Time with NATE.

I got some quality [and much needed] time with Nate this weekend.  We’ve had a long week in our house & Nate and I needed some time without Mr. Ryan. 

A few months ago, my friend Laurel posted about the “filling of jars” for good behavior.  Once the jar was full, they got to pick something out that they’ve been wanting for a while.  I was looking for something to help me with Nate and his behavior so I found him a jar and some pom pom balls and away we went.  Typically he just has to fill it up once to get to pick something out but I’ve been wanting to take him to Build-a-Bear [I knew he’d love it] but that’s a pretty big outing so he had to fill up his jar two times to get to go there. 

He was SO good and filled it up the first time in a week.  I didn’t know he had such good behavior in him!  Round two took significantly longer but he did it.

As soon as Wes walked in the door from the golf course on Friday [Veterans Day] Nate and I headed to Build a Bear and it did not disappoint.  He loved it.  He has a side that is very nurturing and loves to take care of things so he’s loving his bear.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited about something, actually!  He couldn’t wait to show my entire family.  The bear’s initial name was Santa Griffeth but by the end of the night his official name is Light Bear since he has light spots on his ears. 

And of course, the outfit he picked for Light Bear?  Spiderman.

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The rest of our quality time together was spent at his preschool friend Paige’s birthday party, running a few errands [errands are a piece of CAKE with just a 4 year old tagging along!] and at 2 volleyball games.  My highschool volleyball coach [who is now a friend] still coaches at my highschool and she’s fabulous.  They were in the state tournament this weekend and the WON the state championship!  It was fun to be there to watch.

It was a fun weekend with Nater Taters!

goodbye stomach flu. hello colds.

So . . . the stomach flu left our home and we were all healthy for about a week. 

And then the boys got hit with a cold/cough/fever that made for a pleasant weekend.  Poor guys.

Nate is back to normal but Ryan is definitely not.  The hardest part is that they both act pretty normal when they’re sick.  They’d have to be strapped to a hospital bed to stop moving.  But today Ryan’s little eyes said it all.  He wasn’t feeling it.  But somehow he was still running around like a crazy man for a good part of the day until he’d just collapse in my arms.  I have yet to experience a day on the couch watching movies with a sick child. :)

He did sit with me for a few minutes to watch Grover!

I love these boys of mine.

Wes had a birthday.

Amidst all of the recent craziness, Wes turned 31 on October 25th!

Unfortunately, his actual birthday was kind of uneventful as far as birthday celebrations go. 

- I was still not feeling well from the bizarre sickness that ran through our house & it was the day of the trunk-or-treat that I was coordinating so I was a little busy.

- So we did Yogurtland with my family the night before and we opened presents on his birthday but that was about the extent of it.   Luckily the PBR is one of Wes’ favorite events of the year and it’s always the week of his birthday.

- I managed to muster up enough energy to make him his favorite birthday cake [homemade chocolate chip applesauce cake] but the recipe I was following didn’t have chocolate chips listed in the ingredients so I didn’t add them before I frantically threw the cake in the oven to pick Ryan up so he’d stop screaming.  I know, you’d think I’d remember an ingredient in the TITLE of the cake, but I didn’t.  I had to throw the “it’s the thought that counts” card on this one.  I’ll re-make him one eventually!

- I still owe him a birthday breakfast at The Cracked Egg.

He did however get many birthday wishes so thanks for that!  Nothing was going my way, that’s for sure.

Wes is ADORED by his two little boys.  They ask for dad a lot – especially Ryan.  With his travel schedule, they sometimes go a little while without seeing dad so they get pretty excited when he actually comes home from work!  They can be found staring out the window waiting to see his car.  And I’ve got to get Ryan’s excitement on video when he finally spots the little silver corolla pull in to the driveway.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Weston R.  We sure do love you!

halloween night

We had a great Halloween night.  Halloween is a friends & family kind of holiday to me . . . the more the merrier.  So I invited 35 people to my house for dinner on Halloween night!  Everyone was fabulous and brought food and it turned out to be pretty fun.  We had 4 pots of soup and lots of Halloween food, treats & drinks before we went out trick-or-treating. 

 

Trick or treating was fun.  We did a loop in my neighborhood and it turned out great.  Ryan ran his big elephant self around the entire loop.  He let me carry him once we were a few houses away from home but he wasn’t letting anyone carry his bucket of candy!  He loved following all of the kids around and attempted to barge in to any house that had a dog.  And of course, Nate loved going with some of his friends.  After every house he would yell, “mom – I said thank you again!”

It turned out to be a pretty fun night.  There is no way I would have pulled this off in time without Sam’s help.  My mom forgot she told me she’d come in the afternoon to help with set-up [she’s the queen of dinner parties] so Sam showed up even earlier than she originally had planned and saved the night.  We cooked and arranged to the tunes of Christmas music.  When my mom showed up – she was quite a lifesaver, too. 

In October, we watched a lot of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” so we continued the Great Pumpkin tradition in our house this year. 

Nate and Ryan each picked about 10 pieces of their favorite candy to eat this week and the rest went in to the big black cauldron that was left on the porch on Halloween night.  The Great Pumpkin comes and takes all of the candy and leaves the boys with a surprise.  This year it was Superman t-shirts and some superhero figurines.  They loved it.

Happy Halloween!

fall & halloween FUN

We had quite the run of Halloween festivities!

It all started on last Friday back at the pumpkin patch.  I arranged a group outing for our ward and it was pretty fun.  The kids always have a good time even though it’s HOT every year!

We ran home for Ryan to take a nap and as soon as we woke up we headed to Abbie’s Elementary School down the street for the Harvest Festival.  Luckily Wes got home just in the knick of time and was able to come with us.  We took Abbie & Daisy around with a group of our friends we ran in to while Ali ran the dunk tank.

On Saturday night we went to the Haunted Harvest at Springs Preserve with a few friends for trick or treating & carnival games.

Tuesday started with Nate’s preschool Halloween Party.

And it ended with our ward’s Trunk or Treat.  I was 1 of 4 ladies in charge of this Trunk or Treat and I have a new appreciation of any big ward activity.  Holy smokes!  I think it turned out rather well . . . we had dinner outside, trunk-or-treating & games and a Spook Alley inside.  I chased Ryan around from car to car – he really got the hang of the trick or treating this go-around.  And Nate played and played and had a blast.  Oh, and lucky for Wes but the trunk-or-treat was on his birthday so my friend Jamie brought him a cake to the trunk or treat!

Looking forward to Halloween night tomorrow!

PBR 2011

We had another great trip the PBR Finals last night! 

Nate is a cowboy at heart so my dad thought it was time to include Nate in this tradition.  Prior to going, I told Nate that he would get to come with the grown-ups out to dinner and then to watch some bull.riding.  He really had no clue what he was going to see but he was excited to get to be a cowboy for a night with his boots and hat. 

Nate was soooo good the entire night.  He was great at dinner and had a blast watching the bull riding.  Our seats were pretty close and we were right by the edge where they take the bulls in and out of the arena so he got to watch the bulls close-up all night long.  Even at the end when you could tell he was really tired he didn’t want to leave.

This was probably the best year of bull.riding as far as how many cowboys rode the bull for 8 seconds.  There were 19, I believe which is really high.  The night before there were only 5!  Unfortunately, one of the bull riders got hurt pretty bad.  The first injury seemed to occur as he was thrown from the bull because he was lying on the ground motionless and then the crazy bull stepped right on him.  Needless to say the poor guy was rushed to the hospital but he’ll be alright.

It was a great night out.  We love this tradition – thanks dad!

it was one weird week.

We had a bizarre week in our house last week. 

. It all started on Monday [October 17th] . . . I worked that day so I was driving home after picking up the boys and Ryan just started screaming but his seat is behind mine so I didn’t turn around.  Screaming in the car isn’t anything new.  But the smell of vomit sure was!  He barfed ALL over.  It was disgusting.  And up until this point he was acting totally normal [other than right before we left my parents and he wanted to just lay on me] and he was totally fine after so I thought he just ate something that didn’t agree with his big tummy.

. Wes flew to California on Thursday morning for a meeting.  He called me as he was walking through the Ontario office and he sounded awful.  Worse than awful . . . totally disoriented.  I’ve never seen/heard Wes like this.  He was having extreme pain and was calling me to see what I thought he should do.  After I realized how bad it really was I told him to get to an ER.  So he jumped in a taxi where he about passed out and made it to the ER where he started throwing up everywhere.  It wasn’t until he got the morphine that the pain went away.  They say it was something with his stomach.  But don’t worry, my trooper of a husband made it to his 1:30pm meeting that he flew in for.  Luckily the extreme pain never returned.

. Thursday night at around 8:30pm, while I was at a church meeting, Nate threw up all over his bed.  So after Wes’ extremely long & painful day he got to clean up more puke and get Nate all situated.  Nate was just like Ryan – no signs before or after puking of him being sick so I didn’t think much of it.

. Starting Saturday night I got hit with something awful but I never threw up.  My stomach has never experienced anything like that but the weirdest part was how much my bones and joints hurt and how tired I was.

It also hit Ali & Abbie . . . and poor Sam flew to Oregon to be with a dear friend of hers who unexpectedly lost her 7 week old baby this week and she was puking all night in a hotel room & has the same bone/joint/tired issues I had.  The weird thing is that we all got a form of something – but I rarely saw my family this week other than 20 minutes at Yogurtland for a quick celebration for Wes’ birthday so I haven’t a clue as to how this all got around.

Lets just say it made me appreciate my normally healthy little family!