A Sunny Finish to a Stormy Weekend

Children's Day in my home town was a little bit soggy.  They postponed the parade from 10:30 to 3 so we ended up missing out on that.  The boys participated in the traditional bowling game that I did as a little girl and then played some other games.  They had a good time.

Nash following through after a great throw

Nolan with his own unique bowling style

The duck game. I think he would have preferred to jump in and swim with them.

Nana and Nini helping the boys win some tickets

Nash taking aim

Nolan and I by the firetruck

Sunday morning started out very stormy but by the time the afternoon rolled around, it was back to sunshine and steamy temps.  The boys decided to get into the sprinkler while Jason was watering the lawn and cooled off with a popsicle too.

Nolan and Nash

Nash

The weekend definitely ended better than it started!

Nolan's Vocabulary Update

My mom and I have been writing down the things that Nolan has been saying the past several days.  There may be a few repeats from my last post about this but I'm too lazy to go back and look...
swing, stick, dog, cat, banana, Nana, Nash, Papa, sticker, ball, balloon, shoes, juice, light, bird, Mama, Dada, hot, bug, book, yellow, blue, stuck, car, duck, umbrella, P-U (while holding his nose), teeth, please, thank you, bus, come on, eye, nose, hat, there it is, McQueen, butterfly, wash, raining, flower, moon, ice.
It has now been three days since Nolan's injury and surprisingly he is only a little more bruised than he was on day 1.  He's running and jumping like nothing ever happened, which makes me REALLY nervous sometimes.  The boy is a climber!

5 years ago today...

5 years ago today (July 22nd) Jason and I stood near the 18th green at Deere Run and said "I do."  That was right after the brief, cleansing storm that blew through and sent the sirens blaring.  Jason and some of our friends and guests ran around wiping down all of the seats so the guests could get seated again and we could start the wedding.  After the storm blew through the sky was blue and the birds were chirping.  I swapped my heels out for some flip flops so I wouldn't sink into the ground but other than that, we continued as planned.  It was a beautiful day.
Our 5th anniversary, however, will go down as one of our least favorite days.  The boys and I wanted to go ride the train at the train festival.  It stormed in the morning threatening to ruin our plans but then cleared up enough that we made our way across the river.  We got parked and waited in line at the entrance only to find out they had sold out of train tickets for today.  I had two pretty disappointed little guys.  I immediately started to figure out what else we could do that would come close to a ride on a big train.  I called Jason but he was having a busy day and couldn't meet us for lunch.  I asked Nash if he wanted to go to Monkey Joe's and he was excited about that.  So we jumped for a while and the boys had a great time.

We took a brief break for a piece of pizza and things turned sour from there.  To make a painful story short, Nolan ended up pulling a metal table over on himself pinning his head between the table and the floor.  On our way to the van Nash tripped in the parking lot and scraped his knee so I had two crying boys all the way to the ER.  OK, I was crying too. I called Jason and he met us there.  They did a CT scan and it turns out Nolan has a questionable nasal fracture but no internal head injury.  After the swelling goes down in his face he shouldn't have any effects from the injury.  Thank you God!  He napped most of the time in the ER and through his CT scan so by the time we got home he was awake.  I put Nemo on and he was smiling again.  I'm thinking he might have two really black eyes tomorrow.  It was a pretty awful afternoon.

Nolan post injury.  Such a tough little guy.

Nolan was doing well by evening and running all over the place.  Nash was still distraught about his scraped knee.  My sister and brother came by and we all went out for dinner.  We celebrated our anniversary with a margarita then went home and played euchre (the ladies won).
A little recap..In the last 5 years I have taken Jason to the ER twice and in the last 2 months the boys have each been in the ER once.  We had to take Nash in one night last month after he hit his head on our headboard REALLY hard and immediately had a huge goose egg.  He was fine too but sported a big bump on his head for a bit.  I'm hoping we can stay away from the ER for a long while.  My brother asked me if they know us by name over there yet.
Tomorrow we are going to the kids festival in my home town and the boys are going to spend the night with Nana and Papa.  Jason and I are having an "adults only" anniversary dinner with our friends Andrea and Woody who got married 364 days before we did.  Happy 6th anniversary to the Manderscheids!  And although our 5th anniversary was not how I pictured it, I feel SO blessed to have a loving, supportive husband and two amazing, and healthy little boys.  Cheers to many more years of happiness and staying out of the ER!  Happy Anniversary Jason Helmut!

Heat Wave

We've had a few really hot and humid days recently.  This week is supposed to by REALLY steamy.  Here is how we've been trying to beat the heat.
SPRINKLERS...

Nolan and Nash

Nolan

 SLIP N SLIDE...

Our neighbor Manny celebrated his 4th birthday with a homemade slip n slide

Nash trying out the slide

Nolan and Jason taking a turn

 POOLS...

Pool pals

Nolan doesn't seem to mind the very chilly water temp

Nash wishing he could take drink straight from the water hose

 POPSICLES...

Nash and Nolan enjoying a popsicle

Noley

Manny and Nash showing off their muscles

I think I better stock up on sunscreen, popsicles, and swim diapers for the week ahead!

Nolan Jace-19 months old

Nolan had his 18 month check up on July 8th, even though he was a little over 19 months old.  No vaccinations this time...YAY!!!  He was 32.5 inches tall and is in the 50th percentile for height.  He weighs 28.5 pounds and is in the 75th percentile for weight.  A solid little love bug!  He loves the water and doesn't mind posing for pictures.  He loves fruit and veggies, especially watermelon, blueberries, bananas, and peas...among other things.  He has started to associate words with objects and becomes very animated trying to get my attention.   "MOM..MOM..MOM..MOM (and this keeps going until I acknowledge him).  When he finally gets my attention he yells the name of whatever the exciting object is.."MOON!" or "BOAT!"  Here are some of the words he says on a regular basis...(the list seems to grow each day)
hot, bird, squeeze, plane, fish, woof, choo choo, movie (while pointing to the DVD player in my van), hide (as he hides behind the door when I need to change his diaper), boppy (paci), blanket, bat, football, bubbles (football and bubbles sound a lot alike), bye bye, hi, book, up, out, juice, go, turtle, shoes...
Some days he takes two naps and some days he takes only one.  If he naps in the morning we wake him up after one hour, otherwise he doesn't take an afternoon nap while Nash is napping.  I got that advice from Grama Jo..thank you!  Both boys sleeping at the same time is a bit of a blessing so Momma can keep her sanity.

He loves to dance, which is very entertaining.  He likes to do anything his big brother is doing.  He likes watching Finding Nemo.  Other movies do not keep his attention as well.  He went to his first movie in the theater a few weeks ago...Cars 2.  Nolan and I spent about the last 1/3 of the movie running around the lobby.  Not bad for a 19 month old.  He maintains his infectious belly giggle.  He is fearless and will try just about anything.  This is probably the reason he ends up with new bumps and bruises on a daily basis.  It looks like there will never be a dull moment with our Nolan around.  Buckle your seat belts!  We love you Buddy!

4th of July Weekend

Our 4th of July weekend did not start off with a bang this year.  In the middle of the week Nash came down with an upper respiratory virus.  He had a fever for about 4 days straight.  He came crying to me at one point saying, "Mom, my eyes are melting."  Poor little man had watery eyes, a runny but stuffy nose, body aches, a cough, and his whole body was just hot to the touch.  I took him in to convenient care but we were instructed to "let it run it's course."  GRRRRR!  I just wanted to give him something to make it all go away.  Jason and Nash stayed home on the July 3rd to get more rest.  Nolan and I went up to my parents to kick off the weekend.  It was nice spending some one on one time with Nolan but I hated the circumstances.  Nash was feeling a little better on Monday, the 4th, but was by no means 100%.  We could not let him miss the parade and festivities so Jason brought him up to join us at my parents.  He had some fun but ran out of energy pretty quickly (see last picture below).  I'm posting this a few weeks late so I'm happy to say that he is back to 100% now.  

Nash and me

Nolan and Papa

Noley

Me and Nolan on the swing (self portrait)

AJ and T joined us this year!

Al, Lynn, and Nana watching the parade

Nolan and I watching the parade

Ev and Nini watching the parade

Nash and Uncle Will playing catch with a water balloon

Noland and Great Grandma Phyliss waiting for the fireworks to start

Jason and a worn out Nash