Busy Bees!

Oh goodness it has been far too long since my last post. You would think that since i'm not working I would have hours to think of witty blog posts and stories, but no. I have been super busy! I have full blog posts to share but wanted to do a quick summary to catch you up.

Since it's full on Springtime I have been busy in the garden. Spring is my favorite time of year in our house since our garden really comes to life. Here are a few of my favorite things from this year's growth.

When we first moved in the former owner said he had planted over 300 bulbs, i believe him there are tulips and daffodils everywhere. After we put up the fence I planted another 217 bulbs for a border and this was the end result. The tulips are a bit past their prime in this pic but you get the idea.

I can't take much credit for this next one since this Russian Olive tree has been here much longer then I have but I love this tree and it's strange bark.

My Japanese Peony tree came back with a vengeance this year. It had 37 flowers, almost double what it did last year. This is by far my favorite plant in my yard, but it has the shortest blooming time. I placed a dime on the flower so you can get an idea of the size of these things.

And finally my fragrant Clematis has finally bloomed again. I thought for sure i had killed this one but those clematis plants are sneaky!

When we weren't gardening, Pat and I managed to sneak away for our 5th wedding anniversary. We stayed up at a cabin right outside Mt Rainier National Park. It was incredibly peaceful and since Nolan was back home with yaya it was an incredibly relaxing and peaceful weekend. This was the view from our cabin.

Just a cool pic i took of the mossy rocks.

We drove up to paradise and it looked like this...in MAY! Pat was so excited for snow since Seattle didn't get much of it this year.

We look like mountain folk here, but it was the only picture of us from that weekend. Happy Anniversary Baby!

Ok now you are all caught up with the boring stuff. On to the Nolan Pictures!

Mariners Take Two

This one is a bit late, but the picture was too cute to not post. Last Friday the family went to Nolan's 2nd Mariner's Game. The first of which you can read about here. This trip was a bit more difficult since we are right at the beginning of Nolan's squirmy toddler phase. He can't quite walk but he sure wants to scoot everywhere still. We made it through the first 4 or 5 innings (you can tell how well I was paying attention) but when Nolan started pouting for our neighbors fish and chips and grabbing their beer glasses, we were out of there...I'm not about to replace someones $10 Bud Light. So we walked all the way around the stadium, and I mean all the way around all 3 levels. I had Nolan strapped to me in his backpack since the ballpark isn't so stroller friendly. Oh my gosh was I sore the next day!! But we stumbled upon the Mariner Moose for a quick photo op. Nolan's eyes did a weird reflective thing and my red eye blocker seems to be a bit ambitious on Pat, but it's still cute!

Fair Day

My mom (Yaya), Nolan and I went to the Puyallup Spring Fair last week. It was the perfect way to spend a beautiful, sunny Thursday. There were lots of animals to visit and people to watch. They even had that sport where dogs jump into the pools to see how far they can go. It was all very entertaining. Nolan enjoyed the animals a lot.

Here he is petting the baby bunny. He even followed the one finger rule.

Nolan even got to try his very first (of many I'm sure!) elephant ear. I think the I'll bite you if you try to take this away from me face means he likes it.

Nolan did pretty good, but when it was time to go, he meant it! But we were able to sneak in a few Yaya and Nolan portraits on the mosaic cow.

Busy Week

I have recently found myself unemployed. This will be the first time that i have not been working since Nolan was born (except the 6 weeks of maternity leave). I was fortunate enough to work from home the last year and bring Nolan into the office with me when needed. This worked perfectly for us, since i could keep him with me and still bring in an income. Despite this perfect set up, the older Nolan got the more i realized that he needed more socialization and interaction with his outside world. Good old mommy guilt would kick in when I couldn't take him to the library story time or on little adventures.

When i was laid off I decided to make the most of this situation and do all the things i wished i could do when i was working. So everyday I have adventures planned for us, even if it's just working out in the yard or running errands. I make everything as fun and interactive for him as possible.

This week we finally got into the swing of things and stayed extra busy. On Monday we met up with some friends from our PEPs group at the aquarium. It was almost empty, there was plenty of parking and the babies were able to enjoy toddling around in there. These daytime adventures are way easier then trying to fight crowds on the weekends! Here is Nolan with his PEPs friends, Lauren and Henry.

Here is Nolan at the tropical fish tank, he was mesmerized by this grey fish.

And of course, the regular mommy and Nolan pic.

Gardening With Nolan

When we first bought our garden cottage i imagined spending all our time outside with our kids. We would grow vegetables, plant exotic plants and explore all the wildlife. In reality, the garden runs pretty low on my list of priorities. I have definitely fallen behind in my yard maintenance since Nolan was born and the garden is angry!! I don't get to do any of the fun stuff until i clean out all the weeds and grass that have made themselves a little too cozy in my garden beds. It's a constant battle though, one i had pretty much given up on fighting. But i still really want that vegetable garden, and a place for Nolan to play.

Today we had a surprise sunny day and i figured the time had come to share gardening with my son and wage the war on my garden invaders. I started him out in the baby jail which i set up right in the middle of the yard.

It didn't take him too long to figure out how to break out of that and he was off scooting around the yard. I tried teaching him how to pull out crab grass but he was more interested in eating rocks.

And yes, he is still booty scooting all over the place. This is what his booty looked like after 2 hours of outside time.

He loved it in the garden, and despite the rock eating he did pretty well. I think we will try to make this a regular weekly activity...my yard could sure use it, although Nolan might run out of pants.

Tulips

Nolan and I needed an adventure so we made the trek up to La Conner to see the tulip fields. Luckily Aunt Em and Cousin Clem were free too so we met them up there. It was supposed to be nice, or at least warm but it wasn't either of those. We were brave (although I'll admit to being a bit whiny) and went out anyway to see the sites. We tried to pose the kids for proof of how much fun we were having. They did not cooperate...

I love this perfectly imperfect shot, once they got those they wouldn't put them down so this is fitting.

After a few minutes of picture taking, we had had enough. It was too cold and windy to be outside so I bundled Nolan up in his stroller and put down the windbreaker so at least he would be warm and dry. I guess he was quite content in there as he flipped himself around and grabbed the tulip bulb order form to read.

Despite the horrible weather, closed tulip farms and mediocre lunch I always have fun with my sister and little Clem. We wrapped up the day by giggling uncontrollably while Clementine attempted to pick up every single rock in the gravel parking lot and put it in the planter box. Good times!

Poor Cortez!

The life of relaxation for Cortez is about to change. Nolan is rapidly becoming a toddler and has picked up a few new skills that will come in handy for hunting the cats down. He has learned to pull himself up on anything and is just about walking by himself. When that day comes i think we will see a lot less of the kitties.

Oh and he also hates wearing pants now, so i think you will start seeing a whole lot more pictures of him in just a shirt.

This One is for Rachelle

Nolan's first marinara sauce beard.

Update

We haven't been up to much lately, but i guess it's been a while since my last update so here are some pics of the last few weeks.

There is a park at the end of our block that has all sorts of fun toys that Nolan does not like to play on, what he does love is the sandbox. He just scoots laps in there, picking up all the rocks and trying to eat them.

Nolan's new quirks are that he wants to share everything with everyone. If I'm feeding him, he wants to feed me. If he takes a drink of water, he wants me to too. I of course just pretend drink which cracks him up even more.

He also has been interested in "helping" mommy clean up by removing all his diapers from the bag. It actually has been helpful during the times when i want to clean out his diaper bag or my purse. I just plop the bag in front of him and he takes out every piece of clothing and every last crumb from the bag. We will start working on putting things back this week.

Then this weekend for Easter we put together quite the basket for Nolan. He got all kinds of new toys. Snap beads, a bubble gun (that actually works really well) sidewalk chalk, crayons and beach toys. We are totally set up for summer!

He really enjoyed this holiday, he went through each toy one by one and really enjoyed playing with each one...not just the box it came in.

So there you go, this is what we have been up to lately...like i said not a whole lot!! We'll work on that though.

Nolan on the Farm

This weekend we went to a birthday party at a farm in Issaquah. We of course got lost out there in the boonies, but it was worth it! Once we found the farm, there were all kinds of animals! Besides a trip to the zoo (where Nolan slept the entire time) and our wild cats, Nolan really hasn't seen many animals up close and personal. We started with the smallest first.

He liked the baby chicks from afar but wasn't quite sure what to do with this little guy.

I guess we made too much of a leap on the next animal, from chicks to horses. He really wasn't sure what to do with this one, although he did reach out to pet him a few times.

We spent a lot of time in the barn with all the bunnies, pigs and sheep. They were so sweet!

Especially this little pig, Petunia who kept trying to eat Nolan's clothes.

This picture doesn't have any animals but i love it because you can actually see Nolan's gorgeous lashes. So sweet!