Oh no...there are TWO of them!!!

Well, Zachary is now 10 months old and Nicholas is 3 months shy of 3 years old!  :o)  And boy are they a handful!  They are both still sweet as ever (usually!), but they are BOTH all over the place now!  They don't sit still!!  Occasionally we'll find an activity that captures their attention for a little while, but most of the time the boys act like little ants fleeing a smushed anthill!  Woosh.  There they go.

Hair styling 101

Step one:  Dump water bottle onto brother's head.  No worries.  Brother will like it!

Step two:  Brush hair in any direction.  No worries.  Brother will like it!  :oP

The boys went on a trip to College Station recently to watch their Uncle Tony graduate!  They had a great time visiting with their EP extended family...all 11.5 of them!  The boys even did surprisingly well during Uncle Tony's graduation ceremony!  They made it through most of the ceremony by eating and sleeping in their seats, but after 2 hours...the boys were more than ready to clap and cheer for their Uncle Tony, then dart out to swim at the hotel! 

Nicholas enjoys his very first Freebird's burrito in College Station!

The boys are also very anxiously awaiting the arrival of their very first cousin!!  (Another boy, of course!)  At least this time, Nicholas understands that his cousin won't be very much fun for him to play with until he's a good bit older!  We're waiting Cousin!  Any time now...  :o)

Speaking of getting older...
Zachary has hit quite a few milestones in the past month!  He can now clap his hands, give high fives, play Pat-a-Cake, and purposefully strum a guitar!  He can also bring himself to the standing position and stand alone without the use of any props.  He hasn't yet mustered up the courage to walk on his own, although he seems to have the coordination and balance already.  If Nick and I try to walk Zachary between us, Zachary will dive to the floor the second one of us lets go of him.  We're pretty sure that he thinks this is a fun game of "Dive to Mommy or Daddy."

 Don't worry!  I'm still little & cute!!

Zachary has muttered a few things that sure sound like words, they're just not quite as clear as Nicholas's words used to be.  He will say "Hi", "MuhMuh", and "DaDa" clear as day, but "Pat-a-cake", "Addison", "I love you" and other such words aren't quite as clear.  (Addison is Nicholas's friend's 20-month-old little sister and she just adores Zachary!  Zachary seems to return the sentiment.) 

Zachary is so very independent during playtime, but so very dependent at all other times!  He loves playing with all the toys around the house, and unfortunately he just discovered that the trashcan makes a great drum.  He has also taken a liking to music, go figure!  Zachary loves bouncing up and down to any type of music.  He pulls up on various toys to get up and groove!  It is comical to watch both of the boys dancing their little hearts out.  As long as they don't aspire to be the Jonas Brothers someday, then I'll be quite happy!  Zachary also likes to play "Beat up Brother."  Zachary will pinch, hit, and slime Nicholas until Nicholas finally retaliates or calls for assistance.  Ah, brothers!

Learning from his brother and climbing on the furniture!!!  Argh!!

Oh!  And Zachary is finally getting some teeth!!  About 2 weeks ago, his bottom left and top right central incisors erupted!  The top left showed up about a week ago, so he doesn't look quite as much like a little redneck anymore!  :o)  But with new teeth comes more advanced foods!!  Zachary will chow down on just about anything!  To name a few, he loves his tiny pieces of chicken, grapes, muffin, macaroni, freeze-dried bananas and strawberries (he's not so fond of fresh bananas anymore for some strange reason), and BREAD!!!  The boy loves his bread!! 

And then there's Nicholas.  Sweet, spoiled, lovable, hard-headed, smart, clumsy, handsome, loud, wonderful little Nicholas!  His 2-year-old preschool year is over!  Nicholas now walks by the school building after church and says, "That's my school.  Awww...I miss school.  *frowny face*  What will my friends say when they don't see me at school?"   He will be back at the same preschool (if we can figure out this potty training business in the next 3 months!) in September, but in the meantime, he's been enrolled in a summer Tuesday/Thursday morning preschool for June and July.  He seems to be excited about it, so we'll see how it goes!

It is amazing how much Nicholas has matured in the past year!  He sits through an entire storytime at the library while actively participating, he completes crafts at home, school, and at Lowe's, and he seems to have a longer attention span for playing with (instead of just alongside) friends!  And oh how he is in the question stage!!  So many questions!!  He retains so much, too!!

Brushing his teeth with fluoride toothpaste!!  He's so big!

Nicholas quotes of the month:  (I started writing these down so that I wouldn't forget them!  I forgot to write down a few of the more comical quotes, but some mildly amusing quotes beat nothing!)

• "Kentucky!  That's not a real word!"
• The waitress at Macaroni grill asked if she could take Nicholas's plate and put his leftover food into a "To-Go" box, so Nicholas responded, "No, you can't take it yet because I'm not quite done eating my spaghetti."  (He's so very proper.)
• And all month long, Nicholas will look up at me with his big blue eyes and a huge cheesy grin across his face and say, "Happy Mother's Day!!"
• When disciplined Nicholas will sometimes shout while pointing a finger at you, "No!  No, you can't do that!  I'm disappointed in you!"  (For the record, I never say that I'm disappointed in him...he hears that from someone else in this house....but I'm not naming names!!  Zachary!!!)  :oP
• "Oh!  What's wrong Zachary?  Gushy, gushy, gushy!  There.  He's better.  Now let's go!!!"
• "Mommy, you would be very sad if I died and went to heaven.  There'd be no more Nicholas to play with and no more Nicholas to eat muffins.  So I won't climb on the table anymore.  Now is my time out over?"

Well, we're all pretty excited about summer!  The boys are already frequent visitors to the sprinkler park and we've already made a couple of trips to the pool.   If only the evil heat would stay away, then all would be just peachy!  Happy swimming!  :o)

Lower those ears!!

Oh the drama of the haircut.  Nicholas has had two good haircut experiences and all the rest have been pretty much awful.  Nick and I have been taking him to a regular, run-of-the-mill "haircut place" nearby that has a cute little airplane chair for kids.  Nicholas refused to sit in the airplane chair as a 1-year-old, but we managed to get through the haircuts with him in my lap alternating between crying and licking a lollipop.  He enjoyed his last visit there around the holidays, so we thought we'd try again yesterday.  SA Grandpa has also taken Nicholas twice for a haircut at his barbershop.  Apparently, Nicholas enjoyed his first experience in a real barbershop very much, but the second trip was an exercise in the barber's ability to cut the hair of a crying/fussy child. 

Yesterday, we headed off to our haircut place with our fingers crossed to get Nicholas all fancied up.  He was originally okay with the idea of getting a haircut until we walked up to the airplane chair.  Then, he started throwing a fit.  He was kicking, screaming, and pushing the stylist's hands away.  The stylist mentioned that he could get a balloon if he sat through his haircut, but Nicholas announced, "No!  I don't need a balloon!  I already have one!"  Eventually, the stylist gave up and basically told us to get out.  I was not amused, so Nicholas was informed that his candy, junk food, and McDonalds privileges were lost until he had a haircut.  (He doesn't eat that much of the aforementioned foods, but he does look forward to them!) 

Today, I sat Nicholas down and talked to him about why he didn't like getting his hair cut.  He admitted that the buzzers (clippers, if you don't speak Nicholas) were okay since they just tickled a little bit, but the blow dryers were very loud and very scary.  He also said that he didn't like the haircut place near our house and he didn't like Grandpa's haircut place.  So, we decided together that we would try a new haircut place that's just for kids.  Nicholas liked that idea, so I did him one better.  I offered to take him to the haircut place inside Toys R Us.  A little smile crept across his face as he quietly asked, "There's a haircut place inside the toy store?!" 

I packed the boys up in the van and off we went!  I talked to Nicholas about his haircut along the way and he seemed relatively excited about the whole thing.  When we arrived, there was a one year old boy getting his haircut and we were next in line.  I picked Nicholas up to show him how nicely the little boy was behaving for his haircut.  (Thank you, small child!!  You are my hero!)  Nicholas noticed that there was a little TV in front of the boy's firetruck chair.  The boy was watching Elmo's World!  I showed Nicholas the movie selections on the wall, and he chose Blue's Clues as his haircut movie.  Then Nicholas sat down on a bench in the waiting area and played a video game on the Game Cube.  (He was laughing hysterically as he caused his little blue character to fall off the edge repeatedly.)  All too soon, the boy was all finished with his haircut and Nicholas became a little anxious.  The hairdresser helped Nicholas pick out his chair (he chose the firetruck, too) and his movie.  Then, Nicholas and I told her that we didn't want to use the blow dryer today, and she caught on quickly and showed Nicholas that she was putting the blow dryer into a drawer so it wouldn't be used.  Nicholas was immediately happy with the hairdresser and began chatting her up.  She wasn't the most outgoing person ever, but she was very good about explaining everything to Nicholas and distracting him when he was contrary (thank you, Blue's Clues!)  Nicholas made it happily through the haircut and even smiled a few times!  When the hairdresser announced that Nicholas was all done, he looked up at her and said, "Thank you for the haircut!"  Amazing.  He got up, demanded his lollipop, and then went out to explore Toys R Us.  I made sure to sign up for the haircut rewards program, because we will definitely be back...on a weekday.  Thank you, Zachary, for sleeping through the haircut in the stroller!!!  Handsome pictures of Nicholas to come!!! 

N versus sideways N...again!! :o)

How could I resist the comparison?!  We made a special photo album with these photos side by side, but if you haven't seen them in person...  Here are the cute, sweet boys hamming it up in the Spring! 

 

Nicholas

 

Zachary

 

Nicholas

 

Zachary

Nicholas always loved watching Wheel of Fortune as an infant, but Zachary seems to prefer Jeopardy!  Maybe someday they'll actually be on those shows!!  

"I love prize puzzles!"

"I know this one!"

:o) 

Spring!!

Another month has passed without an update, so here's a "quick" one.  The boys are officially loving the warm spring weather!  Zachary enjoys going outside with Nicholas now, although he would still prefer to stay indoors and play with his toys!  Inside or outside, the boys are finally starting to play together...really play together!!  Inside, Zachary will start crawling off toward some shiny object, then Nicholas will take off after him.  Then they'll just start laughing and playing together!  Outside, Nicholas loves to cart Zachary along with him in his truck.  Amazing!!  This was the reason that we wanted the boys to be so close together in age, after all!!  It's good to see that they're finally taking advantage!

 Who took Mommy's Strawberries & Cream Frappuccino?!

Nicholas is a good teacher, too.  It's so neat to watch him kneel down next to his brother and say, "Look Zachary!  This is a ball.  Can you say ball?  Baaaalllll.  Baaaallll."  It's very sweet.  Nicholas is also so great at calming down a fussy Zachary.  Nicholas just looks Zachary in the eyes and chants something like, "It's okay, Zachary.  Don't worry.  It's okay.  Gushy, gushy, mooka, mooka!"  What a big helper!  Zachary almost always calms down with Nicholas's attentions.  Zachary adores his big brother! 

The boys had a very nice Easter holiday.  They visited with family, survived Easter Mass, and enjoyed many Easter festivities.  Nicholas participated in six Easter egg hunts this year and consequently has a disgusting amount of candy hidden in our pantry.  (Don't tell him, though!)  He enjoyed all of his hunts except one!  The no-fun hunt was at an indoor play-scape/coffee house, called Jungle Java.  The owners supposedly hid 400 eggs in the play structure for about 50 kids or so.  They released the children under 2 years old first with their parents (if they chose to help their kiddo), then the under 3's, then under 5's, then everyone else.  The kids could use one of four entrances to access the play-scape and egg hunt.  Nicholas entered with the under 3's group, but was off to a sluggish start since he got stuck behind a super slow 18 month old that was sent up parent-less.  Eventually, some of the under 5's started trying to push past the cautious child, so his parents began scolding the older kids from below.  Nicholas waited behind him patiently (small miracle!)  But, it proved to be a bad decision as Nicholas returned to me at the bottom of the play-scape 5 minutes later with his head hanging down.  He looked up at me and pouted, "Mommy, I didn't get any eggs."  I was almost in tears as the poor boy looked up at me with a pouty bottom lip for some miracle answer to his lack of eggs.  That's when the rest of the older children started coming out of the play area declaring their bags were also empty.  I spotted a few younger kids with their parents and some older kids who had bags overflowing with eggs.  Boy was I angry!!!  Nicholas and I found the manager and requested that she give out some of the leftover Easter Bunny candy (if you sat with the Easter bunny, you could choose a piece of candy from a bowl next to the bunny) to all the poor kids who ended up egg-less.  She quickly obliged and expressed her awe at the fact that so many kids found no eggs.  Nicholas was happy with his loot and immediately forgot about the disappointing egg hunt as he began unwrapping his candy.

Zachary had a great 8-month-old Spring Photo Shoot!

Spring Break was fun for the boys, too!!  They had a great time when their Auntie Kaela and Auntie Em came to visit.  Nicholas was especially pleased when Auntie Kaela brought him his very own Buzz Lightyear "poofer".  (It's a little rocketship that shoot up into the air when you jump on a little "poofer" attached to the little rocketship docking station.)  Auntie Em also gave Nicholas a huge thrill when she walked in the door with a giant doughnut!   Zachary was just happy to see his visitors!  :o)

For me?!

Nicholas spent the second half of his Spring Break in SA visiting family.  He was quite excited to visit the new dinosaur exhibit at the museum, but large crowds diverted us to the Botanical Gardens instead.  He seemed to have a great time there, though!!  Actually, he can make almost any venue entertaining... and dangerous.  :o)  He really seemed to get a kick out of seeing all the cacti.  Zachary enjoyed the scene variety as well!  Both boys really enjoyed their vacation, although Zachary was quite happy to return home to all his toys.  It must be tough living in a house that rivals a toy store in toy selection!  :oP

Cactus!!!

Zachary is now 9 months old and has been moving around like crazy!!  He crawls so fast that I can no longer set him down and run to get something done before he catches me!!  He's right on my heels!!  And of course, he has no fear!   He's already trying to climb on top of things!  Yipes!  He also loves to grab your fingers and walk around the house like a big boy!!  I tried to get him to walk around wearing Nicholas's Walking Wings, but he was not amused.  We'll try again in a few days.  Oh, and I believe Zachary said his first official word, besides "Dada" and "Muhmuh".  Every other word or phrase I've heard him speak has been slightly unclear, so I've been hesitant to decide that it counts as a real word.  But, just the other day, Nicholas requested that we go into the pantry to find him a snack.  So, I opened the pantry door while carrying Zachary and talking to Nicholas about his pantry snack selection.  Then, Zachary opens his mouth and clearly says, "Pan-tree."  Pantry!!!  Really?!?!  I couldn't believe it!!!  He then started wildly gesticulating and reaching for his container of Puffs on the middle shelf.  He certainly likes his food!!

Please can I have some big boy food?!  Please?!

Nicholas is still amazing us with his cleverness and hilarious sayings.  I really need to start writing some of those sayings down immediately after they're spoken, so I can accurately recount the cute tale a month later!  His imagination is in full gear and it's so fun to pretend with him!!  And I won't worry yet that his favorite imaginary occupation is a McDonald's cashier.  :o)  I've also been trying to work on more Kinder basics for him, but he really has no patience for the stuff!!  I'll try and try and try to get him to name letters, numbers, or shapes for me, and just when I've thrown up the white flag, he'll pick up a letter off of the alphabet mat and say something like "Look!  The T is running away from the monster.  It says Tuh, Tuh, Tuh.  The N for Nicholas is running, too!"  Then the letters will go flying across the room, inches from Zachary's face.  So, I suppose I'm just a horribly boring teacher.  As long as he's absorbing it somehow, I suppose we're doing great!

And in this corner...weighing in at 37 pounds and wearing a belt...

Just this past weekend, the whole family headed down to Lowe's for a special Build & Grow workshop where Nicholas and Daddy worked together to make a bird feeder!  Nicholas did all the hammering himself.  What a big boy!  Nick was only slightly injured by his son's hammering.  :o)  I couldn't believe that Nicholas actually had the attention span to put the bird feeder together!!  Meanwhile, Zachary and I wandered around the store staring at the hanging Exit signs.  Zachary thought they were the neatest things!!  He gave each and every Exit sign a huge smile and giggle when we passed by it. 

"Look what I made for you, birds!"

And there you have it!!  Next update, coming eventually!!!  Don't forget to watch the Kentucky Derby this Saturday!!  I have no special horse to root for yet, so I'll just pray that every horse crosses the finish line safe and sound!  :o)

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!!

 Brothers...just wanna have fun!!

Ah, Zachary!  I don't think he was very happy with the last post.  It must not have been filled with enough excitement for him!!  On Sunday, Zachary got up on all fours while I was reading to Nicholas and his Daddy was walking to the other room.  Then, he just started crawling...real crawling!!!  He was sitting on his blanket when he spotted the ring of multi-colored plastic keys that he just loves to chew on which was stashed atop the pet hospital toy.  Then, away he went!  My jaw dropped mid-sentence and Nick stopped dead in his tracks!  And, just like that...Zachary was off!!

The next day, Zachary started pulling up on the recliners and sofas.  (Before he would only pull up on people and some taller toys.)  He even took my hands and started to take his first "true" assisted baby steps!  What a big boy!!  He is now into everything...  And boy is he quick!  Let the fun...and chaos...begin!!

And...he's off!!!

And today, just to ensure that I knew he was growing into a big boy, Zachary said my favorite word.  I was feeding him lunch in his high chair when he dropped his spoon on the floor...again.  It had been a rough morning and night, so I sighed, grabbed the spoon, and stood to go wash it.  Just as I turned my back I heard him say in the cutest, sweetest little voice, "MaMa"!!!  Now, I know that he was just practicing his sounds and at this point isn't completely sure what MaMa means, but after my reaction it probably was a little more clear!  I jumped back into my seat and leaned over to give him lots of hugs and kisses and he just smiled away at the extra attention!!  Sweet, sweet boy!!!  (Oh yeah, and earlier in the morning while we were shopping at Target, he did happen to say "DaDa?" with a cute inflection.  But if no Daddy is present to hear the words...were they truly said?!  Just kidding...  He got lots of hugs and kisses for that, too!!  Zachary is a Daddy's boy, too!)

Mama's Boys!!!

While I'm at it, here are two more cute little tales...

Nicholas is now obsessed with muffins, thanks to SA Grandpa.  So, to break up the monotony of a rainy Monday, the boys and I headed to HEB to pick up some bakery muffins.  We walked into the store and Nicholas insisted that I find a Car Cart.  Luckily, there was one nice, not-so-shiny, red Car Cart left at the front of the store.  (The HEB Car Carts are extraordinarily large and hard-to-steer shopping carts with a little bench seat and two steering wheels attached between the cart and the cart handle bar, if you've never been fortunate enough to see one!)  So, I plopped both boys into the bench seat and buckled them in.  I was a little wary about Zachary flying forward and bashing his head into the steering wheel, but he sat up and balanced like a champ!  (Which is impressive considering how terrible those carts are at maneuvering...and never mind the fact that I'm a bad cart driver to begin with!)  Then, a miracle occurred.  We not only found just the muffins were we searching for, but we also bought all of our weekly groceries!!  The boys were amazing!!  They both drove and vroomed with their steering wheels, looked around at all the yummy goodies, hugged and tugged at each other, and just smiled and laughed for 45 minutes!!  Shame on me for not getting a picture!!  I even have a camera in my purse now...I just plain forgot!  I must've been in shock!  Now...what are the chances of that happening again next week??

"Eat this, Zachary."

For some reason, Nicholas has started fighting his afternoon nap.  (Please don't drop the nap, Nicholas!!  I need those two hours!!!)  So, one day, not unlike many others, I tucked Nicholas into his crib, turned on his radio, and left the room.  I heard some singing and talking in the monitor as I moved about the house, but that's pretty routine for Nicholas as he winds down for his actual nap.  But soon, I started hearing some strange noises.  There was a weird buzzing noise and a few loud thwacks.  Ten minutes later, Nicholas was still making strange noises, so I decided to peek into his room to see what was going on.  Oy.  He had dumped almost his entire Thomas train collection and a bunch of stuffed animals onto his bed and was sitting atop this mess like a little prince.  I grabbed the camera and walked into his room.  At first, he was shocked to see me.  Then, he quickly shut his eyes up tight as I asked what he was doing.  And, of course, he replied, "I'm taking my nap, Mom!"   The strange buzzing sound was the sound of his poor battery-powered Thomas train that was turned on and trapped underneath the stuffed animal he was sitting on.  The train was quickly rescued.  Nicholas eventually took an hour-long nap about one hour after the toy-hording incident!

Caught!

"I'm taking a nap!"

Okay, now we really should be caught up for a while!!  :o)  I apologize to Uncle Charles for making him read, but a podcast is out of the question until the boys can recount their own tales!  ;o)

How time flies, Part Z!!

And then there was another novella...

Cheese 'n Presents!

Zachary and the Lovable Seven Months
Sweet, sweet Zachary!!  21 pound Zachary has grown so very much over the last couple of months!  He is now belly flopping his way around the house to get from toy to toy and person to person!  He pulls himself into the crawling position on hands and knees, lurches forward, and lands flat on his belly half a baby length in front of where he started.  To each his own, I suppose!  Nicholas chose rolling and then army crawling as his main methods of movement before he started walking.  Zachary is also pulling up on various objects to stand!  What a big boy!  One day he was very shaky on his feet, then he had a day of long, intense sleep, and then the next day, he was standing tall!!  Zachary is still battling his rosy cheeks that we presume to be childhood eczema.  Hopefully that will continue to improve as he gets a little older.  But never fear, Zachary!!  We still think your rosy cheeks are cute and pinch-able!!  :o)

Zachary finally graduated to his own room at six and a half months of age!  Daddy disassembled the crib in our room and reassembled it in Zachary's room.  He seems to enjoy his own space!

Zachary's diet is finally expanding, too!!  He is finally eating a wide variety of squishy baby foods!  He seems to enjoy bananas and sweet potatoes the most.  Well, as long as you're not counting his Gerber Puffs!!  That definitely remains a favorite!  He's almost got the thumb-pointer finger pincer grasp figured out!  What a happy day it will be for him when he can finally feed himself his own Puffs!!  :o)  Zachary is also drinking very well from his straw cup now!  He did a complete 180 when he decided that water wasn't the most disgusting liquid ever...  He decided that it was actually quite tasty!  And, if you listen closely, you can hear him say "Wa-ter" as you walk towards him with the coveted straw cup of water! 

It's so fun to watch Zachary's speech develop!!  He's approaching it so differently than Nicholas did as a baby.  Zachary is definitely going to be a babbler!  He'll repeat "I love you" and other such phrases in his own baby babbles that no one other than his parents and grandparents could translate.  Nicholas never babbled.  He waited until he knew how to pronounce the words "perfectly" (I use this word very loosely!  "Perfectly for a baby" might be a better way to put it!) before he spoke them.  Then, he slowly added words together until he had full sentences going.  Never babbles.  But, Zachary's babbles and inflections sure are cute!!  Still, his most famous and frequently used word is "Hiiiiiiiiii!"  (Said with a huge grin!)

Swinging is FUN!!

It seems that Zachary might enjoy music just as much as his brother!  He was so intrigued by the real upright piano at Grandma & Grandpa's house!  I walked in the room to watch Nicholas playing the piano, only to find that it was actually Zachary's little fingers flying across the keys and making beautiful baby music!  Zachary also enjoys picking at, and occasionally strumming, Nicholas's guitar strings.  He is a happy member of the Brother Band!!  Both of the boys are still enrolled in Music Together music classes and their teacher loves to comment on how wide-eyed and involved little Zachary is with the music and the class!  He loves bouncing up and down to music.  But, the songs that put the biggest smiles on his face are sung by his big brother!  Such sweet brothers.

Zachary loves the baby grand piano!

Since Nicholas's unofficial Little Gym graduation, Zachary has started his very own Little Gym classes...mostly to meet and interact with other little babies.  (I really want to take him to some infant Story Times at local libraries to interact with other kiddos for free.  But alas, none are scheduled during Nicholas's preschool hours, and they all specifically say "No older siblings allowed!"  Boo.)  But, Zachary has been thrilled with his gym classes!  He loves his teacher and he thinks it's just too cool that he's finally in the gym himself!  Which reminds me!  Zachary is master of Roll the Ball!!  Nicholas always hated that game, but Zachary just loves to catch the ball, and then let it go to see it roll back to Mommy or Daddy! 

Zachary enjoyed watching the early snowfall from his highchair.  

He wasn't too pleased later in the day when we went outside to actually touch the inch of snow.

Sorry for all the Zachary and Nicholas comparisons, but I just can't resist!!  They're both just so very amazing and unique in their own special ways!!  

How time flies!!

We've done it again!!  We've gone an entire month without any updates, so prepare for a little novella!  I'm hoping that I can someday use these posts to finally prepare a scrapbook for the boys, so bear with me (or just look at the pictures!)  It's very sad for me to wait so long between posts since many of the cute little anecdotes are forgotten in the meantime!  Alas!  Here's what I can remember...

Silly boys.

Nicholas and the Terrible Two (and a half)
Well, the terrible two rumors certainly held true here!!  February was a crazy month for Nicholas!!  (But, I won't linger on the destruction and stubbornness.)  He's officially two and a half years old now, despite the lack of an official half-birthday!!  He hasn't been measured, but I'm certain that he spent the whole month shooting up like a crazy little weed!!  He's also been flexing his brain muscles, too!!  His new letters and phonics DVDs have been amazing! (Thanks for the idea, Katherine!  And thanks for the Christmas gift, Grandparents N.)  When Nicholas chooses to have an attention span, he knows quite a few of his letters,  their sounds, and even some words that begin with those letters!!  His time at our church preschool has also been very well spent!! Nicholas's teachers have been so good and patient with him!!  And I am soooo glad to have their help!!  I am in no way trained to be an early childhood educator, so I mostly try to teach Nicholas through play and some fun workbook "lessons" from my childhood.  So I am extremely thrilled when Nicholas comes home from school telling me, "Agua is water in Spanish, and juice is jugo!" and "How many fingers do I have?  Let's count.  1-2-3-4-5!!"  I can't believe I never thought to have him count his fingers!!  He pointed at each finger and counted so well!!  He's since been great at counting things he points at...the trick is getting him to point at everything that needs counting!

Ash Wednesday...look at those pinch-able cheeks!

Nicholas is still singing up a storm!  His favorite songs of the month are George Strait's Carrying Your Love With Me, which makes Mommy very happy, and the country classic, Walk on By.  He also loves playing Brother Band with Zachary.  Nicholas distributes instruments to Zachary and Mommy or Daddy (guitars, keyboards, bongos, tambourines, harmonicas, and his new recorder are all fair game), then he turns on the CD player and the jam session begins!  (Zachary gets really into this, too...more on that later!)

This is Nicholas at his very last Little Gym class singing on the uneven bars at the top of his lungs!

Ah, and I can't forget to send my gratitude to the TV!!  I always feel like I must issue a disclaimer that I'm not a bad parent for using the TV to maintain sanity!!  Anyone who has ever tried to care for Nicholas for a day understands that he plays HARD!!  And if you don't take a break, you end up passed out on the floor with Nicholas using you as a trampoline.  And if he doesn't take a break, he'll end up fussy, exhausted, and very grouchy!!  Plus, those kids' shows are sometimes amazing!  So there.  Anyways, the main show Nicholas chooses to watch now is UmiZoomi on Nickelodeon.  It is such a cute show for him!!  He loves running around the house using his "Mighty Math Powers" to count, find super shapes, and use his pattern power!  So cute!!  And on that note, Nicholas sure does pick up fun phrases from TV!!  Here are a couple...

After preschool, I was lecturing Nicholas about playing nicely with his friends and I mentioned that Mommy gets very mad when she hears about him misbehaving at school.  Then, Nicholas looked up at me with his sad little puppy dog eyes and said, "Mommy, don't get mad!  Get glad!!"  Congratulations trash bags, your advertising works on 2-year-olds!!

And just today, Nicholas was trying to get me up off of the couch after I nursed Zachary.  He started by grabbing and pulling on the blanket I was using.  He tugged at one end and I held onto the other end until I saw that he was standing in front of the cushy diaper changing pad, and then I let go.  Plop.  Nicholas fell backward onto the changing pad.  He sat up and looked at me with a very serious expression and said, "Was that part of the plan?"  Then he responded to his own question by saying, "Hmmm...more or less!"  :o)  He gave the Disney channel's Special Agent Oso credit for that line.

 Fun winter afternoons at the park on the big boy swing!

What's left?  Oh yes, here's an anecdote that I can remember!!  Just yesterday, I found Nicholas hiding under the kitchen table while I was tending to Zachary.  I didn't give it much attention since that is a frequent hideout for him to "do his business"!  :o)  But, when I finally set Zachary down and headed into the kitchen to investigate, Nicholas poked his head out from under the table and very seriously said, "Mommy, I was very, very hungry.  Please don't be mad."  I raised an eyebrow and looked on the counter to see an open box of Girl Scout cookies.  Before I could say anything, Nicholas continued in the same serious tone, "I had a cookie, Mom, because I was just soooo hungry!"  Sure enough, only one cookie was missing!  (That's impressive self-control for a child sneaking cookies!)  Usually, Nicholas would have gone straight to time-out since reaching for and grabbing things off the counter is not allowed, but I couldn't punish him when he looked so innocent and cute!!  So, he got off with a clarification and a warning.  :o)

Snow in Austin!!  Here is Nicholas with his Mr. Nicholas Head snowman!  Nicholas enjoyed making the snowman and throwing snowballs, but he was also pretty happy when the cold, cold snow went away!

Now you probably need some coffee to wake you up after reading that, so I'll give you a break!!  But, you can expect the Zachary update in the next post!!  :o)