I can’t get enough of my elephant.

His big ol’ cheeks and smile make for the perfect little elephant if you ask me.  His face lights up every time you say . . . “where’s the elephant?”  He knows we’re looking for him!

The latest on Nate.

A few random ones of Nate from the ol’ camera . . .

I love this 4 year old of mine.  Yes, he drives me bonkers sometimes but he really is a good little guy. 

His excitement for life is contagious.  He gets so excited over the big and small things of life.  He’s got a genuine love for things & he’s absolutely one of the quirkiest kiddos around.

. He LOVES all sports . . . one of which is tennis.  He asked my dad [who is still a great tennis player] if he’d teach him lessons and it’s been great.  They’ve only been twice but both of them love it.  Nate catches on really quickly and surprisingly totally listens to my dad and tries really hard.  On Saturday, Wes & I told him Papa was on his way to pick him up so he needed to go get his tennis shoes on and this is how he came down: soccer socks, shin guards & rain boots.  And he was 100% certain this would work for a tennis lesson. 

. He is still my yardwork buddy.  We planted and cleaned up the backyard last Saturday and by the end, I was SOOOO hot so I decided to jump in the FREEZING cold pool.  Nate jumped in too and we had a good time. [Don’t let the hot tub bubbles fool you – it was NOT heated and quite cold but felt so nice after being so sweaty!]  Nate even learned how to do a handstand in the water.

. Nate is a collector of extremely random objects.  He loves keys, string, hooks, binder clips, rope, etc.  He ties everything together constantly.  He had stuff all over and he was always asking where everything was so Wes emptied out a tool box and gave it to Nate for him to keep all of his stuff in it.  There’s a lock on it and everything!  It’s been a lifesaver.

. Speaking of random stuff – Nate’s been working on this “trap” for a while now.   [He’s very in to superheroes so he’s setting a trap for the bad guys].  It used to be a double-trap with a web at the bottom of the stairs but now he’s just working on the top.  He has a blast with stuff like this & can occupy him for quite a while.

It’s fun to watch Nate use his imagination!

Tennis Champions Series

I come from a tennis family.  Both my parents and my sisters and I all have a period of our lives where we played tennis.  Tennis happened to occupy about 8 years of my life so I definitely have a love for the game.

Growing up, tennis was always on tv at our house.  It usually was accompanied by my mom yelling at the screen at our favorite players – four of which we got to see on Saturday night.

The Tennis Champions Series came to Vegas this weekend so it was no surprise that my parents would arrange for us all to go. [Nurse Sam, we missed you while you were saving lives at the hospital].

It was a fun night out.  We started with dinner at Bahama Breeze and ended with some pretty entertaining tennis.  The four guys we got to watch were Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier & John McEnroe.  McEnroe was definitely showing his age physically [he’s 53] but the rest of the guys still played pretty well.  They all had a sense of humor and had some fun entertaining the crowd. It was fun seeing Agassi play in his hometown – we all love Agassi in Vegas.  He ended up winning the whole thing.  Go Andre.

Speaking of Andre, his lovely wife Steffi was there with their kids.  And she happened to walk by the empty row RIGHT in front of us to get to the top.  What a classy lady.

Thanks Marz family for a fun night out.

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.