Happy Mother's Day!

We had a very busy weekend with our family. We celebrated Mother's Day, my dad's birthday, and Nathan's Dedication. So after Meredith's baby shower we came home to have some fun outside in Nathan's baby pool before Wayne grilled steaks for dinner.

Daddy, Mommy, and little Nate

Don't you just want to squeeze and kiss him?!

"Anyone else want to come in here with me?"

"Ooooooh water!" The hose was like the best toy ever for Nathan to play with!

Daddy is great at multi-tasking; video taping AND relaxing

"I'm ready for my close up!"

Nathan was the entertainment for the afternoon, and here are his adoring fans: Daddy, Grandmother, and Mama.

Aunt Carrie took over the video camera for a while. I mean we can't miss one minute of Nathan's life!

Is somebody thirsty????

After our afternoon outside, we had a wonderful dinner of steaks, salad, baked potatoes, and birthday cake!

"Happy Mother's Day Grandmother and Mama! Those are my footprints!"

Nathan can't take all of the credit for the plates! This is a picture of us the week before at the pottery shop. Saying it was a bit stressful is putting it mildly :) After painting Nathan's feet and making the footprints, I had to paint the plates with 3 coats each! While I'm painting each plate, I also have to keep Nathan happy and keep him from trying to turn around in his highchair and stand up! We had fun though and I think the plates were a huge hit with Grandmother and Mama.

And for my gift, Wayne and Nathan got me a day at the spa! I can't wait! And I've turned into my mom and cry with every card :)

Papa's little helper helped him blow out his candles. Happy Birthday Papa!!! He's 57 ( +10)...ha ha!

Meredith's Shower

On Saturday, my mom, Nathan, Carrie, and I went to our friend Meredith's baby shower. Meredith's baby, Andrew, decided to surprise all of us and come a little early. But we were still able to have Meredith's shower.



"I love a party!"


"Ummmmm Aunt Carrie, I think I might be the only boy here."


Mommy, Nathan, and Aunt Carrie


Here is one of the outfits we got baby Andrew. We can't wait to see him in it!


Ashley, Carrie, Meredith, Stacey, and Tracey. Are you seeing double twice??? Meredith has two sets of twin friends!



Although Nathan loves to be the center of attention, he just couldn't handle all of the women!


Nathan loved playing with Mama's beads and then fell asleep with a death grip on them!


More pictures after the shower


Nathan now loves to grab anything, especially hair and jewelry.


And he is ruthless when it comes to pulling my hair!

Nathan's New Trick!

You all know that we've been working really hard on trying to get Nathan to crawl. Well guess what??? No, he's not crawling yet. BUT...he showed us something new tonight. When Wayne got home from work, we put Nathan on the floor to play. I laid him on his back, and then he flipped himself to his tummy and then sat up! It was crazy that this was the first time we had ever seen him do this and we were both there! And you can see that he is very proud of himself :)

Owen's Farm and Petting Zoo

Today Nathan and I met some friends at the Owen's Spring Creek Farm. It was quite an experience! They had tons of animals to look at: goats, donkeys, horses, chickens, and more. Nathan loved it!

Nathan was so excited to be at the farm with all of his little friends. I could hardly keep him in his stroller because he kept trying to get a better view.

Nathan and Mommy

Nathan holding hands with Kate. How sweet!

Jack, Nathan (ready to go see the sights), Kate, Marla and Kelly, and Brock.

You would have thought these goats were starved for food! We got a cup of goat food and as soon as I put my hand out, they charged forward...I swear they could have knocked this fence down!

The little baby goats were a little calmer.

Jack was such a big boy! He held the cup all by himself to feed the goats.

"Mommy, can he be my pet?" At one point, Nathan put his hand in the cup for a snack! I'm trying to make myself believe that he didn't actually eat it, but I did see a few oats on his face. I guess he figured if it was good enough for the goats, it was good enough for him :)

Does this really need any explanation?

After feeding the goat mob, we went on a hayride!

"What kind of chair is this?"

Nate loved the ride! He stood up most of the time to look out.

Mommy, Nathan, Jack, and Jennifer

Here's a group shot of all of us. Luckily we got to have the tractor all to ourselves!

Nathan and Jack looking at the turkeys and chickens.

After our trip to the farm, we headed to Jason's Deli for lunch. Nathan took a quick power nap on the way, but was wide eyed at the table!

And Kelly had her very own ice cream cone for dessert. Look how daintily she is holding her cone. What good manners!

Now Nathan is wiped out and is taking his nap. So far, he's been asleep for 1 1/2 hours!

What a Morning!

Nathan usually wakes up at 7:00, has his breakfast of oatmeal and fruit at 8:00 and is down for a morning nap at 8:45, but yesterday morning he decided to start his day at 6:30! I did not want to get up! But Nathan runs the show around here. He was just as happy as can be and talked and played in his crib until I got myself out of bed. We did our usual morning routine, but by oatmeal time, Nathan was low on energy. He ate so slowly and his blinking was like slow motion! Right before I fed him his last bite, I turned around to my laptop to send out a quick email and by the time I finished it, Nathan was falling asleep! It was the funniest thing! I just hope he learned his lesson and sleeps until AT LEAST 7:00!

Swim Lessons

Today was our last day of swim lessons so Daddy came to watch us and take pictures. He had a busy morning at work but was able to rearrange some things so he could see his baby swim like a fish...well, kind of.


"This water gets colder and colder every time!"


This is called the Monkey Crawl. Nathan is supposed to hold himself up and walk himself along the wall. He hasn't quite gotten the concept down yet. He usually just pulls up on the wall to see whoever is on the other side, but he's learning.


Nathan is about to jump in! He will usually lean over to me after I count to 3 and fall in on his own. He goes all the way under and doesn't mind it at all!


Yay Nathan! Oh and at each lesson, Nate gets to pick out a rubber toy to play with in the pool. I swear this is what he looks most forward to. He gets a different one each time and does not want to let it go!


Floating on his back is something that he's not all that fond of. Some days he likes it, other days he cries. He actually did pretty good today.


And then, he got to float on a noodle!


Each class has a different prop to use. Monday was life jacket day which was not a happy 10 minutes! Mr. Nathan likes to be free!


Poor baby was sad to leave the pool.


"Were you proud of me Daddy? Didn't I do good?!"

Our lessons were a lot of fun and now I feel so much more comfortable with going swimming and knowing what to teach him. I'm actually going to miss going to swim class because those two days were always the days that I never had to really get ready. What's the point if you're going to get wet. And by the time we get home, the day is half over so why get ready then?

And here are a few videos that Wayne took: