eyeball soup & the pumpkin patch

We had a last minute festive night tonight.

I made monster eyeball soup for dinner.  Ryan wouldn’t touch it [what’s new?] but Nate eventually ate his whole bowl once I started dumping the extra green olives in there!  He loves green olives & he thought the eyeballs were pretty fun. [it was simply tomato soup with mozzarella balls turned in to eyeballs with the help of a green olive cut in half!]

Then we made a somewhat last minute run to the pumpkin patch!  We’ve driven by it a lot and Nate’s been wanting to go.  Wes has been gone a chunk of every week lately so we thought a fun family outing on a Monday night was in order.  Luckily our friend Tristan who had the kiddos tonight could join us!

Nate and Ryan loved this thing . . .

The kids had a good time and the weather was fabulous.  Can you tell we’re just enjoying being outside without sweating to death?

Ryan LOVED the rides.  He charmed the “ride lady” over and she let him stay on the swings for a few extra turns while the big kids jumped in the bounce house.  After a while I could hear him yelling “all done” . . . he was slightly dizzy. :)

If you are about Ryan’s size [or sometimes it doesn’t even matter how big you are] – you’re going to get a big bear hug from Ryan.  Poor Blake is used to it.  After about five big hugs Blake has usually had enough.

It was a fun night out!

our weekend.

Being in primary is pretty fun.

This year the theme is: “I know the scriptures are true.”  In January, we challenged the kids to bring their scriptures every week and they DID!  They filled up their “scripture jar” with beans and so they earned their party.  We passed around a little questionnaire to see what kind of activity they wanted and the majority was a movie night.

So we took it one step further and did a Radiator Springs drive-in on Friday night.   Most of the kids built their own box car and arrived to the drive-in in style in a car.  They walked in the church on a road and parked their cars to watch the movie.  The biggest hit of the night was Sally’s Snack Shack where they each had 3 tickets to buy their treats.  And when they got wiggly – there was a car themed game room that 3 of our fabulous Beehives ran for us.  Overall, the night was a hit.

 

 

Nate and I went as Lightning McQueen and Luigi.  I can see now that my “headlights” were a little much. :)  Nate was surrounded by some of his favorite friends but he kept coming to find me to watch the movie with him.  I figured the day will soon come when he won’t want his mom watching a movie in the middle of all of his friends so I obliged.

After a long week [my main client was at the biggest gaming show of the year this week – enough said] and a big primary activity to finish planning – I was glad for a “must do-less Saturday” where there was nothing we had to get done. 

Our Saturday was pretty nice . . .

- Wes installed a new radio in his car that has bluetooth so he can obey the “hands free while driving” law that kicks in in January.

- Nate and I went to the nursery where we picked out a few things to plant.  We ended up with an orange bush, some fall flowers, cilantro & basil and it’s all in the ground.  Nate is my nursery/gardening buddy. He’s great with the wagon at the nursery and he wants to be involved in every step of the planting.  And the weather was FABULOUS.

- Speaking of planting – Nate & Ryan were out in the side yard this morning that is all dirt and rocks [a little boy’s dream] and I could hear Nate teaching Ryan how to plant things. :)

- We braved Costco on a Saturday & enjoyed a little Chipotle.

- Watched football. [it’s on every Saturday’s agenda].  Go Cougars & Bulldogs.

- Had some Halloween fun.

- Made pumpkin brownies.  They were basically pumpkin choc chip bread in a thinner form but I liked them & they were easy.

- And I got ambitious somewhat late on Sunday night and made a batch of caramel/chocolate apples.  I’m determined to master these one day!

It was nice to have a Saturday just to do whatever we felt like.  We need more of those.

halloween lunch & crafts

I’m the queen of saving fun ideas but I hardly act on them.  Some friends from my old ward had the same thoughts so we got together for a Halloween lunch & craft afternoon on Friday at my house.  It turned out pretty well!  The kids [lets be honest, mostly my child] got off to a rough start but once they got all of their emotions and craziness out of the way we had a blast!

For lunch, we made mummy pizzas as the main dish & I attempted a few new Halloween treats.

Jen, Kiley & Brittany brought the crafts and they were really fun!  We started with decorating pumpkin sugar cookies.  Lets just say you could tell which cookies were the boys and which were the girls.  Hadley & Ellie’s were nicely decorated and they were gentle with their cookies.  Jake and Nate piled on as much goop as possible and could have cared less what it looked like!

Then they made paper plate spiders.

We finished up our Halloween date with painting pumpkins.  It was pretty cute – Jake loved his wet, painted pumpkin so much he gave it a big hug.  I’m sure they all left with a few more colors on them than how they came!

I have some fabulous friends from my last ward & it was great to get together.  Hopefully that will happen more often!

little boys

Nate loves his friends [and “cousin friends”].  He loves to play.  And while he loves & adores and asks for all of them to come over – there’s something about getting two little 4-year old boys together that is just great to watch.  [I also love watching little girls play together!]  Sometimes they just need girl time or boy time.

Nate has a friend, Carter that lives around the corner from us & they have turned in to little buddies.  Every once in a while Nate is just bored to tears in the afternoon so Carter comes to my rescue.  These two play abnormally great together.  There’s hardly ever tears or fights . . . they just build, create, sword, and pretend & it’s almost always in superhero costumes.

life: october 2011

a few random bits from life these days . . .

. don’t worry, we’re still swimming in this desert because it’s been WARM.  We had a week of cooler temps but we’re still in the 90’s.  But somehow we’re still enjoying playing in water!  Good thing the boys don’t mind a cold pool – because it’s quite cold.  But Nate jumps right in and Ryan loves dumping the water on his head.

. Ryan has decided to start talking more – I love it.  He’s got the cutest little voice.  Although he rarely talks on demand – only when he’s feeling it.  But Nate can sometimes get a ton of new words out of him.  Tonight’s new word was temple.  Yesterday he said Kiley all on his own!

. We’re pretty much all decorated for Halloween. [ryan loves these pumpkin lights].  Now it’s time to clean my house – holy smokes, it’s time.

. I went to a bread class a few times last month so I’ve been attempting all kinds of random things with this dough.  I’m practicing relatively often . . . since I’m not a baker of any kind it’s taking a while but it’s been really fun.  I’ve done: loaves of bread, pizza, pizza poppers, cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, bunsie rolls, and cinnamon twists.  I hope to master them all one day!

. I played volleyball a few times in September and it was actually really fun. 

. Ryan had a really weird diaper rash of sorts & I tried everything you could think of to get rid of it.  The nurse at my pediatrician had me try Calmoseptine Ointment and it worked!  It’s found behind the pharmacy – you just have to ask for it but it was a lifesaver!  Just an FYI for all you diaper-changing mamas out there.

. I think I’m just about over a nasty sinus head cold.  I rarely get bad headaches so to have a pounding one every day for nearly 2 weeks about did me in.  Still have headaches – but I’m doing much better.

. Wes took Nate to the driving range for the first time last weekend.  A friend of my dad’s let us borrow some real golf clubs Nate’s size until he gets his own and Nate was in HEAVEN going “real golfing” with his dad.  He was actually pretty good!

. We went to a park on Friday for the first time in MONTHS [it’s just too hot] and the boys loved it.  They’d much rather be outside than inside – so we’re looking forward to our perfect weather coming up!

. Love the holidays coming up.  Every year they are just a little more fun as Nate gets older.

. Conference weekend was nice.  I went to Art in the Park in Boulder City with my mom & spent the rest of the weekend at home watching conference.  I love hearing from our prophet and church leaders.  The boys are definitely a little stir crazy after being home so much!

. Wes has an awesome extended family.  His cousins on both his mom and dad’s side are great.  But there’s something extremely fabulous about his mom’s side cousins.  They all have this genuine love for each other.  Every time someone comes in town they call us and truly want to see us and the boys.  So we were thrilled when Wes’ cousin Julia moved back here a few months ago.  We live pretty close to her now so she came over on Friday night to visit and the boys love her.  Nate keeps asking if she’ll come back.

Life is a little crazy right now but its pretty darn good.

primary program

We had our primary program in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.  It was Nate’s first program and it was pretty fun to be a part of.  We have 8  pretty dynamic sunbeams so I got to join Ali & Tripp and sit in their row to attempt some reverence on the stand.  Overall, the kids did great.  I got to sit right next to my little sunbeam and while he did show a little bit of his defiant/grumpy side while on the stand, I don’t think too many people in the congregation noticed & he was always ready to stand and sing.

Brityn writes the program with a lot of the kids own answers to questions.  She asked Nate:

Q: How do you know you are a child of God?

A: I know I am a child of God because my brain told me.  It is Heavenly Father’s plan.

He got up there and did a great job saying his part in the microphone and he sang all of the songs with gusto [scripture power was awesome].  There was one song – the finale – where I had to whisper in his hear to sing a little softer because he was BELTING it.  Better than no singing at all, I guess.

The program was exciting in itself because Naters & his two cute cousins were in it [Miss Abbie sang a solo and it was fabulous] – but also because I’m in the Primary Presidency and it was sooooo nice to see something that we’ve worked on for months and months turn out so well.  It’s amazing how it all comes together in the end!

I love when a new season is here . . .

I love this time of year.  I love the holidays.  I love the cooler weather [although we still have to wait another month for ours].  The leaves.  The holiday activities and crafts to do with the boys.  The holiday excitement the kiddos bring.  Caramel apples.  Soup.  Hot chocolate.  Peppermint ice cream.   Pumpkin cookies.  Being outside.  And having it be cold enough to wear jeans & a cozy sweatshirt.

Nate is beyond excited for Halloween and asks me every day if we can get the Halloween stuff out or if he can wear his Spiderman costume yet. [Yes, his heart is set on being Spiderman].  It’s a great time of year.