It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We are traveling to see family in the Midwest and East Coast for Christmas and New Years, so we had our own little family celebration this weekend.  Nathan was excited! 

He had little toys in his stocking, 

and then enjoyed unwrapping his first present.

Grandpa Ariyavatkul got him this cool toy, and Nathan especially likes the phone part.

And this is what we got Nathan for Christmas.  He is really good at spinning the wooden beads,

and there are fun toys on the side of it too!

Nathan also liked playing with the toy that Uncle JP and Aunt Judy got him.

We also thought it would be fun to take Nathan to the River of Lights.  And it was fun . . . once we finally got there (apparently everyone else in town thought it was a good idea to go that night as well!)  We were not able to spend very much time there because we had to get a very tired baby to bed, but it was quite lovely!

What we have been up to

Every day is a new adventure with a little one.  New accomplishments and sweet everyday moments.  Right now Nathan loves it when we read him books!

He is also big enough to sit all the way up in his little bathtub attachment.  Another thing he has grasped (pun intended) lately is picking up little puffs and putting them in his mouth.  He loves chewing them with his teeth (he has 7 now!) and gumming them too.

Now that Nathan has the run of the place, we thought it would be a great idea to get the carpets clean. It did not feel like a good idea while we were doing it because carpet cleaning is basically moving, and it is really hard to get all of the furniture and stuff on the non-carpeted areas and still entertain a baby in that space! 

While we waited for the carpet cleaners to arrive, Nathan and I played on the empty expanse of carpet.  He has been doing this really cute scrunching-up-his-face-while-breathing-in-and-out-real-fast thing lately, and I was able to capture a pretty good picture and video of the cuteness.

As you can see from the video, he is scooting pretty well and loves just kicking his legs in excitement.  Another thing that he still loves doing is swinging in the swings at the playground.  You can definitely see how excited he is!

Our weather has been a little up and down.  On a relatively warm day, I convinced Jesse to make it matchy Hawaiian shirt day!

And the next week it snowed a few inches!  We took Nathan out and he wasn't really sure about the whole thing.

He was like, it's cold you guys!

Mainly he just laid there.  I tried to encourage him to make snow angles by doing jumping jacks. That just amused him.

So then I moved his arms for him to make little wings.  He looked up at Jesse and gave him a "mom's funny" look!  So true.

Christmas Photo Shoot

Warning: this is a picture-heavy post!  We just got our pictures back from our professional photo shoot.  There are some cute family pictures and darling ones of just Nathan too.  Enjoy!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We put up Christmas decorations this week (Nathan's first Christmas -- so exciting!)  He was intrigued by the lights, 

thought the decorations were delicious pretty,

and enjoyed petting the tree.

What a little cutie!

We got a few special ornaments for him this year.  We captured his hand print in this baby's first Christmas ornament,

bought this beautiful porcelain baby block ornament,

and had this Baby's First Christmas ornament made!

Last but not least, Nathan's stocking is an adorable addition to our mantle!