A Snowy Day

I love snow days. There were a few nights this week that I had to restrain myself from waking nolan up to go play in the snow in the middle of the night. I was afraid, like always it would melt by morning and we would miss another opportunity to explore our snowy yard. Luckily we had the perfect opportunity this week.

Nolan hated getting bundled up and hated his gloves even more but once we got outside he was a happy guy. He would cover his glove with snow and then pull it out and laugh hysterically. That guy cracks me up.

It didn't take him long to remember how much he loved to eat the snow. So we had a quick reminder lesson of what snow is safe to eat and when to avoid it(lots of stray cats in the neighborhood).

I tried showing him how to make snow angels but he thought this was a better way to do it.

We decided to make our very first snow friend. This snow was amazingly perfect for building snow people. It stuck really easily to itself, which made for quick work. Nolan did great rolling the bottom piece of our friend. He kept saying ball and tried to pick it up a number of times to throw it. We're working on not throwing everything just because we can so this was good practice.

He didn't appreciate my joke here. He's pretty good at sharing his things but there are two possessions that he won't let anyone else touch: his blankets(he has 3 now) and his binkies...snow friends were no exception I guess.

I replaced the binky with some stone eyes and all was right in Nolan's world. He even gave his snow friend a hug and a nice pat on the head.

Oops!

He replaced his friends head and added a few arms.

He loved the look of that so much that he added a few more.

We took a quick self portrait before heading inside for a hot bath and a nap. He was wiped out!

iPhone Photos

I was playing on my phone the other day and realized I had some really good photos that I wasn't sharing here because I originally didn't think the images were "blog worthy". I've had a change of heart as these images are from our everyday occurrences and I want to document them just in case anything happened to my phone.

I almost always have my phone on or near me so when something adorable happens it's the quickest way to document the occasion. Unfortunately, the camera function isn't great (horrible in low light and no option to zoom in) but I'll just have to look past that. Here are a few of our everyday occurrences via my beloved iPhone. Some are repeats from Facebook, sorry about that!

This boy loves to wash his hands, almost to obsessive levels.
We recently found our bubble machine while cleaning out a closet, best invention ever!
This is Kendall, she hangs out with us a few days a week. Nolan likes to tell everyone to be quiet when she is over, including the cats.
Baby proofing is ineffective in this house, he just sees it as a challenge.
I rarely get him dressed in the mornings, we change diapers and then hang out in his room as we both slowly wake up. I'm so grateful that we have such similar morning habits.
I love taking pictures of him when he's freaking out.
Playing with his personalized puzzle from Christmas. I still can't find that dang O!
Proof that he loves his veggies. He ate that entire bag of raw veggies in one day. Now if only I could get him to eat an apple!
I got Nolan a piggy bank so we would finally have a place to put all our loose change. Best $10 I've spent in a long time. Now whenever he finds a coin he runs to his room with it. Plus I can sneak dump it out in the bowl and he has an activity to distract him for a good 45 minutes. Love you piggy bank!
Neither of them knew I was took this picture but I love how serious they both were reading a book with no words.
Swoon, I am going to encourage this type of behavior a lot in the next few years. He already loves to vacuum so mopping was next in line.
Again, I love these father son moments. They are so amazingly similar.
Not abnormal behavior here. It would be weird to go a day without asking Nolan to get off the cat. Cortez hasn't ran away or put up much of a fight yet so it can't be too bad.
Someone broke into my desk and stuck fancy post it notes all over his head. Adorable but I really liked those post it notes! Hopefully iPhone will generously send me a new upgraded phone with fancy camera capabilities, until then I will just swoon over my blurry photos.

Nolan's Birthday - Action Shots

Nolan's big day was full of action. The playoffs were on, our house was full and Nolan couldn't get enough of it, he was one happy guy.

Here are all the action shots of the little man on his big day.

The only picture I got of his whole outfit before he kicked off his shoes.

Opening presents with Papa.

Blowing out his candles, he really did it too!

Family shot by the Cat in the Hat cutout (that we are blocking).

He had such a great day! I have a lot of work to do to top this one next year, I better start planning now! :)

Nolan's 2nd Birthday In Photos - Decor

Of course I made a wreath just for my baby's big day! If you want the tutorial let me know and I'll hunt it down with my troubleshooting info too.

It took me forever to pick out the right combination of fabrics for this pennant garland. I loved the final result though and will be hanging it in Nolan's room when we convert it to a big boy room.

Both projects hanging together on the porch.

Moving indoors I Seussed up my curtains by adding red muslin to my white existing drapes. The great part about having it in our home was I could take my time with this. I added them a few at a time with a simple stitch so they could be easily removed, post party.

The favor table with kids and adult goodie bags. I used classroom name tags in the Cat's hat design for this and they turned out so cute. Inside the bags I kept it to things Nolan loved or tied the items back to the blog. Each bag contained candy canes from this post, m&ms from this post, tissues from the mama blues post here, and some fun stuff like little containers of playdoh, cat in the hat temporary tattoos and balloons.

Nolan in his Cat in the Hat gear, sampling the goodies before guests arrive.

I loved his little red converse so much, I couldn't help but make a little montage!

I checked out as many Dr. Seuss books from the library that I could find and used them for decor. I loved the non floral poofs I found in the floral department of JoAnns.

I didn't stop in the living room though, the dining room got decked out in a lot of crepe paper. I loved it so much, I haven't taken it down yet.

Close up of the food. We had all of Nolan's favorites: veggies with dip, ruffled chips (fun fact: when I was pregnant with him this was my #1 craving, it couldn't be the flat ones, only ruffled), goldfish crackers in a fish bowl, croissant sandwiches, pecans, fruit salad, baked ziti and homemade marshmallow pops. He was in heaven, but mostly ate marshmallow pops!

Don't forget the green eggs and ham! Made by my friend Rachelle, thanks Rachelle!

Close up of the cake and cupcakes made by my friend Jodi who also did the incredible reggae monkey display from last year. She is so fantastic and I love that I don't have to worry about baking along with everything else. Thank you Jodi!

It's times like this that I really wish I had a better camera or a photographer to follow me around at these special occasions. All my pictures came out hazy or dark, such a bummer! But we had a great time celebrating with friends and family. I went a little overboard with the decor, but it served as the perfect distraction from my mama blues and I was able to really enjoy watching Nolan interact with everyone. Action shots still to come, stay tuned!

NYE

The third installment of Christmas 2011 was canceled due to a cold/flu bug that kept Pat and I in bed all weekend instead of participating in the family Christmas party. Nolan was able to go though through the help of Auntie Em, Uncle Cam and Cousin Clementine. I heard they had a great time climbing through fences, eating candy canes and stuffing themselves! Hopefully I will get pictures some day that I can post here.

Until then, we move right into our New Years Eve celebration.

We rang in 2011 with a few friends and a lot of Chinese food! It was perfect. The babies toasted the New Year with their white grape juice boxes and went right to bed at 8.

The adults enjoyed their distilled and sparkling grape juice and watched the Space Needle fireworks, or at least what we could see of it through the trees, from our deck. It was an amazingly clear night but FREEZING!

Good thing we had backups and while the girls we safely huddled up on the deck, the boys set off their own fireworks display.

We kicked off the new year with a few hours of light hearted discussion about politics, religion and the Seattle school system and called it a night around 2:30. Again, Nolan wisely chose to sleep in (love that kid!) and had a great time helping mama clean up in the morning.

We'll work on that for next year!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful 2011 so far, it's shaping up to be quite busy for the Clingmans!

Christmas Part III: Christmas Dinner

We were fortunate enough to have the family come to us on Christmas day for dinner. We stuck with the casual theme and Pat made beef stroganoff with roasted broccoli, so yummy. Everyone brought something to share, but Nolan's favorite was was the garlic artichoke dip that Auntie Em brought.

One of my favorite things to do on Christmas was watch A Christmas Story on TBS. They play it over and over again for 24 hours straight so I've probably watched that movie a couple hundred times. We incorporated this tradition by keeping it on in the background while the adults chatted, snacked and relaxed. WE would pause at the really funny parts like the pole licking and Santa visit scenes.

While we were busy kicking back the kids went outside to play. It was unseasonably warm and dry so they had a great time.

They of course came in every so often to take a dip break.

Note the new dip location, we moved it to where we thought Nolan couldn't get into it, but we were wrong. That boy was determined to get to that dip and I suspect his cousin helped him get to it!

When they weren't eating dip or outside, they were rough housing.

Even Gigi got in on the action.

and some more dip.

When it came time to eat dinner, Nolan wasn't hungry at all. I have no idea why...

but we enjoyed a great meal anyway and after dinner we opened presents. The big gift item this year was a play kitchen. It was hard enough finding a play kitchen appropriate for a little boy but finding one that wouldn't take up our entire house was an extra challenge. When I found this compact, blue, wooden kitchen I knew it would be perfect. Nolan agreed.

My mom bought it for him along with all the kitchen necessities: wooden food, miniature pots and pans and pantry food. His current favorites are the little ketchup bottle, the tea kettle and the Nolan sized wooden spoon and whisk, seen below with Yaya.

It was a great day with family and watching Nolan actually get excited about the day was so rewarding. It makes all the craziness worthwhile!

Mama Blues

Please allow me to interrupt the Christmas series so I can publicly sulk. Nolan turns 2 in exactly 2 weeks from today, in 2 weeks my baby will be a toddler. Sigh.

Before I had Nolan I was an emotional stable, non sentimental woman. Not so much the case now when it comes to Nolan. I struggled with his 1st birthday and now again with his 2nd. I can't really put my finger on what causes this response. If it's the fact that he's growing so quickly, my fears of the unknown world of parenting a toddler/kid/teenager/man or just that I will miss the way it is now. Probably a combination of them all but the last one weighs most heavily on me.

Whenever I get in this mood Pat reminds me that it is better that he grow older then the alternative. He has a very good point but I wish somehow I could slow it all down and savor this time with Nolan as a baby because I know I will miss it very very much. More then I can effectively describe really.

Those moments when he isn't embarrassed to seek my comfort, his confidence to repeatedly walk up to strangers to say "hi", how he doesn't hesitate to rock out to Fleetwood Mac in just his diaper, the way he carves his own path to reach milestones or how he can laugh the loudest at his own goofiness will always be my favorite memories of baby Nolan. I realize that maturity, peer pressure, conformity, self consciousness, or whatever will eventually wear away at his unapologetic, silly sense of self and that is a real bummer.

Despite these moments of sadness, I remind myself that we are still learning about who Nolan is and that there are a lot of adventures ahead and that helps me get through these transitions. So I will put my brave mama hat on and face this 2nd birthday with optimism and happiness that Nolan has brought so much joy to our lives...but keep the tissues close!