Nicholas Maravillas’ Blog

Matthew got to celebrate his birthday two weekends in a row this year!  His parents and Oma came down last weekend and we all went out to dinner.  We went to Lucky 32 and it was so good!  Nicholas and Matthew patiently waited for their food by coloring and playing with stickers.

Then Nicholas helped Grandma open her birthday gift.  It was a few weeks late but the dumb snow kept postponing our visits.  He wasn’t too impressed with it since it wasn’t a train or truck, but she seemed to like it.  

By that point it was way past bedtime, so Nicholas went to bed.  Then we cut into a delicious apple spice cake with caramel sauce.  It was so very yummy!  Of course, Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t leave without some outside play that weekend.

That last one was when he was pushing his wheel barrel with sand that he insisted belonged in the front yard.  It really wasn’t that heavy.  He was just being dramatic!

Matthew’s actual birthday was the 26th and my parents and brother came down.  We went out to dinner at a local pizza place and despite waiting a long time, we had a good time and Nicholas was so patient!  He passed the time eating goldfish and sprinkling cheese, salt and pepper in my water.  He added some cheese to Papa’s beer which surprisingly he still drank.   I decided against finishing my water because it was pretty gross by the time Nicholas was done.   Then we came home for cake.  The heating element in our oven blew out just the day before so I couldn’t bake the cupcakes that Matthew requested, so I bought a small cake.  A birthday boy needs something to put candles in!  When I said its time for cake, Nicholas climbed into his chair, put his hands in his lap and patiently waited for us to cut it.

The patience didn’t last long.

Nicholas got a good bit of frosting before we lit the candles and cut the cake.  That seemed to be his favorite part as he only ate one bite of actual cake!  He really didn’t want to help blow out the candles.

Fortunately my dad was able to fix our oven and I baked the cupcakes on Saturday.  Matthew and I also got to go on a real date Saturday night!  Nicholas had a blast at “eat and play” with Nana, Papa and Uncle Matt while we went to a Japanese steakhouse and Hibachi restaurant and a movie.   Dinner was fun and delicious!  Certainly a neat experience.   After dinner, we went to see Avatar.  It had been so long since we last saw a movie in a theater!   Avatar was so cool.  Awesome technology and gorgeous colors.

All in all, I think (hope!) Matthew had a great birthday!  :)

You are the best Daddy ever! You do so many cool things with me and make it so much fun. I love you!

Your kiddo,

Nicholas

I think our tradition of Nicholas holding a birthday sign for loved ones is coming to an end, or at least evolving of sorts. He just won’t sit still AND hold a sign AND smile long enough to snap a picture.  So we improvise.

We tried to get him to look up and smile when drawing on the sign… but no dice.

We tried to have him sit in his big boy chair and smile with the sign… again, no dice.  But at least he’s holding it.

We tried just holding the sign near him so at least he could be smiling with it in the general vicinity… but still, no dice.

Finally we scored a slight victory when he showed Grandma her sign over Skype!  They had a nice chat.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!! We love you!

Matthew’s company, Logos, had their annual holiday party this past weekend up in NoVA.  To entice the Raleigh employees to make the trip up, they paid for hotel rooms, had a shuttle running from the hotel to the party and also offered free childcare.  They made it very hard to say no!   We didn’t take advantage of the childcare though.  Nicholas had a much better time hanging out with his Grandma and Grandpa at home.  They went to Marbles, toy shopping, outside for fresh air, McDonalds to play and out for pizza.

While they were having fun down south, Matthew and I got all gussied up for the party.  It was fun to get all pretty and wear something besides my usual sweatpants!  We enjoyed a delicious buffet, an open bar, time with fun co-workers and casino games.  Matthew did really well at the Craps table.  He was on a winning streak and actually rolled for about 30 minutes straight.  He won a lot of people a lot of fake money!  At the end of the night, you turned in your chips for raffle tickets.  Each $25,000 got you one ticket.  We lost all but the original $25,000 we started with in the last 10 minutes so we only got one ticket.  They drew the raffle tickets for cash prizes.  Some people had as many as 6 tickets in the drawing, so I didn’t think we had a chance but Matthew has remarkable luck when it comes to raffles.  At past company holiday parties and conferences, he’s won a digital camera, an iPod, a set of high-end liquor with stainless bar set, restaurant gift certificates and this weekend, $100!  I was looking at the ticket as she read the wining numbers and sure enough, she read our number!  Matthew looked at me with a grin and said “see?” as he got up to claim his prize.  We stopped at IKEA on the way home courtesy of Logos.  Thanks, Logos!

We are so glad Nicholas’ Grandma and Grandpa came all the way to NC to spend the weekend with him so that we could enjoy some time away!  Thank you sooo much!

My fly boys! Yes, I made Matthew and Nicholas matching capes for Christmas.

He loves to give Zoë treats. Then lay next to her on the floor and say over and over “Zoë treat”, “that one”, “chew!”, “hmmm”. She is a really, really patient cat!

Here he is beating up his balloon. I cannot get enough of his laugh!

This is a video of him running around at soundSpace yesterday. Notice the squeal of delight right at the end.

Lastly, here is Chef Nicholas working hard in the kitchen. And yes, he was using a chicken leg as seasoning!

We had a small birthday party for Nicholas with our families today.  Oma and Uncle Greg came down for the day and all of his grandparents and Uncle Matt were still here so we had a party to celebrate our little man’s upcoming 2nd birthday.   I still cannot believe he will be 2 this week!

When given a choice, Nicholas picked out a train cake and train decorations.  Big surprise there!  Since he doesn’t eat cake but likes ice cream, I was planning to do an ice cream train cake but the logistics of that were stressing me out.  So we decided to make a cookie train since he will eat the occasional cookie.  That worked much better and came out super cute if I do say so myself!  Nicholas still didn’t eat it but he seemed excited about it which was the main goal anyways.  He did pick each and every decorative MnM off of it though.   Guess we’ll just give him a bowl of MnM’s next year.   He opened some more fun presents and we chowed down on his favorite pizza for lunch.   It was a really good morning and as always, Nicholas seemed to have a blast!

Who needs a gingerbread house when you can have a gingerbread choo choo train!  Nicholas got super excited when I bought the kit and when he saw the box but not so much in the actual assembly.  But he did help some- mostly by throwing the candies into the caboose.  Precious cargo, I suppose.  He also tried to eat the pieces and luckily did not break his teeth.  After being told not to do that, he went to play with his trains and popped over to see what we were doing every now and then.  Matthew and I had fun decorating it at least!

With us occupied, Nicholas took the opportunity to be silly and walk around with his blankie on his head.  Yes, he walked smack into the island!  Despite the thud, he was fine.  Then he decided that the empty gift boxes under the tree were good places to sit.    Crazy kid!

As we have since we moved to this neat little town, we went to the Holly Springs Christmas Parade this morning.  We figured Nicholas would have a blast with fire trucks, mini race cars, marching bands and dogs going right in front of him.   Although the pictures don’t really show it, we think he had a good time!  Lately he’s really been studying things and just “taking it all in” rather than get all excited and jump up and down over something.  A lot like his dad, I suppose.  The one thing that really got some enthusiasm were the mini race cars.  They were a favorite last year too.  I will admit, they put on a good show!

And as a walk down memory lane, a reminder of our little man one short year ago at the same parade.

Today we took Nicholas to the New Hope Valley Railway to ride on their special Holiday Santa Train.  Although it was one of the coldest days we’ve seen of the season, the sun was shining and we had a good time.  I made Christmas tree and candy cane shaped sandwiches, packed the camera, dressed Nicholas in a couple layers of warm clothes and off we went.  We got there early and watched the garden model trains, which he loved.  And why not, they were just his size!  Then we took a short walk to the big diesel engine and cars that we would be riding on.  They also had a steam engine nearby that we watched for a bit too.  All the trains were decked out with decorations and Santa was making the rounds before we boarded.  Nicholas was in awe.  He was so quiet, except for the occasional “choo choo”, just staring at the engines and cars.  It was adorable.  I think he could have spent the entire day in the freezing cold just watching them.

It came time to board and we found good seats.  Nicholas insisted on standing for awhile then sat down and watched the woods and trees as we went by.  At one point, he just about fell asleep!  But he didn’t, despite what he looks like in the Santa picture.  He was okay with Santa, didn’t talk to him but at least he didn’t scream at him either.  He did get his first candy cane though and seemed to like that alright.  After eating his lunch as the engine turned around to head back to the station, Nicholas perked up right at the end and got all excited.  Better late than never I suppose!  Matthew and I think he enjoyed himself and we sure had fun, despite the cold.   I can’t wait to go back next year, but with a few blankets!   We took a lot of pictures, here are just a few favorites.   And by a few, I mean a lot.