Best $2 Ever Spent

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours going to yard sales in search of furniture for Nathan's new room.  I used to enjoy going to yard sales to find that hidden gem until I moved to Southern Arizona.  Finding furniture or any big ticket items is nearly impossible thanks to many entrepreneurial Mexicans who head north for the day to overload their trucks with anything of value to take back and sell at quadruple the price.  I have nothing against anyone working to make a little bit of money but it just gets very frustrating to constantly drive up to a yard sale only to see every piece of furniture being loaded into an already full truck bed.  And let me tell you they are goooooood.  I have had a couple of yard sales since living here and the second we open up drives a truck and out rushes one of the occupants to ask in broken English if we have any "computers or x-box."  They load their booty with the speed of light into the truck and are off to the next sale in just minutes.  How can I compete with that???  Anyway, back to the story.  So, even though I knew I would have a slim chance of finding anything for Nathan's room I had to at least try.  I spent the night before looking at all the yard sale ads marking and mapping out the ones that specifically mentioned bedroom furniture, however, in the morning my list was nowhere to be found (I suspect that this was a result of Nathan's new love for throwing things in the trash.)  I didn't want to waste anymore time so I just drove around town aimlessly following people's "Yard Sale" signs.  I spent almost 2 hours driving by multiple yard sales and never even bothered getting out of the car because all the furniture was gone at every single one by the time I got there.  Frustrated, I decided to head home.  On my way I saw signs for a sale that I had not yet stopped at, and figured it couldn't hurt to try.  When I got there, surprise surprise, there was no furniture, however, there was something that caught my eye.  I got out of my car (for the first time) and asked the lady how much she was asking for the item and was amazed when she said "how about $2."  I was sold!  I went home very excited, even though I had completely failed in my attempt to find bedroom furniture.  When I got home Curtis unloaded my purchase and brought it into the house.  Nathan soon came over  to see what was going on and his eyes just lit up and I swear he said "what's that?"  He quickly put down his sippie cup and climbed on.

Nathan, like all kids I'm sure, looooooooooooooooooooooooves to slide.  I feel bad because when i take him to a park I can only stand helping him up and down the slide so many times before I am extremely bored. This little slide was heaven made, Nathan went up and down it probably 30 times before taking a very brief break, after which he ran right back to his slide.  He is pretty cute on it too.  He won't go down sitting up, so he leans all the way back and slides down on his back, which causes him to land on the carpet on his back.  When he hits the ground he lets out a little "uh oh", but quickly gets right up and goes again. I took a couple of videos, but of course he never acts quite the same when the camera is on.

**I have another video of him actually sliding but it won't upload.  I will try again later!**


I would definitely have to say that this is the best $2 I ever spent.

The Polls are Now Closed

For most of the race it looked as though "girl" was a sure win.  With about half the votes cast "girl" was leading in what would appear to have been a landslide victory, recieving almost 70% of the votes.  However, the "boy" supporters came out in droves at the very end to tip the scales.  The final poll results:

On Facebook (18 votes):
Boy: 53%
Girl: 47%

On this blog (35 votes):
Boy: 57%
Girls: 43%

Making the overall results (out of  53 votes):
Boy: 55%
Girl: 45%

It was a very close race, with the "boy" voters coming out victorious.  (I think this mostly has to do with the fact that my family has all boys and we have since given up on the possibility of any of us having a girl.) 

So the question remains...are the voters right?  Are we having another boy?  Will Nathan have a little brother??  I'm sorry to say that the majority doesn't rule in this case.  It's a girl! (I am adding in some more text down here just in case some of you think you are slick by skipping to the end of the post to see the real results)

My 20 week ultrasound is tomorrow!!  Woo hoo!!  So before we find out if we are having a girl or a boy, I want to know what you think!  Vote now!

Nathan and I have been experimenting with different hair-dos. This first started when I was putting gel in my hair and Nathan wanted some in his.  We started with just the basic spikes (this isn't actually a picture of the spikes, I forgot to take one, but this is pretty close to what it looked like.  This is actually the result of me washing some food out of his hair after dinner.)

 Nathan then found one of my headbands and refused to take it off.  If it accidentally fell of he would whine until I put it back on!

 

Then came the "faux-hawk"  This one amused me at first, but after a few hours when the hair had a chance to calm down it actually wasn't too bad.  Kinda cute in fact.

(This is a baby doll that Curtis found in a box of his old stuff while we were cleaning out the garage, Nathan carries it everywhere!!)

(See?!?  He is ready to be a big brother!)

I recently discovered "splash time" at the community pool. It is only for kids 5 and under and their parents.  I took Nathan for the first time last week and we went again today.  I am thinking that this will probably become a weekly thing (at the very least).  Not only because I want Nathan to get used to the water, but because it wears him out so much that he takes a 3 hour nap when he gets home!  The first time in I thought I would try the life jacket out and see what he thought.  He lasted about 3 minutes before screaming his head off.  Once I took the jacket off he was a happy camper...or swimmer I guess.

He likes taking rides on the giant fish

Today we tried to teach him how to blow bubbles.  He did it a few times and laughed everyt ime, but seemed to enjoy watching Curtis and I blow bubbles rather than blow some himself.

I also tried showing him how to kick as I towed him around on the fish.  Instead he stayed stiff as a board.  Oh well, one thing at a time I guess.  I just get so excited that I want him to be able to do everything right now! 

His little personality is really coming out, and let me tell you he is one funny kid.  One day he decided to take off his pants and wear them around his shoulders.  This cracked him up to no end, as it did his mother :)

He's getting to be such a big boy, it's exciting and sad.  Mostly exciting though because I am ready for him to be a little bit more independent before the next baby comes.  He loves his new found independendce.  He has to walk everywhere, climb up and down the stairs himself, feed himself (seriously, he sometimes will kick and scream if I try to put something in his mouth rather than in his hand so he can put it in his mouth himself.)  He also is very insistent on doing things himself when we go out to the car.  He likes to hold open the garage door for me, he likes to walk to the car door by himself and then help me open it, he likes to climb into the car himself (with a little boost from mommy), he will sometimes crawl in and out of his carseat himself but he gets so distracted that I usually get tired of waiting for him and end up throwing him in myself.

He is also getting a lot better at communicating what he wants.  Now instead of crying when he wants something he will grab my finger and pull me to what he wants (which is usally to go outside). He really is like a new person lately and it is exciting to watch!

Time Out

Nathan's first time in time out. (First of many, I am sure)

Nathan's New Do

In the past month way too many people have mistaken Nathan for a girl. I figured this meant it was time for a hair cut. I thought I would try cutting it myself, though I have absolutely NO experience. I began by looking online for tips and how-to guides, but I still didn't feel confident enough. In the end I decided to leave it to the professionals (and then maybe watch and see how they do it for future reference.) I took him this morning, and he was a perfect angel. He sat on my lap as still as could be. Whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror he would break out into a huge smile. It was so stinkin' adorable! So here we are, the before:




and the after: (they gave him a sucker which I let him play with, thinking that he wouldn't be able to get the wrapper off...by the time we got home the wrapper was almost disintegrated and he was going to town on the sucker)

He totally reminds me of his cousin Kaleb in this picture:

I love the haircut because I think it makes him look chubbier! Haha. He also looks a lot older to me, which is kind of sad. Overall though, I'm very pleased! Plus, an added bonus, it will be much easier to clean out all the food he likes to smash into his hair!

Fathers Day

So I know I am a couple of months late on posting this, but I figure better late than never! This year for Father's Day I didn't put in NEARLY as much work as I did last year for Curtis' gift. Last year Curtis got the best gift ever on Father's Day, a beautiful baby boy! There really wasn't much of a chance of topping that, but Nathan and I did the best we could to make this year special too.

Nathan helped me pick out pictures to put in a card, and then hand delivered it to his Daddy. (I wish I would have taken a picture of that but it totally slipped my mind.)


Nathan also helped pick out a gift for Curtis, I showed him a few options on the computer screen and this is the one he chose to make:

which I think was a great choice! Curtis' final gift was from me, and while not as exciting as the birth of our first child, I thought it was still a pretty good gift. I mean, who doesn't like shirts?

Happy Father's Day Curtis!