Nathan meet John

Tonight while I was tending to Kaylee I heard Nathan repeating a word over and over from another room. I decided to investigate.  It took me a while to find him, he wasn't in his playroom like I had thought, or the office which was my second guess.  The sound was coming from the bathroom.  The door was closed and the light was off but I was sure that's where he was, so I opened the door to the dark bathroom to find this:

Nathan had taken his shorts of and managed to climb onto the toilet (thankfully without falling in).  He was sitting there chanting "pooooop....poooooop" over and over again.  After I got a few pictures he exclaimed that he was "all done!" and hopped down from the toilet, threw some toilet paper in and flushed, and then asked me to wash his hands.  I guess spending almost every day with his potty trained friend is rubbing off on him.  However, he still doesn't quite seem to get the concept of exactly what is supposed to be going into the toilet.  I guess its a good thing that he isn't afraid of sitting on it, but I don't think I am ready to try potty training just yet!

Quiet Book

 I have been wanting to make a quiet book for several months now to keep Nathan QUIETLY entertained in Sacrament meeting on Sundays.  My mom has an amazing quiet book that I planned on duplicating, but once I realized that a lot of it was hand drawn I was out.  I am so not artistic and so I opted for finding a free online pattern where skill and talent were not requirements.  I enlisted my friend Randi to join me in this "oh so fun" task (partly because she is much more crafty than I am and I knew I would need her help).  So during every single nap time for about 6 weeks we worked on these babies, completing them just in time for Easter.

The color wheel spins and the balloons velcro

The "paint" is also velcro and there is a paintbrush to "paint" with

 The flowers snap on.  There are different snap-ons for each season. These flowers for Spring, green leaves for Summer, red orange and yellow leaves for Fall, and then just the bare tree for Winter.  The grass is a pocket to hold the flowers and leaves.

 The barn doors open where you find....

 finger puppets!

 The road signs velcro, and the car comes our of its garage pocket.

This is our weaving page. 

The petals are velcro also and can be placed in the flower pot pocket. 

Notepad and pencil to write letters that can then be placed in the mailbox.

The flag goes up and down as well.

 This page is for learning how to tie shoes.

The puzzle pieces velcro as well. 

Fot learning how to do buttons. (We created this one completely on our own) 

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And of course a zipper page! This is Nathan's favorite page right now. Unfortunately, he used his new found talent for zipping to get Curtis' attention by zipping down his shorts...well at least he is learning something from this book!!

And just because, I thought I would throw in some pictures of Kaylee at this very moment.

Just Another One of the Girls!

One evening I was hosting a "Girl's Night" at my house.  Apparently Nathan was feeling left out because he brought me one of Kaylee's headbands and asked for me to put it on him.  I decided to go along with this plan just to see what he would do.  Would you believe it, this kid wore a pretty pink headband with a pretty pink flower on it for a solid 45 minutes at least.  

I finally decided that it was time to take the headband off (I think he had forgotten that it was there) and when I did, this was the result:

Nathan's BFF is a girl, and he gets all kinds of enjoyment out of playing with her necklaces and bracelets.  I'm thinking he might need a bit more male influence in his life.  Or perhaps the photo session I forced him into for his "book of colors" may have had something to do with it...

hehehe... (don't worry...these pictures did NOT end up in his book of colors, we went for a picture of him in a pink swing wearing some super manly Cars sunglasses.)

Grass!!

As I mentioned earlier, my dad spent a week putting in a sprinkler system for us back in February.  The next week Curtis, with generous help of a couple of friends, put down the sod.  Here it is the yard the day after they laid the sod.

And here it is 2 days later...

It snows here in Sierra Vista about twice a year, and of course it chose to snow right after we laid the sod!  Oh well, it melted pretty fast.  When we get more time and more funds we will add some fruit trees, bushes, grape vines, and an assortment of other plants around the edges of the yard.  But for now Nathan loves playing on the grass! (Aaaaaaand in the dirt around the grass)

(See how pretty and green it is?!?!)

Easter

We were able to take a trip to Utah for a week to visit my family and see my adorable brand new niece at the  end of April.  It was very likely going to be the last trip we could take where Nathan could fly for free so we took advantage of only having to pay for 2 tickets for all 4 of us while we still could.  I forgot to bring my camera with me on the trip, but did manage to take some pictures on Crissy's camera, as well as a few on my Dad's.  Once I get those pictures I will post more about that trip.  We were there on Easter and I was able to get a few pictures from our Easter morning festivities from my Dad's camera, so we will start with these.

On Sunday morning Nathan woke up to find a trail of m&m's left by the Easter bunny that lead from the bottom of the stairs to his Easter basket sitting on the fireplace.  It took a while for him to get to his basket because he enjoyed eating the trail a little too much.  Maybe the Easter bunny should have done a better job of spreading out the m&ms a bit more.  Perhaps he will do a better job next year.  Here is Nathan at the beginning of the trail already sitting and eating.

When Nathan FINALLY reached his basket he found a few plastic eggs filled with coins for his bank and a few with candy.  It also contained an elmo doll (the first thing that Nathan noticed), a quiet book for church, and some squeezable baby food (apparently the Easter bunny knew that this is the only way we can get Nathan to eat vegetables.  He loves these things so much that they have become a "treat" for him to eat if he finishes all of his dinner.)  There was also a new Easter outfit for him to wear to church.

 Kaylee also had a basket with tights, headbands, flower clips, and a "new" Easter dress.

Here are the happy children in their Easter outfits. 

Later that night Crissy and her family came over and all the boys hunted for Easter eggs in the basement. (Pictures to come later)

I want to make sure that we put a big emphasis on the real reason for Easter as the kids get older, but for now I think having Nathan just realize that there is something different and special about this day is maybe the most he can grasp at his age.

When we arrived home after our fabulous trip we were greeted with an Easter surprise.  We found this note on the door:

 And so Nathan got to go on an Easter egg hunt of his very own in our front yard, compliments of Brenna and her mommy.

It was a wonderful surprise!!