15 things nolan loves at 15 months

1. Eating fruit: he LOVES fruit. I don't think he's ever tried one he doesn't like. Some of his favorites include strawberries, bananas, and peaches.

2. Face timing with Grandma and Grandpa B who he calls "bapa" and "bama". 

3. Naps. Nolan will gladly go take a nap when he gets too tired to function. He MUST have his binky, blanket, and stuffed dog with him. He has become super attached to them lately. I think it might be a result of all the traveling we've been doing.

4. Playing games on the iPod touch.

5. Reading stories

6. Wrestling with dad

7. Animals and animal sounds. He loves looking at animals in real life, on tv, in books, or in apps. He loves hearing their sounds and he can imitate an impressive number of them. He does the dog, cat, elephant, lion/tiger/bear, snake, duck, cow, rhino, giraffe, and probably more that I can't think of right now.

8. Eating pasta. Pasta with a tomato based sauce is probably his favorite food. Serve it with broccoli and he is the happiest camper!

9. Playing in the kitchen. Nolan loves nothing more than to rummage through everything in the cupboards, play with the utensils, throw things in the trash, etc.

10. Water activities: this includes swimming, running around at the splash pad, taking baths, and even just washing his hands.

11. Talking: lately Nolan has started saying so many words...or at least things I recognize as words! He doesn't consistently use them, but when he's in the right mood he'll repeat a lot of them. He says ball, balloon, mama, dad, grandpa, grandma, water, cracker, strawberry, all done, thanks, please, car, and a few more on a regular basis. He also babbles nonstop.

12. People. Nolan loves to meet new people, play with them, and talk to them. Although he does get shy sometimes, he's very outgoing. He hates saying goodbye and will often start crying when it's time to go home or for someone else to leave. He is often found hugging strangers. 

This is seconds after hugging this little dude at the children's museum.

13. Music and dancing. Nolan loves all kinds of music. He loves to dance and has recently added a new dance move to his repertoire where he stomps one foot dramatically. I love to watch him dance! He also likes to sing a long at church, and waves his arm with the chorister.

14. Accessories. Nolan loves to wear accessories. He is always bringing me his winter hats or moccasins to put on him. He also tries to wear my jewelry whenever it's within his reach. 

 

15. And finally, Nolan loves his mama! He is in a very clingy stage where he only wants mama when he goes to bed, gets hurt, wakes up at night, etc. It can get a little tiring, but I'm loving all the hugs, kisses, and cuddles. Nolan is such a sweet, affectionate, little guy! I love him to pieces!

In other news, I finally weaned Nolan off the last feeding this week (at 15.5 months) and I'm surprisingly sad about it. I've definitely had a love hate relationship with breast feeding and I never thought I'd have such a hard time giving it up! Nolan is doing just fine without it though and hasn't asked to nurse once!

april, may, and june resolutions

I haven't been very good about updating my new years resolutions lately. But, I have been better about actually doing them!

April: MIND

For April, I wanted to do something that would allow me to exercise my mind more. I decided to work on reading more. I read a lot of books right after Nolan was born, but since he has gotten bigger and more demanding and I've started working again, I haven't really had the time or desire to read. I decided it was time to make reading more of a priority in my life. I checked out a bunch of books from our library. They were pretty much all fiction, youth novels that I knew I could read fairly quickly. I'm still not really in a place where I want to delve into a heavy book right now. I just don't have the time or patience to get through them. Anyway, I definitely accomplished my goal by reading seven books that month! I'll have to do another post on some of my favorites, but I am loving the I am Number Four series!

May: BODY

In May I decided it was time to work on my physical health again. I've really had a hard time getting back into exercising since having Nolan. I get so discouraged when I see some of my friends with babies 5 of 6 months old running marathons or even 5ks. My pregnancy and birth were really hard on my body. I was anemic for half my pregnancy, I was nauseous for the first 6 months which made it hard to do anything more than going to work every day (which ended in me gaining a little more than I wanted to), I broke my tail bone, and I've had hip and lower back pain from about half way through my pregnancy. I'm STILL suffering from pain in my tail bone and hip/back!

SO, I decided I needed to work on strengthening my lower back and hips to try to alleviate some of this pain so I can get back to where I want to be physically. I started doing some yoga at home. I'm doing a specific workout for back pain and it is really helping! The first time I did it, I was sore in spots on my back that I didn't even know existed! I don't get quite as sore anymore, but it is still a great work out and it has helped relieve some of my pain. My goal was to do some form of exercise three days a week. I did accomplish this for the most part, but not the week I spent in Utah for my aunt's funeral.

June: TIME MANAGEMENT

Life lately has been a little bit tough for me for a few different reasons. First, it has been hard for me to juggle my time between a toddler who doesn't like to play by himself; my job; and my responsibilities as wife, chef, and housekeeper. When I waste some of my time or don't have enough time to accomplish everything, the first thing to go is usually the tidiness of our house. And this leads to a downward spiral. I am less happy when everything is messy which makes Nolan less happy which means I accomplish less and become more stressed. So, no matter how many commitments I have and deadlines I have to reach, I've been working on keeping everything relatively neat. My goal for this month has been to make daily goals for myself and to organize my time well enough that I can accomplish everything I need to. Even if this means less time for things I want to do. So far things are going well and I've actually felt like I have more time! I mean look, here I am blogging for the first time in almost 3 months! :)

easter 2013

Easter this year landed about a week before Nolan's birthday (on my mom's birthday!). This was so awesome because it meant that Nolan got to celebrate two Easters before turning one!

The night before, Scott and I were up late and didn't have time to do all of the Easter bunny work, so our baskets didn't arrive until after church. Actually, Scott and I haven't ever done baskets for each other before, but we decided to do it this year. Having a toddler just makes celebrating every holiday seem necessary and much more fun! :)

Scott and I mostly got Easter candy, a DVD, and a new book each. I also got Scott an HDMI cable that he has been wanting for his Xbox and I picked out a pair of swim shorts for myself. :)

Nolan got a new book, a DVD with some kids cartoons, some rubber duckies, and some snacks! He loved his Easter basket and all of the colorful eggs and surprises!

My aunt and uncle who live about 40 minutes from us were kind enough to invite us over for Easter dinner. We had a great time and were glad to have some family to celebrate with!

After we came home from dinner, we skyped with my mom to wish her a happy birthday!

the twelfth month

Nolan turned one about two months ago! I can't believe how old he is getting! I've been so busy lately and haven't been able to update the blog as often as I'd like to.

Nolan had a great birthday! My brother Nathan was on spring break the week of Nolan's birthday, so my parents were able to come down with him and celebrate with us! We had a great time with them swimming and expolring some of Phoenix.

For Nolan's actual birthday, we decided to go to the Zoo. The Phoenix Zoo is huge and has tons of animals! It was so fun to show Nolan around. He either growled or barked at every animal. My parents even gifted us a zoo membership for Nolan's birthday. It only costs about $5 more than it would cost for 4 adult admissions -- and you get two free passes. Now we get to take Nolan to the zoo all year!

After the zoo, we came home for naps while I made dinner and Nolan's cake. We had baked ziti for dinner because I promised my mom a birthday dinner (she asked for lasagna) and Nolan loves pasta with any kind of red sauce.

Nolan's cake was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. This was about a week before my suspicion that Nolan is allergic to milk was confirmed. So, unfortunately, this was probably his first and last experience with cream cheese ... at least for the next few years. (hopefully he grows out of his allergy!). Anyway, he LOVED the cake and ate every last bite!

We then opened presents. Grandma and Grandpa B. got Nolan some cute outfits and some books, uncle Nate got Nolan a mini soccer ball, and we got Nolan his own mini laptop, a giant animal book, and some magnets for the fridge. He loves all of his gifts! He even got a card with a puppy on it from his Nana and Pap pap. He loved the card and ran around giving the puppy kisses all day! The card came with a check which we opted to use to open a savings account for him. He doesn't really need any more gifts and we wanted to start a tradition of giving him money to save every birthday.

The best part of the whole evening was probably when we brought out the balloons. I had wanted to get them filled with helium, but we didn't end up having time to find a place to do it for us. But, I'm glad it turned out that way because Nolan was so funny when he saw them! He tried to grab one but it bounced away, so he started chasing after them and trying to tackle them. Of course, they'd always pop out of his grasp so he'd have to keep going after them. It was so hilarious to watch! He was so serious about the whole thing! It didn't even look like he was having fun! Luckily my parents got it on video. I'll have to see if I can get a copy to upload. 

After all of the festivities, we put Nolan down for the night and I ended up going to bed early as well with a migraine. Too much heat, sun, and stress for one day! But, I'm so glad Nolan had a great day!

the eleventh month

My baby is 11 months old! Crazy! Whats even crazier is that he is walking around like a full blown toddler. I'm definitely not ready to have a toddler! He is growing up too fast! I swear he is getting so long and lanky these days. I measured him today and he was about 29in long and 22lbs. He has thinned out quite a bit though. He is definitely losing his baby chub.

As I mentioned, Nolan is walking this month! He starts out walking wherever he plans to go. But when he falls, he just keeps crawling. I have yet to see him stand up without holding onto something, so maybe that is part of the problem. Oh, well. He'll get it soon enough! :)

Nolan loves his food, he will eat anything and everything. We always feed him part of what we're eating (with the exception of dairy because I think he is still pretty sensitive to it) and he LOVES it all! He loves flavorful food and will even eat things that are a little bit spicy. He has also somehow figured out which things are food and will hand me granola bars and things he's never eaten before and want me to open them. He also loves to get into the food pantry and will go pick out some baby food when I tell him to. :)

Nolan uses a sippy cup of water but can also drink from a straw and a cup with our help. He especially loves drinking out of water bottles and will beg for some water if he sees me drinking from one. :)

Nolan loves to communicate with his hands. He waves hi and bye, beckons when he wants something from us, and points at things he's looking at. It is actually really funny. He takes a little while to warm up to most people. I think he is trying to decide whether he likes them or not. But if they are smiling and waving and him, he just points at them. :) It is hilarious to Scott and me and luckily most people think its cute!

Nolan loves to take baths and play in the water.

He is tentative about grass (its been forever since we've seen any- we're definitely enjoying the weather here in Phoenix!).

He loves his mama and will only cuddle with me (sometimes, and for only about 30 seconds, but I'll take what I can get!). When he does, I'll usually say "aw, how sweet Nolan!" so now, he'll come over to me and lay his head on me and say awwww, awwww"). Its the cutest thing! :)

And, he is getting really great with his schedule. He always knows when its time to eat and he knows that after his second nap, Dad comes home! He usually goes and bangs on the front door calling for his dada!

One of the best things about this stage is that he can understand so much of what I tell him and he is starting to communicate back to me. The other day I ask him if he needed his diaper changed and he went right into his room and over to his changing table. He also imitates my "all done?" at meal time with an "ah-duh" if he's through! I'm so excited for when he really starts talking and letting me know whats going on inside his head!

 I love this little guy so much and I can't imagine my life without him!

march resolution: spriritual health

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but I've been pretty busy during Nolan's nap times right now and its hard to get anything done on the computer while he's awake. :)

Our new ward (congregation) here in Phoenix has set goals for each month of the year. I decided to take the challenge and devote this month to my spirituality. Of course, I hope to maintain these goals in the future as well.

This month, I'm specifically working on creating daily habits. I plan to read my scriptures and pray every single day (and I haven't missed one yet!). I also want to work on getting better at seeking inspiration and following the promptings I receive. It is also my goal to get to the temple this month. Hopefully we can find a baby sitter... or we might just have to take turns so that Scott and I can both have a chance! :)

I guess the ward really wanted to help me with my goal, because they have already given us an assignment to speak in Sacrament Meeting. I have devoted some of my study time this past week to preparing my talk. My topic is teaching the youth righteous habits. Let me know if you have any great ideas I can incorporate! :)

february celebrations

It seems like most people don't like February very much. I guess its because its dark and cold in many parts of the world. But I LOVE February. :) Not only is it the month of love, but it is also my birthday month. Sometimes I wish it wasn't such a short one!

Valentine's Day::

This year we didn't do much celebrating. Valentine's day was just a few days after we arrived in Phoenix and we had a lot of things to get done. We were lucky enough to have my mom with us that day though and she was kind enough to babysit so we could go see a movie. I decided I wanted to watch something a little bit romantic/chick flick-y so we went to see Safe Haven which is based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. It was pretty good, but as always a little but cheesy and fairly predictable. Also, Scott gave me a giant Reese's Peanut Butter heart. So I can't complain much on that front. :)

My Birthday::

My birthday was on a Friday this year so we ended up celebrating most of the weekend. Scott surprised me by coming home during his lunch hour on Friday. AND, he brought me a flour-less chocolate cake from a local bakery and then for dinner we went to Chili's.

Scott let me sleep in on Saturday morning and then after Nolan's morning nap we decided to do a little exploring around Phoenix. We were trying to decide between visiting the Phoenix Zoo and Papago Park. We choose to go to Papago and take a little hike/explore the area. When we got the there, we realize the Zoo is literally right next door to Papago! Ha! We didn't go to the Zoo, but we'll have to check it out soon. We spent a few hours there going on a small hike, eating a picnic lunch, and watching the ducks by the lakes. It was fun and free!

This is what we hiked.

I don't know if you can tell, but there are a couple of lakes in the background, surrounded by palm trees.

Not the best picture of me, but oh well. :)

Later that night, Scott made me a nice steak dinner with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and artisan bread. It was very tasty!