Easter 2015 (Part 1)

We had a chance to visit a friend of mine from work, plus her husband and ADOR-able little girl last weekend for Round 1 of this year's Easter celebrations.  It didn't work out quite as planned, as we intended to take Nolan to the town of Zebulon's Easter egg hunt, but we had a good time anyway! 

 

 

It was freezing cold Saturday, so we bundled him up and headed out.  Sadly, by time we drove around the block and parked the car, all FOUR thousand Easter eggs had already been picked up!  And we saw them before they started!  Oops.  Next year we will make sure to get there a lot earlier.  Nolan at least got to meet the Easter Bunny for the first time.  He did pretty good, and I was jealous at how warm the Easter Bunny must have been :)  Since it was so cold, we headed to a little country restaurant to hang out and eat plenty at the breakfast buffet.  Nolan had a good time making a mess and flirting with Ms. Juliet while we all ate.

I also found some really cute (and totally not original) treats for Nolan's class.  I made carrots out of piping bags and goldfish crackers.  I think they turned out pretty cute, and I think the kids liked them!  Nolan was happy for leftovers!

 

He also got his Easter treats early (lucky guy) from Ollie and G, and loved his lawnmower that blew bubbles.  This kid has no idea how close he is going to get with a lawnmower with the yard we have -hah!

 



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This little guy is nowhere near Irish, but is just as (if not more) cute!

Trip to Nani and Papa's

My dad (Papa) is set to have some pretty major back surgery at the end of this month, so we wanted to take one last trip to visit beforehand.  A visit with Nolan always brings people's spirits up, so we figured it would help :)

We left Friday around 3:00, and that was poor planning on my part!  Nolan had already had his nap at daycare, so wasn't thrilled about spending two and a half hours in the car.  But we made it safe and sound and he slept for about 45 minutes which helped.  We had the BEST salmon dinner ever and Nolan slept all night that night, so I consider that a great start to the weekend!

Saturday morning  Leslee and I did a little bit of shopping and we found two awesome chairs for our dining room.  She has graciously offered to work her "magic" on them to sew new slipcovers for me.  I can't wait to find the fabric and get them done!

After Nolan's naptime (which didn't happen, BTW), we ventured to the science center in Hickory.  It's so much fun to go to these things again!  Nolan had a great time even though he was tired.

 

We had a great time wandering around all of the exhibits, and Nolan's favorite was the room where you could climb all through this tree house thing.  He went right in and straight to the slide - no stopping him at all!

 

You could tell he was pretty tired, because for the most part, he hung out like this all day :)

 

Tio Cade putting him over the air vent meant for beach balls...watch out for flying babies!

 

Anthony and I got in a "tornado simulator" for fun.  The wind gusts got to about 78 mph...it was pretty interesting!

And poor Skye...she was such a good sport all weekend!  Nolan pretty much harassed her every second he got :)  By the end of the weekend, she would go out on the back porch and hide behind the table...ha!  At least Vegas can hide under a bed to get away from him!

Saturday night Anthony and I were even able to slip away for a "mini date" before our family friends came over.  We went to the restaurant in town where Paige works, and it was beautiful.  She so sweetly took care of our meal for us, and we were so appreciative.  We don't get many nights out at this stage, so any little bit of alone time was totally welcome!

We headed out around Nolan's naptime on Sunday, in hopes that he would sleep most of the way home.  He made it about 45 minutes from the house, so we just stopped for lunch and took our time.  The rest of the weekend was spent doing the usual - grocery store, laundry, and meal prep!  I am SO happy that it's much easier to visit everyone now, and that Nolan is growing up knowing his family so closely.  Here is a prayer that Papa's surgery goes perfect and he is recovered in no time so he can chase this little rugrat around! :)

17 Months!

Our little monkey has been doing lots of fun things over this past month, and a lot has to do with speaking and just general understanding of what we say to him (now whether he listens is another story) :)

Hair: Is totally out of control, and I pretty much love it!  There are curls and crazy bangs and all that goodness going on.  He cracks me up when he comes in from outside and school and has wings on each side :)  I keep going back and forth about cutting it.  On one hand, I hate it hanging in his eyes (like the picture above), but I just don't want to admit it yet and I would die of all of those curls were gone!  I asked Anthony if I could just trim the front and leave the back, and his response was obvious: Um, NO baby mullets here.  So, it's still getting longer and more awesome day by day...

The "wings" I mentioned :)

 

Sleep: Well, this is a day-to-day subject.  When he is sick (or getting sick) there usually is NO sleep going on.  I am talking about up for hours at a time...and thank goodness Daddy does most of those calls or I would be a grumpy zombie!  If he is healthy and doesn't have a cough, then he will usually sleep all night (8:30 pm. - 6:30 am.).  I have told Anthony Nolan takes after HIS side of the family, since none of the Maldonado men sleep!

 

Eating: We had a good stretch of time where mealtime was a nightmare, with Nolan crying and fighting and just not wanting to eat.  I had no idea what to do, and sometimes had to force bites into his mouth because I knew he would wake up at night if he didn't eat!  He is still eating all the same things (and liking it all), so it's not like we were trying new foods.  Then, finally, during one of the snow days I fed him earlier, and no fussing!  All along it was that we were feeding him too late and he was too tired to want to participate (now he eats more around 6:30 - 6:45 if we get home in time).  Now, I literally run in the door, change my clothes and feed him RIGHT away, and that seems to do the trick.  It's very stressful for me, but much better than having him unhappy during mealtime.  As much as our family loves to eat, I want him to like it too!

 

A couple of this favorite things right now are: Yogurt, "crackers", kiwi (or all fruit really), edamame, and eggs.  He loves eggs and really likes the little quiches I make him (eggs, cheese, spinach).

 

 

Behavior:  He is such a SWEET stinker, and I can see will totally take after Anthony and me :)  He has a little (okay, a LOT) of daredevil in him, and I honestly have not seen ONE single thing scare him yet.  He will dive straight off of anything if you hold your hands out - the top stairs, the coffee table, side of the pool.  He's fearless!  He does listen quite well though, but still has his "testing" moments to see if we really mean "no." :)  Some of his naughtiest acts yet really aren't so bad, and it's hard to keep a straight face sometimes!  He loves to pull the tissue paper off of the roll, flush the toilet, and jump into his bath with his clothes on. 

 

He is pure boy, and throws every.thing.  Anything he can pick up will take a flying leap off the top of the stairs :)  He is still a little rough with Vegas, but just doesn't understand that showing her he likes her doesn't mean hitting her :)  He is SUCH a snuggle bug, and melts my heart because he now likes to give kisses and will still curl up in your arms.  When he wants to read a book, he will slowly back up into you until he can sit down on your lap.  When I am getting him dressed in the morning or changing his diaper he will tug at my arm until I lean into him and snuggle his face.  Oh my gosh - this kid, I could eat him up!

 

 

 

Clothes: We still have a perfect tiny pumpkin on our hands, and he wears 12 month clothing (and can still fit in some 9 month stuff).  We bought him a whole bunch of summer clothes, so I hope he grows into them by the time it gets warm enough!  He wears a 3/3.5 shoe (and can still wear the same ones we got him last year, so I am happy about that because those things ain't cheap!)  We put him in size 5 diapers, even though he is below the weight limit.  The last size just didn't look like it fit well, so I bumped him up a size. 

Overall:  He is the cutest thing I have ever seen and we love him SO much!

Snow...And More Snow!

I have been waiting for a "snow" day all winter!  We have had some bitterly cold days so far, and nothing to show for it until now!  On Tuesday, the genius weather folks didn't predict any snow or make mention of anything drastic, so when Anthony said it was snowing that morning when he left, I didn't think anything about it.

When Nolan and I left the house, it was coming down pretty good, and starting to stick!  I figured it would end soon so I continued on to daycare, dropped Nolan off and went on into work.  On the way, the roads became increasingly worse, but I just kept on trucking.  There were people sliding/wrecks ALL over the place.  A couple of my coworkers even turned around and went right back home because it was so bad.

I made it to work, but even had to drive around a car stuck in the median right in front of our  building just to get in!  I loved it - it was exciting/exhilarating and somewhat scary all at the same time.  The snow kept coming, and looked like it wasn't going to stop!  Our office was pretty much a dead zone, so I hung around until about 10:30 (at which point my mom called and demanded that I come home).  Pretty comical - I told my folks at work that I had to leave because my mom was making me :)

Turned out it was a good time to leave, because the rush hour madness had died down, and Nolan's daycare sent out a mass text that they were closing, so I had to leave anyway.

 

This cracked me up - he looked like that kid from A Christmas Story!  Good thing he still wears a diaper :)

 



 

We ended up getting a good mix of ice/snow that day, and missed the next day and a half of work.  The great news was that Daddy was also off, so we got to introduce Nolan to his first snow day ("Snowmageddon" from last year in Atlanta didn't count - he was only 4 months old!)  We went outside once and had a good time baking and getting some house projects done on our time off.  It didn't really stick, but that was fine since another round was coming...

 

And of course, we had to warm up in our robes afterwards :)

The course looked so pretty!  And there are some killer hills around the other side of this picture...can't wait for Nolan to get a bit older for a sled!

 

And we couldn't let Vegas miss out on all the fun!  She loved it, and ran around all over (minus the wagon rides - that is too close for comfort with Nolan...ha!)

 

 

The second round was supposed to be "monumental," but ended up being a big disappointment.  We bought a ton of groceries for the "10-12 inches" that they were expecting, and needed none of them!  We still had to miss a day of work because of all of the ice, and thankfully we didn't lose power, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as we all thought.