Birthday Palooza 2012

Due to crazy schedules this year, Nicholas was able to celebrate his birthday for about three weeks straight.  It's still hard to believe that my baby boy is three years old. 

We started with a birthday celebration with the Davenports and Moseleys.  He of course had a blast playing with the balloons and everyone was in awe of Mimi's Lighting McQueen cake creation.  Truly impressive! 

The Thursday before his birthday was his last day at Mother's Day Out for the year.  That week they had their year-end program with the kids singing and dancing.  You would think that as much as Nicholas loves to sing and dance that he would be all about this, but he simply sat with a blank stare most of the time beside his teacher Mrs. Virginia.  He teared up a little at the beginning, which was a step up from the Christmas program, so maybe by the time next year's programs roll around he will be ready to fully participate.  Thanks to Mrs. Virginia for making his first year at MDO a special one! 

Then that Friday we headed to Mobile to visit with Gigi and Pawpaw.  That night we had birthday celebration #2 that included family from the Thompson and Allenbach side. 

 One of my favorites of that night was the "roar" off between Nicholas and Emma using one of his birthday presents - A Dinosaur Pet.  It was too funny! 

Saturday we drove over to New Orleans for the night to visit with our friend Mumbles.  He was throwing a surprise birthday/engagement party for his girlfriend.  Special shout out to Mumbles - congrats on getting engaged and we look forward to next summer's wedding festivities! 

Since we weren't hosting one big birthday bash for Nicholas, we wanted to do something special on his actual birthday.  So we decided to take the day off and head over to the Georgia Aquarium.  Gabe and I had been several years ago and knew he would go crazy over it.  He loved most everything except the volume of the Dolphin Tales show (it was rather loud so he kept his hands over the ears the entire time but got the biggest kick out of seeing the dolphins jump out of the water). 

Finally, when it was all said and done we felt he needed to blow out a candle on his actual birthday, so we got these tiny cupcakes.  He has had a great birthday-palooza and thanks to everyone for celebrating with us and all of his birthday gifts!  We are so blessed to have such thoughtful and caring family and friends. 

And last but not least, we FINALLY closed on our construction loan!!!  There has not been any work done yet as our builder is out of town this week and they still have to get all the building permits, but we hope to see some dirt moving soon.  After five years of saving and planning, we are so ready to see some progress.  I hope to have updates on this topic soon! 

Many Updates Needed

I have not been good about keeping up with this blog, so here is my attempt to play a bit of catch up...

Nicholas is just as crazy and funny as ever.  He constantly amazes me with some of the things that come out of his mouth.  Recently you will hear him say...

"Guess what?"  (and of course you HAVE to say What?)  "Sea turtles are one hundred and sixty dollars." which in real life means "Sea turtles live to be one hundred and fifty years old."  He got this line from Finding Nemo and just loves asking people "Guess what?" 

We think he might be cutting another tooth because recently he has been very moody (more so that the norm), will randomly suck on his fingers during the day (which he hasn't done in a LONG time) and even made a comment about his ear hurting.  It has been about a year since he last cut a tooth, so hopefully this explains these occurrences. 

We had a great Easter weekend filled with gorgeous weather, Easter egg hunting and of course dying eggs.

The downfall of him being in a big bed is that he attacked his Easter basket before we knew about it.

 Lots of concentration getting those stickers on there.

 All done!

This weekend was the annual A-Day game, so daddy drove Nicholas and Pop to T-town for the day.  Luckily they had gorgeous weather and even ran into Big Al, which was a big hit for Nicholas. 

Gotta have game-day gear on

The background always looks fake when they take these pictures

Someone had a little too much fun and conked out on the walk to the car.

Speaking of Alabama, I have to share a project that I just finished for some close friends.  My inspiration came from this wreath on Etsy and of course my love for Pinterest.  I think it turned out super cute and hopefully our friends will like it as well.

For anyone interested it's a foam wreath wrapped in yarn.  I cut out squares of white felt and houndstooth material and then wrapped the yarn back around for an argyle effect.  For the letter, I purchased a wooden letter from Michael's a modge podged scrapbook houndstooth paper on it.  Very doable and MUCH cheaper than what you can buy online!!!

Finally as far as the home building process goes, we have signed with a builder and are waiting to finish up some final details of the construction loan process.  Hopefully (fingers crossed) we can start everything in May and be in by the end of the year.  This will definitely be an interesting process to go through, but we are definitely looking forward to the end result.

Working at the car wash!

With our extremely mild winter and probably very short spring, the pollen has already attacked our cars.  Luckily daddy had a little helper today to wash the cars.  It's amazing how quickly things go from this...

To this...

Nicholas LOVES playing outside, so we are going to take advantage of the time we have now before the mosquitoes take over.

Updates

Nicholas was rather funny this week.  He was coloring a Valentine's Card he received from Gigi and Pawpaw and all of a sudden he says "Oh good coloring Nicholas!"  Then after dinner he had rice krispy treat for dessert.  I don't think he's ever had these before because this was the first time I've ever made them.  He picked it up and ate a few bites but wasn't fond of how sticky it was, so he took it upon himself to fix the issue so he could finish his treat.

Our favorite Nicholas vocab recently was when we went to dinner last weekend with some of Gabe's extended family and it was at a local Mexican restaurant called Guadalajara.  Well, we kept asking Nicholas where we were eating and he finally said at "Holla Water."  It is too funny!  His responses to conversation have been a hoot too.  He recently will respond with "What you say?" even though he clearly knows what we are talking about. 

Just last week, was Nicholas' first time to blame someone else for something he did.  We were up at Mimi and Pop's house for dinner.  Nicholas had been playing with Meagan and Abby but the girls had since come into the living room where we were all talking.  A little bit later, Nicholas walks in with a piece broken off a cup he was playing with.  We asked what happened and Nicholas responds, "Abby broke it."  Of course we knew she didn't because she was sitting in the room with us.  I really tried not to laugh, but it was rather unexpected to hear him blame someone else. 

As an update on the big boy bed, Nicholas has been a champ sleeping through the night with no issues and has not gotten up at all after getting in his bed.  That has been such a relief and we even said the other night that it almost seems like he sleeps better in his bed versus the crib. 

We have had a few more successes last week with potty training, but I'm still not optimistic of that being complete for many more months.

Today our friend Zac surveyed the land for us.  One step down, about 4,587 more to go...  We are set to receive our first bid from a contractor tomorrow.  We are praying that he will give us good news so that we can have the dream become a reality.

Finally, Gabe had a major change at work this past week.  He is still at Regions, but now in a completely different department and building.  I'm so proud and happy for him and this new position.   All the hard work he has put in the last 9 years is paying off for him. 

First Dentist Appointment

Nicholas has never been much of a fan of having his teeth brushed, but will usually allow us to do so without too much struggle.  Despite our best attempts, Gabe and I noticed a brown spot on his lower bottom tooth.  It wouldn't go away and I was worried that it could be a cavity, so I decided to schedule an appointment for him at the dentist.  Our local dentist recommended pediatric dentist Dr. Vann in Trussville.  I am so very glad that they did because he was great.  Obviously I was worried that this was not going to go well at all, as most first dentist trips tend to be.   So last Thursday, we walked in and they had Finding Nemo on, which was a hit right from the start.  Dr. Vann talked to Nicholas and explained that all he would do is just brush his teeth. 

Nicholas sat in my lap and let him brush his teeth without any problems.  Luckily, Dr. Vann told us he did not have any cavities.  Nicholas does however have pretty bad staining that he said was pretty normal for kids his age.  Dr. Vann recommended starting Nicholas on fluoride toothpaste saying that to use such a minimal amount that he wouldn't be able to swallow anything and harm him.  He also recommended limiting juice between meals and switching to sugar free juice. 

Nicholas also has a pretty big overbite thanks to his sucking on his fingers.  Of course he also recommended that we work on putting a stop to this.  So we have started a plan of action.  The only time he ever sucks his fingers is when he has his blankie.  We have started to limit blankie time telling him he can only have it at bedtime/naptime.  It seems to be working pretty well so far, but this is not going to be easy battle to conquer as Nicholas is really attached to that blanket.  If worst comes to worst, Dr. Vann told me that they do carry a product that we can put on his fingers that tastes really bad and will help him stop.   

Dirty Jobs

Too bad I didn't have Mike Rowe from the show Dirty Jobs here today.  He could have helped when this evening I discovered what Nicholas decided to do.  If you read my previous post, you would know that just recently Nicholas started to put his hand in his diaper after he "dirtied" it.  He had never (to the best of my knowledge) done anything with what was on his hand until today.  So several days ago, in an attempt to figure out why he was doing this, I googled the toddler issue to see what I could find.  To my horror I read all sorts of stories about kids playing with their own poo and putting it in various places around the home.  Ironically, I told Mimi just earlier today that thankfully Nicholas hadn't done anything of the sort.  I spoke too soon...

So as I was baking some brownies and heating up leftovers for dinner.  Nicholas was (I thought) playing in his room.  After not hearing him playing for a few minutes I checked on him.  The door to his closet was wide open with - you guessed it - smeared all on it.  Nicholas was nowhere to be found.  I looked everywhere throughout the house and called his name but didn't hear a thing.  Finally I found him hiding behind the door to his room. 

At this point I remembered something from my google search the other day.  While I was reading the horrific stories of "dirty jobs" and how parents dealt with the situation, I remembered one effective technique that many parents used.  They put their child in the bathtub and would run a cold shower on them.  Granted I didn't get into the reasons why this worked because honestly I didn't think I would have that same problem.  Well I did put Nicholas in the tub and ran the shower.  I didn't run cold water though since he has had a cough all week and that just seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.  He immediately didn't like it and said that it was hurting him.  I let him stand in the shower for a minute while I worked on clean up efforts.  Who knows if this technique will work or not, but I am going to be overly aware of anytime Nicholas even thinks about making a dirty diaper, because I'm going to be all over it like poo on the closet door...       

I did go a little easy on Nicholas even with the situation because he has been sick all week.  His cough became so persistent that I took him to the doctor on Wednesday.  The doctor basically said he had a dry cough and also a slight ear infection in one ear (his first one).  He prescribed him some medicine and gave him something at the doctors office for the infection.  While we were there, they decided to go ahead and give him a flu shot.  Nicholas weighed almost 32 lbs, but my guess would be that has decreased as he has eaten very little this week with all the sickness.  Thankfully he seems to be getting better and has definitely caught up on his sleep. 

Needless to say I don't have any pictures to post on this entry, as I don't think the readers would appreciate that. For those reading this, could you please just say an extra prayer that my son will soon be potty trained?? I just don't know how many more dirty jobs (inside and outside the diaper) I can take.

Big Boy Bed

We have considered moving Nicholas to the double bed that is currently in his bedroom.  On occasion we would lay down with him in it (if he gets up early in the morning or something) but he's never been there for an entire night or nap time by himself.  He even received some Toy Story sheets from Santa this Christmas.  The only reason we've been a bit hesitant about this transition is because he does extremely well going to bed and we didn't want that to change.  It had to happen sometime so we tested the waters today during nap time.  Nicholas went down with no problems and even took a 3 hour nap.  Hopefully tonight he will do just as well.   

Here is Nicholas after his nap with his Toy Story sheets and all his "animals."

On a different note, Nicholas' commentary can be so random and funny.  Here are a few recent LOLs:

I was driving him to Mother's Day Out one morning and out of the blue he says "Good driving Mama!"  He told me again on the way home that night.  I do pride myself on being a good driver, but didn't quite expect a 2 year old to notice that... 

Then recently as he was saying his bedtime prayers, he threw us a curve ball.  Normally his nightly prayer is "Dear Jesus, thank you for everything.  I love you.  Amen"  Well one night recently his prayer went:  "Dear Jesus, thank you for everything.  I want some milk."  Even though this was way out of the ordinary, I will say that he will usually ask for milk at some point before bedtime as a stall tactic.  I just love this boy! 

One unfortunate thing recently that I'm sure everyone wants to know about is the decision for Nicholas to stick his hand down the back of his diaper after he has "dirtied it".  Just today he walks in the living room, shows me his hand and says "I have poo on my hand."  I really hope this is not a trend that sticks.  Gigi, ever the optimist, thinks that potty training might not be far away.  I'm going to hope that she is right, but we shall see.  Our favorite is when we ask Nicholas, "Do you need a new diaper"  He replies:  "No, I feel better." 

And I need to give a special shout out to "Uncle Bumbles."  His gift of Rocket from his favorite TV show Little Einsteins made an impression on Nicholas.  Just this week he was playing with it and said "it from Uncle Bumbles."  I was very impressed that he remembered who gave it to him.  Although his all-time favorite gift from Uncle Bumbles is blankie.  It will be a tough day when he will have to give that up.