Bath Robe

If I had to guess, I'm pretty sure Nolan's face in this picture is saying...

"Mom, you are ridiculous. It is way too early in the morning to dress me up in this silly bath robe. Why do bath robes for babies even exist? I'd rather be naked. Give me a diaper and some milk and I'm set for life. No bath robes necessary. If my dad saw me in this outfit he would die. Seriously, I'm embarrassed. Stop taking pictures and get me out of this thing."

Random

Earlier today Nolan and I were hanging out, clipping out some coupons when the next thing I know... I look over and Nolan has stolen my McDonalds coupons! The little sneak... he better have enjoyed those coupons because that is as close as he is going to get to McDonalds for a long time!

Snoozin' with Pops

This picture is from a few weeks ago but thought I would share... Jack and I went out for something (can't remember what now) and Mom and Dad graciously agreed to babysit. When we got home this was the scene we found --> Nolan and Pops snoozin away on the bed together! My question is, I wonder which of them fell asleep first!?

Coincidentally, Nolan is wearing that same outfit today. That outfit was a gift from his Uncle Logan, who's birthday is today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOGAN! WE LOVE YOU!!

Overalls

This isn't the best picture but I just wanted to show off Nolan's overalls that he had on today. I'm not sure why but I think little kids wearing overalls is just the cutest thing! I guess if he is going to grow up playing on the farm he better get use to wearing them :)

Happy Boy

Nolan is such a happy baby. We are so lucky! He has his occasional moments where he is fussy, but for the most part he is happy and content.

Last night Jon and Jennie came to visit. Here is a video of them playing together:

5 months!

Today is Nolan's 5 month birthday! Over the past month Nolan has grown a lot! He has pretty much mastered rolling over, and has started focusing his attention a lot more. Now when you call his name or start talking to him he will turn his head and look at you. He also "plays" with toys a lot more. As you can see in the 2nd picture he has gotten a lot better at his exersaucer. He especially likes the spinny toy on there (or any toy that makes noise or he can put in his mouth). He is really growing up!

Videos

The videos I've posted on here haven't been working as of late, so I went ahead and posted them on youtube... here are the links if you'd like to see them:

Here is the "snow day excitement" one:




Nolan and Jack playing:

What do you do when the power goes out?

Go sledding of course!

The crew: Me, Hannah Lovell, Mom, Uncle Jeff, Colby, Hunter, Hannah and Afton (the dog). Kris was nice enough to stay inside with Nolan. I really had to twist her arm you know ;)

View from the top:

The infamous sledding hill was great! Dad was nice enough to drive the tractor down and make some tracks for us. We also went out at night when it was nice and slick. We went all the way to the river! (where the trees are in the picture above).

Surprisingly Boomer LOVED sledding. Jack took him down once in the trough -yes, we go sledding in a trough sometimes, but don't knock it 'til you try it! After that Boomer was hooked. He wanted to go down every single time! And when we didn't let him in our laps he just chased down after us by foot =P

Overall it was great fun. We got to be together as friends and family, and it was a great way to get outside and not think about the fact that we were without power!

With the way the weather has been going today (blizzard like conditions again) it looks like we might be back out on the hill before too long!

Let the Good Times ROLL!

It has begun. Look out world, Nolan has officially started rolling over! He has been able to do it for a while with a little assistance, but over the past few days he has really worked on his form. Here's proof:

Before:

During:

After:

(This is Boomer's version of a high-5)

Sometimes he gets his arm stuck underneath and can't quite get it out, but overall he is doing great! Before we know it he is going to be crawling and getting into EVERYthing.


(I owe a big thank-you to Mother Nature for cancelling school so much and allowing me to be home to capture these fun moments with Nolan!)

Walk Through the Neighborhood

Jack, Nolan, Boomer and I decided to get out of the house and go for a walk in the neighborhood. It is quite a work out to walk through this much snow (they say on the news Stafford currently has 26" but not sure what the actual total is at our house). Nolan actually stayed awake for part of our trek outside (see last post) but as usual, he fell right asleep before too long. Next time I want him to go to sleep and he won't I am going to put him in his snow suit and lay him out in the cold. I'm not sure what it is about that combination but it puts him to sleep every time! Here are some pics from our walk:

The view of our street (notice all of the trees down across the road!):

Jack and Nolan:

Somehow Boomer managed to dig up his bone... how he found it in all of the snow is amazing to me! You can't really tell from the picture but he made a pretty good size hole:

Snow stacked up on the railing this morning:

Awake in the Snow!

The past several times we have tried taking Nolan out in the snow he has fallen right asleep! I guess he doesn't get as excited about the snow as the rest of us. But today he actually got out and got to experience the snow while he was awake! Here's proof:

 
 

I don't think he quite knew what to think about the snow. You can see in the last picture there that he looks really confused. I guess it would be a little strange to feel something cold and wet falling on your face when you've never felt that before!

Puzzle

Snow days are great to do things that I normally don't get to do... hence the puzzle. I think I did this puzzle on Snow Day #4. I actually rather enjoyed doing it. This may sound dumb but I think it is the mathematical side of my brain that liked it. I mean, if you think about it, math problems are basically just big puzzles that you have to figure out. Ok, I am being too much of a nerd so I'll stop. I just wanted to show off my completed puzzle since no one can get here to see it in person :)

Preparing for a Blizzard

Ready or not, the snow is coming! This time around we are suppose to get 20 - 30". You know it is going to be bad when the weathermen stat talking about snow accumulation in terms of "feet" instead of "inches". Virginia has its share of snow each year, but I think this winter is worst than most. As you can imagine people are kind of freaking out around here. Jack has been selling the heck out of snow blowers at work. I think they've sold more snow blowers this week than they have the past 10 years combined. It has been great for business! A lot of people are saying that we might lose power in this storm, so they've been selling chain saws and generators too. I can deal with lots of snow but ice is not my thing. Personally I'm rather fond of heat and electricity.

The snow hasn't really started coming down too hard yet. It is snowing but nothing like the blizzard conditions they say are on the way. I tried my best to make the most of this morning knowing that we might not get out of the house for a while. Here's what we've been up to so far:


Nolan actually slept in a little bit this morning - 7:30! I felt like a new woman sleeping that late. After everyone had breakfast Nolan got some tummy time on the floor. Despite our efforts of encouragement he still hasn't quite rolled all the way over. He can get about 80% of his body over but always gets stuck on an arm or something. I think in this picture Boomer was trying to help him out:

When that was done we decided to bundle up and make a last minute trip to Wal-Mart before the storm trapped us inside. I tried to do some grocery shopping earlier in the week so we could avoid the crazy/desperate people. I got almost everything except for dog food (I guess Boomer needs to eat too) and pepperoni (making pizza later). Wal-Mart was pretty picked over - there were almost completely out of dog food (I was able to scrounge up a small bag to get us through) and the only pepperoni I could find was a package so big it will last us a lifetime. This is a picture of Nolan enjoying his trip to Wal-Mart (and by "enjoying" I mean "sleeping through"):

While we were out and about I decided to go ahead and take Boomer for a walk. After all, it might be a while before we can get out and exercise again. By the time we were done this was Nolan:

I promise I am not trying to suffocate my son. I guess the hat is still a little on the big side, but his head is so big that most his other hats don't fit! I like to think of it as an eye mask - kept things nice and dark for his nap :)

After our walk I made sure to give Boomer a little extra exercise. I threw sticks and snow balls at him for a good 10 minutes, and he chased them relentlessly. I've decided that those are the two best toys for dogs. They are free, and if you lose one you just find a different stick or make a new snow ball. Boomer sure seemed to enjoy it anyway!

And as if Boomer didn't have a good enough morning already, he had another surprise. MG came over and brought Ella for Boomer to play with. boomer is probably 10 times Ella's size but they played great together nevertheless. Eventually Ella figured out ways that she could get the upper hand - chasing him around through narrow paths, and swatting at him from the height of the couch.

Now Boomer is nice and warn out! He and Nolan are both sounds asleep so it's time for me to stop writing on this blog and go get something productive done. I figure if I'm going to get snowed in I'd rather be snowed in in a clean house. We'll see how that goes...

Snow Day #5

We are off from school again today! I only worked 1 day this week. It was awesome! I know my classes are going to be behind but I am enjoying every minute I have at home - especially with Nolan to keep me company! Now that I am a working mom I treasure these days even more - the more time I get at home with Nolan the better! I know this is an abnormal winter for our area, but I wouldn't mind if every winter we got this much snow!

Snow Day Excitement

So far this year we have had lots of snow, but it always seems to come on the weekends or times when we are already on break. Well this storm was no different - it snowed all day Saturday - but it was enough to get us out of school today! When I got the news yesterday I was pretty excited (it's always fun to find out in advance so you don't have to wake up and get ready and stuff). But I wasn't the only one that was excited...



Even at 4 months old Nolan is already excited about getting a snow day! Somewhere in the middle of that video he was telling me all the fun things he wanted to do today. We'll see how much we get accomplished! :)