Bedtime Conversations with Nikolai

Nikels to Steve:

"Daddy, when you get little, I'll take care of you."

Comparison

This is what I asked for:


This is what I got:



See Kate, they are not the same.

And PS I'm talking hair here people, not noses.

Conversation with Nikolai

M: Do you like your trail mix?

N: Yep. These are God's treats.

M: Yep. Cause it's natural.

Long Pause.

N: God loves Nikolai.

Baby Boot Camp

Come Come Ye Saints

And some more pics and blurbs from the last two months

The boys in their cute Christmas sweaters at my friend Anna's new place:



One of my favorite sights this Christmas season -- some "Nikolai and Poppa time" watching the cardinals:



Nikolai reading a little of the morning paper in his diaper:



Our new piano!! We love it!!! Nikolai's face says it all:



Baby Luke trying out his first solids. Pretty much happy about everything:

No Filters and Rough Mornins

Nikolai is talking more and more. . .he is at that "no filter" stage. He can finally express most of the things he's thinking and he does. So we are having to have talks about being nice to our friends and using kind or appropriate words. Here are things likely to be heard from Nikolai lately, "No go away. I don't want you at my house" and "But mommy, I don't like him" or "Mommy, I don't like you right now." My mother must appreciate me getting a little of what I gave. In fact the right way/wrong way game in our childhood home started when my mom overheard me slamming the front door in the face of a neighbor girl who came and asked me to play with a shouted "No!"

One of the best was during sacrament meeting when Nikels kept trying to sneak out of the pew. "Nikolai get back in here. . We don't roam the aisles in church." Nikolai really loudly, "But mom, I have to POOP!" And he repeats that over and over as I grab his hand and haul him and baby Luke down the aisle and out to the lobby where he can poop in front of fewer people and embarrass me a little less. Like I said, no filter. So, while I'm constantly apologizing for his honesty, he also makes me laugh with the things he comes up with like the following:

Mom: "Nikolai, I am taking you to time out. You do not (blah blah blah. .can't even remember what he'd done."

As I'm carrying him down the hall to his room sometime in the late afternoon, "But mom, I'm having a rough mornin!"

Here is a picture of my cutest little monster (thank you Anna!):