So Sweet

Is this not the sweetest face you've EVER seen!?

If you look closely, you can see a glimpse of Nolan's tooth in there...

Man's Best Friend

Nolan and Boomer are best buds. If Nolan is ever playing on the floor Boomer is always right there next to him. If Nolan ever starts fussing, Boomer is the first one by his side to "check" on him.

Here is a video from Sat.morning:



Things to note about this video:
1. Nolan is getting up his knees a lot these days! I can never seem to get it on video for long though.

2. Boomer is never far from Nolan's sight. In the middle of this video Boomer came inside and went immediately over to Nolan to give him a "kiss". Perhaps not the most sanitary thing, but we wash often ;)

3. Notice that Boomer started sniffing Nolan's backside. That is my clue that Nolan has a messy diaper. Anytime Boomer goes over and sniffs him I know it's dirty. He is like my little poop detective! =P

New This Week...

Nolan has had a busy week! He has been chowing down on some rice cereal for a while, so we decided to go ahead and give him his first taste of vegetable...

... He had sweet potatoes. I think he must have liked it because he inhaled it like there's no tomorrow. I am going to have to work on my feeding technique though because as you can see I think more got on his face than in his mouth. I guess that is a skill you acquire with time as a mom.

Nolan is getting better and better at sitting up... look at him go...

And he is scooting all over the place too! Too bad he can only go in reverse... he always seems to back himself up into awkward corners. You really have to keep your eye on him now - who knows what he'll get into if you're not watching!

Great End to Any Day

Imagine getting to look at that precious face in the mirror whenever you drive somewhere! The highlight of my day is going to pick up Nolan in the afternoons. No matter how good or bad my day at school was, I am always in a good mood by the time I get home. Nolan is such a happy car-rider. He is usually just talking and smiling away in the back seat as I drive home. It is so fun to look into the rearview mirror and see that. Seriously, how could that not brighten your day! It is a nice treat to have him - he helps me forget the stresses of work and just enjoy the good things in life!

Random Pics From the Week

Here are some random pictures from the past week (with commentary of course :)...

A man after my own heart...

What do you do when you can't eat mac and cheese yet? You eat the box of course!

The weather has been great here the last few days so we've gotten to go on some nice walks! This is a pic of Nolan getting settled into the front carrier thing... He always seems to have a great time!

Nolan is getting closer and closer to being able to crawl (look out)! He can't get up by himself but if you set him down on his knees he will kind of rock back and forth a little bit. This is a pic of him doing just that (although by the time I got the camera out he can kind of fallen down some)...

(sidenote on that last picture... if you look closely you can see his hair sticking straight UP on top there. For Nolan's sake I hope that is one quality of mine that he doesn't inherit =)

Apparently eating is an exhausting activity these days... or maybe Nolan just played too much this weekend and didn't get enough sleep... he feel right asleep at the dinner table before he even finished! Jack was proud that he seemed to master eating and sleeping at the same time...

Nolan loves his exersaucer! Also notice he is wearing overalls. Jack and I both love dressing him in overalls! Is there anything cuter? I think not. I went to a consignment sale this past week and had to hold myself back from buying every pair of overalls they had there (which was a lot). I did get a few pairs for him for the summer time though! :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

If this picture doesn't say Happy St. Patrick's Day I don't know what does!

Hope your day was great and you didn't get pinched or have your room trashed by a leprechaun or anything :)

In honor of this day, and of our family's Irish heritage, here are some Irish Proverbs:

- You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

- If you're lucky enough to be Irish, then you're lucky enough.

- It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life.

6 Months!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish Nolan a happy 6 month birthday!! woo hoo!

This picture is of the cake I made in my cake decorating class tonight. Yes, I know rainbows might be a little girly, but that just happened to be the technique we were working on... So I did the rainbow but then turned it into a birthday cake for Nolan. I guess I'll just have to eat an extra piece in his place since he can't have any =P

Solid Food

This week Nolan started eating rice cereal for the first time. As you can imagine he didn't eat a whole lot the first time, but he is slowly getting the hang of it! It is so fun to watch him learn new things that we don't think twice about. He seems to like eating like a "big boy." Most of the time he just wants to grab the spoon but he is becoming more aware of the food itself. Sometimes he sits in our laps when we go out to dinner and he is always grabbing at all the table food. Last night he grabbed a potato chip off of my plate and sucked on that for a while (maybe not exactly something I should have let him do, but oh well!). He seemed to like it because he held the chip in his mouth and proceeded to grab another one - double fisting the potato chips already!

Anyway, here are some pictures from his 1st time eating solid foods ever!

Get ready, get set...

...Eat!

"Hmm... what is this stuff?...

...I don't know but I think I like it!"

"If you can't feed me faster I'll just have to do it myself!"

First Tooth!!

Well it's official... Nolan has his first tooth! He's been drooling and chewing on EVERYthing for a while now, and this week one of his bottom teeth finally broke through! As you can see from the picture he is all ready to start brushing =P (for some reason he loves my toothbrush so everytime he gets in the bath tub he finds a way to steal it!)

A Season of Firsts...

Nolan has had a lot of "firsts" since my last post (sorry, by the way, for the long absence).

Here are a few of the things he's been up to...

First time being sick (not exactly a "first" I was looking forward to... ) He made it almost 6 months without getting sick at all though so that is pretty good I would think. Luckily it was nothing more than a bad cold but he was pretty pitiful for a few days. I mean, think about how miserable it would be if you had snot constantly dripping from your nose but you couldn't blow it. I had to use the little bulb/syringe/sucker thing and he did not like that at all! I guess I can't really blame him though. He has gotten a lot better over the past few days. He still has a little drainage in his throat which makes it sound like he's losing his voice (which is kind of funny but mostly sad), but otherwise he is doing fine!

This picture was taken after the worst of his sickness (I just didn't think it was fair to capture that part of camera) but you can still see his eyes are a little red and he doesn't quite look 100%... but still smiling though! :)

First time sitting in a high chair... getting him ready to eat some solid foods! (which I will post about soon...) He didn't actually eat anything while sitting in his high chair, but at least now it is put together and he seems to be comfortable!

First time sitting up! Nolan has been getting better at sitting up on his own. It's hard to see in the picture but he isn't really leaning against the couch at all! He can't usually support himself for long, but he can sit up for a few minutes all by himself (but before too long he topples over... still working on mastering this skill :)

More to come soon...!