Nathan’s newest “thing” over the last couple days is saying “Ta Da!” when he does something. You know, very important things, like hand you a book, or put a magnet back on the fridge, or roll a car down his toy garage. I have no idea where he learned it (which means probably at daycare), but it’s cute!

He also seems to be really good at memorizing things. Books some, and TV shows. We watch a little TV in the evenings and we’re usually watching the same channel, same show, every day. Since he sees things over and over again, he’s now started saying things along with the show, or singing some of the songs that come on between shows. Kind of neat to watch actually.

Nathan has also started a cute, but painful, habit of leaping onto our laps with no warning.
He likes to “sweep” with a Swiffer mop we’ve shortened. Unfortunately he refuses to do it if there is a pad on the mop, which is why I put sweep in quotes.
He also still likes to play pretend with his stuffed animals. It varies from day to day which one he likes, but he’ll feed them real or imaginary food and cover them up with his blanket.
Which reminds me, for awhile now Nathan has liked to fake sleep by pretending to snore. He doesn’t do it in bed, just at random times when we’re playing. Another of those things that I’d love to catch on video but probably never will. Videotaping him is really hard because as soon as he sees the camera he wants to watch it, which means now the screen is facing away from me and he’s just staring into it and not doing whatever it was that inspired me to take out the video camera in the first place.
Oh, did I mention he’s kind of bossy?

Nathan has become a big fan of pools this summer. We don’t get to them too often, but he loves when we do.

A few weeks ago we went to a party with Gary’s family and Nathan spent most of the party in the pool. He didn’t want to get out and thankfully Gary was a good sport and played with him the whole time.

Baby pools don’t seem to have quite the same draw. He gets excited about getting in, but then loses interest pretty quickly.

(Fenny is TOTALLY eyeing that cheese cracker in Nathan’s hand)

Nathan playing “piano” on a little toy that has Do Re Mi keys while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song.

My mom and Bob are spending the summer driving across country. Sounds like they’re having some amazing adventures, and they found this cowboy hat for Nathan along the way. He loves it and will just randomly wear it when he’s hanging out.

This photo just makes me think summer…and this is the smile we get when we tell Nathan “don’t smile, don’t you smile!” It’s pretty much the only way to get him to smile for pictures, and it always elicits a big grin.

(His legs are getting so long!)

Nathan and Rintoo (AKA Daddy) had a long conversation while we were at the beach. Nathan howled with laughter the entire time, and it was hilarious to watch.

Now, Nathan will hand Rintoo to Gary and say “Talk to me Rintoo.” It’s actually become a great way to get Nathan to cooperate more with getting dressed or brushing his teeth. Because of this, Rintoo is often seen wearing a diaper, and even had on one of Nathan’s t-shirts for awhile. I guess it’s kind of his equivalent of having a doll and it’s cute to see him pretending to talk to him or share things with him.

We made our first trip to Ocean City a couple weeks ago and had a great time. This trip was with Gary’s family, and we’re going back later this month with just the three of us.

Nathan loved playing in the sand, but wanted nothing to do with the water. He and Gary built lots of sand castles and Nathan and I took walks to collect seashells.

Nathan was introduced to his first fresh Fractured Prune donut. I’d say he was a fan, but who wouldn’t be?!

As usual, we had fun feeding the ducks (and even geese!) on the canal in front of Oma & Opa’s condo. The seagulls were quite bold.

(Note: having your two year old throw bread to ducks off a pier with no railing is really nerve racking.)

And we took Nathan on his first mini-golfing adventure. He was a fan, especially when we got to the water and he started throwing his ball in. The place we went had several different courses. We did the safari with all the big animals, but he was really fascinated with the pirate themed course and couldn’t stop talking about the pirate ship.

And! We actually got some nice family pictures! It’s a rare thing.

Many more pictures from our weekend here.

My brother came for a visit recently. It was great to see him, but most of all I love when Nathan gets to spend time with him because he lives so far away. Plus Nathan loves Uncle Ethan because he’s so much fun.

Besides just hanging out, we took a trip to the zoo. It was mildly successful…Nathan wasn’t as in to most of the animals this time and had more fun petting the goats than anything else. It was a little hard because he wasn’t the most cooperative toddler, but we had some fun.

We tried the carousel and started to get Nathan on an animal, but ended up with him clinging to me in one of the seats. Afterward he said it wasn’t scary, so we’ll definitely try it again soon.

Nathan will occasionally pick up one of the play phones we have and call Uncle Ethan. It’s very sweet and we can’t wait to get to see him again!