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

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.

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.

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!

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)

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.

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.

We moved Nathan to a “big boy bed” (i.e. toddler bed) at the end of October. He wasn’t trying to climb out of the crib and he was happy enough in there, but we were given a toddler bed from some friends and Nathan was excited about the idea of it, so we switched. So far so good. He’s waking up at night now and then, which he wasn’t doing before, but otherwise has been sleeping great. There have only been a couple times where he’s come out of his room when he should be sleeping, and if I take him back in and rub his back a bit, he’s fine.

And he loves the bed. He plays in his room more now and loves jumping on the bed or piling all his stuffed animals on it.
This is right after we made the switch.

This is generally what his room looks like by the end of the day. I like that he’s enjoying his room more though. The latest game is piling every single stuff animal (not the puppets though!) on a blanket and pretending its a boat or that it’s “safe” from the Tickle Monster (i.e. Daddy.)

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!