Matt spent all last week in Toulouse, France for a training conference. The trip came totally out of the blue. It's funny that we had been preparing ourselves for Matt to have to spend an extended amount of time in China, which thankfully never panned out, and then with just a few days notice, he was on a plane to France. He was gone for eight days attending an Airbus conference and unlike most of his work travel, actually had some spare time to do a little sight seeing.
He visited Carcassone, a walled city built in the 15th century complete
with a castle and a cathedral. He showed me about 300 pictures of his
time at Carcassone. He really enjoyed getting to see and learn about it.
He also explored the city of Toulouse in the evenings, ate some good food, and put his feet in the Mediterranean sea.
He told me it was the best trip he's gone on for work, partly because of the cool places he visited and partly because he had a mostly normal work week instead of the 80 plus hour weeks he usually puts in while he is traveling for work.
While Daddy was away, Nathan and I decided we needed to play!
I had been planning to attend a women's conference at our church for months, and when I found out Matt would be gone that weekend, I was worried I'd have to miss it since my babysitter would be in France. Thankfully, my mom came to the rescue and watched Nathan for me on Friday night and all day Saturday so I could attend. I'm so thankful I could go. It was a wonderful conference. Our speaker was extraordinary. Here is a news clip about the conference:
On Monday, Nathan and I headed West. We stopped in OKC and spent a few hours with Mindy and Carter. We played at the park and enjoyed lunch together. Erica joined us too. It was great to catch up with Mindy. We miss them since they moved last summer. We're hoping to all get together again soon.
After lunch, Nathan and I continued West and spent the next few days in Weatherford visiting family. It was a fun few days playing and being spoiled. We got to spend quality time with Matt's parents, Granny and Grandaddy and Momoo. Nathan had lots of fun playing with Uncle Jeremy's popcorn popper. He mostly just carried it around with him. He does the same thing with his popper at home. He'll push it sometimes, but usually just walks around carrying it.
We went to the splash pad in Weatherford a couple of times
And visited Grandaddy while he was harvesting wheat. Nathan got to see Grandaddy driving the combine. He was a little unsure of the big machine. We'll have to come back next summer during harvest so Nathan can take a ride in the combine.
Once he figured out there were rocks in the front yard, we couldn't keep him out of them. Granny even let him carry them into her house.
He took lots of wagon rides in the backyard and picked apples with Grandaddy.
We had a really great time visiting everyone in Weatherford and were sad to leave. The days went by fast which kept us from missing Daddy too much.
Nathan made sure to let his daddy know though that the next time he packs for a trip, he is coming along :).
Nathan,
You are 13 months old! I'm sure I say this every single month, but I am LOVING this stage. You are transforming from a baby to a toddler right before our eyes, and it is fascinating to see. You are learning new things every single day. I feel like a light switch turned on in your brain on your first birthday, and suddenly everything makes sense to you and you are understanding way more than I thought you were. Life is just so, so fun right now.
About the time we left for our cruise, you turned into a full time walker. I hardly ever see you crawling anymore. You walk everywhere and run sometimes too. Life is easier now that you can walk. I can get you out of your car seat and put you down and you'll hold my finger and we walk together instead of me carrying you. It's a little slower, but you're toddling is too adorable to pass up. You can walk much faster if you are holding onto someone's finger, so you look around to grab on when there is somewhere you want to go. Unfortunately, you only like to hold my hand if we are going in the direction you want to go. If I try to get you to go somewhere else, you'll reach up with your other hand to push mine away, then you just sit down and throw a little fit. You forget that I'm still bigger, and I can scoop you up to get where we need to go. This month you also figured out how to go from a sitting position to standing by yourself.
Your receptive vocabulary went through the roof this month, or at least
you are communicating with us enough that we know you are understanding
what we say. You know the meaning of diaper, paci, high chair, walk,
outside, sit down, no, no touch, dog, kitty, daddy, mama, Grammy, Papa Joe, high five,
bottle, drink, bye bye, nose, mouth, eyes, up, elephant (your little
blue stuffed one), and I know there are more that I can't think of. I'm
also sure there is more you understand that we don't realize you
understand too. You still don't say too many words. You can say, Dada,
mama, kitty, dog, hi, and I caught you saying drink once, but that's not
consistent. Every single day we catch you showing more understanding
and communicating more effectively with us.
Your favorite toys right now are your elephant ball toy, your scooter,
dump truck, and tractor. You sit on your dump truck and scoot backwards
while you say vroom. Super cute. You still adore being outside, and your
favorite outside activity is finding all of Rhapsody's toys and taking
them to her. We also blow bubbles and play on your slide pretty often.
You love to watch Sesame Street and start dancing when you hear the
theme song. Actually, you dance to any music you hear now a days. We
have even caught you swaying to the melody of our chiming clock. It is
too cute.
Summer time is a fun time with you. We've gone to the splash
pad a few times, and we've been swimming once too.
You are still a great sleeper. You sleep from 7:30-8:00 to about 6:00-7:00 and are still taking two naps a day. Every once in awhile you'll refuse to sleep during your afternoon nap, and you'll just play in your crib. You are mostly off the bottle. Occasionally you'll still have one at breakfast or bedtime, but mostly you drink your milk out of a sippy cup. You rarely eat baby food anymore and are almost totally eating table food. I'm still figuring out nutritious, easy meals for you especially for lunch. Thankfully, you are not too picky.
For breakfast your favorites are yogurt, fresh fruit, cereal bars, waffles, and eggs
For lunch we've tried grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, meat sticks, macaroni and cheese, ravioli etc. You also usually have some veggies, fresh fruit, and cheese with your lunch.
You are eating whatever I cook for supper, so there's a lot of variety. Your daddy is a pasta lover so you eat a lot of that. You went nuts over the manicotti I made the other night. I know you ate more than I did!
You have milk with every meal and another 6 oz at bedtime. Honestly you are not a huge milk fan (unless it's in a bottle). You prefer water or juice most of the time.
You weigh about 23 lbs and wear 12 month, 12-18 and 18 month clothes and a size 4 diaper. We recently got you a new car seat too. You are growing up!
We started doing blanket time this month, and you are doing great at it. We set the timer together and then you sit on your blanket and play with your special blanket time toys until the timer goes off. Then we clap and celebrate and you help me clear the timer. I'm so impressed with your obedience and understanding. Sometimes you get tired and will fuss and whine, but you rarely try and get off the blanket. There are several times throughout the day that I see you pointing to your blanket time toys. I think you enjoy it, as much as I do. It's amazing to see my busy, active boy, sitting still and playing quietly for a prolonged period of time!
We are limiting your pacifier use to your crib and in the car. We still let you have it when we aren't at home if you are tired or in a stressful situation (doctor's office, hair cut, church nursery, etc). You know that you have to leave it in your crib and will take it out of your mouth and throw it down when I pick you up. I think sometimes you like to get in your crib and play just so you can have it. I still love to rock you before you go to sleep. We'll grab your blue stuffed elephant and a paci out of your crib and cuddle for a few minutes before I lay you down. It's one of my favorite times with you.
It's crazy to think about what we were doing last summer and how different you are now! We're just so thankful you are a part of our family.
We celebrated Matt's birthday over Memorial Day weekend, and it was a fantastic weekend. It's hard for a three day weekend not to be fantastic, but I think this one was extra special. We did so many fun things.
On Saturday afternoon we ran to the zoo for a couple of hours. It was a pretty day and we didn't have any plans for the afternoon, so we decided to go. We are enjoying our zoo membership, because it's no big deal to just run out there for a couple of hours because it's free.
The picture on the turtle is becoming a tradition, and can I just say I love my baby boy's outfit especially the rare moments we had with him actually wearing his baseball cap.
We visited the giraffes, sea lions, monkeys, flamingos, elephants, and the petting zoo while we were there. We also caught a little of the elephant demonstration and watched an elephant getting a bath.
We rode the train around the zoo too before Nathan got totally worn out.
Saturday evening we invited some friends over to help celebrate Matt's birthday. Matt grilled burgers and we visited and played Rock Band. It was a fun night!
We love all of our friends and had fun rocking out with them Saturday night.
Before everyone left for the evening, we ate cheesecake. It wouldn't be Matt's birthday without cheesecake :).
On Sunday night we were thinking of things to do and decided to try a Driller's baseball game. Oh my goodness, we all had such a good time.
We sat on the lawn right by the children's area. Nathan walked all around.
We let him play at the splash pad. He had a blast playing in the all the water.
It started to get a little chilly and we saw him shivering once, but he didn't want to leave. We dried him off and changed him, but all night he kept wandering back over there hoping we'd let him play in the water. There are several splash pads around our city and we've already tried a few of them out since Sunday. I'm sure we'll be frequenting them a lot over the summer!
He played at the playground for awhile too.
And of course he ate some snacks and a couple bites of our hot dogs.
Oh yeah, there was a baseball game going on in the background too. Nathan liked to walk around, and the only time he sat still was while he was eating. Good thing Matt and I aren't huge baseball fans, because we only caught bits and pieces of the game.
We all had such a good time and can't wait to go to another game soon!
Monday was Matt's actual birthday and he didn't have to go to work! For his birthday dinner he wanted to grill steaks. My parents joined us for dinner. All he requested for dinner was steak and bread. Oh my husband, that's all he ate too.
We ate and played a game of Settlers. It was a great way to end our long weekend.
