The Zoo

Several months ago I decided to brave driving to Tucson with just the kids to meet the DeRoests at the zoo.  Nathan had never been before and it was so cute to watch him get so super excited when he saw all the animals.  I really like the Tucson Zoo because it is the perfect size zoo for a toddler.  It definitely doesn't take the whole day to see the animals, and it seems like you can get a lot closer to them than you can in a bigger zoo.  Nath loved the huge tiger, who decided Nathan must be a threat to her because she "stood up" against the glass right where he was and sprayed at him!  It was pretty cool.  He also loved the giraffes:

And the elephants! He talked mostly about the elephants when we got home.

It was a bit of a snooze fest in Kaylee's opinion.

She did, however, wake up to see this monkey..baboon...thing.

I'm sure we will be taking MANY more trips to the zoo in the future.  (Especially when we can get in free thanks to the DeRoests!!)

Nathan's Birthday Part 2

The festivities continued on Nathan's actual birthday. Here is the first picture of my handsome boy at 2 years old.

I took him to the dollar store and let him pick out any 2 things he wanted.  It was the funniest thing watching him walk up and down the isle trying to decide. 

After much deliberation he ended up with a balloon...

and 2 monster trucks (that came in 1 package...smart boy!)

That night we had the DeRoests over for dinner and birthday festivities.  Our families are big fans of Kids Eat Free Day at Chili's, which happened to fall on Nathan's birthday so, of course, we took advantage of that!  After dinner we let Nathan open his family presents.  We got him a play kitchen because not only does he loooooove to play with the one Brenna has, but he also seems the most needy when I am trying to make dinner, so I figured that he could "help" me make dinner during those whiny moments.

Before Nath could open any more presents Brenna had to make sure that he was wearing his sunglasses...upside down.  A nice touch, if I do say so myself.

Most of his gifts were just accessories for his kitchen, which were a big hit. He also got some super cute clothes from Grandma and Grandpa, and a Thomas the Train lunch box from the Socci's.  (Which he carried his trains around all day in.)

Grandma and Grandpa Ashton also sent these super cool magnet blocks. I absolutely love these things!

Kaylee seemed to enjoy day 2 of the festivities as well.

After presents it was time for more cake and ice cream! 

He had a tough time blowing out all 1 of his candles, but Brenna was kind enough to offer assistance when called upon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET LITTLE BOY!

2 Year Stats:  

Height: 34 in (30thish percentile)

Weight: 22 lbs 3.2oz (still 0 percentile)

Head: 49 cm (55thish percentile)

Nathan's Birthday Part 1

My  adorable little Nath-face turned 2 on June 21!  Curtis had the 20th off of work and so we decided to make it a "do all of Nathan's favorite things" day.  In the morning we let him pick ANYTHING he wanted for breakfast, I was expecting him to say something along the lines of "ice cream" but was pleasantly surprised when all he wanted was "Grandma's cereal" aka Frosted mini-wheats.  I also let him watch a show while eating breakfast, which was quite the treat. Here he is in total heaven watching Thomas.  Apparently he was too mesmerized to even think about sitting down at first.

 We considered going to the zoo but it was well over 100 degrees in Tucson and that just wouldn't be fun for anyone!  So we decided first to head to the mall so he could play at the little play place there for as long as he wanted.  

After a LONG time of playing we stopped and let him pick out a treat from the island of gumball machines in the middle of the mall.  He chose hot tamales and was super excited about his special birthday treat...almost as excited as he was about the fact that his treat turned his hands and face red. 

After lunch and naps we then headed to the public pool for some more fun.

Up until that point we had only taken Nathan to "splash time" at the pool, which is when the pool is reserved for toddlers and their parents.  We thought we would brave open swim on this occasion because they turn on the wave pool and we thought Nathan might get a kick out of that.  He didn't.  

He was soon joined by his BFF Brenna, and the two kids chose to stay in the small, safe, warm pool for a while to escape the loud scary waves.  After a while of playing it safe the dads decided that it was time to show the kiddos just how fun the wave pool could be.  After a few minutes they were all smiles.  The dads then decided to try and push their luck a little further by taking Nathan and Brenna down the tube slides. I am not sure that either of the kids really enjoyed it...but I don't think they hated it either!

After swimming it was off to McDonalds!  A few more of Nathan's friends were able to join us for some food and fun. 

I decided very last minute to run out and grab a cake.  We had bought a toy train (Percy to be exact) for Nath for his birthday and so I very talentlessly drew a quick track on the cake a plopped the train on top.

  

We sang to Nathan and then the kids (and Curtis) dug into the cake and Nath opened presents.  

Perhaps blue frosting wasn't the best choice.

It was at this point that Nathan was first introduced to Lightning McQueen (from Disney's "Cars") and I can already tell that this will be a new obsession.  Thank you Jessica (and Ethan and Mason) for that...haha

It was a VERY eventful and VERY fun day.  

Kaylee's new almost trick

I am so far behind on blogging that I can't decide if I should try and get caught up before I post new things or just forget about it and start from here on out.  I have 5 or 6 posts that I have slowly been working on over the past couple of weeks that never seem to get finished.  (They are all 3 or 4 months old).  I suppose I will post new things as they come and just throw in the occasional past due post as I finish them. So I am apologizing in advance for how out of order and all over the place things will be!  I figure it's better than nothing though!

We have family pictures coming up next week and I really would love it if Kaylee would be able to sit on her own for them.  That way we have more position options rather than me having to hold her or having her on her belly. (Even though she is super cute on her belly as evidenced below)

I decided yesterday to work on getting her to sit. Like I said before, she immediately leans back the second I put her in a sitting position.  I had the genius idea (ok, maybe not so genius, maybe more of a "duh" idea) to hold a toy out in front of her to get her to lean forward.  This worked like a charm and she was able to easily sit for as long as she was interested in reaching the toy.  Once she got ahold of it or became bored with it she fell backward.  I worked on getting her to sit again today and she is doing a little bit better, but for every picture I got like this:

I got 3 or 4 like this:

or this:

or this:

Hopefully she will be a pro by next week!