june loves

last month, i started writing down two things daily that i love about my little guy. we had been at odds...a lot...when i read an post on the blog "finding joy"...that is where i got the idea. it was halfway through may when i began. you can read my may post here. you can read the original article here.

june "loves"

6.1
1) when he asks for "mommy paba" (mommy's pillow) when we are reading and getting him ready for sleep.
2) when he asks for something or says something that he doesn't really think is possible, but he really wants it and he pulls up one shoulder, cocks his head to the side toward that shoulder and purses his lips in kind of a sideways, crinkly way. so stinking cute.

6.2
1) watching my boys play catch in the back yard. the video wouldn't load. you can watch it here...
2) watching him confidently climb at the playground.

this was nolan's first tree climbing experience! so exciting!

6.3
1) when he asks for things so politely, "mommy. more. almonds. pumpkin. seeds. please." very slowly and deliberately with pauses between each word.
2) when he held the hand of the little boy next to us at church this morning during the "our father".

6.4
1) when i ask: "how you doing, buddy?" and he says, "alright". i never knew how frequently i say "alright"...haha
2) that for the first time in at least 6 months, he asked me to rock him to sleep. it was amazing.

6.5
1) when he runs up behind me and gives me a big bear hug on my back.
2) how he was soooooo very patient on our 2.5+ hour drive to anaheim to watch a baseball game. poor planning, parents.

6.6
1) when i told him we needed to vacuum the house to get ready for our friends to come over (moms' group) and he started moving of his toys, balls, chairs, etc off the carpet and onto the kitchen floor without me asking him to and then helped me put them all back once we were done vacuuming. ha.

2) seeing how excited he gets when he talks about his friends...and that he talks about his friends.

6.7 - rough. day. thank goodness anthony was home to take him on errands and out to play multiple times today so i could deal with stupid moldy crap. bleck.
 1) how he has started recognizing letters (especially those in his name) and will see letters and start repeating over and over, "o," "a," "n," something that sounds like possibly "l"...
2) when he comes home from being out with daddy and as soon as he walks in the door he yells (happily...with so much excitement), "mommy!". the best.

6.8
1) watching him make art - this morning we revisited watercolors with a little more interest in painting the paper...he also loves to paint his legs, feel the colors with his fingers and watch the colors swirl off the brush into the water (which i agree, looks really cool). it is so neat to watch him discover all this stuff...though i must say, it is still harder than i would have expected to sit back and let him explore it without me guiding him. i'm really trying to respect his process and how he thinks painting with just the water is just as fun as using the paint...and why not? :)
2) when he eats brussel sprouts. ;)

6.9
1) when i ask him a question and as he thinks of his answer he kind of furrows his brow a bit, pushes his nose down, puckers his lips and says, "uuuuuhh" or "mmmmmm". ha. so cute. little thinking face.
2) at the park today, a little girl (2.5ish) came up to him while he was scooping in the sand and said, "play catch grass". i repeated what she said to him and he set down his shovel, stood up and chased after her over to the grass and stood, facing her with his hands up ready to catch the ball. :)

6.10
1) watching him make music

drummin' at the LACMA

2) how sometimes when he is nursing and i ask him if he would like to do something (read a book, play with his trains, color, eat, whatever) and he just looks at me and points to his mouth, without unlatching, as if to say, "uh...mom...clearly i'm busy".

6.11
1) when he cuddles up and falls back to sleep with daddy at his first late night wakeup (not often, but soooo enjoyable...especially when it is so i can continue watching the bachelorette with one of my besties. heehee.).

love.

2) when he leaves the playground and other kids' toys without a fuss. oh man. so nice.

6.12
1) he has started doing this "thinking" face. when you ask him a question, he furrows his brow a bit, puckers his lips and says, "uhhhh". cracks me up.
2) the way he now says "ba-woon" for balloon. before that it was "dada-boon". we are getting way closer. ha.

gotta love the nordstrom kids' shoes. always good for a balloon, purchase or not!

6.13
1) when he lets his buddy berlin feed him food at moms' group. he'll do anything for the ladies, including being taken care of. hehe.
2) that he loves my homemade lara bars! yes!

6.14
1) when he runs up to me and says, "mama, big hug!" and then throws his arms around me.
2) when i ask him to set something down gently (usually right after he has thrown whatever non-ball object that i would not like thrown, i.e.: pine cone, stick, rock, book, wooden train car, you get it...) and he does, but in such an exaggerated way that he is either really trying to focus and show me how well he listened and behaved or he is totally mocking me (are 2-year-olds capable of using sarcasm?) i like to believe it is the first, but either way it cracks me up every time. :)

6.15
1) his new little "babadeeda" sing song that he does.
2) when he asks to paint.

6.16
1) he said his name tonight! it's usually "na na" or "no na" or "o, a, n," but tonight it was "no-lan". :)
2) when we walked into the house tonight (i had cooked dinner during the afternoon), nolan sniffed the air and said, "yum". :) - soup: lentils, swiss chard, onions, garlic, diced tomatoes, spices in homemade chicken broth. a little while later, he ate all of his dinner...and then seconds. :)

yum.

6.17
1) when nolan gave anthony his homemade father's day gift and this purchased gift wrapped in homemade "wrapping paper".

happy father's day, daddy. handprint tree card, a new updated picture insert for his travel mug, and hand-painted paper bag wrapping of a sweet shoe horn. :)

2) watching nolan stack, stack and stack blocks...three different towers at once - 8, 4 and 5.

stacking machine!

6.18
1) smooth morning grocery trips with bug.
2) how nolan has so many grocery store employee buddies. he is very cute and friendly...and we are loyal shoppers. ha.

6.19 - i hate to say it, but as i sit here nearly a week later, trying to fill in the blanks of my daily loves that i forgot to write down, i have zero recollection of this day. :( it was the day before tearing apart our house and leaving on vacation way too early in the morning. i'm sure there was something lovely about it. sadly, not sure what it was. so, i'm just going to make it up with two general loves not necessarily specific to june 19th, 2012.
1) snuggling with my bug during a nap. - interesting. this may have actually happened that day, now that i think about it.
2) when nolan smiles at me when i walk into the room.

6.20
1) today i had to tear our house apart, piling all our belongings in middle of all the rooms before leaving on vacation. miraculously, nolan slept solidly through a well-timed nap, ran around like crazy at the park for a couple hours and then fell asleep by 7:15, and stayed asleep for the night so i could work in to the wee hours of the morning. whew. lucked out.

wowsa.

2) rubber boot stomping in the mud in our back non-yard.

6.21
1) nolan was so polite on an airplane that as we exited the plane, more than one person said to me, "wow! i didn't even know there was a toddler on the plane!" - it was a 6:00am flight and he didn't sleep a wink...so i took this as a HUGE compliment to him...and i. :)
2) seeing my boys watch baseball at the park where i watched my brother play tee ball when i was a little girl.

watching kids play baseball at memorial park in wilsonville.

6.22
1) playing arcade basketball with nolan and anthony (after a failed attempt at bowling...terrified the poor boy).

"boom"

2) it took a little while but nolan quietly and calmly drifted off into sleep as we drove up the 5 on our way to seattle at bedtime.

6.23
1) when nolan says (over and over), "more sarah, please" asking to play with his cousin that he has only met three times in his young little life.
2)  despite a crazy runny nose, nolan made it all the way through a wedding and reception, playing and playing without any fuss...and only a little bit of a meltdown at the very end, which was just past bedtime.

6.24 - rough. day. lots of time in the car on our way back south from my cousy's beautiful wedding. late nap. runny baby nose. sore mommy throat + lack of sleep = grouchy mommy with little patience.
1) running up, up, up and down, down, down the big open grass hill with my boys and my mom at the loveliest rest area anthony has ever seen. welcome to the northwest. ;)
2) showing my boys the beautiful view of downtown portland from mt. tabor park.

6.25
1) taking my boys (with my mama) to the zoo that i went to as a little girl and being almost as amazed at it now as i was back then (some parts i was just as, if not more amazed, but the monkeys left something to be desired). nolan LOVED it. somehow he managed happiness through nearly 4.5 hours of the zoo...with a cold...partly during his nap time. amazing.
2) the joy that nolan gets from simple things - popcorn, trucks, tractors, etc.

riding a big green tractor at the farm portion of the oregon zoo. so cool.

6.26
1) nolan is loving grandma's computer screen saver FULL of pictures of him (mostly as a little baby) and he is constantly saying, "more baby nolan" and squeals each time he forgets about it and then remembers as he walks by and it catches his eye.
2) today, instead of hollering "mama" down the hallway to come and look at pictures (of himself) with him, he was hollering, "vra vra" (grandma).

6.27
1) riding the "trains" (street car and max) through portland with my family as nolan says, "more train. more train, please".
2) when nolan and i accidently bonked heads tonight and he asked me if i was ok. :)

6.28
1) when my boy shares with other littles when playing trains without my asking him to.
2) watching him work through little fears - we went to a pet store today with tons of crazy animals that he wasn't sure he wanted to touch and then he did!

6.29
1) realizing that it isn't all water that bug is scared of! he loves the river! nw boy...

hanging out by the molalla river in canby...a quick walk from where i went to high school.

2) stacking rocks with my boy.

6.30
1) picking beans together at the famer's market.
2) watching nolan hold his buddy alora at a mere 10#! he was so careful and sweet!

nolan: 2 years 4 months. 30#.
alora: 4 months. 10#.
new buddies. :)

our first week in the nw

the first week of our nw family vacation is over. boo. anthony had to go home today (well, it was "today" when i started this blog. currently "today" means "two days ago". stupid picture trouble.) luckily, nolan and i have two more weeks of fun. we'll be missing daddy though!

we arrived in portland last thursday at 8:00am and have been on the go pretty much ever since. nolan's nose started running by roughly 2:30 that afternoon and while i crossed my fingers that it was just all the los angeles goop dripping out after a few hours of breathing this beautiful, clean nw air, it was very clear by the end of the night that he had a nasty cold. (three days later, i got it. ugh.) we didn't slow down a bit - probably not the most ideal for healing the body, but we had things to do! i only had one week to do all i could to convince anthony that portland is where we should be. ;) not sure how well i did, but portland was on its best behavior and really did its part. :)

day one:  arrived in pdx early, early after a crazy late night of house prep for work being done while we are away and very little sleep. the weather was beautiful. we walked down to the huge park by grandma's (my mom) house and watched some kids playing baseball and then went out to dinner when grandma got home from her second to last day of work before summer break! after bedtime, anthony and i headed the backway into town along the river and through sellwood to se portland to eat some incredible dessert at papa haydn. it was awesome. sadly, bug's cold had already kicked in to high gear and he was having a rough go. sorry, bug. thanks, gma. :/

despite the fact that we left the house at 4:15am and that this picture was taken at about 5:50am, nolan did not sleep a wink during the entire flight. in fact, this was his position for a very good chunk of it. 

so sleepy, but refused to close his eyes. daddy was a little luckier than nolan and i in the sleep department. :)

get it, kid.

four little monkeys. 

all his new buddies ready to play.

my boys.

me in the papa hadyn garden. i know...even the restaurants have backyards here. haha.

smelling something tasty...

my handsome hubby and two of the most delicious desserts i've ever had. chocolate raspberry ganachey goodness and basil blueberry ice cream...what!? amazing.

smoochin' in the gardens after dessert. note: it is about 9:30pm in this picture...check out the light. no flash. no outdoor lights.

me and my love.

day two: a little rainy in the morning. while i really wanted to bundle nolan in his raincoat and wellies and run around in the rain, we decided that with a runny nose, that wasn't our best bet. so instead, we attempted to go bowling. sounds like fun, right? 9:00am, no one else in the place, nice and quiet, not too overwhelmingly. nope. nolan thought it to be terrifying. anthony bowled the first half of the game (for all three of us) while i played arcade basketball with nolan and then we switched. luckily, nolan loved arcade basketball. :) this was followed by a little grocery shopping at the local whole foods - proud owner (?) of the most amazing bulk foods section i have ever seen. the picture really doesn't do it justice. yes, i'm a total nerd. caitlin gustin, did one of your brothers design this by chance? if so, they are freaking geniuses. :) anyway...post nap, we hit up a small playground in the apartment complex and played some ball. yes, we took our kid to a playground with a snotty nose. yes, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. somehow i got past it because there were no other children in sight (nor have i seen a child there in all the times we have been there or walked past it), it was a little drizzly and supposed to rain during the night, thus washing off any snotty germs. :) then home for dinner, bath, books and bedtime before loading up in the car and heading to auburn (just south of seattle) for the weekend to celebrate my awesome cousin's beautiful wedding.

a little too small...

problem solved.

precisely.

i could live in this bulk section. alright. no. but, are you kidding me!?

we put on rain boots on and tried to find some puddles left over from the morning rain, but no luck.

the best.

day three: wedding day. breakfast out. last minute shopping to try and find a more weather appropriate wedding top for nolan (ended up with a colored polo to go under the sweater i brought) and a new brown belt for anthony as his broke the day before (doh). nap then wedding. it was beautiful. the rain stopped just in time for the ceremony and it was clear and lovely midway through the reception. so much love. so much happiness. so much family we haven't seen for while. all around great. nolan thoroughly enjoyed playing with his cousins and is still talking about them and played many a rousing game of cornhole (i know, terrible name) with his daddy and some other little boy wedding guests. a late night, but happiness the whole time (and a whole lot of snot. ew.).

nolan choreographed a special rhythmic gymnastics ribbon routine for the wedding couple. hehe. and as a side note: isn't my hubby handsome? ;)

cornhole! the game got a little rough, but he loved it, except when he got pegged...twice...once in the head...poor buggy.

nolan's high toss.

raising the roof with uncle tyler. nolan doesn't realize just how lucky he is. uncle tyler doesn't dance for just anyone.

day four: breakfast out with the fam and then into the car to head home. the plan was for nolan to fall asleep for his nap as we ventured the 2.5 hours south back to grandma's. that didn't so much happen. he fell asleep with about an hour left in the trip. not ideal, but it worked. he was a little upset when we woke him up to get out and explore mt. tabor, but he managed. ps. mt. tabor is incredible (sorry...all the pics were on my mom's camera). how did i not spend more time there when i lived in portland? we learned that it is a volcanic cinder cone! pretty cool. with a stop for gas, another to run around a little at a rest area (that anthony could barely believe was a rest area because it was so lovely) and our trip to mt. tabor, it took us about six hours to make the 2.5 hour trip south. ha. thankfully we had leftovers awaiting our arrival home.

picking daisies and running around at the rest area. i had put one in my hair. nolan wanted his in his hair too.

day five: oregon zoo! up early, 4.5 hours at the zoo, a drive down to nw portland for a delicious lunch at henry's (and a little nostalgia, as i used to work there) and a trip home with a very small amount of very non-l.a. traffic. :) nolan skipped his nap, fell asleep at 4:00pm (on the drive home) and was pretty much out for the night. it was quite a day. this is also the day that my cold really ramped up with one of the worst sore throats i've ever had. boo.

by far one of nolan's favorite parts of the zoo. they have a whole "farm" set up with stuff to play on and animals to pet. super cool.

"mooooooo" - she wanted to give me a kissy.

they even have a little veggie garden!

penguins!

the first "how do you measure up?" picture of many throughout our zoo adventure.

if you find yourself within inches of a grizzly bear,  act big. 

the kid loves popcorn. i just pretend (for my sake) that it is made with real butter. oy.

...and compared to monkeys...

family jam session in the serengeti

apparently this is how a python sees us...and decides whether or not we are going to be lunch.  i guess my mom and i have some cold noses. haha.

checking out the cheetah...that came right up to the window shortly after this pic. sadly, the camera wasn't ready. it was really cool.

baby lion!

nolan refused the mommy, daddy, toddler family picture with us all on our respective lions (boo), but he accepted a piggy back from the baby lion.

i. love. this. picture.

he loved the giraffes.

was a little unsure of the sea lions. they were BIG.

i think if nolan could describe his idea of heaven, this would be it. 

so many to choose from.

final "measure up" of the day. he looks so big to me in this pic.

on our way out after our epic zoo adventure. 

day six: rest and catch up day. lazy morning of staying in jammies and playing with trains and a trip back to the big park to slide, fly a kite and watch baseball after nap. low-key and much needed.

"choo choo"

grandma horsey.

helping water gma's flowers.

he spent a good chunk of the day like this. watching pictures go by on the screen saver. "mo baby nonan, beee" ("more baby nolan, please").

getting the kite all rigged up. and then my camera went crazy and stopped working for much of the remainder of the AWESOME kite flying. bah!

"wa mo baybow gayme, beeee" ("watch more baseball game, please") - he is rather polite these days, when he isn't chucking something at your face or flinging himself around to get out of blowing his nose or flossing/brushing his teeth. 

day seven: anthony's last day. :( not up nearly as early as planned, but enjoyed the rest. breakfast and off to jamison square park/fountain in nw portland. how it didn't dawn on us that our little boy who is currently terrified of swimming pools would be nearly equally terrified of a wading fountain, i'm not sure...but it didn't. we played AROUND the water for 45 minutes or so, kicked the ball and soaked up some sun on a beautiful day then yummy lunch at hotlips pizza (gluten free pizza crust. i love you, portland). caught the streetcar and headed downtown for a little shopping. replacement sunglasses for both anthony and i (yay! no more wrinkle-causing squinting or eye damage! ha) and then rode max AND the streetcar back to our car. we tried to re-create our zoo trip no nap luck, with no luck. he passed out on my shoulder as we were waiting for the streetcar, but woke up as we loaded him into the car and stayed up the rest of the evening...with some seriously CRAZY energy. not terribly destructive as normally happens when he is overtired, just really funny and totally delirious. leftovers once again before grandma headed off to drop daddy off at the airport. :(

keeping his distance.

pretty sure he made roughly $1 worth of wishes in pennies, nickels and dimes. 

rubbing noses with the seals by the pioneer courthouse. i have pictures of me as a babe at these same statues. memories...

coolest scooters ever. you sit on them and wiggle the steering wheel and off you go! they even hold up to 250# on flat surfaces. pretty fun!

grandma and i even got in on the fun! (me not pictured...different camera. boo.)

one final "bye bye/goodnight" kissy sent via text to daddy after he left for the airport.

well, that's the fun so far...

nolan and i are starting to feel better and i'm super excited about the upcoming weeks of playing with friends, going to the children's museum, a farm and a forth of july celebration!