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)

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)