15 Months Old!

I used to do a monthly update about Nathan, but when he turned 1, I thought that would be a good stopping place. I would happily give you monthly Nathan updates until he turns 30 but I think now I’ll just do an occasional update. This just means I’m going  to have A LOT to say!

Speaking of a lot to say, Nathan sure has a lot to say these days! Here are the words he’s learned so far:

uh-oh (uh-mmm)

good night (nigh-nigh)

cracker (ga-ca)

tree (bweeeee)

rock

yeah

uh-uh

wow, oh wow!

yum (Ummmm)

doggy (gaga)

here you go (he go)

Nathan  (Ne Ne)

and of course, Mama and Dada.

My favorite thing that Nathan does right now is whisper. We taught him to whisper for obvious reasons and it’s so funny to listen to him. When I whisper something to him, he giggles, then gets very serious and in his best whisper voice says, “cuppa cuppa (whisper whisper)”. Sometimes I will be talking and not even realize I have whispered something until I hear Nathan off in the corner whispering to himself. It’s so funny!

Nathan also signs a few words. I started signing with him a while back and finally gave up because he showed no sign that he cared what I was doing. Then one day, all on his own he started signing. Since then, he’s really taken off. He can say:

more

milk

thank-you

hungry

all done

and we’re working on please and thirsty.

Nathan is a very active and busy boy. He loves cars, or anything else with wheels. He loves animals, especially dogs and cats. Nathan also really loves to dance. He can’t seem to help himself every time he hears music. I think Nathan’s very favorite thing is “cooking”. He rarely ever plays with his real toys but he will happily spend hours a day mixing and stirring his imaginary concoctions in my pots and pans. Lately, he enjoys walking around with a big spoon (or a whisk, or a spatula) and letting us taste test his culinary creations. It’s so funny to watch him take a big “bite” of his food and see the obvious delight on his face as he enjoys his imaginary treat. I love that he is using his imagination!

Nathan loves to drink milk and although he has gotten a lot pickier in the last few months, he still chows down on the foods he loves. Some of his favorites are, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, peas,tomatoes, all fruit, and olives. He would eat a whole can of olives if I let him.

Nathan weighs over 25 pounds and is still tall for his age. He still only has four teeth and his hair is getting longer every day. I just can’t bring myself to cut it yet! We’ve recently switched to cloth diapers and I think we all really like the change (no pun intended). Also, you probably noticed, but a few days after Nathan turned one, he started walking and took off running not long after. This kid wasn’t even crawling yet at 10 months! I think we skipped  a few steps!

Nathan is such a sweet, precious, precocious, and opinionated boy. We love him and love watching him grow!

Yeah! Another Story! from Ryan Bartron on Vimeo.

Go Emeralds!

Last night we took Nathan to his very first baseball game. We got to see the Eugene Emeralds play! It was a perfect evening for a game. We went, not expecting that we would get to stay long since it was in the evening but we actually made it through half of the game. It got a little cold, and someone got a little tired (me, from chasing after Nathan!) so we were glad to go.

Ryan was so excited to take Nathan to a baseball game!

I was so excited that he sat still for a while.

I don’t think he really cared much about the game, but he like looking at all the people and making new friends.

One friend Nathan didn’t want to make was Sluggo the Bear.

When Sluggo first came by, Nathan was really interested and he got kind of sad when Sluggo walked away. I thought I’d give it a try and take Nathan down to see Sluggo face to face. Sluggo danced over and was ready to say hi and Nathan wanted out of there! I couldn’t help but laugh! I’m such a bad mom!  The rest of the evening, any time the bear came close, Nathan got a little wary. Even this morning, when I showed him Sluggo’s picture, Nathan started whining and got this freaked out look on his face. Poor Nathan! Poor Sluggo! He probably has such a hard time making friends. I mean, how many other green bears do you know?

I said that we stayed through half the game, but that doesn’t mean we sat through half of the game. After a few innings I took Nathan up to run around. Luckily, it’s a small stadium so he had a lot of space to run around.

Here’s a peek and what Nathan did at the baseball game (especially after we shared our smoothie with him!)

Emeralds Game from Ryan Bartron on Vimeo.

Splish, Splash!

 

The best $4.99 I’ve ever spent.

My Birthday and Fathers Day

This time of year is always a little crazy in our family. Actually, I think it starts in April. The spring months are filled with birthdays, our anniversary, and Mother’s and Father’s Day, as well as some other holidays. This past week we celebrated my birthday as well as Father’s Day.

I turned 24 on the 17th. I was a bit under the weather that day so we didn’t make any big birthday plans.I told Ryan that I wanted scones for breakfast and he hunted all over town to find them.

He came back with these. FOUR of them!

I did get to take Nathan to the park for playgroup in the morning. He had a ton of fun picking flowers and playing in the sandbox and gathering lots of sticks. Best of all, he wore himself out and took a nice long nap that afternoon. So I got to do what I really wanted to do on my birthday- relax. Ryan made me a yummy dinner and a super chocolaty cake. It literally took him 2 days to make! Yum! It’s a good thing Ryan got me jogging shoes for my birthday, because I ate a ton! I told Ryan that my body was going through a lot of changes getting from 23 to 24, so I needed to consume a lot of calories to compensate.

After dinner I got to take a bubble bath. I think this was my favorite part of the day!

 

Here’s proof that I really did come from the 80’s. Hey, you can’t let the bath water get in your hair!

I also got to open a few gifts that evening. Nathan was a really big help. He kept handing me chewed up saltines. Thanks kid!

Ryan got something extra special for Father’s Day this year. A grill!

He’s been squatting on our porch grilling with a miniature grill for years and after all the hard work he did this year, I decided he deserves the real deal. I was going to buy it and surprise him, but I couldn’t wait and I figured he’d want to pick it out himself. Since he got his gift early, Nathan and I got him some candy to open Father’s Day morning. We had a yummy breakfast but we didn’t get to celebrate too much in the morning since we  had to run off to church. After dinner, we had MORE CAKE- this time a pineapple upside-down cake.

What a fun week!

Allergy Season

Right now, grass is NOT my friend.

I’ve been living in a fog for the last week. I haven’t been able to go outside for even a moment without sneezing, itching, wheezing, and such. I’m known by some to have a very “petite” sneeze but that all goes away during allergy season. I turn into a bellowing walrus. It’s very unattractive.

I’ve tried everything over the counter that I could find and I still spent the weekend threatening to gouge my eyes out with various sharp objects. Butter knives, forks, screwdrivers, possibly explosives, my sharpened finger nails. I would equate the need to rub my knuckles into my eyes to the need to push when I was in labor with Nathan. On Monday I finally decided matters were out of my hands and decided to go see the doctor. We’re still kind of new around here so I had to find a doctor first. I made a few phone calls and basically said to the receptionist, “I don’t care who I see! Just get me the soonest appointment you have!” Thankfully they had something available the next morning. I told Ryan I was going into that doctor’s office like a crack addict looking for drugs—and I wasn’t leaving without a prescription. I got three! (Funny story- I chose a doctor completely at random and he ended up being LDS. The same thing happened with Nathan’s pediatrician!)

The medicine has been helping- thankfully (Ryan may have been starting to fear for his and Nathan’s lives). As a matter of fact, I suddenly realized I was feeling better this morning and dashed around the corner to shriek to Ryan, “I’M NORMAL!” His response? “I don’t know about that . . .”

Hmmm. Where’s my butter knife?

Washington Again!

On May 24th Nathan and I took the train up to Washington to see my family. I’m so bummed because my best friend Alex (who lives in Utah) is there this week and neither of us knew the other would be in town so close together! Oh, well! Our trip was fun anyway! I was hesitant about taking the train but it ended up being a nice journey. The train takes a few hours longer than driving would but I had my hands free to take care of Nathan. It’s also better than flying because it’s cheaper, I can pack whatever I want, and I only had to arrive about 20 minutes early. We had plenty of space too. I packed a backpack full of toys and goodies and Nathan slept for a while in my arms (which I loved). We even got two seats to ourselves since the train wasn’t very full.

Here’s Nathan sitting on the train being such a good boy:

He loved looking out the big windows and seeing new things. THe only problem was that he wanted to walk around and meet everyone, but the train is bumpy and he doesn’t have great balance yet (adults even lose their balance on the train- including me!) so I had to keep him close to me. The last part of the trip was a little rough but he he would have been perfect if the train didn’t have a half  hour delay. Who ever heard of traffic on train tracks?

Besides, when Nana came to pick us up, she brought him a special treat for being so good:

By the time we got to my parents house he had eaten all but a small piece of that giant cookie!

The first day we were in Washington, we had nice weather and Papa put Nathan’s swing up on the porch. He loved it! Too bad the rest of the week was yucky and wet:

Papa also taught Nathan what a dryer is really for:

My sister, Leslie has been taking a sewing class through her school and while I was in town I got to go with my mom to see her graduate and walk the runway. All the kids got to model clothes they had made! It was really neat and a fun  “girly” thing to do. I’m jealous that I never got to take a sewing class!

Nathan and I got to go with Nana and Auntie Leslie to their favorite used bookstore in Sumner. Nathan loved playing with the train in the children’s section and picked out a neat Elmo book to take home:

We also got to go to the Saturday Farmer’s market for breakfast and to check out all the great things for sale. Nathan loved eating fresh doughnuts and seeing all the doggies. Speaking of doggies, this was our first visit to Washington since Nathan learned to walk (and run) and he spent many gleeful hours chasing after poor Lucy. She was so scared of him!

I caught a cold while I was in town and wasn’t feeling really great so instead of taking the train all the way home, we rode to Portland where Ryan picked us up:

We had a great trip but we are happy to be home with Ryan, although I think Nathan is ready to head out again!

LOST

Ryan and I have been big fans of the show Lost for a few years now. The series finale was a few weeks ago and we were pretty darn excited. We decided to have a little party to celebrate while we watched.

We had a yummy LOST-themed dinner.

Mr. Cluck’s Chicken!

I told Ryan to look excited about his chicken!

 

Tropical fruit salad and veggies from Sun’s garden.

With, of course, Dharma Ranch Composite.

Then we zoned out in front of the TV and watched THE END!!

We also ate peanut butter cookies in honor of Claire (like you really need a reason) and I dipped them in chocolate to represent dark and light and because chocolate and peanut butter is the best combination on the planet!

We were going to jump up every commercial and type 4 8 15 16 23 42 into the computer but ultimately decided we didn’t need that kind of stress!