In a Van Down By the Fireworks

Last year we went to my sister's for the 4th of July weekend. Dual purpose, 4th of July festival in their town and my niece's birthday party. So again this year we repeated the visit. Last year we took Nate to the fireworks display and he absolutely hated it. He screamed and screamed and screamed some more until we had to go back to the car and watch Backyardigans on the portable DVD player to drown out the noise and await the end of the fireworks. We were sure that this year, Nate being closer to 3, he'd surely not be as scared.... right?

Two years in a row.

Sitting in my sister's van, watching Backyardigans on the DVD player, drowning out the noise with headphones.

At least Nate had a GREAT time at his sissy's (Samantha) birthday party.

The birthday girl.


Nate's favorite activity at the party, the trampoline. Here he is practicing his push ups, working on his "muggles" (that's how Nate says muscles).

Nate and his awesome parents.

And before the fireworks started the kids all had a blast playing at the playground. The parents got bit by LOADS of bugs, not so fun. What age is it that you stop looking at the playground as the best place you've ever been, and just worry about sunscreen and bugspray?

Sydney on the slide and Samantha on the monkey bars.

All in all we had a wonderful visit and look forward to many more years of spending the 4th of July with my family. Who knows, maybe one year we'll actually get to watch the fireworks from outside the van.

Ice Storm 2009

Here are some of my favorite pictures from our ice storm, early 2009:

We were concerned that Nate would throw a toddler-sized tantrum when we tried to put mittens on him. Just so happened that while dressing him in winter-garb an episode of Spongebob came on where Spongebob and Sandy wore giant mittens when doing Karate together. So from that moment on Nate saw his winter mittens as Karate Mittens. He is often to be found wearing them, even now in the spring, around the house, going High-Yah! and making various karate poses. Whatever works. This is my new parent motto.

Blog-wha?

I know it's been ages since I've blogged, and I hereby announce that I will make my best effort to return to regular programming. :)

We've been quite busy over these last few months.

Nate's lymphnodes on the left side of his neck were enlarged and after several hospital visits, doctor visits, surgery, medicine, more doctor visits, he is on the road to recovery. He had Atypical Mycobacterial Infection.

Since Nate's surgery he has been doing wonderfully. He has regained a little bit of movement in the lower left of his mouth (paralysis in that area caused by surgery), which is GREAT news.

I may or may not blog more about all this. I have pictures from various stages of his recovery.

I do want to say that I know how extremely blessed we are that what he had was treatable and that if you were to ask Nate, he would have no clue that anything had even been wrong with him. He has been his normal cheerful, funny, smart self throughout it all. I want to thank everyone who prayed for him, who continues to pray for him. It truly means more than I can say. Thank you.

Merry Christmas! 2008, part 2

Christmas morning was amazing. The sheer joy and amazement on Nate's face was so infectious, it didn't take long before we all had big happy sappy grins on our faces. I'll spare you those pictures... trust me, a super cheesin' Jenn in PJs first thing in the morning is not a pretty sight. :)
Instead, I'll share some much more adorable pictures of Nate and family.

Nate checking out the plate and cup leftover from Santa's late night snack. He had gotten to help me make the cookies for Santa the night before and he was very excited about it.

Nate was so cute digging in to his stocking...

Nate's really into puzzles and wanted to stop opening presents to play... it took a bit of convincing, but the prospect of bigger and better presents finally got him moving on.

Like this playdoh, which we play with almost everyday. Did I mention everyday?

Checking out a giftcard from Nana and Poppy D... what oh what shall I get? Nate hopes his TN grandparents will be able to come see him soon!

Opening presents nearly as tall as me is great fun...

Christmas dinner at mom's house with all my siblings. It's so great when we can all get together.

My sister, Tracy, and her daughter, Syndey.

My brother, Brian, and Mike.

My brother, Joshua.

We had a really great Christmas both at home and with extended family. It's amazing how having a toddler can truly bring the magic back to Christmas. It's like we get to have both sides of the story. We get to watch as Nate unwraps each present, delight in his expressions and excitement. His overwhelming happiness is the best gift I've ever received. Then when we go over to my mom's house and spend Christmas afternoon with my siblings, eating all my mom's homemade comfort foods of our childhood, joking and laughing together, sharing gifts and stories. Then we all came back to my house and my Dad and Stepmom and brothers came over to spend Christmas night together. I'm unsure how we fit so many people in our house, but we do, and it's great. The kids all play, the adults got to act like kids and played a board game. It's just so great to spend a whole day with all the people in your life that you love the most. I love my family. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 2008, part 1

Christmas time at the Hammond house was filled with lots of visiting, and to Nate's delight, presents. :)

And most of all, love.

Nate and his 'sissy' (his cousin Samantha) sharing a sweet moment.

Niece Sydney and Mike sharing a sweet moment as well.... that or they are staring each other down in a contest of wills...

Sweet Sydney being adorable as usual.

Nate enjoying dinner with his cousins, Sydney and Kaylee. Nate's picnic table definitely came in handy with limited table space in a very crowded kitchen.

Whether at my mom's house or my house, fun was had by all. The Wii was a big favorite... See how happy Mike is? I'm quite sure I've seen this same grin somewhere recently...

Oh that's right, it's the same grin that Nate had EVERYtime he opened a present. :)

More evidence.

And this brings us to quite possibly the best present ever. Well the best and the biggest. My sister and brother in law decided to grab the title of BEST AUNT AND UNCLE EVER. See the excitement on the kids faces, and the inflatable bounce house wasn't even fully inflated yet.

Loads of fun was had by any and all children under the 150 pound limit.


Here's a picture of our Christmas tree, mere minutes after Santa had come...
The next post will reveal what exactly was in those packages, and more Christmastime pictures.

Christmas Preparations 2008

As the Christmas holiday was approaching we celebrated a bit with friends from my work. They graciously invited us to stay the night at their home in Lexington and so we brought Nate along to enjoy the party too. Nate was sooooo good and was immediately comfortable around everyone. He is definitely coming out of his shell more and more each day. Nate is still the pickiest eater I know (that's saying a lot coming from me!) and so I'm not quite sure, but I believe that his "dinner" consisted of wheat crackers, cheerios, and ranch dip. That's healthy, right?

Nate's new best friend, Jeromie, "loaned" him his iPhone, which Nate immediately fell in love with. His favorite application was the Star Wars light saber. Nate forced Jeromie to play with him and the iPhone for an hour at least. A whole hour where Mommy cringed each time the $300 iPhone got slung around and pounded on.

Back home we decided it was time to get our own tree out. Though Mike questioned my idea to put the whole tree up while Nate was awake, Nate did a GREAT job helping. He was really excited at each step along the way. It made putting the ornaments on quite a slow process, but since we still don't have a lot of ornaments yet it worked out just fine.

Each year I buy a new ornament for the tree. The last few years I've been making it a point to get ornaments that can be hung low on the tree with a toddler. :) This year's addition were these super cute mittens. I let Nate put all the soft ornaments on the tree this year. He did amazingly well, both in skill and in patience.

Here he is bargaining with me that this jingle bell ornament is indeed a soft ornament and thus he can put it on himself. Who can resist him?

This was when I realized I needed to explain to him about the reason for the nativity set.... that they were not infact action figures as he first thought. Nate did really well for the most part, not playing too roughly with the nativity figures, only needing reminders from time to time. He'd even bring them too me, showing me the mommy, daddy, and baby. However we clearly will need to explain again next year, since last weekend when we put the tree and decorations up I noticed that one of the wise men had lost an arm in battle... sadly the baby Jesus will not be getting one of his gifts next year, I'm just unsure if it was the gold, frankincense, or myrrh.

I'll post soon with pictures from Christmas. My problem is somehow deciding between the 70 gazillion pictures I took...

Nate-isms

For the past few weeks Nate has been asking to go to the Park. My response has been, "I'm sorry baby, we can't go to the park... it's too cold outside." Usually the conversation ends there. However recently we had this conversation:

Nate: "'unna go park"
Mommy: "I'm sorry baby, we can't go to the park... it's too cold outside."
Nate: "No cold outside."
Mommy: "Oh yes, it's VERY cold outside."
Nate: "No cold outside. Hot."
Mommy: "No, it's not hot. It's COOOOLD."
Nate: "No cold outside. Hot."
Mommy: "It's cold outside."
Nate: (SCREAMING): "NO COLD OUTSIDE. HOOOOOOT!"
Mommy: "Fine. It's hot outside."
Nate: (with a devious grin on his face, but said in the sweetest, most innocent voice) "Go park?"

*sigh* You gotta love him. :)