Over the past month or so, Nathan has gotten really good at feeding himself with a spoon and fork. Nowadays we mostly just let him go to town when eating, only intervening to help him spear something with a fork or to prevent him (or try to) from dumping apple sauce or yogurt all over the table and tray. We’re not sure if he’s going to be a lefty or not, because he uses utensils in both hands, but he seems to be better at getting the food in his mouth when he is using his left hand, to it seems that might be the way it goes.

After his biggest feat of self-feeding so far, eating a whole pudding cup all by himself.

In addition to feeding himself, one of Nathan’s favorite new pastimes is to feed Fen treats. It has gotten to the point that the at least half of the times that Nathan walks into the kitchen saying “cookie” he’s asking for a dog treat to give to Fen. We’re trying to teach Nathan to make Fen sit down before giving the treat but I think it’s getting a little lost in translation as most of the time we tell him to tell the dog to sit, Nathan himself sits down before delivering the treat.

He’s saying Cheeeeese!

Really wanted to find a way to pick them up.

In the last couple weeks we hit another farm and went to the Maryland Zoo again for their annual Zoo Boo. Nathan loved it all and doesn’t seem to get tired of feeding goats or watching animals, but I think Gary and I are ready to take a break since we’ve had two farm trips and two zoo trips in the last month (not to mention another farm and zoo trip in the late summer.)

A couple of weeks ago we met friends and their 19 month old at Elioak’s Farm. It was a gorgeous day and we got to take a hay ride and play in the pumpkins.

Nathan & Jonas

You know you wanted to see another picture of Nathan feeding goats…

Nathan really seemed to love the hay ride

Checking out a tractor.

This past weekend we met friends at the Maryland Zoo for their annual Halloween event. We didn’t do more than walk through the Zoo Boo part since most of it was too old for Nathan, but it was fun to dress Nathan up, catch up with friends, and stroll through the zoo. Surprisingly, Nathan didn’t mind wearing his costume and even liked roaring for us.

Nathan the Lion

The kids weren’t very interested in posing, but we had to try.

Nathan took his first spin on a Carousel and loved it.

More pictures from Zoo Boo here.

Nathan had a burst of new words in the last week or two. He’s added: Outside, Go, Elmo, Cookie (for a cookie and Cookie Monster), Bye Bye, Hello, Hot, Hat, Hop (he calls Bunnies Hop and will say it and bounce if you mention bunnies or frogs), Cheese, Um, Bicycle, Baby, More, and we think we heard Shoe.
And he also has a few two-word phrases now: Airplane Go, All Gone & What’s this.

Total word list:
Dog, Duck, Cat, Fish, Daddy, Mama, Ball, Apple, Cracker, Airplane, Hi, Up, No, Thank you, Opa, Outside, Go, Elmo, Cookie, Bye Bye, Hello, Hot, Hat, Hop, Cheese, Um, Bicycle, Baby, More, Shoe?, What’s This, All Gone.

And we can add clucking like a chicken to the list of animal sounds, and he learned the sign for bird so when he quacks he puts his hand up to his mouth to make the sign.

The two word phrase was pretty exciting to hear. He said Airplane Go first. We’re still not sure if it means “The airplanes gone”, or “Where’d the airplane go”, or maybe both, but he says it after he sees an airplane fly over and disappear.

There are probably other words we haven’t deciphered yet. I want to keep track of as many as I can, but I just read that he may start adding multiple words per day soon, so that might be the end of the lists.

Nathan’s doing other new things too, like starting to try to jump up, climbing more, and feeding himself (separate post to come on that). He likes to try to walk up the stairs like we do. He loves looking at pictures of his classmates that the teachers sent home, riding on his bike, reading books and looking for airplanes outside.

We were lucky enough to have my brother, and my mom and her fiance Bob, visit in the last couple weeks. We don’t see them very often because they don’t live locally, so it was a nice treat.

Nathan must have remembered my brother from his visit in May because he walked right up to him and gave him a big hug when he arrived. It was very sweet.

We had fun at the pumpkin farm with my mom and Bob, and enjoyed a few days of just hanging out and letting Nathan enjoy his grandparents. Gary and I also took advantage of them and had them babysit so we could go out for a date night.

We took a trip to a local farm this weekend while my mom and Bob were visiting. I always forget its barely 10 minutes from our house and it’s got a great country store, hayride, maze, animals, pumpkins and other fun kids stuff.

Feeding a Goat.

Riding a tractor.

This slide was pretty big. I liked it, but I don’t think Nathan was so sure he felt the same way.

Squinty Family Photo.

Mini Hay Maze

Handsome & Tired

Hanging out.

When I asked him to give Fen a hug.

Looking outside, something they both love to do.