"i want some milk"

Every time Nate wakes up . . . he likes me to sit in the chair in his room and he sits on my lap as he looks at books. After a minute or two, he almost always looks up at me and squeezes his hand over and over signing to me that he wants milk. I ask him, "do you want some milk?" And he nods yes and gets a huge grin. He loves that he can communicate with me and I love it, too.

Don't think this happens with everything but it's nice that he can tell me a few things that he wants. And I love his pure excitement when I can get it for him.

Hooray for sign language.

Gator Volleyball

I went back to good ol' GVHS tonight to watch a volleyball game. My high school volleyball coach, Erin Hill, is still coaching there so I figured that was the easiest place to say hello. Plus, I love a good volleyball game.

When Nate & I first got there, we sat with a family friend who was there watching their daughter play. The entire guys soccer team was right next to us so it was quite loud. Nate didn't know what to think so for the first game, he sat quietly on my lap looking around. By the second game he figured it was a fun atmosphere and wanted to play, too so he was all over.

Being there brought back lots of volleyball memories. Coach Hill runs her high school team like a Division 1 college volleyball team. Which I loved. It meant if you weren't totally dedicated . . . you didn't make the team. Which is why I played volleyball for 10 months out of the year. You had to to be able to play at Green Valley. I loved my time on the court. It will always be one of my favorite memories. It was great to see Coach Hill ~ while I talk to her relatively often, I don't see her much so it was fun to chat and for her to meet Nate.


State Championships - Senior Year


I saw a number of people from my highschool days. Since Wes is out of town . . . Nate and I had a fun night out together! He definitely kept everyone around us entertained.

All three of us at home. 2 weekends in a row. It's a record.

It was nice to be at home with Wes and Nate again this weekend. Being home is especially nice after all of our September traveling.



We had a good mix of fun & being productive this weekend. For some reason, our master bedroom is always the last bedroom to get decorated in our house so we finally painted the master bed and bath on Friday and Saturday night after we put Nate to bed. Wes and I don't want to see a paint brush again for a long time but I'm glad it's done. We ended up copying Sam and painting our master bedroom the same color as hers . . . it's a brownish grey. On top of the painting, I went through our entire bathroom and cleaned out cupboards and drawers and got rid of a lot of stuff. It feels like a whole new room!

I got to spend Saturday afternoon at Anya's baby shower. She is a dear friend I've known since Kindergarten and after having two boys . . . she is going to have a little girl any day now! It was fun to see her get lots of PINK. Lately my obsession has been chocolate covered strawberries, grapes & peanut butter pretzels so that was my food contribution to the shower.



On Sunday afternoon we went to my parent's house to have Wes' birthday dinner two weeks early. It's the only weekend in October when we were all in town. My mom made him one of his favs . . . ribs! Before everyone got there, we spent some time outside with Nate. Notice the pants and the zip-up hoodie. That means it's NOT HOT here anymore. I love my parent's neighborhood. It's a one-of-a-kind in Las Vegas with grown trees and grass everywhere. Nate loves to walk down the street and play with everyone's grass and rocks!






Abbie was really cute tonight. She kept saying to Wes . . ."Happy Birthday, Wes. My birthday is next & then we can sing to me."



Happy early Birthday, babe!

22 facts

Here are a few random facts about Nate at 14 months:

1). When he has a poopy diaper, we ask him, "who is P.U."? And he either plugs his nose or sticks a finger up his nose.
2). Current favorite foods: guacamole, frozen gogurts & fresh squeezed orange juice. Not normal OJ. Only fresh squeezed. I have my mom to thank for that one!
3). He wants to throw his own dirty diapers away. He holds it & walks it over to the diaper genie and puts it in himself.
4). Loves animals. Especially doggies.
5). He's Sesame Street's #1 fan.
6). Walking like a champ. Still a tad bit wobbly at times but walking everywhere.
7). Loves other little kids.
8). We play peek-a-boo all day long.
9). He can tell you these sounds: a dog says woof, a cow says moo, a bear growls, a lion roars, an owl says "whoo whoo".
10). When you ask what a bunny does he tries to twitch his nose. And if you ask what an iguana does, he sticks his tongue in and out.
11). He knows where his: eyes, nose, ears, hair, fingers, "beep-beep", toes & mouth are.
12). He's got manners - signing please and thank you all the time.
13). He loves it when we're "gonna get him". Wes and I always chase him around and he runs or crawls really fast to get away from us as he's screaming. He LOVES it.
14). Obsessed with drinking. He always wants other people's drinks . . . especially if a straw is involved.
15). He notices when things are new right away. If I re-decorate something, he knows. If we paint a wall, he knows. It cracks me up at how observant they are.
16). He loves music. Loves it. Loves it. Will clap and dance or just sit mesmerized as he listens. He even did a little break dancing at Aunt Sam's last week.
17). His teeth are mighty clean because he loves to brush them.
18). He's had a bath every day of his life. He loves it and I love the smell of a clean baby.
19). He's in bed for the night at 6:30pm.

20). He inherited the Marz "I love my blanky" gene.

21). He loves to be pushed around in his dump truck. Sometimes he even insists on sitting in it while he watches Elmo. The only problem with a dump truck is as soon as he moves one way, it dumps him out!

22). He's brave. He loves to fly high & go fast!

Escape, by Carolyn Jessop

I just finished reading this fabulous book about an amazing woman, Carolyn Jessop, and her escape from the FLDS church & her abusive life. I thought I knew a little bit about this religion but I didn't at all. I understood the polygamy portion of it, but the rest was pretty much all new to me. And to think that the actual act of having multiple wives is probably the least of your concerns when you find out what else goes on. I think this review says it all:

"Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS Church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. The story Carolyn Jessop tells is so weird and shocking that one hesitates to believe a sect like this, with 10,000 polygamous followers, could really exist in 21st-century America. But Jessop’s courageous, heart-wrenching account is absolutely factual. This riveting book reminds us that truth can indeed be much, much stranger than fiction."

The book made me so incredibly grateful for the life I was born in to. She has dealt with so much in her lifetime and is such a strong person to do what she has done for herself and her 8 children. It makes my little daily hardships seem like absolutely nothing.

I HIGHLY recommend this book. I can't believe that this cult has been able to exist in our country as they break law after law after law. If you read it, let me know what you think.

i love weekends like this

I had a pretty good weekend starting on Friday! As I headed out to run errands on Friday morning . . . I impulsively called my mom and my sisters to see if they wanted to meet me for lunch at The District and Sam and my mom were available so I got to have lunch with them. I was going to go down to The Gap to use my 30% off coupon and my mom said she was going to be home all afternoon so she offered to let Nate sleep at her house while I went shopping BY MYSELF! That never happens so I took her up on it. I got 2 hours out and I was able to not only go to The Gap . . . but run a few other errands, too! Thanks mom.

On Saturday, our "chore free summer" ended as we finished our backyard. We finally got the rock to fill in around our stamped concrete stepping stones. We have the best neighbors that live right next to us. Every time Wes has pulled up with a truck load of anything, our neighbors come out with their gloves on ready to help. We happened to have a lot of extra rock & our neighbors needed some in their backyard so that worked out perfect. Nate had a fabulous morning playing in the rocks and dirt! He really did love it. He even got to play with our neighbors dogs. He's definitely an animal lover so he loved that, too. He was so dirty so we let him play in the back of the truck with the hose after Wes cleaned out the truck.



We also bought the sand to fill up Nate's sandbox. Lets just say it's a hit. He LOVES it. We'll be spending lots of afternoons in this thing.



After a day in the dirt, rocks, water & sand . . . he took a bath or two (or three) that day.




Once I finish planting a few things I'll post pictures of the entire backyard.

All of that happened before noon on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, I went to Art in the Park in Boulder City with my mom and Sam. It's an annual tradition that I look forward to! We made it home in enough time for Wes and my dad to go to the Priesthood Session of conference and then we went out to dinner while they were there. Another tradition!

The only bummer about Saturday was we missed conference. But that's the good thing about a DVR. We plan on watching Saturday's sessions this week!

Sunday was great, too. We met my entire family at my parents after the first session for a yummy brunch. My parent's recently got a little jungle gym slide thing for the kiddos so Abbie and Nate had a great time playing on that. It was fun being with everyone . . . we haven't all been together in a while! We ended up staying at my parent's house until about 5:00pm ~ just visiting and hanging out, enjoying the great weather! It's FINALLY started to cool off here! It's about time. The summer inferno was killing me!

Laurel's Day

My years at BYU will always remain one of the best four years of my life. Not only did I meet Wes while I was there but I was lucky enough to meet the best girl friends. They rock. And I got to spend a weekend with almost all of them for Laurel's wedding.

She's the last one of us to get hitched. We've been looking forward to this day for a long time. I love to see friends find their perfect match. Laurel definitely found that in Ryan.

Wes was nice enough to have a father-son weekend so I could go enjoy the weekend with the girls without worrying about Nate. I met Laurel Walker (not to be confused with the bride, Laurel Plewe) at the Oakland airport on Friday afternoon. It worked out great that she was coming alone, too so we could share a rental car and she found us a family friend to stay with since she grew up there. I got to go with Laurel W. to her favorite restaurants!

Laurel had a beautiful "night before her wedding" dinner in her good friend Sofia's backyard in Walnut Creek. It was beautiful.




Laurel P. couldn't have asked for a better day on her wedding. The weather was beautiful! Her sealing was great. I always love going to sealings in the temple. Here are some photos of us outside the temple.

The Oakland Temple grounds are gorgeous.




Waiting for the bride & groom



Laurel has LOTS of girlfriends. Since 12+ bridesmaids seemed like a little much, she had 2 friends as bridesmaids and asked the rest of us to wear black dresses. We quickly were called "Laurel's black dress girls". We took some really fun pictures! I loved her colors . . . plum and mango. The flowers were amazing!







The reception that night was quite a party. It was in her parent's beautiful backyard. We picked a table away from everyone and chatted the entire night. We managed to make our way to the dance floor when a song or two came on that reminded us of Miss Lo-rel.

It was fun to see you, girls! And it was great to be a part of Laurel's day. She definitely deserves this happiness in her life!