ANYWHO, so here we are. Now that I have a list of things to catch up on, this may be a lengthy post, but I'm also going to try and be brief with each segment.
Nolan's birthday was December 2nd and I can't believe that sweet happy little lover of mine is 1 whole year old. He's so fun and so especially cute right now so I can't complain about reaching this milestone, but I do hate that the days of calling him my baby are already fleeting. He's getting bigger than I'd like, though luckily he is considerably small for his age - basically at the bottom of the charts on all measurements - so I suppose I should be counting my blessings. His birthday was a fun little day - the kids always love a reason to celebrate with cupcakes and presents, especially when the receiver of the presents needs help opening them. I say presents, but he actually only got 1, because he's a baby and doesn't need anything. We already have plenty of toys in this house, but I felt bad giving him nothing, so I did decide to find one new toy to shake things up for him and he's been a big fan because it came with balls - his absolute favorite. I knew I couldn't go wrong there! 😂 It's actually a really cool little bulldozer toy that when you walk and push it it shoots little balls out of it and into the little scooper and then the scooper drops them back in and then it repeats. Rowan actually loves that element of it right now and Nolan will certainly grow to love that, but for now he just cares about the balls and has fun watching Rowan push it around so he can see it in action. 😂The kids helped me make his little smash cake and he was pretty wimpy with it. I think he liked the taste of it, but hated the fact that very quickly his hands were covered in frosting. Apparently my hatred of messiness has really passed on to all my children and they don't like being messy themselves. Kinda hit the jackpot there. 😆🙌 We had pizza for dinner and the rest of us had cupcakes while he barely made a dent in his smash cake, so we took it away and gave him a regular cupcake too so it was less overwhelming, which he seemed to like better. Cute little Maeve made him a card for his birthday and was the cutest little thing reading it to him and explaining her pictures to him. She had us laughing for sure. 🥰 And now for all the pics of the day because that's the best part anyway!
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| This boy sure is obsessed with his Daddy right now! 😍 |
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I also wanted to touch on what virtual school was like for Maeve during the time we were quarantined due to Covid. It was pretty neat to kinda get be a fly on the wall and see what the school day is like in her classroom, because for the most part, she was participating just like the rest of them, only through her screen instead. So every now and then I would pop in and linger for a second just to see what the instruction was like from her teacher and it was all pretty cute. Now I have a better picture in my mind of what her day really looks like when she's there for all those hours and that's kinda nice to know. At the end of every day I also would sit in and listen to their end of day meeting. During this time, they take the time to do little shout outs, where any a few students each day get called on to give a shout out to any classmate they'd like and say something nice about them. I'm not joking when I say that 4 out of the 5 days she did virtual school, she got at least 1, if not 2 shout outs from a bunch of different classmates each time! I couldn't believe my ears that I kept hearing her name and it was pretty cool for me to find out she's so well loved by everyone in her class. I also kinda died because every time someone said her name she got the biggest heartwarming smile on her face and then crossed her arms and put her two little fists over her heart like she was doing the sign language for love. I don't even know if the way I explained that makes sense, but it was so funny and every time her teacher and I would laugh over her enthusiastic response. 😂🥰 Speaking of school, it's been quite a ride for Maeve the last while because it's been all over the place - a week of virtual, a week back in school like normal, then a week of asynchronous learning from home before the break where she just did worksheets everyday on her own time, and then now she's doing 3 days a week at home doing worksheets and 2 days a week in the classroom. Nothing like Covid to really throw everything off! But luckily she's rolling with the inconsistency like a champ. 👊 Honestly she loves any days she doesn't have to go to school because then she knows there's no chance her lunch will leak... 🤦. She is so stuck on that even though it's only happened a few times! 🙄
Moving on, other than hanging out with Dan once he was at our house, most of the month of December leading up to leaving for the holidays was spent driving around looking at Christmas lights to get in the Christmas spirit. The kids were loving it and couldn't get enough of it. To be honest, I love it just as much - so fun to see the variety of magical displays with every house looking different and some that just really go all out! We also had our daily traditions such as Benny the elf moving around the house every night, our scripture advent calendar, nightly children's and adult Christmas stories that we read (and the kids were quite adamant that the adult stories were also read in their presence, in fact they may have been even more interested in those stories for some bizarre reason... 😂🤔 Case in point, one night Rowan came up to me and said he wanted to read the WHOLE book of stories in one night and turned into a blubbery mess when I burst his bubble and told him that was a little bit much and we could only read one 😂🤦), and fun Christmas activity pages for the kids to do every day leading up to Christmas. They ate it all up and were just so excited for Christmas to come! It really is the most wonderful time of the year when you have little ones around.
Having Dan with us from December 10th - 16th was a fun time, except for the fact our children were on basically their worst behavior for him, which was annoying and sad. So now I'm pretty sure he's never gonna want any of his own children, thanks to them showing him parenthood can really be like when all hell breaks loose. Luckily though he spent a good chunk of time out and about exploring Nashville and other surrounding cities on his own to look into real estate and see if he'd ever wanna live in this neck of the woods himself. Turns out, he really liked Chattanooga the most and could potentially see himself living there so who knows what might happen down the road. A highlight while he was with us was venturing into Nashville with him on December 11th and hanging out in a cool park we'd never been to before, driving through Broadway, stopping inside a cool candy shop where he loaded the kids up on candy, happening upon a cool Christmas lights display in Centennial park that we walked through, and him treating us to dinner at a cool restaurant downtown. Our kids were acting like annoying wild animals through some of it, so it was a fun-ish afternoon and evening with moments of probably all of us wanting to kill ourselves. 😅 On Saturday December 12th, we did Nolan's 1 year old birthday photoshoot and that night we went to Lebanon to see the big huge Christmas lights display that we like to drive through every year. They had some new additions to it this year, so it was extra fun!
I'm gonna stop here for this update, but before I wrap up with pictures, here's a list of some funny stuff the kids have said/done in the last couple of months that I made note of in my phone, but haven't recorded here yet:
~Who knows what actual date this was, but I wrote this stuff down on one random Monday...
1. The kids decided to hide behind the couch when Adam got home and then jump out and surprise him 😂🥰
2. I must have been cleaning the car out because the kids decided to play in the front seats and kept looking at themselves in the dropdown mirrors making silly faces and cracking each other up. I wish I had my phone out that day cause a video would have been pretty funny.
3. Rowan and Nolan were playing with each other in the hallway upstairs just crawling around chasing each other and cracking each other up - it was too cute 😍
4. Maeve and Rowan were reading a kids book together and stopped on one particular page and just kept reading it over and over busting up laughing after every single reading. 🤣🤷
5. Nolan is getting really good at copying the faces we make, which is pretty cute
6. Rowan had to go potty and waited a little too long to tell me, so by the time we got to the pot he was doing a little dance like he was about to go in his pants. He made it onto the toilet just in time and said in an exasperated voice "That was a close one!" 😂
7. At the dinner table we were explaining how something was boring and Adam said to Maeve "Just like school is boring sometimes, right?" and she quickly and strongly responded "No. Not ever!" 😂😂 We got a good laugh.
~The following Tuesday I wrote this stuff:
1. I had a can of green chiles that I only partially used and didn't know what to use the rest of for and when I expressed that, Maeve said "you could put in pasta...?" 😂 Plain pasta with green chiles, coming atcha! 😳
2. I was tucking Rowan into bed that night and he saw me look at the sheets as I pulled them down, noticing all the drool marks so he said "It's just spit up, but it's dry!" reassuring me that I could still lay down 😂😳
~The following Wednesday I wrote this stuff:
1. The kids were playing with stuffed animals and put a blanket on one and Rowan said "It's his coronavirus blanket!" 😂
2. I had a breakdown about something that day (who knows what - usually it has to do with one of the kids driving me completely insane) and Rowan noticed I was crying so he gently put his arms around me and told me it was going to be okay. 🥰🥰 He has continued to do this since then everytime he notices I am sad or upset about something - it is so dang cute and heartwarming. I just love him for it!!
3. I don't even remember what this one is about, but I wrote down "It's a mask, why would a baby have a mask?" - just coronavirus entering into daily conversation with our children yet again, of course 😂🤦
4. I passed some gas quietly and Rowan smelled it and said, while pulling down his undies, "It smells like poop, can you check?" 😂 On another day the same thing happened again, but on that occasion he smelled it and said "Did I just poop?" 😂😂🤦🤷
5. Rowan scribbled on a piece of paper and brought it over to me and said "Mom, is this how you do a big scribble?" 😂🤔
6. I had finished nursing Nolan, but got distracted and hadn't put my shirt back down yet and Rowan said "Mom, shut it down! Shut it down!" 😂🤷
~The Saturday that we took Nolan's 1 year old photos, we got balloons for it and for some reason that I don't remember anymore, Rowan said "Balloons can get coronavirus too" 😂
Aaaaand now for the rest of the pictures!
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| I was DYING when I turned around and saw that Adam put this amount of corn on Nolan's tray! 😂😳🤯 |
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| This doggy kills me! Her tongue!! 😂😂 |
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| Cutie Maeve at school eating celery during her plant eating party! 😍 |
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| The spread that the kids had in the bathroom one day while playing in there - ya know, all the essentials! 😂 |
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| This pic and below are from the Christmas lights display we happened upon in Centennial park - the kids were being so funny wanting us to take so many pictures of them! As opposed to the usual bribing we have to do to get them to cooperate for pictures... 😂🤔 |
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| A super cool shot that Dan got of us being all cute and cheesy 😍 |
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| We decided to make the M&M cookie recipe from If You Take a Mouse to the Movies for some festive baking fun and they were actually so surprisingly good! |
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| This little face looking at me in the store kills me. 😍Especially that I get these smiles when I smile at him under my mask. Apparently it's all in the eyes! |
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| He's figuring out how to use his walker all on his own! 😍 |
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| Cuddles are so rare with this busy boy so I love that he gave some good ones to Dan one afternoon when he was sleepy. He stayed like that for like 15 minutes! 😍 |
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| Dan had some fun taking some candid shots of all this balloon fun the kids were having. Eventually they kept asking him to take pictures of them jumping off the table over and over and over! 😂 Some fun shots below though. |
Also, here's a couple funny and cute videos:
https://youtu.be/M6X0hcp-I5Y - this one I took on Nolan's birthday during breakfast 😂
https://youtu.be/6HvqY-JoOGw - this one I got one morning after I went Kroger for one item and showed back up at home to Maeve teaching a Rowan how to read 😂 - gotta love the nature of the words!
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