Special Events

The last few weekends have been pretty busy with out of the ordinary activities. First, Nate's Cub Scout pack had what's called a "Blue and Gold Ceremony" - where they celebrate moving up in the pack (for example, Nate is with a group of kids his age, and they are called "Tigers", the next oldest group is called "Wolves", etc) So, next year Nate will be a Wolf. We had sort of a bonfire like ceremony, then went indoors where there were all these banquet tables and catered food and cake to celebrate.

The following weekend we decided on a whim to take the kids on a day trip to Sedona! We had lunch and did ~ a three hour hike and came home. Nate in particular loves to hike - he could have probably gone further had we not been coming home that day!

Devil's Bridge

I registered Nate and I for a Mother/Son dance through the city - Wild West themed! There was dancing, crafts, catered BBQ, a photo booth and some drawings. So fun with my little boy. Looking forward to next year when I can take both of them.

I discovered that there was going to be a Lego Fest in town - basically, a football field filled with all kinds of different things Lego! I knew my boys would love it as they've fallen more in love with Lego building. So, we had a great family morning checking it out!

 

 

There were all kinds of Lego building stations, Lego monuments (such as the ones above), the Lego movie was playing, Lego characters walking around, so much. We easily were there for four hours. It was a fast four hours!

Spring Break just started. Yesterday the boys were in separate activities of their own in the morning - Nate was in an animal encounter one (I didn't take pictures as he was too busy chasing a wallaby around the whole time!) but Josh was able to get a few pictures of Aaron at his. Aaron's class was St. Patrick's Day themed.

He found his pot of gold!

A few crafts- I'm surprised his necklace made it home with fruit loops still intact!

 

 

Stay tuned for other exciting Spring Break news! ;) 

 

3 Year Old Comparison

Simply because it's been awhile since I posted comparison shots of the boys at the same age...here are some at three years old!

Top is Aaron and bottom is Nathan. Fairly similar! One more time...

Nathan's Polar Express/Train Birthday Party!

The day after Valentines we had Nathan's party at a local park with a carousel and train - Nate's idea since he expressed he wanted a Polar Express party! It turned into more of a train party with a splash of Christmas/Polar Express ;) It turned out to be a much smaller gathering than in the past but Nate seemed to have a good time regardless, so that's all that matters to me!

 

Polar Express cookie

I love to keep track of all the details

 

Made a snack train

Cousins

Train goody boxes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since my family was traveling out of town over his party, they did some things with us on his actual day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's usually Nate's birthday tradition to go to Rainforest Café (well, if there's not school) for lunch and then for dinner, since he loves pizza, we usually go to California Pizza Kitchen.

 

The boys are so funny - they love picking their birthday party "themes" way in advance!

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's Day and Parties

Both boys were so excited and looking forward to their Valentine parties at school! This was the first year we had cards made for them to hand out (with their pictures on them). So cute!

Aaron's class made their own boxes to put Valentines in - we made a tank!

 

I got the shirt Aaron is wearing especially for him to wear - it says, "The ladies love me!" It is true. He is my social butterfly. Last session his teacher told me he had a lady friend he liked to walk and sit with. Such a little flirt.

 

The same afternoon I went to Nathan's class for their party. They decorated cookies, played Valentine bingo, had snacks/pink milk, made cards and got to look at their Valentines.

 

 

The boys then were so anxious to come home and dig into their Valentine "junkies" as they called all their handfuls of candy.

Valentine morning brought heart bagels!

 

That afternoon we took the boys out for lunch - we had planned for a picnic lunch at a nice outdoor spot. The weather was perfect!

 

 

We literally spent two hours eating and letting the kids run around.

 

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting ready for Nathan's birthday party the following day. While Nate helped me, I set Aaron up with some Valentine activities.

 

 

 

That evening we made a delicious dinner - steak kabobs, twice baked potatoes, veggies and chocolate dipped berries for dessert. Yum! It was a good day.

Happy 7th Birthday Nate!

Celebrating seven years of this almost Valentine baby being born! He's been so excited of course leading up to his birthday (I knew quite awhile ago how he wanted his day to go) and now, maybe even most importantly, he's looking forward to celebrating his big day with pals this upcoming weekend.

But, per my yearly breakdown, here is some Nate stats !

--Most especially, it's been obvious this past year how he's grown to show a lot of mommy traits. Well, after his parent-teacher conference this week it was discovered he's doing well especially in math, which isn't a mommy trait. But, he started Running Club (more on that), he likes things to be clean and organized, and, cutest of all, keeps everyone in line. Cautions Aaron if he thinks he will get hurt, etc. It's good to know I have someone to count on in case I'm not around :)

--Has his first loose tooth! Yes, his first.

--Has been enjoying the two "outside school" activities he's currently involved in - Running Club and Cub Scouts.

 Running Club is actually getting ready to end the end of this month. I'm proud of Nate in particular for him doing Running Club - it's hard stuff having to practice before school, especially when that means having to wake up a few extra minutes early to get homework done first. He's also had a few meets already (where they run 1.5 miles to see how they place amongst two other schools). The top five finishers from each grade level (in both boys and girls) received ribbons. Nate hasn't ribbon-ed yet, but I'm glad to see despite that he isn't discouraged. Pretty tough when there's twenty boys!



Excited for his first meet

 

I love the various activities he does with Cub Scouts. It too teaches good character, they do charity work, etc. They just got done collecting food for a food bank and will be taking a tour of the food bank in another week. Last month the boys got to participate in a Cub Scout tradition - Pinewood Derby Car Racin'! Nate's car almost made the finals - he got 3rd place in his den (group of boys his age) and Most Original.

 

 





 

--Like any other typical boy, his favorite food remains kid fare. Pizza, chicken nuggets...off and on in little bits he'll try new things - now only recently because of Dr Seuss' book, "Green Eggs and Ham". Because " the cat tried green eggs and ham, and he liked it". So maybe it's okay to try new things...every now and then :)


--Favorite toys to play with include now anything he can put together , especially Lego based these days (cars, planes, etc). He and Aaron generally just like to play with trains, cars, planes...and outside in our good weather they especially like their cars they can drive. Typical boys I guess!


--Our "Mr Fix It". He loves to be the "toy doctor" and fix all the batteries. Take things apart, put them back together. Yep, he's got daddy's engineering mind.


Blessed to have such a good, sweet boy in our lives ! 

New Mexico...or Not...

One of the fun parts about the beginning of this month was a trip to New Mexico for Josh's oldest brother's marriage. Well...Mother Nature had other plans I'm afraid. The night before we were due to leave (Josh and I, the kids were going to stay home with my parents for a long weekend) I had a really bad gut feeling...the day had been full of hearing about stomach bugs going around. My gut was right! That night Nate woke up with a bug. No Bueno. Long story short, I'm thankful that it was a less aggressive form of it (as in one of those 12 hour long things, and he wasn't too feverish) and that it didn't spread. Those are two big things I'm super thankful for. However, because of course I was worried about Nate, about it spreading, and then about giving germs to my parents and those taking care of the kiddos, I decided to stay home :( Josh still left as planned.

Super bummer. We were so excited for a "couple-ly" weekend. Nate too, was bummed because he missed his grade's field trip that day and they were no longer getting to stay with their Nana and Pap-Pap (once I was sure we were healthy, I made sure we did fun outings and things of course...I was feeling bad for the kiddos too).

So, a few tidbits about hubby's trip to NM!

He arrived to Albuquerque (where his brother lives) and they had dinner together - along with Josh's parents who also travelled that day.

The following day Josh visited some breweries, had lunch with our awesome sister-in-law's family, and that night helped to make luminarias for the wedding the following day.

The day of the wedding hubby went snow-shoeing (darn, an activity I hoped to partake in!) and I think otherwise did a little shopping and hung out until wedding time.

Josh with his brothers - Peter (far left), the wedding man Matt, 2nd oldest brother Ben, Josh (far right)

Happy Josh doing shots with new sister-in-law, Lenny

Tequila donkey! Literally, the donkey brought shots upon shots of tequila. Howdy!



And that is that. Josh drove home (eight hours from Santa Fe, where the wedding was located). He seemed to have a good time, we're glad he went, I think we just are a bit bummed we weren't able to enjoy it together.