[Nicolas] Cooker Baby

nicolas picked out these nifty shades today at Walgreen's with mom. he loves them:

now whenever we cook, nicolas gets his own little setup, with some pasta and a bowl and some utensils and he "cooks" along with us:

ht to roxtar at the Black Sky Theory blog for the pic

nicolas had his first taste of ice cream recently. while his enthusiasm was pretty contained, he still seemed to enjoy the experience:

Nicolas and I took a trip to upstate New York to visit my grandma - his great grandma cooker. We spent some time at Lake Ontario, where he was in rock heaven. he loves rocks! it's not easy traveling with a 17 month old (2 small, cramped flights each way), but he did great and fortunately my parents were there and they helped out tremendously. here he is with grandpa at lake ontario: You can see more pics from the trip by clicking the "Nicolas pics on Flickr" link to the right -->.

We took Nicolas to the Nashville Zoo recently: The elephants were cool: so were the goats: but the toys were the best:

Grandma Barb got Nicolas this great Fisher-Price "Little People" book a while back, all about the zoo. So he's really gotten into animals and the noises they make. When he started his elephant impersonation after dinner the other night, I grabbed the camera and caught a little bit of it here. You'll hear him say "boopa boopa", which we're pretty sure is a reference to "people" as in "Little People":

this past weekend we spent some time with uncle midnight and grandma playing some music and testing out that singing via a nice effects setup and amp: and we also enjoyed the piano quite a bit (thanks to uncle midnight for playing drums and letting us play all this fun stuff):

nicolas is having more fun experimenting with sounds these days. here's his first "L" sounds (w/mom helping a bit):

Nicolas got a visit from his cousins Jonah, Eli and Noah recently: we shared meals: we played: and we said good-bye: hopefully we'll see them again soon!

Grandma and Grandpa stopped by this weekend on their return trip from NY, so we got to celebrate Nicolas' 16 month birthday with Grandma's birthday. I made a cake and attempted to decorate it. No one (especially Nicolas) seemed to mind how sloppy it initially looked once we started eating it though.

last bit from new orleans. he loves those mules:

the first bite: the reaction: and some video of the reaction:

he couldn't get enough of the "clank" sound the manhole cover made when he walked over it

We're back in New Orleans this week - dad's working, mom and nicolas are looking for places we can live. after work yesterday, we couldn't pass up the chance to enjoy dinner at Irene's Cuisine. Guess who likes shrimp linguine?

we figured with this much eating, we should probably start brushing those chompers. here's his first day with his first real toothbrush:

a few posts ago we wrote about how nicolas called blueberries "bee bee" and watermelon "mee mee". here's what it sounds (and looks like):

nicolas learned about "ta-da" from mom and nona this weekend, and really seemed to like the concept:

we took nicolas to the doctor today for his 15th month check-up. he was all smiles when we first got there, waving to everyone, running around the waiting room touching chairs and shouting da-da and ma-ma. he happily followed the nurse down the hall, saying hi to all the other nurses and doctors en route. and then we got to the exam room. he must've remembered his last visit at that point, because he was ready to leave immediately. he cried, and started looking worried, like we'd tricked him or something. at any rate, we got through the initial exam, the doctor's exam, and the final shots. there was a good bit of crying, but by the time we headed back home he was fine. here's the latest stats: weight: 28 lbs (91st percentile) height: 30 1/4" (40th percentile) head size: 18 1/4" (35th percentile) after watching nicolas and talking to us about his day-to-day activities, Dr. Ladd was impressed and said he seemed to be staying within his "swimming lanes"...