Could it be his first word?

So Nicholas is playing on his activity mat, when he begins his daily chatter. I went upstairs to get the camcorder and this is what I caught on tape. Nicholas is saying his first word! Listen for yourself to hear him talking.

We've been busy!!

Brad and I have been so busy over the past few weeks that we have not had enough time to sleep, more or less blog what has been going on with us. So here is my attempt to catch everyone up on us. Last weekend Brad, Nicholas, and I traveled to Jacksonville, Florida for my cousin Rachel's wedding. We left on Wednesday and had until Sunday to enjoy time with family and even a little time on the beach. This is a picture of the beach in Jacksonville. Not a lot of people on it, maybe because it was a Thursday afternoon. It was so nice to be on the beach again, even if it was only about 65 degrees outside.

Nicholas got to make his first trip to the beach. Unfortunately for him, he slept the entire time we walked on the beach. I carried him on a front carrier as we walked up the down the beach collecting shells. We even found a starfish to bring home! I was so excited to bring the starfish to my students at school, but I left the starfish in the bleach solution a little too long and the starfish pretty much dissolved. Oh well, I tried!

I left our hotel room to go eat breakfast with my parents. I left Brad in charge of Nicholas, since he was still sleeping. This was the scene when we got back. Brad was sound asleep in the bed with Nicholas sleeping comfortably nearby. The room was completely dark, but thanks to flash I could capture this picture. Brad did not even know that I took this picture until he was flipping through the pictures on the camera. (Note: This picture has not been okayed to post by Brad, but I guess it is too late for that now!)

My cousin Rachel gave birth exactly one month before me. This is a picture of her son Ben with Nicholas. The boys just kept looking at each other. They were so cute together!

I brought the Boppy pillow (a great invention by the way) with us to Jacksonville because Nicholas enjoys sitting in it so much. I guess it gives him a chance to look around and see what is going on. Here he is sitting up just like a little boy! He is beginning to make little noises, trying to talk to everyone. He is so alert now too, watching everyone and everything going on around him.

Close-up view of Nicholas in the Boppy. Look at those cute chubby cheeks! (He must look like me because we all know Brad does not have anything close to chubby cheeks.)

So we returned from Jacksonville on Sunday night. I started back to work again on Tuesday. :( It was definitely not easy. My students were happy to have me back, but that does not make it any easier to leave my baby at home. I guess in time I will get used to it. All week I have been busy catching up on school work, spending time with Nicholas in the afternoons, and pretty much falling asleep sitting up on the couch about 8:30 each night. So much for getting back to running anytime soon. I can't even stay awake!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 to everyone! New Year's eve was low key this year for Brad and me. After a week of traveling for Christmas and attending wedding events for Brad's brother Matt (Congrats to Matt and Sarah who were married December 30th!), we wanted a relaxing evening at home. Some friends stopped by to visit with us and Nicholas. Sorry Haley you were not here too :( My parents and brother Brian came over to eat dinner and hang out for a little while. Everyone was gone by about 9:30, so Brad and I stayed awake long enough to watch the ball drop on Eastern time. Since we used to live in the Eastern time zone it felt like the beginning of the New Year at 11:00, so we then went to sleep. Nicholas fell asleep about 10:30 and gave us a great New Year's gift of sleeping almost 6 hours straight!

Here is our New Year's baby in a party hat!

So two years ago, Brad and I were definitely not having a low key New Year's. Brad took me to NYC to Times Square for the New Year's celebration. We were surprised to find out that our room had a view of the ball drop, so after being a part of the Carson Daly New Year's special we ran back to our room just in time to catch the ball drop on the camcorder. Here is a video clip of where we were two years ago on New Year's eve.