#nelsendays2015 Week 8- Neighbor night, date night, big boy moments, and Ryan's first car ;)

Despite the cold temperatures, this week has been pretty great. In fact, the cold weather has actually made it extra great because Matt's worked shorter days and is even working at home as I write this to avoid the icy roads. So this mama is loving the cold weather- from inside. :)

Day 50:

One of Ryan's favorite pre-nap books right now is Peek-a-Boo, I Love You! The last page is his favorite, and he usually gets the biggest grin behind his paci, but he was about to fall asleep in my arms when I took this pic!

Day 51: 

We were making music and messes while we waited for Matt to get home from work. :)

Day 52:

This was Saturday morning and Matt and Tally weren't quite ready to start the day. And THAT is how Ryan felt about it. ;)

That night, my sweet friend Lynn (who I used to teach with) and her two daughters ASKED us if they could watch Ryan for us so that we could go on a date. How sweet is that?! We had the best time catching up with them before we headed out to dinner. When I miss my teaching days, she's a big reason why!

Day 53:

On Sunday, we celebrated Karen and Jay's birthdays at Matt's parents' house and managed to get a picture of all of the grandkids on Mimi and Papa's lap. :)

The birthday kids getting help from an expert present opener. ;)

During our brunch, Ryan sat at the table with us and ate everything we were eating! He LOVED Mimi's egg casserole that had Canadian bacon on the bottom, topped with egg, swiss cheese, milk, parsley, and parmesan. In these shots he's trying some bacon, the egg yolk (baked), canadian bacon, and then I spoon fed him some of the "essence" as we call it from the dish that had the milk, cheese, parmesan and parsley. He loved it all!! And then we let him try some of the blueberry pancakes and he loved that too! That was his first try of anything bread-like. I've been saving (or sheltering?! ha) him from carbs since I'm such a carb-a-holic, but I loved letting him try some of Muggie's (that's Matt's grandma) delicious pancake recipe.

It was just so fun having him eat at the table with us like such a big boy. He was content and happy to listen to conversation while he munched away for the entire time we ate. It was like he grew up so much in a 30 minute time span. I've had so many "favorite days" with him since he was born, but Sunday was definitely one of them!

After brunch, we brought up a car that I got at one of my showers before Ryan was born. Matt's parents had been keeping it for us in their basement, and since Ryan had gotten pretty good at sitting up steadily in the last week, I thought it would be fun to bring it up and let him try it. He LOVED it!

I'll be sharing more about this car in tomorrow's Favorite Finds post.

Day 54:

On Monday, we took a trip to the grocery store and Ryan sat like a big boy in the cart. I obviously failed at putting the little cover on correctly, haha, but I more wanted it as some extra cushion, not necessarily to keep him from touching the cart, so I guess it served its purpose. The funny thing about this was that he was so tired as we were leaving and started leaning his head down on my hand to rest (so I thought), but when I bent down to sneak a peek at his eyes to see if they were open, I realized what he was actually doing was sucking on the cart handle. Oops. And gross. I'm all for building up immunities, but that wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I didn't fuss with the cover going on all the way!

That same day, while I was taking Tally to his training class, Matt's mom sent me these pictures of Ryan- sweet boo. :)

This was Tal after his class. :)

Day 55:

Tuesday night, we had pizza night over at our neighbors' house across the street from us. There were five couples who were able to make it. Of those five, two of us have a baby under one, two are pregnant, and the other couple isn't far behind! We love our street so much because of these sweet people. 

The morning after our pizza night, Lizzie's school was closed because of weather, so she came over in her pajamas and robe and brought Hagen to play with Tally while we drank coffee and played with Ryan. And I was sitting there in my pajamas as well thinking how much I love having a neighbor like her! Can't wait for her to become a mama so we can have more mornings like that!

And side note, Ryan was a champ at pizza night. He stayed up over an hour past his bedtime (notice that big yawn!) and loved sitting up at the table with everyone. He's at such a fun stage right now. :)

Keep up with us everyday on Instagram @hmnelsen

And come back tomorrow to check out what Elizabeth and I are sharing for our February Favorite Finds! There's an exclusive coupon code to a really awesome shop that you won't want to miss!