cuter and funnier than ever.  He says "No Uh-uh" to everything (turns out he got that from mama - it's amazing how you don't realize your phrases until your son copies you).  For some reason he can't say yes, but instead will say "set".  Nicholas' new phrases are "all done" and "gone gone."  He is definitely down to one nap a day and still normally sleeps really well during the nap and at night (although the past few nights he woke up - we think he could be cutting another molar).   

He loves "playing" with Bama (he calls him beagie since he can't seem to say Bama), but not vice versa.  Nicholas tends to try to pull his tail or fur and will throw his toys at Bama. Bama, in turn, tends to head in the opposite direction when Nicholas is in the room.  We are trying to teach him to be gentle with Bama, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet.  Anytime any football game is on TV, Nicholas will say Roll Tide non-stop.  I think Gabe has sufficiently claimed him as a Bama fan.  He is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse clubhouse.  Every time Mickey used to come on, Nicholas would say "Ohhhh"!  He loves dumping toys out of boxes - either his toy box or his box of blocks.  He will usually refill the box and dump it again.  Nicholas also loves the nursery at church.  Most kids cling to their parents legs as they are leaving, but Nicholas just heads straight for the toys.  We have the independent type on our hands.       

A week ago, we experienced our second winter wonderland in a month.  Nicholas was just so excited about it that he crashed in daddy's arms (which he never does anymore, so daddy was loving it!).  Luckily we didn't lose power like everyone feared was going to happen with all the ice (especially since the Auburn National Championship game was on Monday!)

Our backyard was covered. 

There is a Grand Prix under there somewhere.

 It was nice to have the streets so quiet.  This is my favorite pic

 Slippery icy sidewalk (guess who didn't take these pictures)

Bring on Spring!  There is only so much snow these Southerners can take!

Winter Wonderland!

We experienced our first white Christmas this year!  Granted it wasn't much, but it was still a cool experience!  

Nicholas helping me make cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve

Christmas morning, Nicholas was greeted with lots of Mickey, books, puzzles, etc

Testing out his new Mickey rocking chair.

Over at Beth and Brad's for Christmas breakfast, Nicholas is in awe of Meagan's new laptop.

Uncle Mumbles got Nicholas this great riding fire truck with working water tank and sprayer!  Can't wait until it's warm enough for him to test it out on the sidewalk!

Here is our Christmas Winter Wonderland! 

Early Davenport and Thompson Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the Davenports last Friday.  We had good food and good times!  Nicholas received lots of cute clothes and toys that he has already broken in (including a sports set, a train set, etc).

This is my best consignment find yet!!  So cute!

Are we ready to open presents yet?

Beautiful tree and plenty of gifts to pass around

Uncle Brad found his tickle spot!

Nicholas in the middle of Meagan and Abby.  He enjoyed ripping the paper this year.

His new multi-sports center - fun!

 

The next morning we headed to Mobile to visit Gigi and Pawpaw.  Gabe and I gave each other a mini-vacation over to Biloxi for Christmas.  Well, unfortunately I forgot my license at home and the Imperial Palace (where we were staying) stops everyone that looks under 30.  So even though I'm almost 9 years over the legal limit, I was not allowed in the casino at the IP.  We even spoke with the casino head of security (who had the biggest attitude and was not helpful at all) to see if there was anything we could do to prove my age, but they did not allow us to do anything.  After that and a Barney Fife reference, we were probably on everyone's list.  I didn't have any problems what-so-ever getting in the Hard Rock or Boomtown, but you can imagine that Gabe and I were quite mad at how we were treated at the IP.  In the end I was able to play my favorite game (Penny Slot - Super Jackpot Party) and I have learned my lesson to have my license on me at all times (no matter how old I am).  The good thing was Nicholas did well with Gigi and Pawpaw the night we were away.

We were able to visit with my dad's brother Brian and his family and my mom's sister Catherine and my cousin Jane.  Nicholas had a blast with Jane's kid's Carter and Emma.  Unfortunately Ryan and all his girls were not able to join us as a 7 hour drive from Houston would be a bit much for a three week old little girl.  Gigi and Pawpaw gave Nicholas a great backpack, some PJ's and also contributed to Nicholas' college fund, which we are eternally grateful for!

Everyone loved Pawpaw's tennis balls

Carter and Nicholas enjoyed wrestling me - I think they won

Playing with the t-ball set Ryan and his girls gave him

Helping Gigi open her gifts

 Nicholas enjoyed riding around in a box top

We are looking forward to Santa visiting tonight.  Soon we will be making Santa cookies!

One and a half!!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone and Happy 1 1/2 years to Nicholas!  Today is exciting as Nicholas' fifth girl cousin Makenzie arrived at 8:13 this morning.  She weighs 7 lbs 3 oz  and was 18 3/4 inches long.  This is an awesome thing as this was also my Mamaw's birthday.  I just know she is looking down on the latest great-grandchild and smiling. 

Here is the latest on Nicholas...
Activity:  Nicholas is bound and determined to sit, stand or climb on anything.  This includes the furniture, his toys, you name it.  This definitely keeps us on our toes.  He loves playing with his blocks and trying to stack or line up everything.  We can really see the boy tendencies coming out now.  Nicholas really loves Mickey Mouse clubhouse and (for those of you who know the show) he tries to say "Oh Toodles", which sounds more like "Oh Too!"    

Speech/Development: Nicholas continues to talk non-stop, with his favorite words being uh-oh and ok. Newer vocabulary includes: water, Roll Tide, juice, blankie, cookie, cracker and please.  Believe it or not the Roll Tide did not stem from daddy teaching him, one day we just discovered that he was saying it.  For Nicholas, every color is blue and every number is three.  When he sees daddy's Homer slippers, Nicholas will say "Doh!" (That one daddy did teach him.)  He still does his many animal noises.  Nicholas really enjoyed visiting with his Uncle Ryan in Mobile recently.  After Nicholas would make his elephant noise, Ryan would laugh really loud.  So now whenever Nicholas does the elephant noise, he will laugh immediately after (to the point where he barely even does the elephant noise).  It is the funniest thing to see him crack himself up like that.  Everyone got a kick out of that at Thanksgiving.   

Sleep: Nicholas sleeps great.  Bed time is still between 7:30 - 8pm and he pretty consistently sleeps until 7am.  It always cracks us up when occasionally we put him in bed at night and after several minutes of silence hear "Hey" and then a bunch of baby talk, which of course means he is "talking" on the phone.  Love it!  He still mainly takes two naps during the day for an average of 2.5 hours total.  Just recently he has been putting his toys to sleep by either covering them with something or turning them over and says "Nigh-Nigh" - So sweet!!

Nutrition: It seems like Nicholas has too much to see and explore to want to eat anything.  He is ok with eating with a fork as long as we stab the food because he has a tendency to turn the fork over before sticking it in his mouth.  He mainly likes eating with his hands, which makes feeding him healthy food with slippery textures hard to pass the toddler test.  We do have hope for the potty training future as Nicholas knows when he has made a dirty diaper and will tell us after he has created this dirty diaper.

On a completely unrelated note, I thought I would explain the box on the right labeled Swagbucks.  This is basically a search engine like Google where you get points for searches, polls, etc.  It is awesome and we have only been using it about a month and already collected enough points for $50 in Amazon gift cards.  I highly recommend signing up and using this free website.  If you click on my link I will get referral points too!  Happy Swagging!

You can't tell, but Nicholas' Thanksgiving shirt says:  "I'm thankful for:

1. Mom and Dad
2. Yummy Turkey
3. Football

Nicholas enjoyed playing with Abby and Ava at Thanksgiving

My little homeboy!

I can only imagine...

This post is dedicated to my Mamaw - Annette Thompson who is surrounded by God's Glory today and finally reunited with my grandfather after 36 years.  She was an amazing and strong woman.

I can only imagine what it was like to raise 5 kids, 12 grandkids and 16 great-grands and counting. 

I can only imagine what it was like for her to lose her husband out of the blue and at such a young age.

I am filled with both sorrow and relief as I know she is no longer in pain and is walking beside God.  I love you Mamaw and would give anything to have the strength you showed throughout your life.

Happy Halloween!!

We had a great Halloween weekend.  Gigi and Pawpaw visited from Mobile and we had to check out the fabulous new outlet mall that is literally 5 minutes from our house.  Love it!  Got some great deals and will definitely go back to work on more Christmas shopping. 

We also had Meagan and Abby visit Saturday night, so we quickly dressed  Nicholas up in his costume.  Cutest elephant, lady bug and punk rocker I've ever seen!!  

Nicholas wasn't too sure about this massive thing on his head...

Precious!!!

Daddy had to add a little something to his costume. 

He was a hit at First Baptist Leeds Trunk or Treat and even showed everyone what an elephant says while grabbing his trunk at the same time.

Even with his Alabama gear on, Mimi couldn't keep her hands off him!