Tall and Talkative

October Highlights:
Nathan attended his first circus.  The show we attended was performed by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey.  The highlight of the evening for Nathan was seeing the elephants and eating popcorn...lots of popcorn!
 

He started referencing the weekend in a cute way.  He asks, "Is it stay home day?"  If we reply with the answer yes, he then says "Yeah, woo hoo!".

It's adorable to listen to Nathan sing songs to us he has learned at daycare.  There are some cute ones I've never heard before.  

Our family loves fall weather.  We enjoyed painting pumpkins together and Nathan enjoyed playing in the leaves and helping Daddy rake this fall.  

 

We also captured some fall scenery by having a photographer take family pictures.  It was a beautiful but cold day; we treated ourselves to hot chocolate from Caribou Coffee on the way home.

October 27th was a big evening for Nathan because he wore Spiderman underwear to bed instead of a night time pull-up and he stayed dry through the night!!!  

Halloween was much different this year.  Nathan requested to be Batman and he actually was excited about wearing his costume!  He wore his super-hero costume for a daycare party and again for Begger's Night around our neighborhood.  He liked his full bag of candy when the night was over.  

November Highlights:
This was a rough month for Nathan as he was working on bladder control at bedtime.  He had a good five day run staying dry overnight.  After that it was touch and go for several weeks until he consistently stayed dry at night.  

The three of us spent a evening at the bowling alley.  Nathan had fun rolling the bowling ball down the kiddie ramp to get some speed behind the ball going down the lane. There were several gutter balls but he was a trooper taking turns and enjoy the game.  This was a memorable evening for Nathan because he had orange soda-pop (as Nathan's calls it) for the first time.  Every so often, he will still talk about that sugary carbonation drink and how yummy it was!

 

Did Mommy have a mid-life crisis in her lower thirties?   Without much time to process an idea, Mommy brought home a kitten!  We helped rescue a 10 week old kitten; whom we later named Ranger because of his interesting journey being found under the engine block of a co-worker's house.  Ranger quickly warmed our hearts with his adorable face and personality, but our two adult cats thought otherwise for quite a while.    

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year.  That was a lot of fun, especially for Nathan, because Kodie (Uncle Brandon's girlfriend) joined us.  We had a house full for a short holiday together but every minute was enjoyable.

Nathan with Uncle Brandon's girlfriend -
he says "Kodie's my girlfriend."

December Highlights:
Nathan is staying dry through the night now!  Mommy says woo hoo!  

Isaac and I are amazed how good Nathan is at directions.  He recognizes where we are at during different locations throughout the city and suburbs.  He tells us "this is daycare way" or "we go to Hy-Vee this way".  He recognizes the road to Grandma & Papa's house before we get to their neighborhood.

He was wanting snow this winter and asked us over and over again for snow.  When we finally had our first snowfall he was so excited and right away wanted to go out and play in the snow.  I helped him get bundled up to go out and play...with sand toys in the snow.  He laid down to make a snow angel and threw snowballs high up in the air.

Nathan is getting up on his own now after he wakes up instead of announcing he is awake while staying in his bed.  It's fun not knowing he's awake until we hear his footsteps coming over to us or crawl into bed with us on the weekends.  

He turned 4 years old on December 23!  We had a Toy Story themed birthday party.  Mommy had fun planning and decorating!  He was so excited for his birthday party and was such a character during the whole evening!

 

 

Nathan's cousin Jaidyn playing with balloons at his party

All tuckered out after a great birthday celebration!

We had a quiet and enjoyable Christmas at home this year. Christmas Eve we hung Nathan's stocking and set out a few cookies and a can of Sierra Mist soda-pop for Santa.  Isaac and I woke up to Nathan's voice Christmas morning saying "Wait a minute!" when he went downstairs on his own and discovered that his stocking was filled, the cookies had been eaten, and the soda-pop was almost gone.  Isaac and I made the toy jump; meaning we purchased only big boy toys for ages 4+ of Legos and PlayMoblie.  We spent Christmas Day with the Wiese's for a nice Christmas dinner, visited together and played games.

January 2013 Highlights:
Happy New Year everyone!  We had a nice long weekend together with the Campbell's at our house for four days and yes Nathan's "girlfriend" Kodie stayed with us too. 

This is the first time mid-season that we had to purchase bigger clothes for Nathan.  In the fall we prepared his wardrobe with size 4T shirts and pants but when the new year rolled around, his coat, shirts, and especially his pants became too short.  I discovered that 4T and size 4 Boys are similar in size so we jumped up to size 5 Boys pants for the remainder of the cold season.  His pants are a little long on him but this is much better than too short.