Hanukkah

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!

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Firetruck

We went to a 3rd birthday party recently and it was at a Volunteer Firestation. This is the second party like this we’ve been to and Nathan was just as excited to ride in the Firetruck again. It was fun watching him run around with his buddy (the birthday boy) too. There are a few kids he’s really clicked with and Owen is one of them. They’re really cute together.

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Reflection

Someone got a little marker on their face and then found the new mirror in Mommy and Daddy’s room…

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Stuck

I know it’s probably mean to post this picture, but I thought it was cute. Nathan is trying to walk through 18″ of snow and couldn’t really get any further. This is him crying for me to come get him.

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snow and SNOW!

We’ve had snow three times already and winter has barely begun. If that trend continues we’re going to have a very excited two year old on our hands. Nathan loved playing in the snow (as long as his mittens adequately covered this wrists…the one time the snow got in there, he was done.)

The first snow was relatively light, but there was still enough sticking to build a family of little snowmen. And Nathan had a lot of fun stepping on them all that night.

The next snow was much heavier. Gary measured 18 inches of snow by the end of it.

Nathan had fun “helping” Gary shovel

And Fen had a blast.

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Updates

Im really behind on updates…so to make things simpler, this update will be more of a list of some of the new things Nathan’s been doing over the last couple months.

He makes up songs now and then. One had only the words “yum yum yum yummmmmmm” and one was “I dont like carrots” to the tune of Nick Jr.s “I dont like candy corn”, which turned into “I like candy corn” (can you tell this was all the way back around Halloween. Wow, Im behind!)

Nathan is really talking in full sentences now and we can have total conversations with him. It’s very cool. Some of the things he says are:
What are them doing?
Whats that sound?
Who that is? Or who her is?
I want a other one
Do that again
Whats them names? (for what are their names or who is that)
When he’s trying to stall or get something he wants after we’ve said no, he says “Because I need XYZ” or “Just one more time” (While holding up his pointer finger to show me just ONE).
“I just need to see something for a minute” (When he’s trying to stall)
“Donk” (no idea, probably something he does with his friends at school)

He remembers a lot of the Chinese and Spanish words he learns on TV or at daycare-
“ting” (listen), “ni hao” (hello) and “xie xie” (thank you) in Chinese
“arriba” (up) “abajo” (down) and “salta” (jump) in Spanish. He even used Arriba and Abajo correctly in context once or twice, and he can count to 10 in Spanish.

He recognizes his name when he sees it in CAPS and loves pointing out N’s whenever he sees them (”That’s my Name!” and tells us N says Nnnnnn). He remembers that Nurse Shark begins with N from a book we have. He’s getting better at recognizing some other letters and can tell us what sounds some of them make and what words start with some of the letters (thank you Leap Frog Letter Factory!)

He’s still good at remembering the books we read and saying the words with me. He can do that with some TV shows and a lot of the songs on the shows. Speaking of TV, he is a HUGE Dora the Explorer fan. Followed by Diego, Max & Ruby and the movie Finding Nemo. He loves the Cars characters too.

He told Gary a story he made up and repeated it to him a few times, though I cant remember what it was about, so Ill have to ask Gary to do a separate post.

He has a few friends that he has really clicked with. Two at school and two others. He tells us they are his “best friends”, though his teachers are also sometimes his “best friends”, and so is Daddy on good days.

He’s saying I Love You to us more, sometimes without us saying it to him first.

He loves playing “tickle monster” with us (i.e. he hides with one of us under a blanket while the other one pretends they cant find us and then surprises us with tickles. We’ll giggle and whisper under the blanket wondering where the Tickle Monster is, or if he’s coming (it’s usually Gary) and pretend that he really can’t see or hear us. He also loves playing football, especially with Gary. They throw the ball, then Nathan runs for a touchdown and spikes the ball. Sometimes he gets tackled.

He’s getting better with the potty (though we’re still just going with the flow and not really pushing it at this point.)

He considers Fen part of the family, which is just adorable when we’re talking about something he, I and Gary are going to do and then Nathan says “and Fenny?!”

All in all he is just growing into such a smart and talkative little guy. He remembers so much (must get that from Gary), and is so silly and goofy sometimes. He’s starting to show more empathy when he’s bad, coming over and saying sorry sometimes, though we still have plenty to work on and he gets his fair share of time outs!

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Opa always makes Nathan giggle

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Fall!

Yeah, it’s Winter now, but these fall pictures of Nathan playing in the leaves had to be shared. Gary had just raked the entire yard into dozens of piles of leaves and Nathan had a blast destroying them all by running through them.

He also had fun throwing leaves and chasing me down with them.


(He does that hand on the hip thing a lot. Very cute)

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Bowling

We took Nathan bowling recently. The first time was at a friend’s birthday party and Nathan had a lot of fun, so this time we went with some friends and their daughter.

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Cooking with Daddy

Here’s Nathan and Gary making Challah together. Nathan really likes helping in the kitchen, which mostly means helping Gary in the kitchen. ;-) His jobs usually consist of salting the food or mixing things up.

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