A Day In The Life...

I know, this update has been a long time coming! Eh, what are ya' gonna do? So here are a few pictures of a typical day in the life of the Nick-ster.

Here he is playing with one of his Christmas presents - a Thomas & Friends tunnel from Aunt Marilyn.


He likes us to "go head! Go head!" - which in Nick language is "Daddy, please place the tunnel over my head."


And then he pops out the top while Daddy pushes the tunnel down - he loves it.


He's also become slightly obsessed with slides. He just recently went down the "curly" slide which are usually on the big boy structures.


Nick also likes making various visitors do his bidding. In this instance, he's making Auntie Lisa draw snowmen in the middle of dinner.


And a favorite pasttime by far is eating yogurt. With his hands.


Spoons are overrated anyway...

A Couple More Christmas Photos & NYE

We were able to get our hands on a couple more Christmas photos of Nick with his presents. Grandma & GrandpaBop got Nick a fun truck that has a "guy" (the Fisher Price little people are all called "guys" except for the farmer who is known as, yes, you guessed it "farmer").


They were also kind enough to get Nick some Elmo slippers, which you can see on his feet. He didn't quite know what to make of them at first, but got used to them after a bit.


So once we were back to the land of sun & sand, it was almost New Year's Eve. We ended up going over to our friends, the Prendergast's house. We timed it so that Nick would fall asleep on the drive down and we just transferred him into his Pack 'N Play once we arrived. We figured he'd sleep, we'd have fun and then load him into the car once we were ready to go after midnight. Well, best laid plans... he woke up at about 11:30 or so and we couldn't get him back to sleep. So into the living room he came with all the party people. He ended up having a great time watching all us silly old folks and got to ring in the New Year with all of us.


He even got his own hat - which he had a hard time keeping on his head...


Overall a very fun evening and, thankfully, the disrupted sleep did not lead to a grumpy munchkin the next day. Phew!

Christmas in Snow-kane

So the D. Fam' headed up to Spokane for Christmas with the Thomas family. We (and probably the majority of the residents in the area) have decided to re-name it Snow-kane. There was (and still is) record snow fall in the area for not only the time that we were there, but after as well. It was pretty crazy. But it was nice to have a white Christmas!

But all that snow meant snow shoveling. Snow blowing. Salting. Snow plows that create big snow berms (sp?). It was... interesting.

Here is Kevin with the snow blower. As you can see, there is a lot of snow.


Nick, of course, wanted to be outside. But it was cold. Very cold. So we started out bundled up in the back of the car under a blanket so he could keep an eye on Daddy, Grandma and GrandpaBop (yes, all one word - GrandpaBop).


However, that didn't last long, he wanted to be down and shoveling just like the rest of us. So, shovel he did! Well, sort of. Let's just say he moved the snow. I don't think he's quite at the age where we can officially enroll him in child labor camps, but he's getting close.


Here he is helping Mommy shovel... And another good view of the neighborhood - there was SO much snow. Unbelievable.


We didn't let him stay outside for too long. No need for a frozen munchkin. Here he is in his jammies "flying" in the Santa hat (he probably thinks we're all nuts for the constant wearing of Santa hats...)


Nick putting in his dinner order with GrandpaBop and probably discussing the amazing amounts of snow. I should also mention that Nick's love of feeding deer in Yaak also applies to feeding the birds at the Thomas house. Even if feeding the birds means walking through inches upon inches of snow. Of course, I mean one of us doing the trudging. Nick just issued the directives.


Nick LOVED it when Grandma played Christmas caroles with everyone singing. He either played with her or danced around the living room. He would order us to keep singing if we stopped. A favorite was "Deck the Halls" - once we'd finish he'd say "More La La La!!"


Here he is "helping" to turn the page for Grandma...


Evidence of the fun he is having - what a ham.


I'm realizing that we don't have many pictures of Christmas itself - opening the presents, playing with the Thomas clan, etc. So if any of the Thomas clan are reading this and happen to have any, send them my way!!

Finally - An update!!

Yes, I know, it's been a LONG time since our last update. But, with the holidays, traveling, getting back to work and a laptop that decided to take a header, my free time has been spent relaxing and not blogging.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: BACK-UP YOUR COMPUTERS!!! Don't let what happened to us happen to you. After we returned from Christmas, the laptop that contained ALL of Nick's pictures since birth died. Off it went to HP and they had to replace the hard drive and we lost everything. Thankfully Shutterfly, which is where we have a lot of pictures, offers an archive DVD service so we can order one with all the pictures we've loaded there. And I've also downloaded the pictures from this very blog. So we've saved some of them, but certainly not all. I'm choosing not to think about those, as it just makes me cry.

So, there. Do it now. And if you don't have the ability to do it, figure out a way - buy an external hard drive, use an on-line service, something. Don't put it off like I did.

OK. On to more light-hearted fare.

Here is Nick with his little Christmas tree. Or as he calls them, "Mis-mis tree". He liked this one as he could pick it up, carry it around and play with it. I think this helped keep his "tampering" with the big tree to a minimum.


One of the many attempts at Christmas card photos...


This one was an option, but we decided against it. First of all, he looks rather annoyed with us (and, really, wouldn't you be if someone kept putting stuff on you and taking your picture?) And second, it has our dish drainer in the background. Not exactly holiday-ish.


So here he is with the 'big tree'. He did really well - he would just reach out and touch the branches or the lights and pretty much leave it alone. Granted we didn't put on all our ornaments on it, but that's OK, it still looked like a Christmas tree.


This picture reminds me of that movie, 'The Blair Witch Project'. I think he's scared of Mommy following him around with a Santa hat, Christmas tree and a camera.


And, the winner! Here was the photo we ended up using on the card. Kevin took this one - he had much better luck than I did. Mommy is too serious - Daddy makes it fun. Humph.

Girlfriends and kisses

Of course we expected that at some point, Nick would have a girlfriend and would be handing out kisses to deserving people. However, we hardly expected it would be before he turned two.

While at the day care in San Francisco, he had his first girlfriend, Ruby. We heard stories from his teachers about him giving her hugs & kisses, but we never saw it so thought maybe it was their imagination. Then when we moved down here, he promply left Ruby in the dust - not another thought!! Poor girl. Now he has a whole new set of ladies to work his magic on. First it was Amanda ('Manda') and then it was Maya. Now his latest affection is Cindy. And this is the first time we've heard it from his very own lips.



Sigh, he's leaving a trail of broken hearts already. But at least he's consistent with his kisses for Mommy & Daddy. All while busily re-arranging the pantry, of course. Mommy never has it up to Nick standards...

The ABC's while eating!

Nick is learning to do his ABC's. He's gotten quite good actually and can even do them while he's eating. Notice the way he "slides" through 'L-M-N-O'and puts such dramatic emphasis on 'P'. And 'W-X-Y-Z'? Who needs them - they're rarely used anyway.

You'll have to turn your volume up loud to hear his voice...



Is he talented or what?

Turkey Day in Green Bay

The Desotell Family currently flip-flops holidays between Green Bay and Spokane - this year it was Thanksgiving in Green Bay. Kevin headed out early for the yearly hunt. And, being the animal lover that I am - the deer won - yay! (Sorry, honey!!)

So I was the lucky one who got to fly out to Chicago on her own with Nick. We flew on Southwest Airlines. I've always hated Southwest, but dang it if they don't keep doing things to win me over. This time they had a DJ set-up at LAX to keep all the passengers entertained. They also had a balloon-animal-maker person (what are they called anyway???) So Nick got his Turkey balloon and was quite happy.




The timing of the flight was perfect and Nick slept for over half the flight. And after he woke up, I had enough toys, books and snacks to keep him happy for the rest of the flight. Phew!

Nick's Aunt Cindy and Uncle Mike were kind enough to let us stay with them while we were in Green Bay - it was great and SO much better than staying at a hotel! Thanks Mike & Cindy!!

In Green Bay, they have a Wildlife Sanctuary that is pretty cool. So we bundled up and headed over there to see the wildlife. The last time we were there, the family of wolves numbered at about seven. This time there were only two wolves - not sure what happened to the other five. Let's hope they're out prowling around, eating tasty venison. Here is a quick pic - doesn't do them justice; they're huge and quite amazing!


Nick hitched a ride for a good portion of the park.


But we - I should say - Kevin - got tired of being the baby carrier and down he went.


I tried to convince him to walk on the snow with me, but he would have none of it.


There were a bunch of geese and ducks by one of the lakes (don't geese fly south for the winter? Hmmm...) Nick HAD to check them out - ducks are one of his favorite animals and they're usually the only resident on Old MacDonald's Farm when Nick sings it.


Note that he quickly forgot that he didn't want to walk on the snow...


Nick decided that he would "feed" the ducks & geese leaves. Since he was wearing mittens, he figured out that he had to press them between his mittened-hands in order to pick them up.


All that walking around, quacking and feeding is pretty tiring...


How is that possibly comfortable???