August = Fun

We had an amazing summer and I feel truly blessed for all of the great times we had, even just the fun of lazy days at home with my boys. The boys have become so close this summer as Nolan continues to grow and is more and more like a little boy and less like a baby, their relationship as brothers only grows stronger. It has been so neat to watch their love for each other and how they truly are becoming best friends. I hope they will always be best friends. And speaking of friends, I feel that this summer was spent focusing on friendships and we really deepened many friendships, especially with our neighbors. Our sweet neighbor, Brandon, spent every Monday with us this summer and by the end, he was just like one of the brothers! I actually loved having all three boys on those days as they had so much fun together--it was easy taking care of them! I've included a picture here of the 3 sweet, silly boys. At the end of July, Brandon turned 3 and had a very cool horseback riding birthday party. I forgot to include pictures in a previous blog so I thought I'd put them here. Nicholas loved seeing all of the farm animals and grooming the horses and then getting to ride one on a long trail. It was a great party! Another fun thing that we did in July and August was attend Gymboree classes. I came about some free and discounted passes so I signed the boys up for one month. They couldn't have loved it more! It was a great bonding time for all three of us too as we did both the music classes, and the play and learn classes. We were all sad to see the month come to an end!
The only thing that put a damper on our wonderful summer was my little booger, Nolan who stopped napping at the beginning of the summer when I took away the pacifier. For the last 3 months he has gone completely crazy everytime I put him to bed (naps or nighttime). It wasn't until the beginning of August that I realized that it was only me that he does it for and if Graham or Mimi (and probably anyone else) put him down, he's an angel and will take 3 hour naps without a peep! For me it becomes an all out WW3 around here. As you can imagine, this became very challenging for me and I finally decided last week to stop the battles and accept the fact that naps are over for my household. Very sad! Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one that misses them! The other crazy thing that has been happening with Nolan is that he is basically potty training himself! I started putting him on the potty before baths at the beginning of the summer and he goes immediately everytime. Now, he's started coming and telling me when he needs to go (today he told me 5 times!) So I guess I'll follow his lead and start full on potty training him! I can't believe this, he's only 1!
Our last weeks of summer were filled with birthday fun! On August 20th, we spent the day celebrating Lauren and Graham's birthdays at Grandad and Kaki's house. We had a great time in the pool, lots of cousin fun, and of course cake and presents! Then came Graham's actual birthday. We started the day off with breakfast at our favorite place, Loren's, then we went to Nick's open house to meet his teachers. After that the four of us went bowling. The boys loved it, even Nolan! Graham beat us all, which is how it should be on your birthday! That night we celebrated with a birthday dinner with my side of the family at Outback. The boys and I agreed that we wished it was Daddy's birthday everyday--what fun! On Saturday the celebration continued as Graham and I headed up to the mountains for a night at our favorite place, Lucille's Mountaintop Inn. It was just as beautiful as we remembered it from our stay 5 years ago. We enjoyed lots of shopping, wine tasting, and relaxing on Saturday and spent Sunday enjoying the great outdoors. We went for a canoe trip down the Chattahoochee. The guides drove us to a creek in the middle of nowhere, dropped the canoe in the water and said "see you in 3 hours." We were on our own to manuever through very shallow waters for what felt like an eternity--talk about a test for your marriage! It only took a little while for us to realize how to work together instead of yelling at each other, to paddle the right way and make it through the "rapids". We only fell in once! There is no way to describe how sore and tired we both were by the end (and for days to follow). It was an incredible weekend though and we are so thankful for any time that we get to get away just the two of us! It helps knowing the boys are having so much fun at the same time with their sweet grandparents!
Last week, Nicholas started Pre-K, although it was no big deal to Mr. Independent. He loves his school so much and is so comfortable there that I don't think he thought twice about summer ending or even any back to school nerves. In fact the night before school I wanted to say a pray about his first day and he wouldn't let me (he only wanted to say the Lord's Prayer). I explained to him that I wanted to pray that God will be with him on his first day. He cut me off and said "Fine, God can come with me on my first day, but after that, I can handle it!" The next morning he tells me "Mom, you don't need to walk me to my class. You can just drop me off, I know how to get to the 4 year old class all on my own!" Wow! He doesn't need God, he doesn't need his Mommy! I'm glad he's confident and not scared but maybe he's taking it a step too far?? Well, he's had a great start to school though and already he's learning all of his letter sounds and able to tell us what almost any words start with. Can't wait for another year of watching him learn by leaps and bounds! And lastly, speaking of learning, this weekend (at the very end of summer) Nicholas learned how to swim! It was so exciting! He finally just stopped being fearful and just swam to me as I was talking and totally not paying attention. He's a little fish now and doing great! Too bad he'll have to wait till next summer to keep it up.