Goodnight, Nicholas

Nicholas has his special bedtime routine.  He reads a few books, turns on a CD that will play quietly while he's trying to fall asleep, gets a drink of water, then gets tucked into bed.

Tonight, after Daddy gave Nicholas a kiss and hug and left the room, Nicholas requested, as usual, that I "hold" him for a minute before leaving the room myself.  After a minute or so, I stood up and he said, "Mommy has to leave now."  And I replied, "Yes, I have to leave now...  Goodnight, Nicholas...  *insert cutesy, mushy stuff here*...  You're my sweetest Nicholas ever!!!"

Then he replied, "You're my sweetest Mama ever."

Awwww....  I love you, Nicholas!!!  :o)  And I love you, too, Zachary!!  You're both too cute!!!

Sleepyhead Brothers

Happy New Year!!

New Year's Resolution:  Update blog on time....  D'oh!!!

Better late than never, right?!  Well, things have been pretty exciting since Christmastime!!  Nicholas and Zachary really enjoyed their Christmas holiday!!  We celebrated Christmas at home with SA Grandma and Grandpa, and had a great time opening presents from Santa!!  We have no chimney, so Nicholas was very excited to have Santa Claus arrive via the dryer vent!!  :o)  Nicholas left a delicious frosted sugar cookie and milk out for Santa and he was sooo excited to see that Santa ate it all up and left some fun gifts in return!!  We were also sure to make two trips to visit both sets of Grandparents (and uncles & aunts) at their respective homes!  The boys definitely hit the jackpot with Christmas gifts this year!!  Everyone was so very generous and sweet to the boys!!  :o)

 Nicholas still can't stop talking about all of his Christmas presents!!  He announces every day that "It's time to play with my Christmas presents!!!"  Nicholas was also very adamant about taking down the Christmas tree once Christmas was over.  I think he was upset at the reminder that he would not be receiving any more gifts for Christmas.  Ah, Nicholas.  :o)

The boys were also very lucky to see some REAL snow over the Christmas break, too!!  Nicholas made his very first snowman while Zachary observed the snow, then opted to return indoors to central heating.  

Nicholas did a great job ensuring that the snowman eventually had eyes, a nose, a mouth, and ears!!!

The New Year has started out nicely.  Zachary is such a big boy now!!  He's been sitting up straight and tall all by himself for about a month now.  He's also been scooting backwards on his tummy, getting ready to make the big crawling milestone!!  Zachary is also already very good with his hands and manipulating his toys.  I'm so impressed at how well he is able to occupy himself with a single toy for a good amount of time!  He also has such a sweet smile and such a calm and kind disposition!!  But, that boy has some lungs!!!  I suppose he has to to be loud if he wants to be heard over Nicholas.  :oP

Zachary was also given the green light to start solid foods!!  He's been sneaking some Gerber Puffs for a while now, but the little barracuda can now move on to the glorious world of baby foods...yum...

He seems to enjoy his rice cereal most of the time, but he definitely enjoys eating the spoon and the bib even more!! 

Nicholas is also growing and growing!!  I can't believe how much older he looks now compared to 4 months ago!!  He's still as loquacious as always!  And the boy is born to be a rock star!!  He loves, Loves, LOVES to sing...loudly!!!  His Aunties introduced him to You Tube and he has taken to studying certain music videos.  He loves singing Carrie Underwood's "Flat on the Floor", Bare Naked Ladies' "789", and Panic at the Disco's "Nine in the Afternoon".  He grabs a guitar and rocks out!!  We have a new phrase at home, though...that is "Sing it, don't scream it!!!"  :o)  We got a few strange looks at church as Nicholas belted out the "Gloria" and "The Great Amen".  :oD

It appears that Nicholas already has the rock star attitude going for him!

Nicholas is also finally big enough and strong enough to enter the play places in various restaurants and kiddo establishments.  We visited Peter Piper Pizza over the holidays where Nicholas had a grand ole time climbing through the tubes in the play place.  During one visit, Nicholas ate his pizza "buffet", declared he was finished eating, and ran off with his aunties to play some games and have fun in the play place.  Eventually, I walked over to watch him make his way through the tubes.  He went all the way through and out the slide a couple of times before IT happened.  He climbed up the stairs and entered the tubes.  I kept watching for him to enter one of the see-through areas of the tubes, but he never showed up.  Then, I heard IT - a blood-curdling scream coming from inside the tubes!  I jumped into the play place and raced up the kiddie stairs (I'm pretty sure I injured my back in the process) to find Nicholas sitting in the tubes still screaming and crying.  I called to him to see what was wrong since he didn't appear to be bleeding and his appendages all seemed to be lined up correctly.  And he responded, "I don't want that guy to take my pizza!!!!"  Huh?!  I looked down at our table that was visible from his tube and saw one of the Peter Piper workers clearing off all the empty plates.  Nicholas!!!  I reassured him that I saved him some pizza and the man would not take it, and he finally calmed down a bit.  I coaxed him back down and he did indeed enjoy a little more pizza before returning to play.

Silly Nicholas!!  Your pizza is safe!!

Well, that's the scoop for now!!  I'll try to work on that New Year's resolution of updating more often, but don't bet the farm on it!!  :o)  Red & Blue are doing very well, too, on that note!!  :o)

Happy 2010!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!  We certainly enjoyed Zachary's very first Christmas!!!  Hopefully we'll see or hear from everyone soon, if we haven't already!!!  In the meantime, may you have a joyous Christmas season and a very Happy 2010!!!

Sweet Christmas Boys!!

Gotta love that Christmas spirit!!!  Happy Birthday, Jesus!!!

:o)

More Christmas details to come...

The Picture Website Has Moved

Goodbye nickandsuzanne.com!!!  The old picture website has disappeared and will be replaced by Google's oh-so-special Picasa Web Albums!!  (See link above.)  It should be MUCH faster to browse the photos now!!  And now my dear ole blog will be our homepage.  Gulp.  That means people may actually read my posts!!!  :o)

The old photos are no longer posted online, but if you'd like to see them...just let us know and we'll get them to you!!  Nick can give you an entire DVD set of all the old pictures!  He can even get it to you by December 24th with Free Super Saver Shipping if you order it by yesterday. 

Hope you enjoy!!! 

PS...Nicholas and Zachary say MERRY CHRISTMAS and OOOooooAAAgggg, respectively!  :o)

This Little Light of Mine!!!

Today was Nicholas's Christmas program at his preschool!  Daddy took off work to help video tape the occasion!  All three of the two-year-old classes (about 24 kids total) walked down the church aisle together "singing" Jingle Bells while jingling little Christmas bells.  Then, they all stood in their places (or sat relatively close to their places) on the steps of the altar for their performance.  Nicholas was one of the kiddos that sat down on the bottom step to ensure that it was pretty much impossible for us to get any good photos or video footage of him.  Then, the teachers started singing This Little Light of Mine.  Some of the older kids joined in for a few words or motions.  I could barely see Nicholas from my seat, but I did hear his voice a few times and I saw his little pointer finger "light" moving around a few times, too!  (He's the youngest kid in the whole school, so I was just proud that he wasn't screaming or crying!!)  Just as I'm praising him for his good behavior, I hear him say, "Where'd Mommy go?"  Oops.  Shortly after that, Nicholas began mission "I'm Bored".  He didn't disobey his teachers when they told him to stay seated.  Instead, he scooted on his bottom along the bottom step from the far left side of the altar where he was originally seated to the far right side of the altar near the older two-year-olds.  Just as he arrived at his new location, the classes began singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.  Nicholas did sing along quietly to this song!  I was quite surprised since he's usually so very loud at home!!  Then, the performance was over and his teacher walked over to the other side of the altar to retrieve the silly little guy!  It was a very cute performance!  The three and four-year-old kids took turns performing after the two-year-olds were herded into their pews...they were also very cute!!  The four-year-olds actually put on a mini Christmas pageant!  The extra girls were angels, of course, but the extra boys were sheep.  I've never seen that before.  I suppose in two years, Nicholas will be a sheep if he has his mommy's luck!  Ah, I was always the angel, never the Mary!  Nick, Zachary, and I were very excited to attend Nicholas's very first school performance!!  I hope there are many, many more in the future!!

 
And, since there's been no update in over two months...here's a quick one!  The boys are doing very well!!  They're already such good friends!  Zachary is hitting his milestones so quickly!  He can roll over in both directions and he can sit up on his own (for a little while, at least!)  He won't start on solid food until he's 6 months old, but he is already suspiciously eyeing the rest of the family during mealtimes.  And did you know that Zachary is a master baby pianist!!  He bangs on those piano keys like nobody's business!!  He also received an Exersaucer as an early Christmas gift from his grandparents and he LOVES it!!  Nicholas loves helping him play in it, too!!  The Exersaucer has a phone toy that is attached to the Exersaucer by a sturdy ribbon.  Zachary pushes the buttons and eats the phone constantly.  Nicholas was watching Zachary play with the phone the other day when it fell out of Zachary's hands and dangled helplessly along the outside of the Exersaucer.  Nicholas shot Zachary a concerned look and said, "Oh no!  Zachary!  You dropped your phone!  It's okay, Zachary."  Nicholas picked up the phone, gently handed it to Zachary and said, "Here you go, little man!!"    I LOVE those boys!!

Nicholas has also had many more "Did he just say that?" moments.  A few that I can remember include....

Daddy:  Eat your veggies Nicholas.
Nicholas:  No!  I don't like veggies!
Daddy:  Nicholas, you need to eat your veggies!  They'll make you big and strong.  Don't you want to be big and strong like Daddy?
Nicholas:  NOOOOOO!!!!  I don't want to be big and strong like Daddy!!!  I want to be big and strong like MOMMY!!!!  :o)

Nicholas singing along to Granger Smith's song, Don't Listen to the Radio.
Actual lyrics:  Don't listen to the radio.  If you've got your heart broke.  Cuz it always knows exactly what to play.
Nicholas:  Don't listen to the radio.  If you got your car broke.  Cuz you always know Zachary wants to play.

There were more fun phrases, but I just can't think of them right now!!

Wow...it has been awhile since the last post!!  Here's a picture update of the major moments:

Zachary was baptized at the end of September.  Many people came to watch his Baptism, including LaLa and Great Grandma Neumann!  All of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles were also there to celebrate the occasion!  Zachary was quite the looker in his Baptism outfit!

The boys had a great Halloween!  Dragon Nicholas went trick or treating around the neighborhood, while Pumpkin Pooh Zachary stayed at home to hand out candy to the visiting little ghosts and goblins.

The boys also enjoyed spending Thanksgiving in San Antonio and in Austin.  While Nicholas was in San Antonio, he visited Kiddie Park where his Mommy and his grandparents played at kids!!

It "snowed" in Austin!!  Nicholas played out in the backyard while it "snowed"!  Zachary sat in his early Christmas present highchair to watch his brother out the back door.

Nicholas was very excited to help decorate the Christmas tree this year!!  Zachary carefully observed this event from his Exersaucer!! Both boys love watching the train run under the Christmas tree!

So, I suppose that's it for this little update!!  We'll most certainly update again around Christmastime!!  In the meantime, Happy Advent!!  :o)

N versus sideways N

Just for comparison...  The boys are about the same age in the photos, plus or minus 7-10 days.  

 Nicholas and Zachary...enjoying some down-time in the swing after an all night party!!!

 Nicholas and Zachary studying up to be very smart boys!!

Wow.  Nicholas sure was skinny!!  And Zachary sure is round!!  :o)  We love you, boys!!! 

Brothers!!

And then there were two!!! Here's the "quick" update:

We had another baby boy, Zachary! He weighed in at 7lbs, 7oz and was 20.5 inches long!! He's sweet, smart, and handsome…just like his big brother!! He's two months old now and sleeps A LOT!! Nicholas and Zachary are already best buds!! They're so great together!! Nicholas loves to cuddle up to Zachary! Nicholas carefully approaches Zachary (usually) while very quietly saying, "Oh, ho ho!! It's Zachary! He's so little!! You love your brother!!" (Nicholas usually refers to himself as "You.") Then he gently grabs a hold of a Zachary appendage while jamming the thumb of his other hand straight into his mouth. Meanwhile, Zachary either gazes curiously at his silly big brother or furrows his brow in concern for his immediate well being.
Zachary is such a wonderful baby!! He is already sleeping through the night!!! :o) Nicholas didn't pull off that feat until he was 7 months old!!! As a matter of fact, Nicholas started screaming at 1am last night (he either had a horrible dream about bugs or there really was a bug attacking him in his crib) while sweet little Zachary slept so peacefully. But don't worry, there never was and never will be any shortage of love and attention for Nicholas!! Zachary also had to deal with the dreaded baby acne!! He looked like a little baby teenager for about a month, but his skin is now recovering!! He's getting pale and soft like a good little baby!!

At 2 months, his stats were: 13lbs, 15oz and 24 inches long! At 2 months, Nicholas was: 11lbs, 4oz and 22.75 inches long! Looks like Zachary will have a better chance at being my basketball star!!

Nicholas is also doing very well!! This month, he started preschool at our church. He goes twice a week for about 4 hours. He really seems to enjoy almost all of it!! He's not a huge fan of Mommy dropping him off in the morning and leaving for "boring places"!! I can't blame him…I wouldn't want to leave me, either!! (Just kidding!) His teachers really seem to get a kick out of him!! At drop-off time, he likes to yell, "Don't want Mommy to leave you to go to boring places!! No!!!" The teachers have given me rave reviews about his speaking abilities. He's the youngest in the class, but he's also the best speaker!! Today, his teacher praised him saying, "Nicholas is so smart!!! We say the blessing before eating our lunch. But today, instead of saying the blessing, Nicholas just broke into the Our Father all by himself! I've never had a 2 year old that could recite the Our Father in my class." :o) Proud? You bet I am!! I'm always so happy driving my sweet little boy home from preschool!! He really does make me so proud!!! And he's also quite proud of himself! When I come into the classroom to pick him up, he greets me happily and then grabs whatever craft he's made for the day. He runs around with it just beaming and says, "Look what you made!!"
Poor Nicholas had a run-in (literally) with a wall corner in our house about a month ago. He ended up with a large, 1 inch laceration that had to be glued together in the ER. He now has a lovely scar to show for it. Le sigh. My precious boy is now scarred for life…(again, literally.) But, our optimistic neighbor says, "Chicks dig scars!" So, maybe Nicholas won't fare too badly in the end. Ha!
Well, what's left?! Mommy absolutely loves her two boys and their little brotherly dynamic. Add in Daddy and the two horses….Mommy is completely surrounded by boys!! It took about a month and a half to really get into a groove, but now I feel completely at ease taking care of the boys. The horses are getting a little bit of the shaft at the moment, but hopefully that won't last too long!! They're troopers as well and I suppose that it's not the end of the world if I don't see them everyday! :o/ Daddy is also slowly getting used to the groove, but he's a little more frustrated with the lack of sleep and free time than Mommy. I must also mention that the first month with Zachary would have been absolutely crazy if it wasn't for the amazing grandparent assistance!!! THANK YOU!!! :o) Part of the difficulty for Mommy and Daddy is that we basically live for our boys. We want them to have mental stimulation and play and learning experiences all day long!! I really do feel guilty anytime the TV has been on longer than 2 hours in a day!! (God bless those first 2 hours!! Nicholas is very likely to kill himself running around the house while Zachary eats if he isn't glued to the TV! Nothing else will keep him still…nothing. Yes, we've tried. Plus, I grew up watching plenty of TV and I'm only a half-zombie!)
I suppose this short novella is enough of an update for now!! Stay tuned for the next update in another 2-3 months!! :o)