A Great Few Days

Great Aunt Karen came to visit us at the end of last week.  She had a conference in Charlotte and was able to stop by and spend two nights with us on her way back home!  We had a wonderful visit (as always) and she also brought some nice presents for Nathan's birthday and took us shopping to round out a few essentials for Nathan and the baby's winter wardrobe.

The visit got off to a little bit of a rough start... Nathan had been watching for Aunt Karen out the front door, but walked away right as she pulled up, so when she walked in the house he got upset and started crying.  But after we got him calmed down, they were best friends for the remainder of the visit!

Some of the hightlights:

• Karen was talking about how she and Kevin get such a laugh now whenever they try to swat bugs because of how Nathan loves to swat mosquitoes.  I thought Nathan was playing during the conversation and unaware of what we were discussing, but he immediately started smashing bugs again! He continues to amaze me how aware he is of what's going on around him!
• Nathan was playing the the backyard and Karen and I were sitting on the swing.  Nathan came up and we realized his feet were pretty dirty inside his crocs.  Karen tried to blow some of the debris off and Nathan thought this was hilarious and a great idea, and proceeded to do it repeatedly.  Which would have been fine except for the fact that he was practically putting his foot in his mouth!
• Nathan always seems to find Karen's sayings hilarious.  This time it was something about "goofy" that he kept repeating and then laughing hysterically at himself.  Yep, pretty goofy!
• Karen got to accompany Nathan and me to the OB on Friday morning for an ultrasound and checkup.  We found out that the baby is head down (the physician wasn't able to tell the week before because the baby hadn't dropped yet) and already about 7lb big.   But everything else looked great, and we confirmed that we are having a girl (which we later celebrated by going crazy for girl clothes at Target!).  
• Nathan went the whole day (except for naptime) in his big boy underwear!  He told me that morning before we left the house that he wanted to wear it, so I packed some extra pants, undies and diapers just in case, but Nathan did great going to the potty while we were out running errands!  We were so proud that he didn't have an accident!
• Saturday morning before she left, Karen gave Nathan his birthday presents.  She got him a really nice toddler backpack, a new book and a cool card.  She also stuck in a toy car that she got out of a cereal box, and as predicted, the toy car was the biggest hit right off the bat.  But here's Nathan trying on his red backpack for us!  We put it straight to use the next day when we took Nathan to big church with Brian and me (he had been having a bad runny nose and cough, so we didn't let him go to class or kid's church, just in case).  He helped me pack his backpack with his water bottle, toys and snacks, though he ended up wanting us to carry it for him. 

I know there is more funny stuff that I'm forgetting because Nathan kept doing things "imitating" Karen, to which she would say "I've got to be careful of what I'm teaching him or I won't be invited back!" But we had a great time and really enjoyed the visit. In fact, the next few times that Nathan woke up from his nap or in the morning, he would check with me "Aunt Karen gone?" just to make sure she hadn't come back!

PS. I remembered two other things to add.  We've been teaching Nathan to say "excuse me" after he passes gas or burps, but he is always sure to name his infraction, ie "excuse me gas".  This cracked Aunt Karen up!  Also Aunt Karen brought Cheerios with her for breakfast and Nathan kept asking to snack on them all during both days she was here - like we had been depriving him all his life!