December!

So this was going to be the photo we put on our Christmas cards this year, but since I never ordered them.....
Quickly moving along.....Nick decided he wants to goof off when we try to take his picture now. Makes it a little tough to get a good photo, but he is pretty silly!

Early December we went to Storybook Land in Albany. It's pretty amazing the amount of work that goes into it and it live's up to it's name. They had a Santa there, so Nick put in his Christmas wishes. We also saw Santa in Eugene and the Albany Mall. Not sure which Nick likes better, Santa or the Easter Bunny.



Nick being silly in his froggy hat.


And I'm so happy that I captured this photo. What cute buns!
Nick quotes of December:

- "I want to go to La Roca (our favorite restaurant) and flirt with Veronica and Dahlia."

- "Mommy, you have a plethora of laundry."

- "I like Great Grandmas cookies better than Oreos. She makes good cookies and I love her."

** More Christmas Photos to be posted soon, I promise ***

November Snow

For Thanksgiving I made cranberry sauce and it called for Cinnamon Sticks, so I gave one to Nick and he loved it! He kept saying "Thank you for this mommy, I really like it."
We had snow in Corvallis! Nick and Mike got to have a snow day Thanksgiving week and they played and played in the snow. When I got home Nick and I had a snowball fight outside. He laughed and laughed when I was throwing snow at him. We must find snow again this year!


I picked up a little table and chairs for the kids to eat at Thanksgiving Day. Nick really likes having a table his size.
November funnies:

- Nick asked me what makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl. So I told him our chromosomes tell us if we are a girl or boy and we either have XX or XY Chromosomes. Later that week we were in the car with Grandma and Nick said to her, "I didn't know chromosomes talked to eachother, that's weird."

- Nick told Grandma "I love mommy, she does fun things with me and I like to make her laugh. She's really cute and I love her." Awwwww, he knows how to melt my heart.

- I was trying to help Nick to pee standing up and I wasn't doing a good job. I said to him "Mommy is not very coordinated in helping because I don't know how to pee standing up." Nick replied, "It's easy mommy, you just aim." Then Mike helped him to aim better and Nick came running to me and said, "the trick, mommy, is to lean forward a little bit."

- My cousin Wes came to visit and Nick ran into his playroom while we were in the kitchen. Nick came running back to the kitchen totally stripped down and exclaimed "It's naked time!"

- I asked Nick what he wanted to do one day and he told me he just wanted to "Mole around the house". Not sure where he came up with that.

Our Halloween Adventure

Nick loved loved loved Halloween. He had two costumes, a pirate and skeleton. He wore the pirate costume to the Corvallis Country Club and his skeleton costume to all the other Halloween activities we went to. First we went downtown trick-or-treating Friday October 29th. All the way to downtown Nick rehearsed what we were planning on doing. "I have a costume on, say trick-or-treat, open my bag, say thank you....I'm all ready to go! " Nick caught on really fast to the treating. He ate his candy in between each stop, which means he doesn't understand the concept of hoarding yet. He wanted me to get candy too, but I told him I couldn't because I didn't have a costume so he said, " I want to take you to TJ Maxx to get you a costume so you can get candy too."

On Halloween Day we went to the Harvest Carnival at the fairgrounds in Corvallis. It was really packed with people and Nick wanted nothing to do with it. We talked him into some cotton candy and then he was ready to go trick-or-treating for real. I had told Nick that he would have fun there. "Trust me on this one", is what I told him. Well, he said to me after we left, "I trusted you on this one and I'm angry. That carnival was not fun."

We went to our old neighborhood and he had a blast! He loved going door to door and chatting with all the people. He told a cute college girl that she had pretty hair. Let's just say he ended up with a lot of extra candy because of his charm. At one house the woman at the door tried to give him one piece of candy (he was getting handfuls at other houses because of flirting), but this lady was sticking to ONE piece. So he turned and pointed to all of us and said "Look, I have lots of people. There's mommy and daddy, Grandma and Grandpa, Misty and Gary and Emily. Those are all my people in the street."


Notice that Nick has a piece of candy in his mouth from the previous stop downtown. He didn't want me to hold it for him so he could select candy from the place we were at so he just held it in his teeth to keep his hands free.

Funny Halloween Video

Muddy Creek Maze

7 Acre corn maze (Mike and I got lost in it for over an hour - oops!), corn box, slide, hay bale tower and pumpkin patch. A very beautiful fall day to spend outside playing!


















Up next....Halloween fun!

Fall Fun!

It's been a busy couple months! Here's a quick update....

Nick - August 13th, day before his 3rd birthday.

A.C. Gilbert House in Salem. We met my college roommate and her youngest son there for a couple hours of play. Can't wait to go back! They had so many fun things to do. A bubble room, giant forts, giant rocking chairs and more!

Early September I took Emily, Staci and Nick to build-a-bear. Love that place!

Staci with her Panda "Sweetheart".
Emily with her bunny "Sparkles".
Nick and his bear, "Charles Putton". He named him all by himself!
September 11 was the Shrewsberry Renaissance Faire in Kings Valley. I love this event, so many people are dressed up and in character. It's just a fun way to spend a day!

Merlin gave Nick a wand. So far he's turned me into a spider, caterpillar, ant, and his favorite - a lady bug. Nick is an aphid and I try to chase him to eat him. We are silly!
The jousting.

And of course, we can't go anywhere without our ice cream fix.

September 24th Nick decided he was done with diapers. He wore a couple at nap time or bedtime for the first week and that's been it. No more diapers! He's a boxer briefs kinda guy :).
October 2nd we hosted the Monroe Family Reunion. We celebrated Gene and Josie's 50th wedding anniversary which was October 1st. All 4 kids and all 4 grand kids were there!
Aunt Shelli teaching Nick how to read music. She sent him a violin the next week and we start lessons November 1st!
Monroe Family playing Bridge..
Nick trying to play his cards right...
Nick and his laptop and his favorite toy "special outlet". He loves home depot and anything with a plug. This has been an obsession since June. When asked what he's going to be when he grows up he says, "an electrical engineer".
Just being silly.
Recent Nick quotes:

- Nick found a plastic cover for his outlet so it resembled our outlet outside. When he figured this out he exclaimed "This is awesome!"

- Nick had a nightmare during naptime and it was really vivid when he woke up. He still remembers it to this day. It was a giant pink and green ladybug with a stinger and it was trying to sting him. When I went in his room because he sounded upset and was calling me, he had his hands closed tightly and said he caught a bug and he was kicking it so it wouldn't sting me. He talked about it intensely for about 10 minutes! When I asked him how big it was, he stretched out his arms as far and they would go and he said "really really big".

- Nick recently had his 3 year check-up with Dr. Wong. He's in the 99% for height and 47% for weight. He had a flu shot and another injection that day. He cried, of course. But when the nurse left the room he asked, "Why did the waitress hurt me?". Then he refused to walk the rest of the day because he was wounded and wouldn't put any weight on that leg. He actually crawled from the living room to the kitchen instead of walking. I don't think he cared for us laughing at him, but it was too funny not to!

- Nick calls the roof of his mouth "the ceiling". And his throat "the drain".

- He called me in his room at the beginning of nap time because he had dropped Piglet on the floor. I went in and said "you can get out of bed, pick up piglet and get back in bed". Nick replied "No I can't, because I'm cozy. So I called you to do it."

- Last night after we put him into bed, Nick had a conversation with Piglet. He would speak in his normal voice and say "It's bedtime now piglet, and we can't get out of bed until the clock turns green." Then he'd talk in a funny Piglet voice "Oh really? That's neat". Back to normal voice "Yeah, it is and when we get up we can play with radish and balloons and other stuff". Piglet voice "That sounds fun". He conversation went on for about 5 minutes. I was cracking up!