Family Pictures and Nate's 2 Year Pictures!

This photo session was beyond frustrating!!! I scheduled the session for a Monday at 7pm. I figured the boys would be fed dinner and they would be happy to smile for a few pictures at this time. I also figured we could avoid the weekend rush of people. ET ended up having a very busy day at daycare and school, and so he fell asleep in the car on the way there. When we arrived, we had to wake him and he was one crabby bear!

We walked in and thought we would start with Nate's 2 year photos. So glad we did this, because Nate only lasted a couple minutes. He became incredibly frightened of the flash from the large lights and the popping sound the camera and flash made every time the woman took a picture. Each time she took a pic, he just got more and more scared and worked up.

While this was unraveling, ET was just sobbing because he was tired, and because I had taken off a band-aid from his finger (he had a finger prick at the doctor just hours before). Most of the time, ET is very easy to persuade or turn around in moments such as these, but NOT THIS TIME. Jay eventually had to bring him to the bathroom to have a "talk" with him. Let me remind you, this is all happening while Nate is now SCREAMING in front of the camera.

Okay, so we stopped and decided to do a few family photos. We only could capture one mediocre shot. Bummer!

We were pushing our luck, but by this time both boys had stopped crying so we wanted to try for a few pictures of ET and also a few shots of the boys together. We were able to get a couple of ET, but when we placed Nate back in front of the camera he just screamed right away.

I wasn't going to reschedule because I feel like at least I was able to capture the moment for what it was. I was so confident that Nate would do well this time because he is over his shy phase, but apparently there are new obstacles to overcome. Oh well, maybe next year we will actually catch that adorable little grin! :)

A winter to remember...

This winter has really been one to remember. The weather has been absolutely wonderful all season long, but the cold bugs have never been worse.

The winter weather really didn't even start until December this year. Matter of fact, it was near Christmas time and I saw people out riding their bikes still. The weather has been unusually dry and warm. Just this last weekend we were even grilling burgers on the grill! We are crossing our fingers that we get some moisture, but none of us want another huge snowfall. We are all curious to see what March will bring.

Everyone always says "you take the good with the bad." With this great weather, there has been an unusual amount of cold bugs circulating the air. Not sure why...seems like it would be the opposite, but it is what it is. ET's body is so strong that IF he even gets a cold, he kicks it within a day. Nate on the other hand has really suffered through this season. About three colds have brought on fevers, and all of them with terrible coughs. Nate will seem better for a couple days, and then catch a new strain just days later. I am confident that these sicknesses are colds, because other children in the daycare are suffering from the same thing right along with him. We have been greatly concerned about potential ear infections, but he has only been diagnosed with one infection this season. We have brought him in a couple of times only to be sent home with nothing. That is definitely a good thing that is resulting from all of the chiropractic care we have sought after. I know that his immune system will grow from this because ET was the same way when he was a toddler. Because of all this, we have decided to start giving the boys vitamins everyday. I hope this will help in the months to come.

Here is a picture I took of Nate a couple weekends ago. Out of the blue he just stopped playing and crawled up on the chair and fell asleep. He didn't even cry or whine for me. I guess he just felt like he needed a cat nap. Poor baby!

Valentine's Day

On February 3rd, we had free date night at the church so we dropped the boys off and Jay and I went to Sunsets for dinner. We had such a nice time!!! After dinner, we got back in the car and Jay put a present on my lap. He completely SURPRISED me with a new Kindle Fire! WOW! He even called my girlfriends and asked what book I needed for my next book club meeting and downloaded it for me. He is such a sweetie, and I am such a lucky woman! Needless to say, I love it and I have been reading A LOT since then during my spare time.

The following weekend, I made a nice sushi dinner along with chocolate covered strawberries...


Nate filled out car Valentine's for his friends, and ET filled out Star Wars Valentine's. I can remember last year when ET was three years old, it took him nearly an hour to write his name on ten cards. This year ET wrote his name on twenty cards for church school, twenty goodie bags for church school, and ten cards for daycare in no time flat! What a difference one year can make.

I made cookies for Nate to pass out to his friends, and heart shaped rice krispie treats dipped in chocolate for ET to pass out.






I wished I had taken more pictures of the day's celebration, but I came down with a pretty terrible cold on this day. It was unfortunate that I had to go to bed early on Valentine's Day. :(
The kids made Valentine's cards, painted hearts, and love bug headbands. We ate heart shaped puff pastries for breakfast, pizza with heart shaped pepperoni for lunch, and strawberry cheesecake cupcakes for snack. It was a fun day!

Here are the Valentine cards ET made for Jay and myself...

Update on Nate...

Nate mastered the "P" and "B" sounds yesterday at speech!!! With this and the vowels, we feel like he is on the verge of a speech explosion! Before this week, Nate would say "op" when asked to make the "P" sound. Now he can make the sound perfectly, and he is so cute when he does it! He is so proud of himself that he can't help but grin from ear to ear when he does it. :)

Nate had his hearing tested on Thursday this week. Everything looks okay, but they want to test him again in a month or so because his right ear was showing a bit of congestion during the ear drum test. I am not sure if I am even wording that right as Jay was the one to take him to the test. He did however reassure me that everything looks fine regardless of the congestion. I guess we will just continue taking him to the chiropractor regularly to make sure there is no fluid building up in his ears.

BAM!

I would just like to write how absolutely adorable I think it is that ET thinks the word "BAM" is a verb. He uses this word quite a bit throughout his play time since his new favorite things lately are Star Wars and Angry Birds.
A lot of other kids ET's age have been introduced to Angry Birds, and Star Wars and so we thought it would be okay to show him what these things are all about. He shows great attention when watching Star Wars and asked loads of questions. I know he is understanding a ton of it too because he is able to reiterate what happened in many of the scenes. He seems to have taken a boost in his vocabulary lately and is sounding more and more mature. That is, except for the word "BAM!"

For example...
"How about I BAM you with my sword and then you fall over, and then you get up and BAM me!"

How adorable is that?! I have tried to explain to him that BAM is really a sound and not an action. Instead, we might use words such as... pound, hit, strike, etc.
He says he knows, but he just likes the word BAM! Like I said, he is maturing fast enough lately. I don't think I need to feel pressure on fixing this one. To be quite honest, I love it!

Oh, and since we are talking words here I should also write about ET's fascination with the word "duty." ET seriously believes he made this word up and anytime he cracks a joke, he almost always says the word "duty." There has been a few times when he has heard someone say the word "duty" on TV; as in "heavy duty." I cannot tell you how hard ET belly laughs when he hears someone say this word. He truly laughs so hard that he can't catch his breath. What a goof!

What a little helper!

Nate LOVES to feed Eddie the cat. Every evening after the daycare kids go home, Nate wants me to let him feed the cat. He will actually get upset if I forget to let him do this. (I so clearly remember ET feeling the exact same at this age.)

Well, this weekend the boys were back and forth between the upstairs and downstairs playing with toys. Nate pulled at Jay's hands to bring him toward the laundry room. He wanted to show him what he had been up to. You should have seen his face - Nate was beaming with pride!

We all had a good laugh...


No wonder Eddie hasn't been eating all his food lately. I think someone has been overfeeding him. Whoops!

A Speech Breakthrough!!!

I am so excited to write this! Nate has had a BIG speech breakthrough last week! Darby came to work with him on Tuesday and introduced Nate and myself to a program where the vowels in each word is the only thing we concentrate on. Up until now Nate has only been able to communicate the "ah" vowel. After one session with Darby, he is now making the ah, oo, and ee sounds!!! I stood around the corner listening to her work with him, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I was absolutely shocked when I heard him say the the "oo" and "ee" sounds for the first time ever! It is interesting to watch though because if she points to a picture with a cow and asks him to say "oo," he will say it. Again, if she pointed to a ghost and asked him to say, "oo" he will say it. But if she asked him to say the word with the consonant in front, he will revert back and respond with "ah" again. She explained to me that we need to get Nate completely comfortable with his vowels and the movement of his throat and mouth to produce the vowels, before expecting him to add a consonant with his lips as well.
Well... Darby had AMAZING advice because after a week of this type of home therapy Nate has really taken some strides! My favorites right now are hearing him say "Thank you (oo)," and "I love you (oo)." He will also say, "eeese" for please. Words cannot express what I feel inside when I hear his voice attempt and succeed at these words. THANK YOU GOD!

Oh, and a few more things...Nate was watching Super Why on TV yesterday, and each time one of the characters asked the audience to repeat the sound of a letter, Nate actually chimed in and attempted it!
Also, I was reading Nate a Biscuit book last night and each time I would read "woof woof" or "ruff" Nate would repeat me! In addition to this, Nate has been saying nearly all the animal noises during his play time throughout the week!

One the sweetest things I heard this week though was Nate calling "Ma-Ma from his bedroom. Normally, when he needed me in the past he would just cry or whine. Now he is calling me with question in his voice, like "Ma-Ma?" (Are you there?). And this weekend (Sunday) he called for Jay "Da-Da?" Nate has been waking at 6:30am every morning for over a week now. Jay got him on Saturday morning and then I got him on Sunday morning (he was not very happy, because like I said, he was calling for "Da-Da" on this day.) :)