November...ish.

November is always a fun and crazy month for us because it seems like everyone in our family has a birthday in November! My birthday is November 3rd, my mom's is November 19th, and Nathan's is the 26th. We definitely eat a lot of cake during November!! We had family pictures taken on November 7th by my friend Roxana. To see them click here.

We had Nathan's birthday party on November 13th and we had a lot of fun. He had an Elmo party and we kept it very small since our lives are a little crazy right now. We had my family in from Oklahoma and a few friends over. After Nathan went to bed we played games, it was a lot of fun.

I had class two weekends during November, which was hard because I missed most of the weekend with Joe. The second weekend of my class was the weekend of my mom's birthday. We took her to the Top of the Riverfront and surprised her by inviting two of her greatest friends. We all had a great time and my mom was very surprised! The next day we had my parents over for lunch. I ordered her a birthday cake because you only turn 29 twice...I mean...ummm...yeah. It was a special birthday and she NEVER lets us order her a birthday cake because she is the last one in our family to have a birthday and thinks we've had too much cake by the time her birthday rolls around. (Good thing she has a family that LOVES sugar!! :))Nathan and Mimi before he helped her open her gifts

All of us at dinner at Top of the Riverfront...Notice that Nathan is NOT there. We actually got to eat HOT food-it was amazing!Mimi and Nathan before they blew out her candles

I put the Christmas tree up the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately one of the strands of lights went out and I couldn't stand it, so I went through every light on the strand and tightened it. Then I went through and tried to replace them one at a time to figure it out. Didn't work. Needless to say, my fingers hurt SO bad for like 2 days afterwards from all of the light-pulling-out and plugging-in. My dad ended up buying this really cool tool that you plug into one of the light sockets and it fixes the strand. In less than 5 minutes the strand was fixed! Amazingness.

After trying to fix the lights for what seemed like forever, I decided I'd watch t.v. I looked for the remote for about 10 minutes before giving up and going back to trying to fix the tree. I sat down and look where I found the remote. I told Joe he needed to put things back where he found them, but who would have though that Nathan did it-NOT Joe! It concerned me that Nathan put the remote there because I thought I'd be struggling all season to keep him out of the tree, but he hasn't even come close to it since, nor has he messed with my mom's tree either. It's a Christmas miracle...seriously.

Nathan's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving this year, so we went to my parents' house to have leftover Thanksgiving lunch. We put Nathan's coat on him because it was so cold. When we put the hood on we died laughing. Neckless Nathan-ha!That evening we went back to our house and opened gifts. Nathan is really into tearing off the paper but once it's open he throws the gifts aside. Because he enjoys unwrapping things so much, I wrapped everything-his new bedding, sheets, pillowcases...everything so he could have fun unwrapping. It was so funny to watch him move on to the next gift as soon as he opened it...it was so cute that he didn't even care what was inside!
New Elmo pajamas from Aunt BoobahI found this Mickey Mouse birthday card at Hallmark that sings Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Nathan was OBSESSED with the card. He would play with one of his new toys for about 2 minutes and then go and get the card and open it. He'd listen to the song and then look up and smile. I really think it was his favorite gift. Maybe I can get by with just giving him a singing Mickey Mouse Christmas Card as his gift this year! :)For dinner we had my mom's potato soup and cake for dessert. Nathan loved blowing out the candles. The next day while I was changing Nathan's diaper I turned on the music "box" that he has in his hands. He loved it and wanted to hold it. When he saw it was a boot, he said "boots on!" and ran and got his boots that his Nana and Grandpa Keillor bought him. We put them on and he wore them the rest of the evening. Thanks Nana and Grandpa for the cool boots!!This is my mom's favorite picture (keep in mind she IS a former kindergarten teacher!). Nathan is holding the crayon like he's supposed to and he did it all on his own without any coaching. He is already making his Mimi proud. :)

Today my mom, Nathan, and I made our annual trip to see Santa at Frontenac. We ate at Canyon Cafe after getting his picture taken with Santa. He LOVED Santa! While we were at dinner (right across from where Santa was), Nathan waved at Santa several times. It was really cute. He even smiled for the camera and we got some great pictures. Click here to see last year and the year before.At dinner
Sitting on Santa's lapSanta is silly! (We have this same picture from last year-with the same Santa!)Cheese!
With Mimi
With Mommy-he would NOT just smile...here he is mid-cheese, which he said because we promised him a sucker if he would smile. :) Yes, bribery, I know.

I forgot to mention this before, but last Saturday I took Nathan for his 2-year check-up. He did great. He is 36 lbs. and 36.5 inches tall-definitely a big boy. I'm not exactly sure of the percentages, but I know he is at the top. He also got the flu shot. It is definitely important this year since we will have a new baby boy to protect from germs in 7 weeks!

Speaking of the baby, everything is going well. I forgot my doctor appointment last week. (I was working on a final and totally forgot to go, I thought it was on Wednesday instead of Tuesday!) I am going on Thursday so I will update then. I am still feel great and this baby sure is active! I love every minute of it though, even when he is using my ribs for kickboxing practice. (I think those skills may come in handy someday to protect himself from his older brother! :))