January 2011

Well, January was fun and full of excitement. Nolan has been growing by leaps and bounds. He says the funniest things. I should really write them down...

He seems to kinda of understand that he's going to be a big brother, and most of the time he's excited, but maybe a little scared or confused as well. Hopefully, he will continue to be excited and want to be a good big brother!

Anyhow, here are some of the events of the month...

Nolan hanging with his cousins Koen and Brooklan

(Notice Koen's less than enthusiastic expression.)

Nolan driving the laundry basket...Lately Nolan has enjoyed stripping down to his diaper and then climbing into big piles of blankets.

This is Nolan enjoying his freedom from clothes...

Here is the big picture...Nolan is a bit stir crazy in the house, so he convinced his good bud Laurie to take him outside to ride bikes in the driveway. It was a bit cold, but I think he had fun anyways.

One last exciting thing, Nick got his new cyclecross bike so he can start racing here in the Spring. He is very excited, and so am I. The first race is March 26 in Glenn's Ferry, ID and the second one is about 1 month later in Mountain Home, ID. I'll try to get some pictures here soon of his new baby!

A New Development

This is the newest member of our family. We are so excited. Nolan seems slightly excited too. I'm not quite sure if he understands yet or not. When we ask him if he's going to be a big brother, he says, "Yes. Like Caillou." For those of you who are not familiar with Caillou, he is a cartoon character on TV. Nolan loves Caillou.

I'm thinking this picture is a cross section of the heart. Not sure though...
So to shed a little light on how we figured out we were pregnant, here's the story...

One day I just felt like I could be. Not wanting to disgust anyone, I will just say I had an early sign of pregnancy. The next evening, I took my first pregnancy test. This is it...

Not believing it, I immediately took another one. I still didn't believe it...

So at Thanksgiving (the next weekend maybe...), I had my dad bring home another test from the office...The first line is the control, and the second line means you're pregnant....

I still didn't believe it, so we didn't tell anyone (except Mom and Dad because of the test) until I had my first ultrasound and actually saw a heartbeat! Yay! We were super happy! We told most everyone at Christmas!

Now when we ask Nolan if he is going to have a brother or a sister, he says, "A sister, like Caillou." We'll see. I don't have any premonitions, but most people I talk to says it's a girl, so maybe Nolan knows something I don't. We'll see...All I know is we'll be happy with either.

P.S. We were trying. It was just a bit of a surprise it happened so fast and that it happened when it happened. It took us about 18 months to get pregnant with Nolan! It took us about six months this time!

December 2010

I love the holidays! We had lots of fun this year. Nolan really enjoyed the light and decorations. He was a big help with both. We got to spend time with lots of family and friends, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

When we put the tree up the first weekend of December, we started watching Star Wars. Nolan had seen some life size stormtroopers (actual people dressed up for the toy drive!) at the store the day before while Christmas shopping, and he just kept talking about them. He called them robots, so Star Wars is now known as Robots! Kids are too funny! We also went to Cousin Kaden's birthday party. Nolan had fun at Pojo's. He saw "the claw" there in many different forms, and also the plane that Snoopy flew in a The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. He absolutely did not want to be in the plane once it started to move though.

He was excited to go on the Carousel, but again once he learned it moved, he wanted nothing to do with it...
Here Nolan is sitting with Kaden. Looks like their waiting for cake. Anyhow, Nolan had fun. It was definitely a new experience, and maybe next time we go, he will want to ride all the rides!
The next weekend we went to Gramma Leeny's to make Christmas goodies! Yay! Rylee and her mom Traci also came to help out. Rylee loved on me for the first time ever! She has always been so shy around me, so this made me feel good. (I think it helps that I gave her lots of sugar!) She is such a sweet girl, and I think she will be such a great big sister too!

Notice the mischievous grin on Nolan's face? He just stole a carmel!

Christmas Eve was good and long. We watched a movie at home in the morning after some good cinnamon rolls compliments of Tiffany! (I was supposed to help her make them, but I just kinda ended up watching her make them...I know bad...)

Nolan is doing a happy dance with his balloon here after eating his Cinnamon roll!

Later we went to Nicks's Grandparents' home for some fun. Nolan got to open his "early" present, and he just about flipped when he saw what it was. He got a Woody and Bullseye toy from the movie Toy Story! He loves Toy Story! He did not let those out if his sight the whole night long!

Here Nolan is Chillin' with his cousin Kaden.

Christmas day we went to Gramma Leeny and Papa's house. The first thing Nolan saw when he got there is Koen with his new Buzz Lightyear doll. He went crazy. Who needs Woody and Bullseye anymore.

Nolan is getting cozy here with Koen. (His eyes are saying,"I want you Buzz.")We enjoyed the rest of the day with good food and lots of fun with the cousins. Koen was so good to his younger cousin Nolan. He let him hold Buzz quite a bit. Too bad Nolan spent a good part of hte day tackling Koen. Koen is so good with the little ones. Thanks Koen!

The day after Christmas, we had brunch with Nick's mom and sister at Nana's house. It was lots of fun. We even got to meet Chelsea's boyfriend! He's a nice guy. Nolan did get his Buzz from Nana. He was so excited! He also got a Buzz Spaceship from Chelsea which he loves. Why didn't get any pictures? I don't know. Maybe we were pictured out by the third day...

Overall, Christmas was wonderful and we were way too spoiled. Next year we need to focus more on helping others and finding the real meaning of Christmas.

On another note, here's a bed Nolan would love to sleep in every night. We were doing some shopping a couple of days after Christmas, and Nolan saw this bunk bed. I wonder if Nolan knows something we don't...

November 2010

I turned 30 this month on the 4th. Happy 30th Birthday to me! This is the wonderful "bouquet" of flowers Nick got me! They tasted really good. Thanks Nick! It was a good day even though I had to work...The weekend was good though.The weekend after that, Nick took me to Asiago's. Yum-o! The food was divine, and I ate a little too much, but worked out hard the next day! You funniest thing was that while there, I saw a huge tall man with red hair the was in dread locks. Usually I don't like dread locks, but his hair was so clean and he was very well dressed and good looking that I didn't mind them one bit. So weird. He was a server there, and every time he walked by I just had to look. Nick was totally making fun of me because every time he walked by I would make Nick look at him with me...I'm so weird. Thanks for a good dinner Nick. It was lots of fun.

So here are a couple of other things we did in November...

We made a cool fort...We put address labels on our faces...

(I just looked back in the car, and there they all were on his face.) We read some novels...

We tried on some cool hats...

We took pictures of each other taking pictures...
We went to Monkey Business with Layla...

Hi Layla!

Hi Nolan!

We played in the snow..Nolan immediately made a snow angel. I wasn't sure how he knew what a snow angel was until Daddy told me they had practiced making them the night before on the living room floor (fun visual). After the snow angel was finished, Nolan went inside, and I shoveled the driveway! We took some family pictures the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Thanks Tiff!

Thanksgiving was great. Nick made most of the Thanksgiving dinner. We had his mom and sister over, and then my brother Ryan, niece Layla, and Krista stopped by with a delicious chocolate pie for dessert. Yum-O!

We celebrated with the rest of my family on Saturday at my parents. Always a huge crowd there! Lots of yummy food and good company. I love seeing all the cousins together! Nolan just loves Koen and Brooklan. He loves Layla as well, but she is almost like a sister to him in some ways...

Koen, Brooklan, & Nolan eating breakfast the morning after.