Nathan loves to color. Well, that isn't actually accurate. He loves to hold crayons and line them up and watch me color. Today, I have been in a book reading coma. Unfortunately, Nathan doesn't always appreciate the need for me to sit in the recliner for hours on end while he watches 'Dinosaurs' and plays with his toys.
I'm on to my second book of the day and he walks over to me in the recliner with a crayon.
'Mommy, circle.'
'Please, mommy, circle. Blue circle'
When I tell him that I am not going to color, but that he can go and do it himself, he proceeds to use the side handle on the chair and return me from the reclining position to an upright one. 'Up, up.' He takes my bookmark, puts it in my book (so considerate) and pulls the blanket off of me.
I never should have introduced him to crayons!

Christmas and stuff

This book 'Don't Hassle the Hoff' was originally purchased for Rachel years ago at a grocery store check-out. Last year, we were invited to an Ugly Sweater Party thrown by our good friends The Hodges and I brought it as a white elephant gift. This became the gift that keeps on giving, since this year it made a repeat performance during our gift exhange. I imagine we'll be seeing it in years to come and hopefully we will all enjoy greater insight into David Hasselhoff's life.

Other great news from the Ugly Sweater Party...I won!! I was campaigning pretty hard all night, and you can all imagine how excited I was to win. Shown here with the runners up. Or is it runner ups?

Nathan reading. This is by far, his favorite activity. The other day, we were driving to the library and as we pulled in the library, he started clapping and yelling 'yeah!!!' I love this little fella.


Nathan sledding for the first time. I'm just going to say that it's a lot of work to take kids sledding. It takes 800 hrs to get everything together and to get dressed. Then you realize that a 2 yr old can't really walk through deep snow on their own, so you try to put them on the sled so you can pull them. You happily go along until the sled is really light and you realize that you have dumped your kid in the snow. Finally, after several goes at that, you pick up your kid and just carry them. 33lbs is a LOT! He was such a good sport. After about 2 seconds on the sled, he spent the next few seconds with his face in the snow with his mom and sled on top of him. Luckily, he thought that was funny and we went down another time. Twice down the hill and I was done. Maybe another time this year. We'll see.

I feel a little lame that I didn't get more Christmas pictures, but know that we had a great time!

I wish I had a picture of when he opened this toolbox! It was fantastic. This boy loves tools!!

Nathan hard at work on his new puzzle

Boy Howdy, were these good Cinnamon Rolls! My friend Char gave me this recipe and it will be a new Christmas tradition around our house. I needed to redeem myself after my Thanksgiving dinner and these sure did the trick!

On New Year's Eve we spent the evening with our favorite Wisconsin people. Everyone brought their kids and this picture was taken after midnight. I was amazed at how alert and happy Nathan was. Unfortunately, he woke up at his normal time the next morning.

Keep scrolling down as there is another new post.

Trip to Tennessee

John has quit his job at the insurance company and is starting his first consulting job next week. We had a little bit of time between and decided to take advantage or our timeshare and go to Tennesee. Close enough to drive, but far enough away to get a little break from the weather. If you haven't been, TN is beautiful! We probably went at the ugliest time of the year and I was still enchanted. Can't wait to go back during the spring or summer. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Dinasaur Ride

Nathan and I sitting on the Dinasaur ride. It was freezing and we were the only ones that were there.

Nathan on a little ride at the outlet mall.

One of Nathan's favorite things. We do playdough and he gets to count as he squishes the little balls of dough.

Come on!!! Seriously? Such a cutie!

This was his birthday. We went out to the restaurant and intested of starting us off with breadsticks, we got these YUMMY apple fritter things with powdered sugar and this incredible apple butter. We were all in heaven.

As you can see, I went to great lengths to make a fancy birthday cake for Nathan. Either that or the lady at the restaurant sent us home with a free piece of cake for his birthday.


Boy does this kid love chocolate!


We went to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg, TN. Nathan has just recently started watching Nemo, so it was really fun for him to see all the fish in real life.

Check out that face! He LOVED the ray tank.

One day, we drove to Great Smoky Mountain National Park and went through Cades Cove. It is an area that houses a bunch of the original structures from when the area was first settled. It was drizzling for most our our little hike and as we were leaving the Park, it started snowing. Nathan had a blast! He would live outside year round if we would let him. Getting him back in the car was never fun.


We tried and tried and tried to get a decent picture, but Nathan would have none of it. This is our best shot! Merry Christmas.