bouncing & sliding.

I think we know where Nate's birthday party will be this year and I am excited that it likely won't be at our house!  I took Nate to a birthday party for one of his friends from school at House of Bounce and Nate had the best time.  We've been there before for another party and an open bounce time on Nate's second birthday, but Nate finally got really into it today! Every ladder was climbed, every slide was slid on, and everything that could be bounced on was.

Such a fun day!

it's a kind of animal.

There's something indescribably awesome about seeing your child realize that the things that he has learned about are indeed real. We took Nathan to the National Zoo over the weekend and had the best time. The weather was gorgeous, it was not too busy, and we got to spend time with Nate and some friends. The last time we went to the zoo Nate wasn't quite a year old, so it was a whole new experience this go 'round.

Our first stop was in the indoor panda observation area. Thankfully the zoo has started to limit the number of people allowed in at one time, which gave us the opportunity to see the panda up close and personal. I wish we had the video camera out for that part because Nathan started screeching "It's a bear! Mommy, it.is.a.BEAR!!" and then turned to the teenage girls standing beside us and happily said "it's a kind of animal!".  We tried to tell him that it was a panda bear, but Nate was insistent that it was simply a bear and thought that the bear eating bamboo was hilarious. He told me that the bear was trying to clean up :)

Shockingly enough, Nate did not like the monkey house, and had a mini-tantrum while we were in there. Chris got some great pictures of an orangutang that was putting a paper bag on it's head and drinking out of a cup. Another orangutang threw up all over the glass and then ate it [not pictured].

When it came to the elephants and the reptile house, Nate was in love.  He is a big fan of the movie Dumbo and is obsessed with the croc in Peter Pan/Jake and the Never Land Pirates. We also saw snakes, turtles, and a tiger for just a few seconds before they took it indoors for the night.  Nate's reactions to the animals was just priceless -- there's just something special about him learning from pictures and then getting to see the real deal.

We had a really nice day out! Educational, fun, and relatively cheap since entrance to the zoo is free! Here are a couple more shots from our day together!

mr. manners.

I'm strict on manners. I am the parent that will be obnoxious with the "well can you do....?" when they should have said 'may'.  Working on that with a two and a half year old, who hasn't gotten to more complex sentences, has been tedious at best. I am so proud of him for learning how to say what he wants and ask for it nicely!

learning colors.

I've been working with Nate on his colors lately and instead of quizzing him endlessly, I wanted to make learning fun. Nate has gotten orange, purple, and red down-pat. Sometimes he nails blue, green, white and black, but he is mystified by yellow.

I thought that if I combined something that Nate loves (like sugar) with learning colors, then presto we would have some progress. We baked and iced cupcakes tonight and what we ended up with was a gigantic mess. I think that the dye on my hands is going to be there for a while; one thumb is yellow and the other blue. Awesome.  In all seriousness, I think that it helped. I let him pick all of the colors (so naturally, some are the ones that he knows), but I snuck in some yellow and green ones.

Here are some photos in our adventures in color-learning and cupcake baking. I may never get him in bed tonight after all this sugar! :)

And totally unrelated, one photo from last night of Nate and Chris playing last night, complete with one curious confused pup.

snow day.

There are many perks to working from home 80% of the time, but a snow day is not one of them. We finally got some snow that accumulated to more than a dusting, the first of little Nate's lifetime. Chris was home from work, Nate home from school, and I was working away on the computer.  It was still nice to have a quiet day at home with everyone here. Nate came downstairs this morning, so excited about the snow "look at the snow!", but his tone changed so quickly and he was upset saying, "what a mess, so sad".

We took Nate outside during my lunch break and had a lot of fun. Granted, he hated all of the layers, but had a lot of fun slipping and sliding in the slushy mess outside.

We came inside, started to get warmed up, and then realized that the hot water heater is broken. Oh the joys of home ownership. Here's to hoping that we get it fixed tomorrow! :)