Early Birthday Surprise

We didn't want Michaela to have to wait all the way until the end of July to get her first bike, so we gave her one last weekend. She was very surprised!
Nathanael wanted it for himself, and kept trying to get it away from Michaela.

99 Luftballoons

Party!

We had a wonderful party for Nathanael(2) and Elizabeth(4). I love the look on Nate’s face here. He loves large groups of people, and you can see this in his smile.

Everyone pitched in and we got Nate this awesome stroller/bike trailer. He loves it, and we’ve already used it a lot of times! Thanks again, everyone, for being so generous!

Happy Birthday Nate!

Michaela made Nathanael a cake for his second Birthday on April 2. I love this picture of Michaela proudly showing off the cake she made. For some reason she reminds me of my Dad. Note the backwards pants (done intentionally) and the thumb in the bellybutton. Uncanny resemblance, don't you think?
You can tell by the look on Nate's face that the cake was really yummy!

Puppy

You all know Nathanael’s Puppy. There is nothing in this world more important to him then his Puppy. It’s a little blue puppy with a soother sewn onto it. Michaela gave it to him the day we met him, and although I force him to keep it in the crib, he live for that puppy. All I have to say at bedtime is “let’s go see Puppy!”, and Nate scrambles up to bed quicker then any 2 year old I’ve ever met. I even bought a second one, exactly the same, just in case he ever lost his (or if it fell apart from so much loving). He won’t touch, or even look at the second one. He knows his Puppy.
I wash Puppy every few months because he gets really grungy. So far this has never caused a problem. Nate recently had a really bad cold, and Puppy was getting really gross! I ran him through the wash the other day, and was broken-hearted to find that Nate no longer recognized him. He cries when I put him to bed, cries in the morning and cries all nap time, looking for his best friend, but not knowing where he has gone. I’ve never felt so sad for Nate, but didn’t know what to do.
Finally today I tried a new strategy, I let Michaela walk around all afternoon, holding Puppy, and sucking on the soother. For the first half hour, Nate didn’t mind, then all of a sudden he reached for Puppy, and when Michaela wouldn’t give him back, Nate flipped out. I gave him his Puppy back, and he hasn’t put him down since. Phew! Nate is too young to have lost his best friend.