Baseball Fan

Our Goofy Little Baseball Fan!

Yes, Nolan is already a baseball fan...

He's attended 4 Twins games already and many of our softball games (many thanks to Grandma Sara for looking after him while we played!). He watches everything with a lot of interest, and Ryan is excited already to play with him when he's ready :)

For Father's Day, Nolan and I got Daddy a Twins jersey and we went to the Twins game. Ryan's jersey is the style that the players wore in 1982, the first year that they played in the Metrodome. He wanted Justin Morneau's name on the back, and wouldn't you know, Justin had the day off yesterday. It was his first game off since 2007, so Ryan didn't get to cheer for him at that game. Oh well, that just means we'll have to go to another game soon, so I don't think Ryan will be complaining too much!

Softball is a fun activity for us in the summer. Ryan plays on a men's league on Thursday evenings. They play double headers every Thursday. We both play on a co-ed league on Friday evenings for Team Hotbox. We've had some family members sub for us this year already too. Kenny has played with Ryan and Summer played for us too. We don't win every game, but we have fun and get to see our friends (which seems to be getting more and more difficult these days).

I'm going to share a few random pictures of us at softball this season.

Three Sisters and Baby

Honk Honk!

Brothers Playin' Ball

Painting Weekend

Last weekend we painted the outside of our house, with the help of our family. Thanks to Summer, Irene, Grandpa Ken, Grandma Jayne, Chris, Denise, Reggie, Kristen, Kenny and Meghan for all of your help!! It made for a fun, yet productive, weekend AND our house now looks great!!

Here is the house with the shutters up for you all to see!

Recent Bloggy News

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to merge my two blogs. So, in addition to the regular news you receive about our lives, I'll be adding some posts about my experiences as a mom. If you scroll through this blog, you'll notice that I've imported a lot of my posts from the other blog for you to read here. They are posts about Nolan's favorite toy, about starting solid foods, what works for me when he gets fussy, and a great article that I read online. Check them out!

Sorry, no pictures today, but I'll post some soon. I promise!

Recent Pictures

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last couple of weeks. Sorry if you saw these on Facebook too, but at least I'll discuss them a bit here.

Here's Nolan checking himself out in the mirror on his activity mat. He just kept doing this over and over again. He'd catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and then open his mouth and try to take a bite!

This was Nolan's first time at a lake. We were at Grammi and Grandpa Dick's house on Lake Emily. I think he really didn't understand what we were doing, but he was enjoying the new experience!

Grammi had such fun nursery rhymes to sing to Nolan. He loved spending time with his great-grandma!

When Fussy Time Hits

When nothing else works, taking Nolan for a walk really does the trick to calm him down and cheer him up. Don't get me wrong, he's a happy baby for the most part. Lately he's had a cold and I think that's interfered a little with his sleep, making him a little crabbier than usual.

It all came to a head yesterday evening at dinner time. He was eating avacadoes, which he normally seems to like a lot. Poor thing was pretty upset though and just kept fussing between every bite and letting out loud yelps when I didn't feed him fast enough. I was getting frustrated with this because it seemed like he was tired, but at 5:30 pm it was a little too early to put him to bed. So, I debated a few more minutes about whether to go through the whole ordeal of putting him in the carseat and driving to the dog park. In the end, I decided to give it a go. I think the fresh air was exactly what he needed. We got the chance to get out and see other people and dogs and to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Nolan was chattering the whole walk and kept a close watch on our black lab Frank, who was running around like crazy. Our dog park is a long trail that follows the Mississippi river. It is amazing to be able to spend time at the river, since it is such an important part of American history. I can see why this experience calms Nolan. It has the same effect on me :)

Do you make spending time outside a regular part of your routine? What are your favorite things to do outside?

And the Favorite Toy Award Goes To...

For a 6 month old, Nolan sure does have a TON of toys! Most of the time, I have a hard time corralling them and keeping them organized. Some of his toys he won't look at for more than 10 seconds and others he just loves. His absolute favorite toy is the Very Hungry Caterpillar developmental toy.

This toy is guaranteed to keep his chubby little fingers busy during car trips, in restaurants, on long walks, when mom is busy making his banana cereal and just about every other occasion you can think of. It crinkles, has bright colors, has antennae and a green tail for chewing and has a squeaky strawberry. I heard from someone that a good work of art continues to move your focus from one area of the painting to the next, eliciting new thoughts and keeping the viewer interested. Although I bet you don't usually think of squeaky toys as art, this toy sure keeps Nolan interested with new things to look at and play with at every turn. Toy art! Plus, I love that this is the Eric Carle caterpillar. We've been reading this book to Nolan just about every day, and it's nice to have a connection from his book to his toy, even if he doesn't notice the connection himself.

My only complaint is that this toy is supposed to clip onto car seat handles by a plastic hook. Well, Nolan ripped that thing off in the first few days. So, maybe they could have sewn that hook on a little better. Nolan doesn't seem to mind though. He'd much rather hold his caterpillar buddy...how else is he supposed to chew and taste every inch it?!

Solid Foods

I started Nolan on solid foods over two months ago, but I limited his variety to rice cereal, bananas and avacadoes until recently. The next food that I've introduced is sweet potatoes. As with avacadoes, his initial reaction isn't a positive one. In fact, he looks more like I'm trying to poison him with every bite. Really, are they so bad that you have to gag when you taste them?! So far, he's had sweet potatoes three times and he isn't showing any signs of warming up to them. Oh well, I will continue to offer them to him and hopefully he will start to like them soon.

Rather than use jars of store-bought baby food, I am pureeing my own fruits and vegetables. In future posts, I plan on explaining my methods of preparing and storing this homemade baby food. I'll also talk about the tools that I've found that work the best for doing this.

Do you make your own baby food, buy from the store or do a combination of the two? Aside from fruits and veggies, do you make your own cereals or other baby snacks?

Magnet Hands

Nolan must have magnets in his hands! He's reaching out for EVERYTHING in his path. He grabs for my face, my coffee cup, the newspaper and just about anything I pick up. The cutest thing he reaches for though is my water glass. That's because I can share that with him. I love the little clink, clink of his two front teeth against the side of the glass as he takes his sip. Hee, hee, hee!