All About the Birthday Boy!

Believe it or not, Nathan turned 1 last Monday! Crazy, I know. We were lucky enough to have Curtis' sister Becky and her 3 boys here to celebrate with us! We started the day with a trip to the pool (more on that another time), and then we had some friends over for cake and presents.

My sister Crissy goes all out when it comes to decorating cakes for her boys, so I thought I would give being creative a try. I picked something very easy, and still didn't do the best job, but I don't think Nathan minded too much :)

It took him a while to decide whether or not he was going to give the cake a try, but eventually the marshmallows on top won him over.


He ended up eating most of the marshmallows, leaving the cake virtually untouched.

After a while he decided he didn't like being messy anymore.

He was still a little upset when we started opening presents...

but the frown faded once he realized that there was fun stuff to play with inside the boxes!

He especially seemed to like this little number, compliments of his Aunt Alli!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to share in this special day with us, whether in person, or over the phone. Nathan got lots of calls from family and friends who sang Happy Birthday to him, and even a video from his 2 year old cousin who sang his own rendition of "Happy Birthday".

It was a pretty fun day up until Nathan woke up from his afternoon nap with a fever. He has been pretty miserable since then with a fever off and on, a sore throat and an ear infection. I guess he just wasn't very excited about the idea of getting older, probably because he's feeling guilty because I keep telling him that he is not allowed to grow up. :)

Here is a bit about Nathan at 1 year:

height: 28.5 inches; 12 percentile
weight: 16 lbs 12 oz; 0 percentile
head: 46 cm; 37 percentile

He is getting pretty good at walking, but still prefers to crawl as his main mode of transport
His favorite place to play is in the dishwasher
His favorite food is yogurt, he would eat it all day every day if he could
He LOVES taking baths, and now likes to walk around in the bathtub and scare me to death
He no longer uses his pacifier! Woo hoo!
He is a pro with a sippie cup but prefers formula to milk
He is quite the little dancer, bouncing, bopping his head, and shrugging his shoulders anytime he hears music
He is quite the little talker, jabbering away LOUDLY any chance he gets, except around other kids for some reason
He is pretty loud in church these days, we usually have to take him out, not because he is crying but because he "sings" the songs very loudly and then continues to talk loudly the rest of the time
He is starting to "fight back" when he gets bullied by bigger kids, he used to just sit there and take it, now he will push back or cry, or both
He is still taking two or three naps a day and sleeping through the night, I couldn't get him down to one nap if I tried :)
However, here in good ol Arizona the sun comes up around 5 am, and Nathan likes to be up with the sun so the spring has brought some pretty early mornings (time for blackout curtains!)
He likes to bite
If you make a kissing noise he will open his mouth and plant one on you, sometimes his teeth get in on the action too
He claps anytime he hears or sees ANYONE clapping, even if it is on TV
He is very patient, he does not get frustrated when he falls 1000 times when trying to stand or walk, instead he just gets up and tries again
He is pretty good at passing balls back and forth
His favorite toy is my "Workout Carebear"
He loves his daddy


I am so sad that he is already 1 year old, but I can't wait to see his little personality really start to show in this next year!

What we have been up to

It has been a long time since I have really blogged much (other than Nathan walking). Here is a quick glance at what we have been up to:


We took a trip up to Utah for my Grandma's funeral. It was great to see almost the whole family together, and we had tons of fun. It was great to see all 5 of the cousins together:
My sister Crissy did a wonderful job blogging about that trip, so I don't want to rehash the same thing. You can check it out here though: Utah Trip

While in Utah I was able to visit with two of my former roommates who, strangely enough, have little girls that were both born just days apart from Nathan. It was a blast to see the 3 kiddos play "together"!




About 2 weeks after getting home from Utah, we were off to Ramah to visit the other side of the fam.

The trip up:

We finally got to see Tristan who is just a few weeks younger than Nathan, and so stinkin' adorable!

We made sure to get an updated 4 Generations picture while there

And what Nathan has been up to lately:

He likes to pull all of the clothes out of my laundry basket when I am trying to fold them. More recently he has taken to putting them in a pile on the floor and then laying on them. Frustrating, but oh so cute!

He has finally made the transition to non-baby food! He especially loves yogurt, bread, and cheese (unlike his father!) On this particular day Curtis got up with Nathan while I got to sleep in. I guess Curtis really wore the boy out because he fell asleep in his high chair, a VERY rare thing because he usually won't fall asleep unless he is in his bed. I was very proud of Curtis for thinking to snap a picture of it!

One of the only other times he has fallen asleep anywhere but his crib:

He is absolutely obsessed with playing everywhere he shouldn't, like inside the cupboards!

He went swimming for the first time. Here he is showing off his new swim suit.


He also loves dancing. This is the best video I have, but right as he was really getting into it my phone rang and it distracted him.


And he spends most of his time just being cute!

Up and About

Nathan took his first steps a couple of days ago! I tried to get it on video, but he just doesn't do as well when the camera is on! This video is the best one I could get, but he is a bit better than the video shows.

Blogger isn't working for me for some reason so I uploaded the video here:

Nathan walking

Lazy

I'm feeling a bit too lazy to write much, but here are some pictures and videos that I have taken of Nathan in the past month. The first few are not great pictures but they show his teeth! He is up to 6 now! There are are also some of him playing with his second cousins, and some of him eating his new favorite food: grapes (with the help of the easy feeder mesh thing). Nathan is also quite the talker now, really, the kid never shuts up :) It has made it a bit difficult to teach primary because Nathan wants to talk over us. There are a few videos of his never ending babble. Enjoy:

Family and Friends

Over Easter weekend we visited Curtis' parents in New Mexico. We were able to spend a few days visiting, watching General Conference, and eating delicious food!

Nathan and his daddy sitting on the couch at Grandma and Grandpa Merrill's

Curtis' sister Nikki and her family were able to come up for a bit and Nathan loved playing with his cousins! He tries to fit in and be one of the big kids.

He wanted to play their games...

follow them around...

and just hang out with them!

Nathan enjoyed playing with the many many toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house



He also had his first experience with grass while we were there. He didn't want to touch the grass with his hands because it tickled, so he would do his best to avoid touching it. It was pretty dang amusing!



(Nathan is learning how to clap, and every time he watches the video above and sees himself clapping he will start clapping...too cute!)

He somehow managed to get into a crawling position while on the grass and had a hard time trying to figure out how to sit back up without having to touch the grass...

On our way home from Ramah we stopped by a duckpond (the very duckpond that Curtis used to take girls to in college when he was trying to find out if they were date worthy...)




It was a fun ending to a fun trip. Next time we will have to actually bring some bread to feed the ducks!


The day after we got back Curtis was off to work again, so I decided to drop by and visit my friend Heidi. Nathan loves playing with Heidi's little girl Samantha...but after a while Samantha got a little sick of Nathan following her around and playing with all of her toys. He wouldn't even let Samantha sit with her mommy alone.


Nathan refused to leave her alone and so Samantha had to resort to pushing him away, every time she did Nathan would get the saddest little look on his face...kinda like this:


I hope that Nathan either never gets rejected by a girl when he is older or else he mans up a bit and handles it better than he does now!

We ended up staying for a very long time and poor Nathan was so exhausted, having missed his naps, he ended up just resting his head on the couch for a bit:

When we finally got home I gave Nathan a bottle, but he was so tired he fell asleep eating. It was too cute.



The next day we went to the park with some friends. We got to try out his new Jeep stroller (that's for you dad!), and play on the swings. Nathan loves the swing! He gets so excited on them that he actually doesn't need to be pushed, he pumps his own legs...kinda

So that's what we have been up to lately. Lots of fun with friends and family!