A belated Christmas post…this is always a fun holiday, with lots of time spent with Gary’s family, and lots of food. It starts with Christmas Eve at Gary’s Grandmother’s.

Here’s Nathan getting ready.

Playing with Opa after dinner.

Gary and I managed to get a nice picture of just the two of us. This might be the first one since Nathan was born!

Christmas morning is spent with Oma, Opa, Aunt Julie, Uncle Jason, Jake & Ben. After coffee and opening presents, we have breakfast. It might be one of my favorite meals, partly because its a warm and happy morning and partly because it includes a contest to see who can eat the most. I think Opa took it this year.

Nathan broke into the candy cans before we even started on the presents. Eh, what’re you gonna do, it’s part of the holiday!

Oma has jingle bells, and Nathan made sure we all had them.

Nathan playing with one of his favorite new toys.

We got some cute pictures of the cousins this year. Nathan really loves them and it’s awesome to see them playing together. Jacob is especially good with Nathan and has a lot of patience.

Family portrait.

There aren’t any pictures from Christmas Day Eve because about an hour in to the family party the day caught up with Nathan and all that junk food he’d eaten came back up. We made a quick exit because even though Nathan seemed to be feeling okay afterwards, he’d been sitting on Gary’s lap…so, yeah, you get the picture.

Hanukkah was fun this year. Nathan was of course excited about the presents, but the best part was that he was really excited to light candles every night too, and by the last couple nights he was singing the prayers with us too. We got him a wooden menorah with candles he could put in himself and he helped us light the menorahs too.

We had Latkes on the first night and he liked them a lot. Also liked dipping them in his applesauce.

Oma and Opa came over one night, and Grandma and Grandpa Bob came for the last two nights and stayed for a few days. I think Nathan had fun celebrating with them and I loved having them all be part of the holiday.

Nathan had fun helping Grandma bake cookies.

I’m glad that Nathan is getting old enough to start to understand things about the holiday. He loved reading Chanukkah books throughout the week and even still likes to now. And we got a Rugrats Chanukkah movie that Nathan loved and wanted to watch over and over. Lucky for us, it was surprisingly not bad!

October was a fun month. We went to Zoo Boo at the Maryland Zoo, something we’ve done the last three years and hope to continue to do each year. All the kids dress up in their Halloween costumes and can go trick-or-treating at various booths. It’s been a fun time to get together with friends and have a fun family day.

Nathan looks like he’s plotting some serious trouble.

Feeding a giraffe.

Buds. These two had such a fun time together.

Getting a ride.

Carousel Ride.

Halloween was fun too. Nathan, thankfully, was always excited to put on his dinosaur costume. I think it helped that he got to pick out what he wanted to be and gave the final approval on what we ordered. After the first house Nathan wanted to eat his candy immediately. And after about 7 houses Nathan said he had enough candy and was ready to go home. Silly boy doesn’t know what he’s missing!

Practicing in the costume before Halloween.

Roar!!

Checking the loot.

Checking out our Jack-o-Latern

Chocolate!

Ok, so this is a little late, but Mother’s Day weekend we took a family trip to the Aquarium in downtown Baltimore. We made the same trip last year but Nathan enjoyed it so much more this time around, and we had a gorgeous day.

Nathan loved looking over the side of these walls that run all the way through the aquarium. On the other side is a big open tank so you can look down at the rays, sharks and fish.

I just love his little head poking out here, trying to see over the side.

The best tanks were the ones that went ceiling to floor where there were big fish or turtles to watch (I think it was an amazon rainforest exhibit?)
This is not one of them, but he liked the tropical fish too…he heard some kids calling the fish Nemo and Dori, and then whenever we saw an orange clown fish or bright blue fish, he’d call them that too (I think Nemo is the only movie he’s watched to date, so he knew the characters.)

These are always one of my favorite animals to see.

Last we headed to the dolphin show. Nathan was intermittently amazed and fidgety…as were we, since the show is light on dolphin action and heavy on slideshows and environmental messages. But still fun of course!

The afternoon ended with lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. It started out well, but ended with Nathan throwing up into his bowl of mac&cheese, probably due to the huge amount of milk he sucked down in a really short amount of time. Luckily the mess wasn’t bad and he was fine afterward. I felt worse for the other diners than I did for him and us

More photos in the May 2009 album.

We had a fun time celebrating Nathan’s 2nd Birthday. It was unfortunate we had to work that day, but I picked Nathan up a little early from daycare so we got some extra time to play outside in the afternoon. Then Oma came over for a pizza dinner and ice cream cake dessert. Yum!

We talked to Nathan about how he was turning 2 before the big day. For a few days when we asked how old he was going to be we got an answer like “7″, but by his birthday, he knew he was 2 and was pretty proud to tell you when you asked.

Profile of a 2 year old (the morning of his birthday.)

Blowing out candles. (I really need to cut my face out of that!)

Digging in.

(Please excuse Nathan’s red and slightly swollen face. Poor kid got hit pretty hard with allergies that week, but it’s gotten better since.)

Nathan & Oma.

Family Shot.

More pictures here.

(Birthday Party post to follow!)

We went to Virginia last week to celebrate Passover with our friends Matt & Erika. It’s been a fun tradition to attend their sedars and this made 4 years! Things have definitely changed since our first one…by the second sedar I was pregnant…but the third we had Nathan and they were pregnant…and this year Nathan had a playmate named Penelope (or Elpy if you ask him). Even with the one year age difference they found ways to play together and seemed to have a lot of fun- Penelope liked following Nathan, Nathan liked bringing Penelope toys and he talked about her constantly, even this weekend after we’d come home.

Nathan made it through the four questions at both sedars, but didn’t want to sit still for long and ended up going to bed around his normal bedtime. He’s definitely a kid who likes routine!

Ok, so this is a little late, but we had some cute pictures from Valentine’s Day I wanted to share.

The card we gave Nathan had stickers in it and as soon as he took them off the sheet he started putting them all over his face. I think it’s because sometimes we put stickers on our noses when we’re being silly, and he can be a goof sometimes

His GiGi (Great Grandma) sent him a bear for Valentine’s Day and he loved it. Dragged it all over for days and even wanted to sleep with it. Very sweet.

I’d say his favorite part was probably the chocolate covered strawberries from Oma. Yum!

Hope everyone had a Happy Valentine’s Day!

I took Nathan out to a few houses to Trick-or-Treat for Halloween. I don’t think he quite knew what to make of it, especially since our neighborhood is pretty quiet for the holiday so there weren’t lots of other kids out doing the same thing. He also had a Halloween party and parade at daycare that morning, so I think he was kind of over the costume by the time we went out. Either way, it was a fun evening.

Getting ready to go out.

Checking out the loot.

Enjoying a Halloween treat.

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

I guess Gary’s the ultimate judge, but I’d say we had a nice Father’s Day. I attempted to cook us breakfast, which is a rarity, then we ran some errands and spent the evening with Gary’s family, eating crabs and grilling burgers. It was a lot of fun, and Nathan had a blast playing ball and visiting with everyone.

Daddy reading the new book he got from Nathan.

Hanging out with O-Pa!

Playing ball in the yard

Nathan showing off his new walking skills

More pictures from the afternoon are in the June picture folder here.