Farmer Nicholas

Nicholas is loving to help care for our garden. He uses his little watering can to water the beans and peas and insists on turning on the sprinkler every time we are outside. We've waited long enough, and today we dug into our strawberries (before the neighborhood bunnies finished them before us!). Here's berry #4 getting devoured - the previous were too fast for me to capture!

Nicholas must have thought I was too slow at finding ripe berries for him. He stepped in...literally!
He knew exactly what he was going for!
"Hey Zoey, is there anything else ripe in this garden?"
"Got to check the hose."
"All looks good in the garden. With a belly full of berries, my work is done here."
"Gee, maybe there's more ripe berries out there?!"

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Now that Nicholas can open all doors, he freely goes to the pantry to choose his snack. Yesterday he found his little red box of Toostie Pops from Mema. Honestly, I'm sure there's still some stickiness on some surface missed from our last Tootsie experience, so I managed to slip him a random Dum Dum sucker found in the bowels of the pantry.

half the sticky mess - but still full enjoyment!
Just a reminder of why we don't need a My Gym membership -
- his highchair trick is still entertaining!
Finally we've figured out why Nicholas is obsessed with the fly swatter - he uses it to get the bugs and random flidgets out of the water table! (hmmmm, I have to ask the sitter if this is something he's learned from her house.)
And he still has to try a little sand with each sandbox use.
Thanks for joining us for dinner Grandma and Grandpa - Nicholas loved the corn on the cob!

Social Bug Day!

What's the old saying "feast or famine"...that describes our social calendar lately. Today, we started with having the girls over for a playdate (the big storm obviously got us off our game on the picture front - but we sure had fun with Kalie and Livi!).

Then in the afternoon we swung by the Morton's for a little fun with Jake and Katie. Nicholas loved the aquatic animals in Katie's water table...

and he mastered climbing Jake's playset to the platform, all by himself!
Playing pee-a-boo with the dust pan is always entertaining!
Katie showed-off her acrobatic skills on the trampoline.
While Nicholas insisted on getting on the "mmmbike."

(Sorry its a Harley, Daddy)

This evening, we had Emilee over while her family went to her brother's chorus concert. What a treat it was to have 2 well-occupied little ones consumed with playing together while I cooked dinner!

Nicholas wrote Emilee a love note on his MagnaDoodle.

And we realized the tremendous difference there is in self-feeding neatness that a year makes! Now if only the potty training stuff went a little smoother, we would have had a really successful evening! Boy what a busy day!

A Hot Weekend In MA

With Daddy away for Americade, we decided to go see Dillon with Grandma & Grandpa. On our drive to MA, we stopped at Nicholas' new favorite restaurant - can you tell where that is?

Nicholas and Grandpa had fun making their shake cups "dance."
Boy was it a hot weekend! The boys couldn't resist getting in the freezing cold pool as the adults were attempting to get packed and out the door for the petting zoo.

At Davis' Farmland, the boys spent a lot of time watching the mice (yes, sad but true. There were animals all over to pet and feed, but our guys liked watching the mice run in their wheels).

Nicholas checked out the baby chicks.

Could it have been any hotter that day!

There was an awesome water park there too!

What concentration Dillon! He was so good at filling his water bottle.
Nicholas attempted to stay hydrated (yuck!)

and showed off his belly!

Nicholas and Grandpa took a break to spot planes.

What a fun weekend Grandma & Grandpa - thanks for letting us tag along!

Kid's Meal...All the Way!

After a fun time at the park, we got home to a hungry Daddy who was jonzin' for his favorite wing joint. This adventure proved to be of milestone importance, since we didn't even bring any "Nicholas" food with us...not even a bib! He thought his kid's meal milk was super special.

He practiced "dip dip" skills in BBQ sauce.

(Yes, that was BBQ sauce with a white shirt!)

And ate half his chicken nugget kids meal!
Oh course, this was our view of him through most of dinner -

Mr. Nosey Bug!

A Package from Mema!

This afternoon, Nicholas got a special package from Mema! Once Mommy got it started (which required scissors - we all know what an excellent wrapper Mema is from her the baby shower gift!) Nicholas opened the entire thing.

After a little help to get the lid off, he was stunned in excitement...

(seriously, I don't think he knew what to think!)
Thanks Mema! We know you are a loyal Blog reader - and truly appreciate you thinking of our little man.

After Nicholas ate one sucker in the "formerly" cleaned house, we're wondering if anyone would like to have him over for a sucker visit. Mema sent plenty to share with you!

What's Up Doc?

This morning, Nicholas went to the eye doctor to show off his big eyes. His favorite part was the table in the waiting room.

That and standing on the chair!
Jackpot!

Fun at the Parkway

As we all know, Nicholas just loves being outside - and parks are the best! Before meeting the girls, Olivia and Kalie, this afternoon we had a little snack at his favorite bench.

The kiddos had their usual fight for snack cups - looks like Nicholas was heading straight for the bouncy bridge with a cup that's obviously not his!
It was another crazy hair day. I think we'll be exploring plans for a second haircut soon.

Checking out Camp

This afternoon, we ventured up to camp to have dinner with Grandpa and Grandma and see how camp wintered-over. Nicholas and Daddy inspected the outdoors

and gave the picnic table the A-okay.
But what happened to our beach! There were huge waves crashing all the way up to the wall - unbelievable!

Wlecome to My Hut

With a sick Daddy and yucky weather, we spent Saturday morning indoors in our jammies. Just as I've been considering putting away Nicholas' learning house, its recently become his favorite toy again. We made a cool hut and he just played and played all morning with it.

Cheeseball!
His favorite window seat.