iPhone offload: Seahawks and Puppy Edition

Uncle Balls gave Nolan tickets to a Seahawks game, Daddy got to go as his plus one.

Close up of my one and only attempt at making Nolan's bday cake.
I'm leaving it to the professionals (Jodi) from now on! 

Nolan's Bday Sleepover. They watched Turbo which was cute but Nolan's favorite part was the m&m/popcorn mix I made. I love that the girls are watching the movie and my boys are eating.

Oh tiny 6 week old Ruby. This was the first picture of her, I took on the way home from picking her up. I laugh because although she is still black she looks completely different now. 

Here she is this week, at 14 weeks old in the same seat. She has gained almost 20 pounds, at least tripled in height and her ears don't fold over anymore.  

Here's some more picture of her from her first week with us. At this age she fit through Miles' legs  and now she is almost as tall as him.

We learned that Ruby had a bit of car anxiety. You can see from the photo above she has sense overcome that

We all got bikes for Christmas, including Miles who got this fancy baby seat and helmet. 

We inherited my mom's piano. This is what happens when you bring a piano into a house of little boys.
It is now a monster truck course.

Waiting for brother at OT 

Oh and if you were wondering how Mavis feels about the new addition to the family, she's not happy. It doesn't really impact her much though since she stays upstairs and Ruby stays downstairs. They have had some pretty intense staring matches through the baby gate though. 

Celebrating the Super Bowl win downtown. Total craziness, but cheerful craziness.

I put our Sherman head in the back of my jacket so my hands would be free. This resulted in total strangers asking to take a picture of the back of my head.

A few days later taking Sherman to the parade.

Angry, cold baby! He was much happier when we found a spot inside.

All tuckered out post parade.

This is when we knew we were in trouble with this puppy. At 12 weeks old she figured out how to climb out of her enclosure. We ordered her a crate right away. 

Oh yes, our first park outing. This is the park that turned out to be the NO DOGS ALLOWED park...oops!

While I was helping Nolan untangle Ruby from her leash Miles walked straight into the lake. I turned around to see him calf deep in the water and stuck in the mud. A+ parenting at it's best.

My house project this month. Turning Nolan's crib base into a bulletin board for Nolan's room.  And yes I got all sappy about having pieces of his baby years back in his room. I just spray painted it and added clips so not the most challenging project but still something to cross off the list.

It wouldn't be an iPhone update without a Nolan wearing a mustache pic.

Oh glorious sun, we enjoyed you so much. Please come back soon.

On those sunny days I crossed another thing off my house list and edged the yard, added a border and a little path. Unfortunately it only looked like this for an hour because our tiny landscaper (Ruby) dug up the dirt around the path and messed it up. Have I mentioned how cute she is?
Side story from this: After finishing up the landscaping I was super sore so Nolan and I jumped in the hot tub while Miles was napping. Nolan hot tubs in the nude these days, the joys of being 5...I wear a swim suit. After the hot tub Nolan asked if he could jump on the trampoline and when I said of course he scurried over and did some naked trampoline time. He kept yelling "this is the best day ever!!!" over and over again.
I'm thankful that he is so easy to please. 

One thing off my life bucket list. We rode the Duck! 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Nolan was super into it this year. Last year our milk was died green and Nolan was anxious to see if the leprechauns could find us at our new house to do it again. They did! They also turned our pictures upside down. Crazy Leprechauns! 

A little post bath computer time. Miles did not mind being Nolan's pillow at all.
As long as he's close to brother he is happy.

Nolan started tball this week and really liked it. Miles wanted out on that field so bad, I ended up chasing him around most of the practice. But we let him out at the beginning and ending huddles. 

Nolan is the one playing in the dirt. :)

Miles did his very first drawing! And also ate his very first marker. He literally just bite the tip off that thing. I did get him to spit it out though.

Nolan playing 2 piano's Jerry Lee Lewis Style.

Happy boys + tired mama...it's been a long week

Riding the duck

We rode the duck! Something I've wanted to do for a long time but was too embarrassed to play tourist in my own city. Evidently Pat was still too embarrassed to play tourist so he and Miles sat it out. 

Nolan LOVED his quacked!

A lot!

It's going to be a lot of close up shots of Nolan since I was sitting in front of him. 

Flirting with the people in the boat next door.

Enjoying the sites. Nolan especially loved waving to people on the street.

Not so sure about driving into the water.

Great views though!

After the duck we poked around at the Melinda Gates Foundation Center. So much interactive stuff to see. Can you find Nolan and I in the collage below?

Jump-o-line

Nolan started asking for a "jumpoline" (his word for trampoline) after seeing one at his cousin Sam's house. At the time we were living in Seattle so we told him to start saving some money and by the time we move he will have enough to buy one. Thinking he would forget all about it, we brushed it off. Yet every time he found change he would save it for his piggy bank declaring that he's saving up for a trampoline. The time came that we knew we had a big enough yard, the weather was getting warmer and it didn't hurt that Amazon put the trampoline we wanted on a $100 off lightning deal. So we got it!
Trying to think of a way to incorporate Nolan into the buying process I took Nolan and his piggy bank to coinstar to tally it up. Although the $65 he had saved up didn't cover much of the trampoline I was still impressed that he had shown such commitment to his goal, despite being 5! So that night when I got the shipping email from Amazon I showed it to Nolan, praised him like crazy and started the countdown until it arrived.
Well it arrived on Monday, all 15 feet of it! I'll have to take a picture of our backyard now because it took up way more room than I thought it would.

It has a great netted enclosure all around it that make it safe even for Miles. 

Now that Nolan has reached his goal I asked him what he's going to save up for next and he decided he wants a guinea pig. I'm going to veto that one...sorry dude, Ruby is all the pet we need right now.

Mud

You probably saw on facebook last week that Nolan and I made the most of the temporary "lake" pooling in our driveway. It's finally starting to dry up now but there was an actual family of ducks living in there. It was so bizarre! 

So it was a pretty quiet Thursday, I was in a funk and Nolan was bored during one of Miles' nap times when I suddenly told Nolan to put his boots on we're going outside! He fought me because he was trying to convince me that we should watch TV. um...no. 

I grabbed my camera and told Nolan he can go splash in the puddle while I took pictures. I had visions of a mud caked, crazy excited kid and this is what he gave me...

Really?! I give him complete freedom to make a huge mess and he just stood there. I think he was in shock since I usually tell him to walk around puddles, don't make a mess, etc.

I eventually convinced him to walk around a bit which lead to running back and forth.

Not quite the muddy mess I was expecting but he was definitely excited. This is when he remembered his toy boat, he wanted to see if it would sink in the mud. Go for it, I said!

It did sink, so he ran some more.

At the end of the day, this was as dirty as he got, I striped him down at the door and we went inside for hot chocolate. He declared it was the best day EVER!