Birthday Bash

For mine and Curtis' birthday we decided to take a trip up to Utah to visit the fam.  We flew up on Oct 19th just in time to celebrate Alli's birthday.

We have lots of October birthdays in our family, after Alli comes me and Curtis, and then my nephew kaleb.  All within a week!  So of course we had a big birthday bash for all of us.

As is custom with me, I forgot to take out the camera almost the whole time we were there.  So even though there is no pictorial evidence, we had lots of fun!  Curtis was able to stay almost a full week but then had to leave to get back to work, while Nathan and I stayed an additional week.  Nathan had a BLAST!  He loved playing with his cousins, and they were absolutely adorable with him!  Kaleb (who just turned 4) was always very mindful of "Naph Naph" (as he called him), making sure he was always happy.  He even let him play with his brand new toys that he got for his birthday.  Jaden, the oldest, is used to taking care of his little brothers and was therefor a pro at taking care of Nathan. On the last day we were there I asked Jaden if he could do Nathan's hair for me, since he is so good at doing his own.  He happily agreed and took Nathan by the hand into the bathroom where he wet, combed, gelled, and styled Nathan's hair.  Nathan just loved following Jaden around and loved doing whatever he was doing.  When Jaden wanted to play the wii Nathan plopped right down beside him to cheer him on.

(notice their matching hair)

Every time the boys would come over they would bring lots of swords and knives to play with.  They always made sure Nathan joined in on the fun. 

It was just so exciting to see Nathan finally interact with his cousins! Even Bradley (age 2) and Nathan had fun together!  One night I heard lots of little boy laughter coming from the hall, so I decided to take a peak.  I found Nathan sitting in front of the coat closet laughing his head off because Bradley kept popping out and making him laugh.  

Another fun thing Nathan got to do with his cousins was celebrate Halloween.  Bradley and Nathan were the best looking Batman and Robin I have ever seen.  Since it was raining the night of Halloween the boys had the great idea to go trick or treating indoors.  The divvied up the candy that my mom was passing out and placed a bowl of candy at each door of the house and went around trick or treating to all the doors.  The adults sat at each station while the boys went around and around and around and around for what seemed like an hour.  Jaden helped Nathan trick or treat and Nathan loved it!

The thing Nathan loved the most (aside from playing with his cousins) was going outside.  I guess he doesn't get out much at our house because we still haven't gotten around to finishing our backyard, and our frontyard is full of rocks which Nathan loves to put in his mouth.  Plus there aren't as many adults around to take him outside anytime he wants to go.  He quickly figured out that there were plenty of adults that he could weasel into going outside with him, and so he would grab someones finger and drag them to the back door about 30 times a day!  Even when it was snowing he wasn't deterred.  He loves being outside!

Nathan not only got to know his cousins better on this trip, but his Grandparent's as well.  And this kid could not get enough of his Grandpa!  Anytime my dad was home Nathan was by his side.  He cried whenever he left and would run to him when he came home.  Curtis and I went to a BYU football game while we were there so we were gone for most of the day, when we got home I was sure Nathan was going to be excited to see us.  I made the mistake of trying to take him from my dad's arms to say hi to him and he cried and cried until I gave him back to his Grandpa.  He must remember that it was Grandpa who came down to Arizona to build him his cool playroom under the stairs.  I think Nathan also prefers men, because once Curtis left Nathan was either clinging to his Grandpa, or his uncle Charles.  Of course Nathan quickly learned how much fun his Grandma is too.  He was a Grandma's boy by day, and a Grandpa's boy by night.  I am pretty sure that I could have left him for a week and he wouldn't have noticed.  He definitely has been more lonely and in need of more attention ever since we have come home.

A few hours before Nathan and I had to catch our plane Crissy and I decided we wanted sugar cookies (hey, we're pregnant, give us a break!)  We let the boys play with their own dough...

and it wasn't long at all before Nathan realized how good the dough tasted!

It was such a fun end to a super duper fun trip.  I can't wait for these kids to get together again!

Disaster Ready

Curtis and I FINALLY updated our 72 hour kits last week.  We haven't touched them since before Nathan was born.  I decided to make Nathan his own kit so I went out and bought him a little backpack.  Once Nathan saw it he HAD to wear it...all day long!  Even when I filled it with all of his supplies so that it was quite a bit heavier he didn't care.

We also found stashed in our old kits, a miniature boom box looking radio.  We have since replaced this with crank radios so I let Nathan play with this old one. He carried this little radio around and danced for the longest time, it was so cute.  I didn't have the wherewithal to get my camera until he was losing interest, so I only caught his dancing on camera for a split second.

By the time the night was over Nathan had figured out how to turn the radio on, volume up, pull up the antenna, and tune it to an actual station.  I figure between his ability to work a radio and carry his own 72 hour kit this kid is disaster ready!

Best $2 Ever Spent

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours going to yard sales in search of furniture for Nathan's new room.  I used to enjoy going to yard sales to find that hidden gem until I moved to Southern Arizona.  Finding furniture or any big ticket items is nearly impossible thanks to many entrepreneurial Mexicans who head north for the day to overload their trucks with anything of value to take back and sell at quadruple the price.  I have nothing against anyone working to make a little bit of money but it just gets very frustrating to constantly drive up to a yard sale only to see every piece of furniture being loaded into an already full truck bed.  And let me tell you they are goooooood.  I have had a couple of yard sales since living here and the second we open up drives a truck and out rushes one of the occupants to ask in broken English if we have any "computers or x-box."  They load their booty with the speed of light into the truck and are off to the next sale in just minutes.  How can I compete with that???  Anyway, back to the story.  So, even though I knew I would have a slim chance of finding anything for Nathan's room I had to at least try.  I spent the night before looking at all the yard sale ads marking and mapping out the ones that specifically mentioned bedroom furniture, however, in the morning my list was nowhere to be found (I suspect that this was a result of Nathan's new love for throwing things in the trash.)  I didn't want to waste anymore time so I just drove around town aimlessly following people's "Yard Sale" signs.  I spent almost 2 hours driving by multiple yard sales and never even bothered getting out of the car because all the furniture was gone at every single one by the time I got there.  Frustrated, I decided to head home.  On my way I saw signs for a sale that I had not yet stopped at, and figured it couldn't hurt to try.  When I got there, surprise surprise, there was no furniture, however, there was something that caught my eye.  I got out of my car (for the first time) and asked the lady how much she was asking for the item and was amazed when she said "how about $2."  I was sold!  I went home very excited, even though I had completely failed in my attempt to find bedroom furniture.  When I got home Curtis unloaded my purchase and brought it into the house.  Nathan soon came over  to see what was going on and his eyes just lit up and I swear he said "what's that?"  He quickly put down his sippie cup and climbed on.

Nathan, like all kids I'm sure, looooooooooooooooooooooooves to slide.  I feel bad because when i take him to a park I can only stand helping him up and down the slide so many times before I am extremely bored. This little slide was heaven made, Nathan went up and down it probably 30 times before taking a very brief break, after which he ran right back to his slide.  He is pretty cute on it too.  He won't go down sitting up, so he leans all the way back and slides down on his back, which causes him to land on the carpet on his back.  When he hits the ground he lets out a little "uh oh", but quickly gets right up and goes again. I took a couple of videos, but of course he never acts quite the same when the camera is on.

**I have another video of him actually sliding but it won't upload.  I will try again later!**


I would definitely have to say that this is the best $2 I ever spent.

The Polls are Now Closed

For most of the race it looked as though "girl" was a sure win.  With about half the votes cast "girl" was leading in what would appear to have been a landslide victory, recieving almost 70% of the votes.  However, the "boy" supporters came out in droves at the very end to tip the scales.  The final poll results:

On Facebook (18 votes):
Boy: 53%
Girl: 47%

On this blog (35 votes):
Boy: 57%
Girls: 43%

Making the overall results (out of  53 votes):
Boy: 55%
Girl: 45%

It was a very close race, with the "boy" voters coming out victorious.  (I think this mostly has to do with the fact that my family has all boys and we have since given up on the possibility of any of us having a girl.) 

So the question remains...are the voters right?  Are we having another boy?  Will Nathan have a little brother??  I'm sorry to say that the majority doesn't rule in this case.  It's a girl! (I am adding in some more text down here just in case some of you think you are slick by skipping to the end of the post to see the real results)

My 20 week ultrasound is tomorrow!!  Woo hoo!!  So before we find out if we are having a girl or a boy, I want to know what you think!  Vote now!

Nathan and I have been experimenting with different hair-dos. This first started when I was putting gel in my hair and Nathan wanted some in his.  We started with just the basic spikes (this isn't actually a picture of the spikes, I forgot to take one, but this is pretty close to what it looked like.  This is actually the result of me washing some food out of his hair after dinner.)

 Nathan then found one of my headbands and refused to take it off.  If it accidentally fell of he would whine until I put it back on!

 

Then came the "faux-hawk"  This one amused me at first, but after a few hours when the hair had a chance to calm down it actually wasn't too bad.  Kinda cute in fact.

(This is a baby doll that Curtis found in a box of his old stuff while we were cleaning out the garage, Nathan carries it everywhere!!)

(See?!?  He is ready to be a big brother!)

I recently discovered "splash time" at the community pool. It is only for kids 5 and under and their parents.  I took Nathan for the first time last week and we went again today.  I am thinking that this will probably become a weekly thing (at the very least).  Not only because I want Nathan to get used to the water, but because it wears him out so much that he takes a 3 hour nap when he gets home!  The first time in I thought I would try the life jacket out and see what he thought.  He lasted about 3 minutes before screaming his head off.  Once I took the jacket off he was a happy camper...or swimmer I guess.

He likes taking rides on the giant fish

Today we tried to teach him how to blow bubbles.  He did it a few times and laughed everyt ime, but seemed to enjoy watching Curtis and I blow bubbles rather than blow some himself.

I also tried showing him how to kick as I towed him around on the fish.  Instead he stayed stiff as a board.  Oh well, one thing at a time I guess.  I just get so excited that I want him to be able to do everything right now! 

His little personality is really coming out, and let me tell you he is one funny kid.  One day he decided to take off his pants and wear them around his shoulders.  This cracked him up to no end, as it did his mother :)

He's getting to be such a big boy, it's exciting and sad.  Mostly exciting though because I am ready for him to be a little bit more independent before the next baby comes.  He loves his new found independendce.  He has to walk everywhere, climb up and down the stairs himself, feed himself (seriously, he sometimes will kick and scream if I try to put something in his mouth rather than in his hand so he can put it in his mouth himself.)  He also is very insistent on doing things himself when we go out to the car.  He likes to hold open the garage door for me, he likes to walk to the car door by himself and then help me open it, he likes to climb into the car himself (with a little boost from mommy), he will sometimes crawl in and out of his carseat himself but he gets so distracted that I usually get tired of waiting for him and end up throwing him in myself.

He is also getting a lot better at communicating what he wants.  Now instead of crying when he wants something he will grab my finger and pull me to what he wants (which is usally to go outside). He really is like a new person lately and it is exciting to watch!

Time Out

Nathan's first time in time out. (First of many, I am sure)