Nolan's New Favorite Thing...

Nolan's new favorite activity is to pull himself up and pull all the dvd's off of the shelf. He makes such a mess,  but you can see in the pictures below that he has a blast. I guess there are worse things he could get into right? Forget buying any kind of expensive toys. All he needs is a shelf to rearrange and he is good to go!

Turned my back for one second and the next thing I know...

LOVE that smile! Even if it means some extra cleaning up to do :)

Congratulations!

I just wanted to take a minute to say Congratulations to my sis-in-law Krista! She graduated from pharmacy school at the top of her class! I can't even fathom the amount of things you have to know to be a pharmacist - but she did it and did it well! Way to go! We are very proud and definitely impressed!

Outdoor Fun

The weather recently has been great - especially in the evenings. So that only means one thing - lots of time to play outside! I think Nolan really likes being outside. Tonight Jack, Nolan, Boomer and I went for a walk. Nolan was all smiles the entire time. And when I say all smiles, I really mean ALL smiles! I wish I had a picture but I didn't have my camera with me. Instead, here are some pictures from the other night when we hung out outside:

Not sure what this expression means, but it sure is cute! You can see the strawberry residue on the collar of his shirt (more on that to come later):

Trying to steal the camera:

He loves playing with my phone (or any electronic device for that matter)...

Caught in the act of trying to steal Boomer's bone:

Nolan playing with his best bud.... Boomer doesn't seem quite sure of this whole crawling baby thing, but he is always sweet and patient with him!

New Floor

Over the past month or so we have been working on putting new floors in our living room and dining room. We still have a few touch-up things to do but for the most part we are DONE! It looks so much better in there! No more gross stained up carpet :)

Here are some before/after/during pics:

Living Room Before (the previous owners had the living room as their dining room) - note the flower wallpaper border:

Living Room After:

Entry way after:

Nolan and Boomer checking out the new floor (Boomer is still a little apprehensive - he doesn't like walking across it very much):

I forgot to take a before picture of the dining room, but here is a before (left) and after (right) of the chairs I redid. You can see the gross pink carpet underneath =P

Dining Room After:

I still need to hang up some art/pictures that we have and figure out some window treatments, but those two rooms are well on their way. Now on to the next project on our to-do list!

Sincere Apology

Dearest Friends and Family,

I think I owe you an apology. I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to get you sick! It has come to my attention that a large number of people that visited us on Sunday ended up with the flu this week. Here's what happened...

Sat. Jack woke up not feeling well and stayed home from work. His symptoms included vomiting, nausea, headache, and just overall achy, weak body. Nolan and I both felt fine and went about our morning as usual. We ate breakfast and played a little, and then I baked a cake, went to the store for meds and Sprite for Jack, and went to Lowe's to get more trim and mulch. About the time I was leaving Lowe's I realized I didn't feel so good either. I made it home where I found this:

So I uncovered Nolan to make sure he didn't suffocate and joined the boys for a nap. I think we all 3 layed there for a good two hours without moving. The nap felt good but it only confirmed that I was definitely sick. It's not common for us to be sick at the exact same time, so we both figured it was food poisoning or something we ate on Fri. night. We layed low the rest of the day (neglecting all the cleaning and chores we were suppose to be doing). It was nice to lay around and not do much, but I think we could have both done without the vomiting.

Anyway, Sunday came and we both felt much better. I whiped the house down as best I could Sun morning and we went on about our plans - after all it was Nolan's big day! We had breakfast out with some friends, went to church, and then came back to our house for lunch/after-baptism party. It seemed like everything went great. Then on Monday we started hearing about different people that were also sick. Everyone seemed to have the same symptoms Jack and I did. Slowly the number of sick people grew and grew... as of today we've counted over 35 people that we saw on Sunday that had to take Tuesday off from work/school because they had a bug. That is some crazy-contagious virus!!

So anyway, back to the apology. I'm really sorry if you got sick and it was because you hung out with us. If I had known that we actually had a virus and not just food poisoning I wouldn't have had everyone come over to our house. I really had no idea it would have the impact that it did. Whether it was our fault you're sick or not, I hope you are feeling better now. And thanks again for spending time with us on Sunday. It meant a lot to us and to Nolan!

Much Love, The Donohoes

Baptism!

Today we got to celebrate Nolan's Baptism! Jack and I both recognize that being baptized doesn't gaurantee Nolan will go to heaven. Instead it means Nolan no longer belongs to himself, he belongs to the Lord. And we pledge, as his parents, to grow him up in the knowledge of the Gospel. We pray (and hope that you will pray also), that he will realize he is a sinner, but that Christ died on the Cross so that those sins would be forgiven. And when he is ready, we pary he will accept Jesus into his heart. So needless to say this was a pretty important day, and we were thrilled to get to be a part of it!

We were blessed to have lots of friends and family join us in church today for the service - one of the church women mentioned that we had the biggest visiting group they had ever seen! We are truly lucky to have so many great friends and family that mean so much to us. Thank you all for taking the time out to be a part of this exciting milestone! Unfortunately I didn't take the time to get a whole lot of pictures (I know some people did though, so if you are reading this, and you have pictures of Nolan's baptism, please share)! These are the pictures I did get...

Here is the cake I made for the occasion:

A quick pic of the after-party:

(we had 2 games of corn-hole, 1 game of ladder golf, and TONS of food and fun :)

Nolan checking out some AWESOME presents:

This was his 3rd outfit of the day... sadly I didn't get any pictures in his baptism outfit because he pooped right through it in the middle of church (at least he waited until after the baptism).

Checking out another book:

He really liked this one because it played music. I think when this picture was taken we were singing Jesus Loves Me together:

Nolan reading a card...

You can't see it in the picture but he has a bunch of chips stuck to his shoulder - he had just dumped a whole bowl of potato chips on his head.

We definitely had a great day. Nolan really enjoyed getting to see everyone (and so did we!). The festivities must have worn him out though because he was in bed asleep by 7:00! Thanks again to everyone who made this day so special - whether you were there in person or in spirit. We love you!

Birthdays

This past week we got to celebrate 2 birthdays in the Donohoe family...

Friday (May 14th) was Boomer's birthday! He is now 3 years old! That is like 21 in dog years. Jack joked about getting him a beer to celebrate, but so far (at least to my knowledge) that hasn't happened. Instead he got a giant bone for his birthday present. This will probably last him for a while...

We also celebrated Nolan's 8 month birthday! It is hard to believe he is 8 months old! He is an active 8 month old too. His favorite things to do now are eat, sleep, crawl like crazy, play with the buttons on the tv, pull dvd's off the shelf, walk himself around the coffee table, and chew on the things (he is not particular. He will pretty much chew on anything. I think he is going to have some more teeth pop through soon!)...

Standing Up

Remember like a week or two ago when I posted some pictures of Nolan pulling himself up on his knees? Well apparently that was too easy for him. Over the past few days he has taught himself to fully stand up! I'm proud of him for being such a fast learner, but at the same time I'm nervous - now he is really into everything. You can't take your eye off of him for a second! (or else he will pull himself up on something or bonk his head on something or put something in his mouth that he shouldn't - like today when he ate a piece of dog food... oops ;).

Here are some pictures of Nolan pulling himself up/standing up:

(he looks so pleased with himself :)

Needless to say I won't be putting him in the cradle anymore...

This is how I usually find him in the mornings now:

(the problem is that he would rather stand up in his crib than lay down and sleep in it now!)

Happy Mother's Day!

I just wanted to wish everyone out there reading this a Happy Mother's Day! I think I appreciate this day a lot more now. I mean, I've always appreciated and loved my mother very much. But I think I love and appreciate her even more now that I know what being a mother myself is like. You really have no idea how much your parents love you until you have kids of your own! (see the poem below that I stole (Thanks Danielle! ;) - it is so true!) So anyway, Happy Mother's Day to everyone! I hope you got to love and celebrate your mom today! And thanks to everyone who made this day extra special for me. It was a great 1st Mother's Day. I feel truly blessed to have the best son EVER! :)

(This is a picture Nolan made for me - ok, so I know he had some help, but I love it nonetheless! ;)

Before I was a mom,

I never tripped over toys

or forgot words to a lullaby.

I didn't worry whether or not

my plants were poisonous.

I didn't think about immunizations.

Before I was a mom,

I had never been puked on.

Pooped on.

Chewed on.

Peed on.

I had complete control of my mind

and my thoughts.

I slept all night.

Before I was a mom,

I never held down a screaming child

so the doctors could do tests.

Or give shots.

I never looked into teary eyes and cried.

I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.

I never sat up for late hours at night

watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a mom,

I never held a sleeping baby just because

I didn't want to put her down.

I never felt my heart break into a million pieces

when I couldn't stop the hurt.

I never knew that something so small

could affect my life so much.

I never knew I could love someone so much.

I never knew I would love being a mom.

Before I was a mom,

I didn't know the feeling of

having my heart outside my body.

I didn't know how special it could feel

to feed a hungry baby.

I didn't know that bond

between a mother and her child.

I didn't know that something so small

could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a mom,

I had never gotten up in the middle of the night

every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.

I had never known the warmth,

the joy,

the love,

the heartache,

the wonderment

or satisfaction of being a mom.

I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much

before I was a mom.

New Tricks

Nolan has been practicing some new tricks this week. He is an expert at sitting up by himself now. He has also been getting better at crawling (scary huh?). He has been working on that for a while now and he's starting to figure it out. It's so cool to see him go from just rocking back and forth, to rolling around to get places, to doing the army crawl, to then crawling for real! Here is a video that sort of captures both of those things (crawling and sitting up):

It Finally Happened...

What happened you ask? Life. That's what happened. Life finally caught up with us. 7 and a half months ago we were blessed with an amazing baby boy. You would think that our lives would change drastically with that. And it did. But for the most part we were still able to maintain a regular social life. We could hang out with friends or go out to dinner like normal. Nolan is a pretty solid sleeper, so most of the time he would just sleep right through dinner or fall asleep sometime in his carseat and wouldn't know the difference. But times are different now. It finally hit me this weekend when some friends wanted to go out to dinner at like 8:00 on Fri. night. In pre-Nolan times we would have been there in a heart beat. But now Nolan is in bed asleep at 8:00, so we can't go out to dinner (or anywhere) that late unless we have a sitter. And let's be honest, when do we ever plan anything well enough in advance to get a sitter? So I guess our late-night social days are pretty much over. I hate thinking that we are going to miss out on something. But you know what? It is so worth it. I would do just about anything for that boy (including give up my social life). I mean just look at that face...

For the record, we do still enjoy hanging out with our friends. In fact we LOVE our friends! We just have to either plan in advance or hang out earlier in the day. :)