Christmas 2015 (Round 3)

Phew! On to the actual post about actual Christmas on December 25th! :)  We finished out our Christmas celebrating in Hickory at Nani and Papa's house, and had a great time.  Nolan had been battling another terrible cough, which actually landed us in the doctor's office for a chest x-ray on Christmas Eve morning!

By the time we reached Hickory on Christmas Eve, I was completely worn down and so bummed that we didn't get to make it to candlelight service.  After a small mini-meltdown, I took a quick nap while the family was at church and the rest of the weekend was stupendous!  Nani volunteered to get up with Nolan at night, so Anthony and I were able to sleep through the night for the first time in about 2 weeks and it felt glorious!

The rest of our Christmas Eve concluded with yummy chicken and dumplings for dinner, plus matching PJ's for the guys and girls!

 

Papa read us 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and Nolan sat through the whole thing!

 

 

Christmas morning was so much fun since Nolan had really figured out the whole present thing by then.  He still didn't really get the idea of "Santa," but it was fun all the same!  He was completely spoiled, of course, and it took all we could do to get everything into the car on the way home!  He got an adorable Nativity scene, which will be used from year to year, and Santa even left him a note on his new activity table.

 

 

We were pleased to see that Santa finished his milk and cookies/donuts (especially since we brought his plate with us from home!)  Nani and Papa are going to have to get a bigger mantle if anyone else joins the family...ha!

 

 

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out, and Nolan went to his first movie!  Nani, Papa and Daddy took him to see The Good Dinosaur, and he almost made it all the way through.  Nani was convinced that he would have but the darn previews were 30 minutes long!

 

Overall, it was such a great ending to our Christmas celebrations; we all were well-rested, extremely well fed (almost too much so!) and just plain happy.  Something about holidays with a little one just amplify everything...and they are so darn entertaining!

 

(Think he's seen that done a time or fifty?!)

 

Christmas 2015 (Round 2)

Round 2 of our Christmas extravaganza was a bit of a blur!  We decided to celebrate with Mom, Tom, my step brothers, and my Aunt and cousin the night after our trip to Granny's.  We were beyond exhausted, but we had a great time and ate some great lasagna and Nolan had so much fun with all the big boys!

 

They recreated a picture they had from like 10 years before...now it includes Anthony and Nolan!

 

It was so nice to visit with my cousin and his girlfriend, because we only seem to see him once a year.  They have some pretty exciting things going on in Greensboro, and I can't wait to see where that takes them!  I would expect to see them on the Travel Channel or Food Network sometime soon :)

 

My stepbrothers were so sweet and gave Nolan an awesome puzzle and some other fun stuff.  It was right up Nolan's alley with cars, planes, etc. and it even made noise!  Scared me to death though, that night when I went to unplug the Christmas tree and the sound of a jet plane roared out...!

 

Speaking of Christmas trees, a night wouldn't be complete without the Christmas tree falling over, right?  Yep, poor Anthony caught the brunt of it when it decided to go "timber."  We think all of the presents were holding it up and then once they were all given out it collapsed - ha!

 

 

It could be because my mom has 50 pounds of ornaments on it...just guessing :)

 

Nolan also came home with a very PC (NOT) horse from Ollie...something to do with Rush Limbaugh I think...sigh...

 

Although, he seemed to like it :)

 

 



Christmas 2015 (Round 1)

The Christmas season is always so much fun (and SO busy), and this year was no different!  We had three different Christmas celebrations.  Needless to say, after having Nolan's birthday just a couple of months before, he is SET for toys for the year!  And this mama is itching to clean everything out - ha!

Our first Christmas gathering took us to Aunt Ann's house for G's side of the family.  This was so much fun, even though we did the drive up there and back in one day.  It's almost easier to do that than to pack all of the "stuff" Nolan requires :)  He slept most of the way home and then slept all night, so we considered that a win!

Plus, he has four super cute cousins that spoiled him and kept him busy all night!

 

We had a yummy dinner of chicken stew and chicken and dumplings. I had actually never eaten chicken stew before, but once I realized it was basically oyster stew with chicken instead, I was hooked!  I mean, who could not like a buttery milk broth with chicken?!

My favorite time of the night was still when Granny read us all the Christmas story.  We had been reading Nolan a scripture each night regarding the story of Jesus' life, but I am not quite sure he actually caught completely on.  He behaved (for the most part) during Granny's reading, so I was happy with that!  I think we are going to make the scripture reading part of our Christmas traditions; you start with a short scripture reading on December 1st and continue until Christmas Eve.  The scriptures bring you through the store of Jesus' birth plus all of the events (and people) that shed light on what was to come before he was born.  Anthony and I really enjoyed reading this to him each  night during bath time.

But back to our night!  Aunt Mo had Christmas hats for everyone, and the kids looked super cute.  Nolan totally caught onto the present opening thing this year, so he knew exactly what to do!

We had such a fun time, and Nolan ended up with some really cool things.  Most of them were things that I had actually thought about getting for him at some point, so I know they will be put to good use!

Disney on Ice

After a little bit of bargaining and finagling, my friend Stacie and I won tickets to Disney on Ice from our firm this past weekend.  We figured it would be a fun thing to do with the kiddos, so we were thrilled when we actually got tickets!

We met down the street from the arena and decided to carpool since we had one free (really good) parking pass.  The kids were close to nap time, but we prayed that we would enjoy the show without any meltdowns :)

And we did!  The suite was pretty full, but they were great seats (about mid-court I would say).  Nolan was pretty amazed, and even though he really had no idea who all of the characters were, he still was mesmerized.  He would, however, watch the show for a little bit, want to run the halls for a little bit, and repeat :)

 The giant turtle (and Nemo)

 

 

He preferred to sit on the steps and watch!

 

Such a good time!

 

Stacie and I both agreed that it was a great time, and we were thankful that we didn't have to pay for seats...those people must make a gazillion dollars!  We may have it easier than she will with her little girl in the future though :)

Ice Those Cookies!

I decided (somewhat last minute) to invite our sweet next door neighbors over for some cookie decorating this past Friday.  I had the day off of work, so I figured I could bake up some cookies really quick and let the boys make a mess :)

I took the easy way out and bought the sheets of sugar cookies and gingerbread, and then all I had to do was use my cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.  They were surprisingly good, and really quick!

Everyone had a good time, and we even learned that our friends are expecting, so that was double the celebration!  Nolan will now have two sweet neighbors to grow up with, and we are so excited for them!

 

The boys getting in on the action... I needed to sweep the floor twice after this, and am still finding sprinkles...ha!

 

Our yummy spread, although not really pregnancy-friendly...oops!

 

Some cute creations...

 

Our end results...fun, but not exactly appetizing (Although between Nolan and K they ate quite a few while we weren't watching :))

Nolan: An Update

He is at such a fun age, and I could just eat him up!  He is learning so fast and sometimes it's amazing even between what he learns from morning to night.

Verbal:

He is a little chatterbox, and will ask you the same questions over and over again (mostly, where is Vegas? and where is Daddy?)  He asks me to sing the ABC's over and over, and pretty much will sing along with me the whole alphabet now.  I think his favorite part is the end, so sometimes he will skip a few letters to get to the "Now I know my ABC's part" - ha!

Activity:

He is about as active/fearless as ever, and gets plenty of bumps and bruises still.  He tripped and hit his chin on the bottom stair the other night, which resulted in a rug burn on his chin and a super-bitten tongue - blood everywhere poor baby!  He cried (naturally) for a few minutes, but then I got him to eat some ice chips to stop the bleeding and he was happy again.  He is one tough cookie that's for sure!

He is also still in his music class at school.  They come once a week to take him out of his normal class for music lessons, and he loves it.  He got a great "report card" from his music teacher, so we will continue the lessons for a while.  Now, if I could just find some sort of gymnastics class for him we will be all set :)

 

His teachers sent me this picture from nap time the other day :)

Health:

This has been another up and down month, but that's just how our story goes.  He had a small bout of pneumonia right before Thanksgiving, and that was really rough/scary.  He still does his Pulmicort twice daily, and then we sub Albuterol when he needs it.  The new puffer chamber he got is much better though, and it only takes about 25 seconds and he is a champ at it now.

He is still a tiny little bean, but we are starting to wear some 18-month jammies - woohoo!  He eats really well and so at least I am not worried about him getting his nutrients.  He also loves his vitamins at night.

 

My BOYS!

Naughty or Nice?

Let's see how long he stays on the list this year :) :)

 

Being that this was the ONLY picture I could somewhat get of him without him being a complete running blur, this may be a challenge - ha!

Classic Car Show

My friend Stacie from work invited us this past weekend to the Classic Cars Show in the State Fairgrounds.  She and her mom are close friends with the gentleman that runs/owns the show, so we were able to get super fancy VIP Passes :)

It was awesome and Anthony (and Nolan and I) were completely blown away by all of the cool old cars.  They were really beautiful, and we had lots of fun with the Paratore's at the show.  One part of the show is the live auction where they sell the cars, and the other part is the setup where you can walk through the arena and look at them before they go to auction.

The first car on the auction block when we arrived didn't meet it's reserve at $190,000, so these were some crazy expensive cars!  Most of them I had only seen in movies before...like the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car - ha!

This one was one of my favorites...it looked super fast and I am sure would get me into a lot of trouble :)

We stayed at the auction for a while watching the cars come through (men in white gloves pushed the cars through the line and polished them all off before they hit the block).  It was really neat to watch something like that.

Stacie's mom saved us some food and Nolan scarfed down a huge piece of fried chicken, coleslaw and a roll.  I mean, I had never seen him eat chicken like that before!  He must have been caught up in the atmosphere :)

 

We hung around for as long as we could, then eventually decided to head to the other building to give us all a break from the noise and exhaust fumes.  Some of the cars had over 600hp, so they were loud and gassy!

This Bentley was 15 years old and still was going for over $200k...the color reminded me of tomato soup!

I think Nolan was more interested in flirting with Ms. Stacie and little miss J...she is the cutest thing, and Nolan obviously has good taste!

Sadly, Anthony was too interested in looking at the cars and couldn't look at the camera :)  I don't blame him...there was a LOT to look at!  I even surprised myself and how interested I was.

Nolan couldn't get over it all himself :)  We left the auction after a couple of hours and also walked around the flea market that sets up every weekend at the Fairgrounds.  Too bad it was getting cold, or we could have walked around there all day.  I see lots of Saturday morning flea market excursions for Stacie and me this summer!

Christmas House

I was so, so excited to finally get wreaths up on the house this year!  Anthony...not so much.  But, I found the number of wreaths we needed on major clearance after Christmas LAST year, so it was killing me to finally put some up this year!  We need to get a better spotlight next year so that you can see them at night, but at least it's a start!

 

My mom also found us matching flags for the house and the mailbox that had Santa working on a toy train...not that Nolan noticed, but they were right up his alley.

Thanksgiving 2015 (Part Two!)

We arrived just in front of the other Maldonado clan, and got unpacked and took a tour of Nolan's new nursery in Nani and Papa's house.  He sure has a good set up!  They have an empty space over the garage that used to be my dad's office, which has now been converted into Nolan's room...complete with crib, changing table, rocker, and lots of toys!

 

Meatballs were the meal of choice for Thursday night, and Papa was all too popular handing them out...but I think Nani's kisses were the favorite!

 

 

Since we did our BIG Thanksgiving meal with the family on Friday instead of Thursday, we enjoyed a day at the park on Friday before our big meal.  The weather was just beautiful, and I was so thankful that we didn't have to keep Nolan locked up inside all weekend.  He even slept through the night all THREE nights, which was glorious, glorious!  Our meal was fantastic, and we all ate and had a great time.

I was even able to sneak out really early Friday morning and do a lot of Christmas shopping.  I got a lot more accomplished than I figured I would, and some alone time was great to just shop and drink my Starbucks :)



 

Nolan and Nani wake up each morning and they have their whole routine down pat.  They feed the cats, play, and Nolan watches Nani at the bar while she makes breakfast.  She offers to let me go back to sleep, but I take that time to get ready instead (which is much better to get in early before the 10 other folks wake up!)

 

I brought my "big" camera to the park this day, and this is Nolan telling me "No Cheese mommy, NO Cheese!"  He was pretty much tired of having a camera in his face :)

 

I am not really as cool as I used to be, but I made Andre' take our pictures jumping out of the swing anyway  :)

 

The rest of our weekend was spent hanging out, doing crafts and watching football.  Ok, some people watched football and I ran to Hobby Lobby :)  I prefer that arrangement much better!  One of the highlights of the weekend was being able to have a DATE night on Saturday night.  We got Nolan to bed, and then Paige, Anthony and I headed out for some fun.  We went to the restaurant where Paige works first, then ended up at Hickory Tavern later.  It was fun, but I don't have a lot of "bar hopping" nights in me anymore - ha!

 

 

We made our way home Sunday without too much traffic, tried to get a jumpstart on the 10,000 loads of laundry we had, and then it was back to work on Monday!  Overall it was a wonderful Thanksgiving full of all of the things (and people) I love most.



Thanksgiving 2015 (Part One!)

Somehow, our weeks leading up to major Holidays always seem to involve some sort of sickness, and this year was no different.  I suppose it makes the time with family/extra hands/some extra sleep all that more enjoyable :)

Sweet little man had a case of pneumonia the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving this year, which meant lots of nights of no sleep and lots of Mommy/Daddy worrying.  Thankfully, we took him to the doctor and he had a whole week's worth of antibiotics before we left for out of town, and he did great and we had the BEST Thanksgiving this year!

We left early Thursday morning to drive to Concord to eat lunch with Mom's side of the family.  We got there just in time and had some awesome food.  Nolan had a blast watching all of this big cousins run around and play, and we even got to spend a couple of extra hours with Granny after eating which is always so nice.  Here he is showing support for the "best" SC team (even though they lost Saturday...womp womp!)

 

Memo helped the kids put together donation boxes, and this is the crowd after they were done...

 

Nolan apparently ate too much turkey and needed a rest on Ollie's shoulder.

I will always cherish these photos...Nolan is one blessed little boy!

 

Since football was on, we all decided to demonstrate the "wave" for Nolan...I think he got into it!

 

 

 

Once Granny decided it was time for her to go home, we packed up and made our way to Hickory for the rest of the weekend.  Andre', Sammi and the girls also came up, so it was a big, loud, fun household full of Maldonado's and Vance's!  Again, Nolan was enamored with his two beautiful cousins and was pretty much spoiled rotten all weekend :)

Nolan: An Update

I know I don't have to continue to do monthly updates on our little man, but I love looking back at them (and let's be honest, I can't remember a thing after 30 seconds), so I want to continue my attempts at remembering our little man's goings on - one month at a time.

Since I am tired of counting weeks and months, I am just going to do it one month at a time after two :)

 

One day I will take a video of Anthony giving Nolan a "ride" in his car.  Imagine Anthony running at FULL speed all down the driveway, through the yard, up the ditch, and through the bushes.  I almost keel over each time, but Nolan is my adrenaline junkie and LOVES it.

He has been able to count to 10 by following us, but now he does it all on his own.  He gets very chatty sometimes in the mornings on the way to school and will count and talk to me the whole way there.  I feel like we do some of our closest moments when it's just in the car with the two of us.  He asks lots of questions, we sing and repeat things.  I hardly ever talk on the phone with him on, and usually don't even play the radio so I can just tune into him.

He has started to say "Ohhh...." when you point something out to him he wasn't getting (sort of like, OH, I see now).  And I finally broke him of his "Nope" habit :)  Somewhere along the line he picked up responding to me with "Nope," and we quickly changed that to "No ma'am."  He usually responds with "No ma'am" when I ask him if he has a poopy diaper, and almost always he says no, which should really mean yes :)

He is also starting to string together more words at a time.  He is still missing some key words in each sentence to avoid saying fragments, but is easy to understand now.

 

Daycare sent me this picture today, and it cracked me up.  He was out cold!  He is doing well at daycare now.  He has mostly quelched his "nibbling" habit, and now has moved on to "tackling" his friends.  I blame Daddy for this one :)  Their favorite thing on the weekends right now is to watch Sunday night football and "TACKLE" each other.  It's absolutely adorable, until I learned this week that Nolan is tackling his friends at school and they don't like it so much - oops!  Anthony has even taught him to say "Go Falcons!" as an homage to our former state :)

 

Overall, he is changing every day and I love him more and more each second!