Some new photos are available on the Flickr feed for your viewing pleasure. If you’re my friend on Facebook, you can also see the photos there.

Nathan has taken up a few two-word phrases lately and is learning new words like mad. However, I thought I’d share two of my favorite of his sayings.

Whenever he wants you to come or go with him, he says “meesh,” as in “Daddy meesh… Come. Meesh.”

Also, when he wants daddy, specifically, to come with him in the evenings, he’ll say, “Daddy, hop. Hop. Crutches. Hop. Meesh. Hop.” or words to that effect.

A talker indeed.

New photos are up, including some from Halloween. Check them out and enjoy!

I should probably note that we took Nathan down to the Gallatin Valley Mall for trick-or-treating on Halloween. It’s pretty common to take your kids to organized trick-or-treating events in Bozeman, and it gave him the chance to see all sorts of other kids and their costumes.

Nathan wasn’t sure what to make of the whole trick-or-treating experience. The notion that people would give you candy and that you’d put that candy into a bag didn’t really sink in. Eventually, he got into the pattern of it, but I don’t think he really understood that he was getting candy since he didn’t give most of it a second look.

He enjoyed it, though, and he also enjoyed the making of a jack o’ lantern when we got back home that night. He spent most of the evening giving the lantern little kisses and saying “hi” to it. That was also the first thing he did when he got up on Sunday morning. Very cute.

Probably the best thing to come out of the trick-or-treating was the orange balloon he got at the mall. The kid’s crazy about helium balloons.

Oh, and here’s a video for your viewing enjoyment!

The movie “The Sandlot” happened to be on TV tonight, so we all started watching it. After seeing the kids and the dog, Nathan got hooked on the movie and actually sat there and watched most of it.

The best part, though, came at the end, when the kids are trying to get the Babe Ruth ball back from the dog and one character gets chased by the big ol’ dog. Nathan was apparently pretty emotionally involved in the movie, because as the dog nipped at the boy’s heels, Nathan started fidgeting and crying a little. We’re guessing he was either scared of the dog or worried for the boy.

Either way, it was highly entertaining.

Grandma Pat and Grandpa Dave came to Bozeman for a visit on Sunday, bearing fruits and vegetables of all kinds. Nathan was delighted to see them and spent most of the afternoon running his grandpa around the apartment complex and making him read books — he’s really grandpa’s boy ever since the tractor ride earlier this summer.

He ate like a horse at dinner that night, a little KFC with the grandparents. Unfortunately, he got a little upset after bumping his head later on and threw up all over mom and then all over the bathroom floor. After that, he was exhausted and slept through most of the night. (He’s been waking up pretty early lately, around 6:15 a.m., so it was nice to have a day where he slept a little later.)

If things go as planned, we should be down to Ballantine to visit grandma and grandpa again this weekend, kind of a late-summer-ish visit before the holidays and winter really kick in. I’m sure Nate will have a blast then too.

I posted a few videos of Nathan’s antics to YouTube. Enjoy!

It’s been quite a while since the last substantial update here, so with the changing of the months and the start of a new school year, I guess now is as good a time as any.

In June, I wrote that Nathan had gotten his big kid bed and was sleeping pretty soundly in it. Well, lately, Nathan has taken to sleeping very soundly in his little bed. In fact, he’s sleeping through the night about 80 percent of the time. He goes to bed around 8:30 at night and usually doesn’t stir again until about 7 a.m.

Oh, and here’s the best part: For quite a while, he needed one of us to lay down with him to get him to go to sleep, but in the past two weeks, he’s just stayed in bed when we leave the room. No fussing, no fighting. Just sleeping. Ah!

One tradeoff, I suppose, is that his baths have grown shorter, usually only about 10 minutes now, just enough time to soap him up and make a stab at getting his teeth brushed. Maybe that’s a summer thing; the weather has been warmer lately that it actually was during the height of summer. He might start taking longer naps when it cools down some this fall.

Oh, and the words! He’s starting to talk up a storm. So far, he can say several words (and mean them):

• “no” (although sometimes he means “yes”)
• a crud version of “yes” that comes out sometimes sounding more like “jesh” and is often accompanied by vigorous nodding
• “Elmo”
• “elbow”
• “boo” (sometimes)
• “weee!”
• “momma” and “dada” (of course)
• “iPod”
• “please” (sounds more like “peeesch” but is accompanied by the correct sign language)
• “thank you” (sounds like “an ku” but, again, comes with the right sign language hand signal)
• “up”, “down” and “out”

There are more new ones every week, it seems.

On Thursday night, we all went to a barbecue hosted by my boss-boss, the head of the communications office at the university. It was at her farm, west of Four Corners, and as we drove out there, we could see that a pretty big thunderstorm was coming. Lo and behold, it poured on the whole proceedings just before the food was served, so we basically stood in a big barn waiting for the rain to stop.

After it did, Nathan got a little bad influence into him, thanks to an older boy who was there, and started running gleefully through a big puddle right outside the barn. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over and over and over again. Then he would sit on a tractor for a while. Then it was back to the puddle, splash, splash, splash.

By the time it was all over, he was soaked and cranky, but he had also had a great time.

Oh, and that pair of shoes is still a little damp.

We took a four-day trip to Ballantine this past weekend. Part of the trip was so that I could go interview an MSU alumnus in Colstrip, but we also got to go to Homesteader Days 2009 and spend a few days with the grandparents.

(There are some new photos from this trip posted to the Flickr account, by the way.)

Nathan spent almost all of his time with Grandpa Dave, going in and out of the house, riding on the tractor, playing in the big-rig, playing in bulldozers, eating cherries, climbing steps, running around the garden and playing with the hose. He was so tuckered out from those days that he slept like a rock at night, and he was so enamored of his grandpa that he cried whenever Grandpa left.

It was nice to have something of a break from the boy, and I don’t think Grandpa minded one bit. But I kind of feel bad that Nate neglected his Grandma a bit on this trip. Maybe next time he can be Grandma’s boy.

Nathan got to sleep in his big-kid bed for the first time last night. Susan’s brother brought the frame down from Helena, where it had been in storage, and we got his bedroom all set up. He was interested in the bed from the first, and climbed in and out of it for about an hour. He seemed very comfortable, but I got a bit worried when he didn’t want to go to bed on time.

Turned out that was just a little extra energy. He burned that off by about 10:15 (!) and finally went to bed at about the same time we did. I suppose the bed must have been comfortable: he spent the next nine or so hours in it. Susan said he woke up a couple of times during the night but managed to lull hismself back to sleep. That meant that Susan and I got to sleep alone (a rarity) and that Nate didn’t wake up until about 7:45.

I’ll get a picture of the bed posted as soon as I can.