Nolan & The Terrible Two's

Nolan has most assuredly hit the terrible two's. I wouldn't say that he's insane all of the time; in fact, more often than not, he's a great kid. It's just those few times a day that try my patience.

Here is some proof I may have my own Jekyll and Hyde:

The Good: Nolan loves to load and unload the dishwasher.
The Bad: Nolan doesn't know when it's clean or not and will load dirty dishes with the clean or put the dirty away in the drawers whenever he feels like helping.

The Good: When Nolan gets in trouble, he knows how to say "Uh-oh, sorry mama."
The Bad: Nolan is still 95% non-verbal and gets extremely frustrated that he can't communicate so there is a lot of screaming, yelling, and pointing going on in our house.

The Good: Nolan is learning to pick up. He likes to clear his dishes off the table and throw away the garbage in the garbage can.
The Bad: Nolan usually ends up throwing away a glass or two every few days along with various other items.

The Good: Nolan is beginning to share. He likes to give Ian books from the bookcase and toys from the living room, and stuffed animals to anyone upstairs.
The Bad: During his sharing, he manages to take all the books, toys, and animals out of their proper places and makes the rooms appear to have spewed forth the objects around the house.

The Good: Nolan likes to help me load the washer and dryer.
The Bad: Nolan has started throwing other things in with the wash, ie books, toys, paper, crayons, garbage.

The Good: Nolan loves to play with Brennan & Ian.
The Bad: When he feels he's not winning or getting enough laughs out of it, he throws the biggest fit ever!! Kicking & screaming included!

The Good: Nolan loves his daddy.
The Bad: Nolan knows exactly the right look to get whatever he wants from him. Just one little start of a frown and Nolan gets to spend the night in our bed. And heaven forbid there are tears! Luckily, I seem to be immune to his charm or the entire house would be in peril.

The Good: Nolan still takes a nap.
The Bad: Nolan refuses to go to sleep at night. When I check on him before I go to bed, he's in his room, sorting through the books or stuffed animals, more often than not laughing. You have no idea how weird it is to hear laughing at midnight. It's kind of freaky!

Some other stories to keep you laughing:

* After refusing to eat breakfast, I asked Nolan what he wanted. He went to the pantry, climbed on the stool and got a cup of Easy Mac. He came back into the kitchen and threw it at me with a look that said "This is what I want, stupid!". I made it and he ate every last bit.

* As Nolan was trying to clear his bowl of cereal from the kitchen table, he accidentally spilled it all over the kitchen floor. He looks at me with his puppy dog eyes and says "Uh-oh. Sorry mama." I said it was okay and he just kept saying "sorry, mama". It was soooo cute!

* Nolan wants to help me whenever I do anything in the kitchen. One morning, I was making scrambled eggs. I managed to crack the eggs, and while I reached over to the fridge to get the milk, Nolan grabbed the bowl and spilled the eggs all over the floor. That clean-up was followed by a broken root beer bottle in the pantry and spilled coke in the living room. Seriously one of the longest days of my life!

* Nolan has gotten it into his head that once he sees something in one location, that is it's permanent location. Example: I put my glasses on the foot board of my bed so I could play with the boys on the floor so now Nolan thinks that is where they belong. If he sees them laying on the night stand or counter, he will move them to my foot board. Such a silly boy!

* Nolan really loves his teacher at the Hope Enrichment Learning Preschool. Ms. Helen and Ms. Ana can get him to do practically anything. They even tell me he's a happy and laughing kids while he's there. He really loves to color and sing.

Now for the pictures of my boy:

Nolan stacks EVERYTHING!

He's all about sharing TROUBLE with his brothers

Typical Nolan look. "I'm not doing anything Mom"

He cleaned out the drawer so he could sit in it and watch TV

He's really into dancing and singing. Don is jumping to the music and Nolan's trying to keep up with him.

The Great Pantry Cleaning

You know the drill: Every year, after the holidays have come and gone, you realize that your house has, as my mother would say, "Gone to Pot." Where that saying came from or what it originally meant, I have no idea. But for my use, it means a once lovely place has been neglected and is a in a very sad state!

Let me give you a quick preview of my messy pantry: hidden behind the door lies in wait sprouting potatoes lying on the floor, birthday cupcakes ground into unrecognizable crumbs, cereal & cookie boxes stacked very precariously on the top shelf just waiting for an unsuspecting short person to fall on, water bottles and soda liters rolling around, empty boxes and packages of snacks that Nolan had devoured in the pantry, moldy bread that could be considered biological warfare material.... I think you get the picture. If not, take a peak of this picture:

Yes, I realize I'm a bad mother for letting my baby sit in the middle of this mess. I kept plucking him out, but he would just crawl back into it. I couldn't fight him anymore, so I just made sure he didn't eat anything that would cause permanent damage.

If you have ever cleaned with children, you know that a job that would normally take 20 minutes gets turned into an hour or two, or in my case, nearly three. Why? Who knows. But I think the results speak for themselves.

So much better, right? I can see the floors, the kids can no longer get into any snack they want because they found their right homes in the containers, and the bio-hazards no longer exist! Yippie! I do love me a clean and organized pantry.

I shouldn't be too happy though. As every mother knows, when you take one step forward in cleaning your house, your kids make you take two steps back. Hence the picture below.

Oh, well. At least I made a little progress today. Rome wasn't built in a day. So, when are you going to jump into your spring cleaning?

I can do it!

Ian can feed himself!

Now remind me again.... when do they learn how to clean up?

Real Snow? In Nashville?

Moving from the land of the snow (Utah) and Ice (Illinois), I wasn't expecting anything serious from Tennessee. We've had a few flurries over the past two years we've been here, but nothing to write home about. What's crazy about this is that the news here makes every snowflake sound like a bomb and that we are going to starve/freeze/suffer in the worst ways when we expect any snow. They even go so far as to cancel school over the threat of snow, which is what really drives me crazy!!!

After hearing about the gloom and doom for a few days prior to the snow, I was expecting to be snowed in for weeks and when I emerged there would be nothing but a white wasteland. Guess what?!? It snowed and everything was white, but we still had our electricity and water and as far as I'm able to tell, no one lost power or heat or water and no one starved. Heavens, the grocery store was still open!

Now that I feel better (thanks for letting me vent), I want you to know that we did have a lot of fun playing in the snow. Nolan & Brennan couldn't get enough, but I wouldn't let poor Ian out in the cold. I don't need anymore sick kids this year.

Nolan & Daddy playing the snow outside our garage.

Nolan kept falling down and laughing. He really loved the snow.

Even Don's a kid a heart and had to get in on the action.



Don and Nolan sliding down the street.

Just so you know, in Tennessee they cancelled school for 4 days for 4 inches of snow. Which totals out to 1 day out of school for each inch. Can you imagine them doing that in Utah or Illinois?!?

Vegas, Baby!

To celebrate my entry into the upper 20's, Don and I decided to take a trip to Las Vegas. A quick weekend in Sin City was the cure for what ails ya!

We flew into Vegas on Friday morning and met up with Ben and Tammy that afternoon at Planet Hollywood. Friday night was spent having dinner at PF Changs, followed by walking the shops at Planet Hollywood and Ceasars Palace, and finished up with dessert at The CheeseCake Factory (with lots of Big Bang references).

Chillin' with my bestie!

Saturday was such a fun day! It started off with lots of poker and gambling, followed by breakfast and a Hot Air Balloon Ride. Not the fly around the city kind, just up and down, but it was still scary! That night we went to "Tony & Tina's Wedding", which I thought was crazy funny but Don hated and poor Tammy was really sick!

Pretty much what the balloon looks like

Can you tell Ben was terrified to go up?

While our trip was short, it was very sweet!

Sweet Ian

Seeing that Ian had his first birthday this month, here are some things that I always want to remember about Ian when he turned 1:

* He's a BIG Baby~ he weighs in at 25 lbs 14 oz and 30.5 inches long and wears 18-24 month clothes.

* He's off formula and drinks whole milk (thank heavens that expense is gone!)

* He takes 4-6 steps consistently, yet when he realizes that there is nothing close by to hold onto, he just sits down. He's such a chicken!

* He says "dada" when Don's around and "mama" for pretty much everything else.

* He eats all table food now. Mashed Potatoes with gravy, Oatmeal with applesauce, Bananas, and yogurt are his favorite foods.

* He loves to shut himself in rooms, particularly the pantry and his bedroom.

* He chews on everything in sight. Books, toys, letters, magazines, furniture. It's like we have a puppy. I'm going to have to replace the coffee table and side tables because of all of the bite marks all over them.

* He loves taking bathes in the tub with Nolan.

* He loves to get into every cabinet and pull out everything, especially my hairspray and gel.

* He is my little escape artist. I'll leave him in the living room to change the laundry and he makes a bee line for the pantry or stairs.

* He can climb the stairs and has even partially mastered going back down the steps.

* He blows raspberries to make you laugh and "clicks" or "wags" his tongue to get you to do it too.

* He loves to watch outside (esp. now that there is a house being built right across the street). He never wants to miss out on anything!

* He loves the camera. Whenever he hears the click, he always turns around and smiles, then crawls to touch it.

* He is the happiest, easiest going baby I've ever had. He's content to watch me cook and clean or play by himself for a few minutes.

* He adores Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, and Baby Einstein movies. All he has to hear is the introduction music and his head turns to see where it's coming from. It's great that I can buy 20 minutes to clean the kitchen or take a shower.

* He loves to wrestle with his brothers and dad. Crazy huh?

* He is super-duper ticklish and will laugh when you growl or even pretend to start tickling him.

Isn't he just the sweetest?

Just Like My Big Brother

I know that growing up, I wanted to be just like my big brothers and sisters. Anything they were doing, I wanted to do to, so it comes as no surprise to me that Nolan wants to do exactly what Brennan does. Sometimes, he can't quite get the hang of things (like video games and building Lego's), but other times, he can mimic Brennan to a "T". Like this picture:

Brennan is doing his reading homework for school like he does every night. Most nights, Nolan just watches him, but lately, he's really gotten into reading his books too. I'm glad that Nolan is picking up good habits to go along with the craziness that seems to exist in our house!

I bet you're wondering what Ian does during this time?

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Mute!