Christmas in Connecticut

We flew to Connecticut for Christmas, and Nathan is old enough to get excited about flying on a plane!  He was over that excitement by the end of our long day, but it was still cute to see him light up when we started to take off.

When we got there, we spent time with family.  Nathan's new favorite song is The Little Drummer Boy, 

and he even played some drums!

It was fairly nice out while we were there, so we took a walk around Nicole's new neighborhood. During our walk we encountered an ice patch, and Nathan thought it was the coolest thing to be able to slip and slide around on it!

Isn't he the cutest with his little lamb hat scarf?

Nathan also loved spending time with Chloe.  They also played with each others' presents a lot!

And then there were giggles.  So many giggles!

Merry Christmas!

Have a Merry Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas together as a family this past weekend.  We spent time together, read Nathan the Christmas story, and gave him his presents.  

His big present from us was a play kitchen.  He was delighted and has not stopped playing with it since.

He also loved the remote ("mote") controlled fire truck from Grandpa Ariyavatkul,

and the Thomas trains he got in his stocking.

I think we enjoyed watching him play with his toys as much as he did!

Final Layouts of the Year

This has been a super busy month, but I got some layouts done a few weeks ago and I am quickly posting them here.  Enjoy!

Nathan's Christmas Photo Shoot

Last weekend we did a mini photo shoot to get cute professional pictures of Nathan for our Christmas card.  We got some cute, goofy, and loveable shots.  Enjoy!

Hanging Out with Mitt

Matt spent the weekend with us and was a huge hit with Nathan.  Instead of calling him Matt, however, Nathan calls him "Mitt," which is pretty cute.  We enjoyed spending time with Matt and taking him around town.  Since we have never taken him up the tram, we did so this weekend despite the fact that it was incredibly cold.

We went around sunset, which was very pretty.

The back side of the mountain got a fair bit of snow already so we let Nathan play with the first snow of the season.

Despite the cold, he had a ton of fun!

Thankful

This year we continue to be so thankful that God has given us this little bundle of joy. 

After stuffing ourselves at Thanksgiving, we spent the rest of the long weekend relaxing and gearing up for Christmas.  We bought a Thomas the Tank Engine ornament because Nathan loves Thomas,

and we also added a pretty silver bell.

Nathan has been wanting to play with our broom on an almost daily basis, so we gave him one of his Christmas presents early.  He played with it almost nonstop all evening! 

November Layouts

I am loving putting together Nathan's newborn layouts.  This first one is of his delivery, and I used the November 1st sketch from Stuck?!

This next layout is inspired by the grid design of Creative Scrappers' Sketch #300.

We are so thankful for this little bundle of joy!  This layout of us taking Nathan home from the hospital is for Challenge YOUrself's challenge #35.

Nathan's Favorite Things

Nathan is a generally happy boy and enjoys a whole bunch of things that little kids like: animals, books, toys, etc.  But recently he has been primarily drawn to a few things, not all of which are typical toddler toys.  He loves Jesse's remote control car,

wheeling around luggage,

and playing with vacuum cleaners.

He is such a little delight!

Muppets Halloween

We had a lot of fun this Halloween!  Nathan helped us to pick out pumpkins, which we painted as Muppets characters to go with our Muppets themed family Halloween costume.

Jesse dressed up as the Swedish Chef, Nathan was the lobster, and I was the chicken!  We also carried a pot with us to gather Halloween candy in.  

Nathan was a pretty darn cute and happy lobster!

And he loved trick or treating!  Jesse would put him down about six feet away from the front doors of our neighbors' homes and he would run up to the door to get candy.  He thought it was so fun grabbing candy and putting it in our pot!  Happy Halloween!  

Nathan's October

After the end of Balloon Fiesta, we have had a low key October.  Nathan has enjoyed playing with some of Jesse's old Duplo trains,

driving around Whole Foods in a car shopping cart,

coloring with some of Chloe's old markers,

and cuddling on the couch with Jesse when he is sick.

October Layouts

I completed my layouts of Nathan's newborn photo shoot using Simple Stories' The Story of Us collection.  I used Blue Fern's October sketch and brick chipboard for this first layout.

And these are some of my very favorite pictures ever.  I based this layout on Creative Scrappers' Sketch 299.

Balloon Fiesta Time!

It's Balloon Fiesta time again!  This past week we have seen lots of balloons from our neighborhood park, but we also went to the Balloon Fiesta Park to see the twilight twinkle balloon glow.

Nathan was so excited to see the balloons -- both the real ones and the toy ones.

Nathan's favorite hot air balloon was the one that looked like a lion.

We had to leave before it got really dark, but the sight of the glowing balloons was still pretty in the twilight.  We even saw a Singha balloon!