We went to a 1st birthday party recently. They had pools, and a slide, and all kinds of fun things for the kids. Nathan had a lot of fun going from pool to pool, almost always toting a tennis ball he’d found.

They had a huge stuffed dog that Nathan liked cuddling with, though some of the other kids liked to cuddle with it too and he and C had a little head collision at one point. They were both fine

It was great to catch up with friends and see how much their babies have grown!

Daycare has been great at teaching Nathan sign language. He can say PLEASE and MORE really well and seems to understand them. They’re teaching him BIRD and we’re trying THANK YOU as well. We have started asking him to sign PLEASE if he asks us for something, and he’s started doing it on his own sometimes too. MORE he mostly uses when he wants more food. It’s very cool to see him communicate with us like that! He also sort of created his own sign if he wants to go outside by waving his hand toward the door, like he’s going bye bye. He loves to hang out in the front yard and watch birds and planes and cars.

He’s also saying a few words now (though in his own baby way):
Dog/ Doggy (Doh)
Daddy!
Duck (Du)
Cat/Kitty Cat
Ball
Fish (Shish)

And cutest of all, he blows kisses when he’s saying good bye to someone, or leaving a place. Its very cute when he blows Gary a kiss before we leave in the morning, and it makes my day when he blows me one as I leave him at daycare.

We went to visit Clarkland Farm this weekend. It’s a great little farm and petting zoo not far from us, and with Nathan’s love of all things animal, we figured he’d enjoy it. I’d say he definitely had fun, we all did!

It was pretty cool to watch how Nathan had no fear about going right up to everything, from the goats to the cow to the horse. He got to pet some of them, and help feed them.

Everything was “doh doh” (his way of saying dog), except when we got to the ducks, then it was lots of “duh duh”.

I think we’ll definitely go back later this summer, especially since we didn’t have a chance to let Nathan ride the pony.

I wish I could post a recording of the way Nathan says “Daddy!” now. It’s so sweet. He says it when he sees Gary a lot, and sometimes when he sees me (we’re trying to work on Mommy now, but occasionally he will say “Mama Mama” when he wants me to pick him up.)

This weekend Gary was out, and Nathan was in the next room when I heard him say “Daddy!”. I went to check on him and found him looking at a picture of Gary and I, pointing and smiling at it and repeating “Daddy!”. He likes to play with the pictures on that table, but it was the first time I’d seen him recognize who was in the photo.

And then, of course, I quickly grabbed my camera and took pictures.