Our Secret Christmas Angel

This year, a had a secret Christmas Angel who did the 12 days of Christmas for our family. It's been so much for my entire family to see what our Angel would leave for us. This person/family definitely knows our family since the gifts have been perfect for us. It's been so much fun. On the second day, Nathan opened the door, saw the two cars, and said "what the?". They were both so excited! This is a list of what has been left on our doorstep:

1st day- one jumbo candy cane
2nd day- two cars
3rd day- a pack of three dog toys
4th day- four tangerines with cloves
5th day- don't remember!
6th day- six packs of hot chocolate
7th day- a pack of seven chocolate Santa's
8th day- don't remember!
9th day- nine delicious cookies and some mint melt aways for me!
10th day- a pack of 10 sheets of "build your own monster" stickers
11th day- 11 chocolate presents
12th day- 12 homemade caramels and a calendar.

We found out, by accident, who did the 12 days of Christmas for us when, coming home Christmas Eve night, we saw the person on our doorstep. It's a sweet family who lives just a couple of houses down from us. When I asked this person, and earlier her mom, if they were my Christmas Angel, the reply was "I don't know what you're talking about". I told her how much it meant to our family this year and how sweet it was. I'm so grateful for the neighborhood we live in and the quality of people we get to associate with on a daily basis.

Ideas for Christmas presents?

As Jeff told me once, I'm not a creative person, I'm logical! Anyhow, I need some help and wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Nathan Zach have made Christmas presents for their Grandma's and Grandpa's in the past, and I just can't think of what to do this year. In the past, we've made, or painted, picture frames. I'd kind of like to do something else this year and wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Nathan loves to create things and it's been a fun tradition for us. Right now he's creating astronauts, but I'm not sure if that will be a Christmas present. PLEASE let me know if you have any cute ideas. Thanks!

I will post a real article soon, but I'm trying to get caught up from Thanksgiving, decorating for Christmas, and Christmas shopping. Maybe I'll get caught up one day. One cute thing though, Zach likes to postpone bedtime as long as possible. The other day, he was laying on the couch when I told him, for the 5th time, that we were going to get pj's on for bedtime. He told me, "sleep on the couch". In case you were wondering, he slept in his bed.

My thoughtful little boy

Nathan can be a very rambunctious little 4 year old, but he can also be a very sweet little boy. If he ever thinks I'm sad, he'll come up and give me a hug and a kiss to make me feel better. It's very sweet. Yesterday in church, a girl in our ward sang a solo. I wasn't even sure if he was listening, but at the end of the song, Nathan turned to me and said, that was beautiful. We ran into the girl at the end of church and he told her that her song was beautiful. On Halloween, we went trick or treating in the neighborhood and at one of the houses, the mom opened the door and she was dressed for Halloween in a pink dress. Nathan, all on his own, told her that she looked beautiful. She was touched, and so was I. He can be a very crazy boy, but he can also be very thoughtful and sweet.

Zach can also be sweet, and crazy. He likes to prolong bedtime by asking if he can give everyone a hug and a kiss, even though we've already done them. I can't even count the times he's been in bed, and asked to give Daddy a kiss. He's a silly goose.

Potty training

So, we thought potty training Zach would be easy. It's been easier than Nathan, but definitely not easy. A month or so ago, he hated having a wet diaper and was very interested in being potty trained. However, we had a vacation planned and had heard that you're not supposed to do any potty training within six weeks of a big event. So, I waited, and I think I wish I didn't.

Anyhow, we started on Wednesday and at first Zach didn't even want to put on underwear. We slowly worked our way into it and had lots of accidents. However, we persisted. That continued through Thursday and Friday and I had thoughts that we should maybe hold off for a little longer. However, we persisted. I think we were starting to making a little bit of a breakthrough Friday, but not much. However, Saturday was much better!!! We're still not the point where I'd say he's potty trained, but he's done much better. I am cheating and still putting him in a diaper at night because I just don't think he's ready for that yet. However, this is still really big news for us. We'll see how this next week goes, but I feel we've come along way. Ok, so this may not be very exciting for other people, but it is for us!!!!

Whining

Sorry. I'm whining. My tailbone really hurts and I need to vent for a moment. It usually doesn't bother me that much unless it's a day I've done a lot of sitting, especially at the computer. Even with that, I can usually change positions, at times even sitting cross-legged on my chair. Right now it's driving me crazy, even with changing positions. My tailbone was broken when Zach was born two years ago and I will thoroughly enjoy telling him, when he gets to be a teenager and/or adult, that he can literally be a pain in my behind! Ok, enough venting and time to be productive.

First talk

Nathan is a Sunbeam and he got to give his first talk in Primary yesterday and he did an awesome job. We sat down together this week and discussed the theme of his talk, "I am thankful that we are all children of God". We talked about what it means to be a child of God, and why we are thankful that everyone is. I helped him with this talk, but he was the one that put most of it together. He wasn't nervous and did an awesome job. He even said parts of it without help. We were very proud of him and he did a very good job. This past year, he had already had the opportunity to give the prayer and article of faith as part of sharing time with Primary and he hasn't been nervous with either part. He has had moments in the past with people where he has been shy, but he's done great with presentations in Primary. I was VERY shy as a child (and still can be) and I'm so proud of how well he's done.

As a side note, Zach just cracks me up. The things he says and does at times just make me laugh. Apparently he doesn't like my cooking, or just likes sweet things, but it can be a fight to get him to eat his dinner. the other day, we had a baked potato as part of dinner and he did not want it. I was finally able to get him to eat some of it, but he had to have multiple drinks of water with it. Then, after I thought he was finished, he ran around with his mouth full of potatoes for the next five minutes. He did finally finish it. I'm hoping my cooking isn't that bad, because the next day he did the same thing with either a drink of water or apple juice! He's a funny boy and I just have to shake my head sometimes.

Counting to ten

Ok, so one of my "parenting methods" is counting to ten to provide them some kind of a warning that something needs to be done, or that we need to be done doing something by the time I reach ten. It's worked pretty well for us, or at least I think so. So, I remember being amazed at how early Nathan could count to ten. So, Zach has been a stinker about going to bed and wants to push back bedtime as late as he can. We have a rocking chair in his room and he really likes to rock at night. I like him to fall asleep in his bed, so we usually have a limit as to how long he can rock before bedtime. He's asked for the "duck book" lately, which I have memorized and can recite while we're rocking. For the last couple nights, we've skipped the duck book and just counted to ten. Tonight, I was amazed because he counted with me. The only number he missed was 6. He jumped to 7, so six must not be a very important number. Anyhow, he just turned two in August and he can almost count to ten on his own. I was pretty impressed.
Nathan also impressed me today. He went to preschool today and told me about all the things he learned. He also told Jeff at bedtime. He talked about cornucopia's, and he pronounced it without a problem, and also told us all about octopus. Jeff was really impressed that Nathan said octopus have eight legs, just like spiders do. We've loved Nathan's preschool and he's had a great time with it. We also talked about germs, and about how we can see them with microscopes. He was really excited about microscopes and we looked online to learn about them. Apparently we didn't look long enough because he asked that we keep looking. I was pretty impressed.

Halloween

So, I've finally got my Halloween pictures downloaded, and I thought I'd share. Nathan was "the hidden face guy". We looked and looked for a Halloween costume, and found this one. I wasn't thrilled about it because I couldn't see his face, but he was really excited about it. Zach was a frog. We had a couple different costumes for him, but he didn't want to wear any of them when we tried them on before Halloween. I thought he'd be a fireman, but his friend's older brother asked him the day before Halloween what he wanted to be and he told him a frog. That was a surprise to me.





The boys had a lot of fun trick or treating. Zach was very excited to get candy. We went to Aunt Britney Aunt Bre, and Disneyland Grandpa's work for trick-or-treating in the afternoon. There was a decorating contest and the boys thought it was great. When we got home, we also did the houses in our neighborhood with Ty and Meg, who my boys just adore. They had a lot of fun, but they were all pretty exhausted by the end of the night.



Here's a picture of all three of my boys. Jeff decided to dress up as well. Both of the boys were not sure about Jeff's costume, and Zach in particular didn't like it. The mask didn't last for very long

Zach has been really funny about his treats. I'm a mean mom and will only let them have so many at a time, so we still have some candy left. Zach's come up to me a couple of times and said "Mom, I need candy". It's made me laugh.

Hubby tag

1. He's sitting in front of the TV; what is on the screen?
Unfortunately, Simpsons
2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad?
Ranch
3. What's one food he doesn't like?
Tomatoes. Beets are even worse, but they've been banned from our house
4. You go to a restaurant. What drink does he order?
Pepsi
5. Where did he go to high school?
Pleasant Grove High School
6. What size shoe does he wear?
10 1/2
7. If he was to collect anything what would it be?
If price wasn't an option, toys. I.e. 4-wheelers, boats, jet skis, etc, etc.
8. What is his favorite kind of sandwich?
depends, if it's subway, roasted chicken breast. Otherwise, ham, cold turkey, etc.
9. What would this person eat every day if he could?
ice cream
10. What is his favorite cereal?
Nature's grain
11. What would he never wear?
Skinny jeans
12. What is his favorite sports team?
doesn't have one, would rather play than watch.
13. Who will he vote for?
McCain, though he's not thrilled with either
14. Who is his best friend?
me. Other than me, his siblings.
15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do?
Watch Simpsons
16. How many states has he lived in?
1 state, and Brazil for two years
17. What is his heritage?
He doesn't have a clue, but I think it's English
18. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake?
Either cheesecake or 4 layer cake (bottom layer is cake, 2nd layer is cream cheese, whipped cream and powdered sugar, 3rd layer is pudding, 4th layer is a mixture of pudding and whipped cream- not healthy, but very good).
19. Did he play sports in high school?
No
20. What could he spend hours doing?
Playing, 4 wheeling, boating (if we had one), etc.

I'll tag whoever wants to do it. I thought it was kind of fun

Picture tag

Here are the rules:
1. Go to your pictures
2. Upload the fourth picture from the fourth file
3. Post
4. Tag four friends


This is a picture of Jeff's sister, BreAnn, and Jeff's mom. Bre got married in May and Jeff did her Bridal pictures. This is a shot of getting ready for the photos.



Because Bre is just adorable, I've also attached a more "formal" bridal picture. I don't think this is one of Bre's favorites, but I like it. It's one of A LOT of photos. I tag Brit, Bre, Nicol, Merf, and anyone else who actually reads this and wants to do it.

Record turnout

I really want to download vacation pictures, but I'm still waiting to get my card reader back, so I'll talk about recent events instead.
So, as you all know, election day was yesterday. I go to work on Tuesdays, so I thought I'd show up first thing in the morning so I could get to work on time. I left my house at 6:45 am to go to the grade school down the street to vote. I got in line at 6:50 a.m. at the latest. There was an amazing turnout, even before the polls opened. The line was so long, they had the line go through the school and rap around multiple hallways. After the polls opened, they sent the line outside. I'm a horrible gauge of numbers, but I'd say there were at the very least 50-75 people in line in front of me, and by about 7:20 am, there were probably 150+ people behind me. Like I said, my estimates are probably way off, but there were a LOT of people there. I've never seen anything quite like it. I asked other people in line and they said they had never seen anything quite like it as well. It was a big election year with the presidential election, among other things. I'm so grateful for the right to vote, even though I had about an hour wait in order to do it! I'm so grateful to live in a free country where we have so many rights and are able to elect leaders. Now let's hope that those leaders make wise decisions and choices and will lead us in the right direction.....

Grandparents

Growing up, I never really had grandparents. My Mom's dad died when she was 8, my Dad's mom died when he was 11, my Dad's dad died before I was born, and My Mom's mom died when I was about 2. Most of my Mom's family lives in Utah and she had a couple of Aunts that were kind of my "adopted grandparents", but it wasn't really the same. In grade school, they celebrated Grandparents Day on occasion and it just broke my heart. My mom let us sluff school that day so we didn't have to deal with Grandparents Day. Sad stuff.

The first official grandparent I've ever had was Jeff's Grandma, who is now in her 90's. She is one of the absolute sweetest ladies I have ever met and she has meant the world to me. I have been so blessed to be able to call her Grandma. She's in a nursing home right now to heal from a broken bone in her pelvis and hopefully she'll be home by Thanksgiving or Christmas. We saw her briefly last night and she is such a sweetheart. My boys just love and adore her and love to go to her house. We hope she makes a really quick recovery.

Here is a picture of Grandma taken this summer:



Due to my lack of grandparents growing up, I've threatened both my parents as well as Jeff's parents that they have to be around for a long, long time. If not, they'll be in serious trouble. I have been really blessed that both Nathan and Zach have been able to get to know their Grandparents. When Nathan was about 3, we nicknamed grandparents to keep them straight. Jeff's parents are now Disneyland Grandpa and Grandma (because right after Nathan turned 3 we went to Disneyland with them). My parents are Silly Grandma and Grandpa (I don't think they're too thrilled with the name) and Jeff's Grandma is Super Grandma. We've tried to change the names to things like Grandma Liz, but Nathan has been stubborn and hasn't wanted to change the names as of yet.

Anyhow, my boys just love their Grandparents and I've been so grateful that we live close by so they can spend time with them. Both Nathan and Zach get so excited to spend time with their grandparents. Nathan, on occasion, has asked me if he could stay at Grandma and Grandpa's without me. It may be because Grandma (especially Silly Grandma) tends to give them goodies and they could get more without Mom around. I love and adore my parents and I am so grateful for all that they do for me and my family. I also love and adore Jeff's parents and am so thrilled that I get to be a part of their lives.

I'm sure she'll love this, but here is Jeff's fun loving mom on her son's four-wheeler:



Here's a recent picture of my parents:



And here's a picture of Jeff's parents this summer at their daughter's wedding:

Nathan's prayers

Ok, so I know this isn't a very exciting blog, but it's something I want to remember.
As mentioned before, we try to always do prayers as part of our nightly routine for bedtime. Nathan will say his own prayer and, though we have blessed the food a few times at bedtime, he has put a lot of thought into his prayers. for the past 3-4 weeks, I have heard Nathan says in his prayers that "Please bless Jesus that he will come back to the Earth soon" or something along that line. We've talked about the Second Coming a few times before, but we haven't really talked about it recently. I asked Nathan's Primary teacher, and she said she doesn't think they've talked about it in their Primary class (he's only in Sunbeams). I've been in Sharing Time with him because I'm in Primary and I don't think it's been discussed there recently either. It just makes me wonder if he knows something I don't....

Zion's this summer

I was going through pictures from my camera and came across these from our family reunion this past summer at Zion's National Park:

(Jeff and Nathan hiking the Narrows)

(Nathan and Zach enjoying the Narrows)

(Zach loved the water coming off the rocks)

(The boys showing off their sticker books from Grandma)

Updated family picture

Ok, so there's the latest family picture:

And the whole family:

Blessings and Challenges

I've thought about this post for a while. I know I have been blessed in so many ways. I have a wonderful family, with cute adorable little boys and a wonderful husband. I've been blessed to have a roof over my head and food in my cupboards. I've been blessed to have the gospel in my life and have the knowledge of my Heavenly Father and Savior's love for me. There are times where I am amazed at how blessed I am.

I'm also dealing with some challenges right now. Trying to work while being a mom of too little boys has been a blessing and a challenge. I have an amazing situation where I get to work from home and usually set my own hours. I go into work just on Tuesdays (which are very, very long days), but other than that I'm home. I feel so blessed that I get to be home with my children and experience their youth and watch them grow. I get to be with them for all, but that one day a week. I think it's been a good experience for them, where they get to play with their best friend. I know I've got an amazing situation. However, it has been a challenge for me. Trying to juggle everything has been really hard. There are times where I get so jealous of the other young mom's who don't have to work. Who can sleep in, who don't have the same pressures, and don't have to juggle. Based on what's going on with work, there are times where I have worked into the early hours of the morning, or woken up very early to try to get a project done. However, I know I have an amazing situation and I truly have been blessed. I have to remind myself at times how lucky I am. Thankfully, I'm only working part-time (for the most part). I also know that there are so many people who are dealing with so many more challenges than I am. I also have an amazing job, with an amazing boss, and staff that are wonderful to work with my crazy schedule. With how crazy the economy has been, I'm grateful to have steady employment. I know the challenges that we do face are individualized and meant to develop in us the characters we need in order to live with our Heavenly Father again. However, there are some days that are just hard.

With all that said, I know that I truly have been blessed and I feel grateful for all that I have. My boys (Jeff, Nathan and Zach) are wonderful and I don't know how I deserve them. It's been a joy to spend my life with them.

Memories

So, Jeff reminded me of this story the other day. When Nathan was probably about one and a half or two years old, he was eating spaghetti for dinner. While eating, he sneezed. A little while later, he kept rubbing his nose as if it were bothering him. He kept doing it and it seemed to really bother him. I looked at his nose and it seemed like he had something in one of his nostrils. It kept bothering him, so I tried to figure out what was going on. It looked like he had something in his nose, but we figured he just had stuffy nose. I tried to get a tissue to get it out and it didn't seem to work. He was too young to blow his nose, and so we kept working on getting it out with a tissue. I think I finally had to pry it out (which was really gross) and it turned out it was a noodle that got stuck in his nose. It was probably at least 3-4 inches long, which would really bother me too! Anyhow, it was all really gross, but it's a story that I want to remember for when Nathan starts dating (hee hee hee).

Story Time

As I listed in my first post, I'm trying to use this blog as more of a journal to remember life with my two little boys. I hope this blog isn't too boring, but it's been a great thing for me.

Ok, so we have our bedtime ritual that we try to do every night, though we don't always do it because life can get busy. We try to do read books before bedtime. We've done this since Nathan was a baby. Right now, the bookshelf is in Nathan's room and, when I tell the boys it's story time, they run into Nathan's room and pick out a handful of books. The usual routine is stories, scriptures, prayer, hugs and kisses, and then bedtime.

Right now, Zach's favorite book is "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear". It's a very cute children's book. He'll run into Nathan's room and pick it out. Last night, we had a fight because Nathan had the Strawberry book first and Zach wanted it for bedtime. Anyhow, Zach will kind of "read" along with the story. There have been quite a few days that he'll point to the strawberry and say "big strawberry" on each of the pages as well. Since he's still learning to talk, it's pretty adorable.

Nathan has lots of favorite stories and just loves to read. There are quite a few books that he can quote word for word. He has a book he got from his Uncle Jason called "I'm Dirty" about a backhoe loader cleaning up a lot that he loves to read. It's really cute listening to him quote the book.

I've always loved to read and I hope my children will always have love of books as well. It's been a lot of fun watching my family all sit next to Nathan's bed and watch the boy's faces light up as we're reading a story. One of the joys of family life.

Family pictures

Nathan and Zach
Nathan
Zach sticking his tongue out
My immediate family (all of those boys!)

Jacob, Dad, Mom, Me, Jason, and in the front Chris and Shawn

Jeff took the pictures and I'm still waiting for him to finish the rest, but I thought these were cute and I've been wanting to post pictures. Hopefully Jeff will get the rest done soon we can have an updated family picture.

Nathan's a sponge

So, I think I need to watch what I say around Nathan because he seems to listen to everything I say. Ok, so that's not true. It seems when I ask him to do something there are a lot of times he doesn't listen, which can be very frustrating. Anyhow, We were at the grocery store yesterday and apparently I was complaining to my self about how the prices keep going up. I said something to Nathan about how I was sad, and I think I asked him why I was sad. He told me, "It's because the prices keep going up, up, up!" So I guess I really have to watch what I say around him!

I should have already learned my lesson because, I few months ago, we were at the bank, going through the drive-thru. I usually go about once a week, and I'll just tell them my account number if no one else is around. We had been to the bank and were going to a store, when Nathan, out of the blue, rattled off my seven digit account number and said "Mom, is it cool that I know that number?". I told that it was cool, but then we tried to learn our phone number right then instead. There have been a couple other instances were we've gone to the bank and Nathan will tell me my account number out of the blue.

I really think Nathan has a good memory. There are multiple books that he'll "read" because we've read them so much he has them memorized. He's also memorized some of the articles of faith, when he's done it over just a couple of days. I just need to learn what I say around him because, apparently, he's always listening!

Croup

So, I've heard about croup before, but I've never had to deal with it. Jeff was on a trip a couple of weeks ago and things went pretty smoothly for the most part. Zach started to get a little sick, where he sounded more hoarse than anything, but not bad. The Sunday Jeff was coming back, I felt miserable and laid around the house all day. Zach seemed to feel sick, but nothing really bad. By the end of the day, I started feeling a little better but Zach seemed to get worse. Jeff was going to be home around 8:30 pm, so I let the boys stay up a little late to see their dad before they went to bed. About 1/2 hour before Jeff got home, Zach started sounding worse and worse. He started to wheeze more when he was breathing and seemed to have a hard time. Right before Jeff got home, he sounded even worse and I've never been so happy to have Jeff home. He and his dad gave Zach a blessing and we put him right to bed. I still felt under the weather, so I went to bed a little early that night as well. Zach had a really hard time sleeping and woke up having a hard time breathing. He was hoarse and wheezing when he was breathing. He seemed to get worse through the night. He ended up sleeping in bed with us, but woke up quite a bit. I had a humidifier going, and when he was awake I would take him into the bathroom to do baths/steam or we would occasionally go outside to see if the cool air would help. At about 2:30 a.m. I watched him while he was in the bathtub, searching the phone book to see if there was any Instacare place opened in the middle of the night. We went back to bed where I lay awake listening to him breath. I was so terrified that he would get worse, I lay awake listening to him breath. I kept thinking that I would rush him to the ER if he got any worse. Finally, at 6:30 a.m. I left in the car, hoping that he would sleep better sitting up. We drove around, and I was certain that there would be at least one Instacare place that would open at 7:00 a.m. By the way, most Instacare's don't open until 8:30 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. Anyhow, we headed back home after a drive and Zach's breathing was doing a little better. I called the doctor's office right at 8:00 a.m. and got their earliest appointment, at 8:40 a.m. Zach was breathing better, though pretty tired. When the doctor saw him, he said it was croup (which I had expected) and he said we would need to do a nebulizer treatment in the office as soon as possible and, if Zach wasn't doing any better, we would need to head over to the hospital immediately. The nurse came in a couple of minutes later and did the nebulizer treatment, which helped quite a bit. We then got 3 prescriptions and went home to get him into bed. He took a nap for about 7 hours that day. Thankfully, he started doing much better. He was pretty wheezy that night and we headed back over to the doctor's office before bedtime for another nebulizer treatment. He was a pretty happy kid, and seemed to be back to his normal self. Zach ended up going to the doctor's one last time, where they gave him a stronger prescription since he was still wheezing a bit. It was all pretty frightening.
After Zach was on the road to recovery, Nathan got hit with the same thing. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bad. The first night he woke up with croup, he had a look of terror in his eyes because he was having a hard time breathing. He was, as he put it, freaking out. Thankfully I knew what to do and we broke his first croup attack pretty fast. It was also a lot easier with him than with Zach because I could reason with him that crying was only making it harder for him. Once we got him calmed down, he did much better. The next morning, he told me that he was scared when he woke up because he was only half breathing. He started to do better and he put the humidifier in his room. However, two nights later he woke up with another croup attack. It wasn't nearly as bad and we got it under control pretty fast. We got prescriptions called in for Nathan as well, and he did much better after that. Very scary. Thankfully, we'll all recovered by now and I hope we don't have to go through that again. I don't see how people can find the strength to deal with children with terminal illnesses. I feel so blessed that we've, for the most part, been healthy and not had to deal with very much. I just hope it stays that way in the future!

Zach's vocabulary

So, my boy's amaze me on a constant basis. The things they said and the thoughts they come up with just blow me away. Zach's vocabulary has really grown lately and he's saying new things every day. It's a lot of fum watching him learn how to communicate. He'll still point to things he wants at times, and he also takes me by the hand and leads me to where he wants to go, but he's also starting to talk more and more. I asked him the other day if his dinner was yummy, and he said yes. A minute later he asked me "Yummy, Mommy? Yummy Mommy?". He also bonked me or stepped on me the other day and, right after he did, he said sorry and then asked "You ok Mommy? This is such a fun age as he's learning to do things more and more on his own and learning how to communicate better. Zach was pretty sick yesterday and today. He was wake from 1:00-2:00 am, trying to get him taken care of. We were in my room, in front of the t.v., and he pointed to the t.v. and said very clearly, "Thomas?", meaning Thomas the Tank Engine since he loves trains. I don't think I've heard him say that before so I was pretty impressed.
As a side note, Nathan just amazes me constantly. The things he thinks about and says just blow me away. I think he's a smart kid. He also loves to build things. He'll build the most amazing things with his Kinex and Legos. It'll be interesting to see what he'll end up doing for a living.
One last thing, Jeff has been gone to Louisiana for Britney's open house out there. He's been gone for trips before, but I think I've missed him more on this trip than ever before. As I watched him drive away on Thursday, I had a really hard time watching him go. The boys have missed him and asked about him. Nathan knew that he would be gone, and so he hasn't asked as much, since he knew what to expect. Zach's asked about him a lot. He's coming back tonight and I think we're all really excited to have him home.

Nathan's Family Plan

Ok, so back in January, right after Nathan turned 4, he started asking questions about babies, including where babies come from, etc. He asked me if we were ever going to have another baby at our house since Zach is getting big. I told him we probably would, but it wouldn't be for a while longer. I asked him if it would be ok with him if we had another baby at our house. He said yes, and that it would be a girl, and that she would be so cute!. Since then, he's randomly mentioned that we're going to have a baby girl. This has continued, with no prompting from me, for the last few months.

So, the latest addition to this story is that we were in the truck on Wednesday, heading to soccer practice, when he mentioned something about then there will be six people in our family. I asked him about it, and he said after we had a baby girl we would have six in our family. I told him that oinly makes five, and then he said, we're going to have two baby girls. This was new and I told him I didn't know about that! He also said that he decided on a good name for his baby sister. Since he had two friends named Jake, we should name his baby sister Jake as well, that way he'd have three friends name Jake. I told him that Jake is a boy name, so he decided to name her Alisa instead. I asked him if it was Allysa (since he has a friend named that), and he said that, no, it was Alisa. As a side note, I'm not pregnant. I just thought I'd detail Nathan's plans for our family before I forgot about them. So, we'll have to see what happens down the road.

The beginning

Ok, so I've thought about a blog for a little while and we'll see how things go. My plan is to use this more as a journal to catch the things my boys do while they're growing up. I'm horrible about writing in a journal, so hopefully this will be a better option, and others can laugh at my family's antics as they grow up. For example, Nathan was hilarious today. He was extremely polite this afternoon. I mean, he's usually polite, but his was more so than usual. We went to dinner at Sizzler and he was so excited to go and get chicken nuggets. He was very willing to share with Zach and was just a sweetheart.

Zach was really funny too. He started to say a lot more than usual and is excited with his expanded vocabulary. He kept pointing at the lights and telling me about them. I got some watermelon for him and I would cut the slice so it was smaller and more manageable for him. He had already had two small slices and I was about to cut a third one for him, when he yelled at me and said "don't cut", or at least that's what we think he said. It was hilarious.

Ok, finally the cute thing for the night is we did our normal bedtime routine and did stories, scriptures, prayers, and then hugs and kisses. Nathan usually gives Jeff a hug and a kiss first, but this time he did me first since Jeff had left the room. After he went to give Jeff hugs and kisses, he came back and told me that, since Dad needed to be first, he wiped off my kiss, but now that Dad had one I could give him one. Funny funny boy. At bedtime, Zach wanted nothing to do with Jeff putting him into his crib, and demanded I do it. He was fine with Jeff doing everything else, other than actually putting him in his bed. Hilarious.

Ok, so that's enough for now. I'm hopeful to be good about keeping up with their antics and hope you enjoy it as well.