Friday, July 28, 2006

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Swimming!

Just one of the days of Nolan playing in his pool (it used to be his sandbox, but since he threw alll the sand out, it's a pool for the summer). And he decided to go in his pool without getting a swim diaper first, so his regular diaper filled and weighed about 10 pounds, so he couldn't get out of the pool (and standing up was even tough!)

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Well, Nolan's new fascination is the hose as you can see from the pictures. He knows how to turn it on by himself, so we have to keep the nozzle on to avoid finding a lake in our backyard. He goes outside and helps himself when he wants to play...good thing our hose runs from the well (we have city water for the house, so the hose is the only thing that runs from the well). And take note of the plumbers' crack (well, he would have plumbers' crack if he wasn't wearing the diaper). In the pictures, he's watering our umbrella-the strong storms we had lifted it right off the deck and it landed right near the outdoor shower. And as you can see from the pictures of McKenna, she's into playing with balls at the moment...it's always a good distraction to throw a few out for her to crawl around and chase. And she's getting in her 7th tooth (a third tooth on the bottom) now...way more than Nolan had at 10 months! I'm sure she'll be using them to bite her brother in no time!

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Fun in the driveway! Nolan and Mom spent some time in the driveway, supposedly for Nolan to ride his tricycle and drive his car...but he did little of that, since there are much more interesting things to do outside the fence! In the picture on the top right, Nolan was pointing out the features on the "face" of Mommy's car...the headlights were the eyes, the Pontiac symbol was the nose, and the opening at the bottom of the front bumper was the mouth (yes, he came up with this on his own). And in the bottom left picture, he's admiring our neighbor's boat (note hands on hips and belly sticking out). Of course the picture on the bottom middle probably needs no explanation (pointing out an airplane for those of you who are new to the site and Nolan's fascination). And the bottom right picture is of Nolan playing hide-and-seek, although I'm not quite sure who he's playing with...

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Just some quick photos...
Nolan just had to be wrapped up in the cozy new beach towels we got. He went in the pool at a friend's house yesterday and stayed wrapped in his towel for a good 1/2 hour after getting out, shivering uncontrollably (and if you remember, it's virtually impossible to get Nolan to sit still long enough to change his diaper or tie his shoe, so the towels must be REALLY comfy!).

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Pasta Pasta Pasta

We certainly did enjoy dinner tonight! McKenna couldn't get the pasta in her mouth fast enough, and had quite the time making a mess. Nolan kept saying "Kenna mess" (actually, he's equally as quick to tell us if he has made a mess himself...not quite to the age where it's better to cover it up!) and wolfed down his pastina too. Of course every kid loves pasta, but we have to say that, for them, it's because they're 1/4 Italian (you couldn't tell from their complexions???)

(Nonna always says the kids gravitate toward their Irish heritage, when Chris and his siblings are 1/2 Italian...here you go, Nonna!) :)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Two M&Ms


We finally had a nice day, and the kids (with our friend Grace) got to go in the pool...Nolan was napping during the pictures, but he did get to go in. And the pictures of Nolan at the bottom are of him trying to hold up 2 fingers. He gets to have "2" M&Ms as a treat (even though it turns into 8 or 10, after all of the times he asks for "2 M&Ms"). He can't quite get the fingers working, but he sure does love his M&Ms!

Sharing...it's a beautiful thing!


Nolan and McKenna actually shared the magna-doodle today! They were playing together for a while, and we only had 1 incident (see bottom left...Nolan sprawled out on floor because McKenna took the piece he was playing with), but he recovered quickly. And in the picture with Nolan in the exersaucer, Nolan shared his pretzels with McKenna (she has a full mouth in the picture)...by the way-we don't give her pretzels yet (apparently Nolan didn't get the memo on that one).

Thursday, July 06, 2006

such a girl already...


As you can tell by the pictures, Miss Kenna has quite a few faces...my personal favorite is the scowl (middle right)-she's certainly got attitude! (wonder who she gets that from???)

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Gotcha!


Just after the post about McKenna signing, we had a photo op for Nolan...he decided to get into Jordyn's infant car seat (she's our 11 week old cousin) to play with her Baby Einstein toy. As you can see, he's a little big for the seat, but it kept him in one spot for a minute, and we got a good smile out of him! And I found the pictures of Nolan Signing that we sent to daycare last year, so they would know what he was saying when he made a sign. At the point of his pictures, he was making the signs the correct way, so you can see the difference between McKenna's sign for "more" and Nolan's. Just wanted to post the pictures while there was a moment to spare...

McKenna Signing

As you probably remember, we taught Nolan sign language when he was about a year old, to help with the frustration some kids have in not being able to communicate prior to being able to speak. We're doing the same with McKenna, and even though we started just a few days ago, she's already starting to sign. Obviously she hasn't mastered actually making the signs yet, but she definitely has the concept down. As Nolan did, she uses clapping as the sign for "more" and she's getting the hang of the "all done" sign pretty quickly. A couple of old favorites are in there too (not signs, but just things she likes to do)-giving five and "McKenna is SOOO BIIGGG!". She's working on using her sippy cup too...her temper flared when we tried this at first. When she gets it in her mind that she doesn't want something, there's NO WAY you can convince her otherwise! So, we waited a bit and tried it again, and she's getting the hang of the whole thing...although she WILL NOT let anyone hold it for her. Already, she has to do things herself. The same goes for eating...she won't let us feed her (except something on a spoon)-she will only take it out of your hand and put it in her mouth herself. She has abandoned jar food...and mom has pretty much given up trying to get her to eat it! Boy are we in for it!!!
And Nolan is like Spiderman...you know he's out there somewhere, but getting him on film is impossible! He likes the camera, but will not stop to look at the camera or smile. He's too busy running around, or hopping around, to care anymore. But we did actually get him to sit last night for fireworks. We live on a dead end road with a small beach that we went to last night to see the local fireworks. What a show we had! We had no idea, but we were able to see 6 or 7 different fireworks shows just from our little beach, across the bay! Some were obviously pretty far away, but that was okay because you could hear the noise all the way where we were...there's no way we'd want to be up close for those!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Our New Site

A friend uses this site to share pictures of her kids, and the setup seems to be a little better (different, at least), so we're giving it a try! We'll keep the old site up, with a link to this one and new pictures will be posted here until we decide for sure which to keep. Even though Mom has created several websites, it's still easier to use a site like this! Hope you all like the new site, and don't have any trouble! As you can see from the pictures, it's all about crawling at our house lately-even Nolan is copying McKenna (shouldn't it be the other way around?). She is definitely interested in walking, though-she pulls herself up on anything she can get her hands on. She'll be walking in no time-then we'll really be in trouble! Nolan is entertaining everyone with the things he says...the latest is "_____ farted"-he interchanges the person, but mostly it's "(Aunt) Corinne farted", "(Uncle) Timmy farted" or "Papa (Chris' dad) farted". Those get the most laughs, so those are his favorites. He's certainly becoming an entertainer...we're so proud! (I'm sure grandpa (Jenn's dad) is blushing at the very mention of farting on the website, but that's life with Nolan at the moment, so it had to be said!