nate’s on a mountain & we’ve got ryan all to ourselves.

We’re headed to the cabin tomorrow afternoon for Memorial Day weekend.  My parents & Sam drove up today & were extremely generous in letting Nate join them.  As my mom would say - “Nate is a born mountain man” and doesn’t think twice leaving his parents behind for the mountain.  Sam has to come home on Saturday to be a nurse on Sunday so she drove her own car up and Nate watched movies in her back seat.  Sam – you impressed me today.  You’re an awesome aunt but I never thought you’d be up for a road trip with just Nate!  I’m sure he loved it.  Especially because you stalked his cup holder with Skittles.

So since about noon today, I’ve only had Ryan.  What a TREAT!   Ryan is such a good little dude when Nate isn’t around.   We even went on a massive returns outing [the pile was getting large and needed to be taken care of ]  and he was soooo much better than usual!   And he loves ruling the roost at home.  He’s so happy and content when he can just roam the place and do whatever he wants without a big brother in the way.  [They do play together well sometimes . . . ].  It was refreshing to have a happy Ryan because a lot of the time he’s whining and crying & he’s been an un-happy camper for a while.  We had a great afternoon and I loved being able to shower Ryan with my undivided attention like Nate was able to have at his age.

he has this look of “look mom . . . i’m doing something i should be doing – like eating the hose!'”

 

saying hi to the neighbors.

apparently his clothes needed to be washed in the pool.

  

After a few hours in a stroller this afternoon – I put some water in the pool and Ryan was in heaven.  I sure do love this not-so-little boy of mine.

i’m not the freezing kind . . .

I buy frozen items but I’m not one to freeze things that I’ve made.  I don’t make extra batches of anything just to freeze it.  Wes & I have never loved food out of the freezer.

But my friend Brityn is a freezing whiz.  So I’m trying a few things just to see.  Plus, I’m in “food storage / organize my pantry” mode. 

First up?

Frozen strawberries.  We LOVE smoothies & we’ve been making them a TON lately.  Which is great right now because there’s a plethora of fresh fruit options.  But come the fall – there won’t be & frozen fruit is a little pricy sometimes.  So when we saw that strawberries were on sale for $1 a lb. at VONS we checked them out and they were FABULOUS!  So, I bought 10 pounds and added a little “fruit fresh” and they’re now frozen in my freezer for the minute strawberries aren’t in season anymore.

And as long as we don’t lose our power one day – we’ll have a food storage fruit stash in our outside freezer that didn’t cost a whole lot.

 

Next on the list?  To freeze delicious summer corn and raspberries!

OH, and since I hardly EVER turn on my oven in our excruciatingly hot summers – I’m making batches of muffins and freezing them so we can have smoothies and muffins throughout the summer without turning on the oven!

I owe ya, Brityn.  This is kinda fun.

[nate loved EATING the strawberries!]

I knew Ryan would be my first child to end up in the ER.

or Urgent Care in our case.

But first things first about TODAY.

It was NATE’s last day of preschool this year!  I can’t believe an entire school year has gone by.

Miss Monaca had a “last day of school” party today that Nate’s been pretty excited about.  The moms were invited for the last half for the piñata and lunch.  Nate thought it was so cool that Ryan and I got to come to his school.

 

 

Nate has loved school this year.  He has a passion for learning and I love that he’s had such a great experience.  I love dropping him off every Tuesday/Thursday to see him so excited jumping out of the car, throwing on his backpack, and running to the door.  Two of his favorite buddies were with him – Hadley & Harrison – and he made friends with everyone else in his class.  They were all such a cute group of 3 year olds. 

Now on for the dramatic part of my day involving MR. RYAN.

After pre-school drop off, Alex & I went over to Kiley’s to kill a little bit of time before we got to go to school for the party.  It was a potluck lunch so we were finishing up chopping a few things and just hanging out.  I had a pretty good eye on Ryan so he wouldn’t attack baby Grayson or baby Henry . . . but instead of attacking them he decided to climb on to a kitchen chair and then FALL off of it in a matter of 3 seconds.

He immediately started crying so I picked him up and he rested his head on my shoulder and screamed.  Finally he lifted up his head and that’s when I saw all of the blood.  I immediately called for reinforcements!  Alex & Kiley were on top of it and came up with lots of solutions to calm him down and figure out what the problem was.  His tooth had gone almost all the way through his lip.  There was a good gash out of his little lip that was really swollen and inflamed – a total fat lip with a chunk missing.  As soon as Ryan got a little cup of crushed ice to suck on – he totally calmed down and was such a trooper.  Seriously – he wins an award for his performance today.

I never know when something is bad enough to see a doctor over so we called a med-school friend and he recommended that we go get it checked out just in case.  Probably for the best anyway so I wouldn’t spend the rest of the day/night [Wes is out of town, btw] wondering if he needed stitches!  Nate was so excited for us to come to his party and Ryan was calmed down so we went to the party to celebrate.

And then my awesome friends came to the rescue, again.

Alex took Nate with her to her house.  Megan took both of Kiley’s kids.  And Kiley came with me.  We went to the ER first – only to realize that in all of the commotion my purse was still at Kiley’s.  On our way back to Kiley’s I called our insurance and it was a much better financial decision to go to the Urgent Care next to the hospital so we went there.  Got back to triage rather quickly & the nurse was pretty certain he was going to need stitches so they told us we had to wait for the procedure room to open up.   We waited for a very long time.  I was very glad Kiley was there . . . we rotated following Ryan around the entire bottom floor of the building while the other one sat in the waiting room in case our name was called. 

After hours of being there we finally saw the doctor and after all of that he decided NO STITCHES!  What?!?  He said that Ryan’s little mouth will heal as long as I keep it clean.  He said it would be quite traumatic to give him 1-2 stitches on the inside of his mouth when it wasn’t absolutely necessary so he basically just sent us on our way with some instructions.  I was glad my little guy avoided the stitches but after all of that to leave with nothing?  At least we left without any tears, too.

He’s doing just fine.  He enjoyed a delicious bowl of Aunt Ali’s chicken noodle soup [aren’t sisters great?  coming to the rescue after a long day with a homemade meal].  It’s amazing how much better his mouth looked by the time I put him to bed.  It was started to scab, swelling had gone down & he was still acting normal.

The doctor warned me that I’d have many more Urgent Care visits in my time as a mama.  Lets just hope the next one isn’t for a long while.  But I’m pretty sure it will still be for crazy Ryan.

[thanks to ALL who helped today – I appreciate it!]

HELLO summer.

I love summer.  I’ll admit, I could do without the 115 degree variety but I still love everything about it.  [Well, everything except for running errands].

Summer vacations.  Swimming.  Popsicles.  Fresh fruit.  BBQ’s.  Corn on the cob. Splash Pads.

It all started this week.

Thanks to Wes, the Griffeth boys went swimming for the first time this year and they loved it.  We’re going to try to get Nate out of his swim vest soon and swimming for real.  He’s close. He’s an absolute fish.

Ryan is an absolute water animal.  Seriously.  He’s crazy!  He wants to do it all by himself.  He’s fine going under water.  He wants to run around the deck like his brother and climb on the waterfall.  It’s a little scary, actually!   He was kicking his legs like Nate for a solid 10 minutes and loved every minute of it.  I’m hoping this will wear him out this summer!

 

We’ve consumed insane amounts of fruit – we love our options these days. In the last 6 days – my little family consumed:

a watermelon.  a pineapple.  a costco size container of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries & grapes.  A group of bananas.  A bag of oranges. Mango.  Pears.  and Apples.  Talk about DELICIOUS.

Here’s to a happy summer.

[20 more days till summer vacation #1].

Disneyland 2011

Years and years ago I went with Wes’ family to Disneyland on a weekday in May.  And the place was empty.  I’ve always wanted to go back “in the middle of the week in May.”  And the stars aligned.  Not only did we get to go but it was the cheapest trip to Disneyland I think we’ll ever have.  FREE and really good discounts kept landing in our lap for gas/hotel/Disney tickets. 

I think it was just meant to be.  We all needed a day of pure fun.  Even though my sisters and I all live within 5 minutes of each other – we don’t see each other all that often so it was fun to spend 48 hours with them.

So – off to Disneyland we went.  I made Disney Road Trip bags for the kids for the drive. 

On the way down, we stopped in Ontario for a little mini-golf at Scandia.  It was Nate’s first time golfing.  I’m just glad that we all escaped without being whacked by Nate’s golf club.

And then we spent a full day at the Happiest Place on Earth.  I’m pretty sure these three [or all six of us, for that matter] were the Happiest People on Earth that day.  We heart Disneyland.

 

 

We all love It’s a Small World.

However, the Matterhorn and Thunder Mountain were not a favorite of the little ones.  Nate’s fear of the dark kicked in this trip to Disneyland.  He was absolutely terrified of Pirates of the Caribbean!  Apparently he prefers “Jake and the Never land Pirates” on the Disney Channel over Captain Jack Sparrow.

But the rest of the rides were a big hit.  Nate says his favorites were Alice & Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh & Buzz.

 

 

Treats at Disneyland are some of our favorite parts of the day: churros, frozen bananas, pineapple whip, corn dogs, popcorn, Hunny Pot Caramel Apple, Tigger Tails, etc.

We also got to meet a fair amount of Disney friends.  Nate lucked out and found Abbie and Daisy just as they were about to meet the Princesses so he got to meet them, too.

Each kid got to leave with a favorite Disney doll / toy.

          

It was a quick trip but it was full of laughs, churros, frozen bananas, lots of rides, smiles, hunny pot apples, tigger tails, Disney magic & cousin/sister fun. 

As Abbie would say . . . “Disney – we love your land.”

We drove home after a day at the Magic Kingdom.  Luckily these three kiddos slept while Ali/Sam/I got to chat with peace and quiet all the way home.

Ali / Sam: How does Disneyland in the middle of the week of May 2012 sound? :) 

And while we were away, I’m pretty sure Ryan absolutely loved ruling both our house and Grandma/Grandpa Marz’ house.  He loves his moments to just play without a certain older brother around!

i heart moms

I had a great day yesterday.  I got to sleep in a little bit & then 3 Griffeth boys came in with breakfast in bed.  Nate thought it was the coolest thing to bring me breakfast and surprises in the morning.

I love being a mom.  It’s still amazing that these two rugrats are MINE.  What an amazing responsibility it is to raise these two little boys.  Luckily I have a fabulous mom and a fabulous mother-in-law as great examples.

We had a delicious dinner at my parent’s house last night to celebrate.

Hooray to moms.  Hope you had a happy day, too.

life’s been crazy.

[please bare with my rambling . . . ]

I’m pretty sure I’ve never been this busy.  Or this “in charge” of so many things.

Don’t get me wrong – I like busy.

But crazy busy where I feel like I’m doing a lot but I’m doing a crappy job at all of it is not for me.

Work has been nuts.  It’s the first time since I’ve had Ryan where I got a brand spanking-new client on top of my two regulars.  New clients are always the most work because we end up re-doing everything for them and of course they want it done yesterday.  Still trying to figure out the “stay-at-home-working-mom-of-TWO-CRAZY-BOYS” thing.

I love my calling in Primary.  LOVE it.  I love being a secretary.  Not sure I’m any good at it.  Should the secretary really be asking for reminders?  Probably not.  But I get to serve with great ladies who help keep me on track.

These boys of mine?  Are fabulous and I love them to pieces.  But holy cow they are crazy!  Nate is a total boy in to pirates and swords and just wants to wrestle.  And Ryan is Mr. Mischievous and is quite the climber.  And quite the whiner/screamer.  Our house has turned in to a very loud one but these two make me smile.

And don’t even get me started on my house and my nasty car.  One of which is always a mess.

So you can imagine my excitement that TOMORROW we leave for Disneyland.  “We” meaning: my two sisters, my two nieces, and Nate and I.  Fingers are crossed that work catastrophes don’t arise for Ali or I so that we can both have a much needed break and a day of complete FUN.

We’re off – to the happiest place on earth.  And I’m stoked.