While dad was away, the boys and I played.

Matt went turkey hunting two weekends ago so the boys and I spent some great time together.  With warm and beautiful weather we spent lots of time outside playing at various parks.  Three parks in three days!  Levi is a dare devil so I get to chase him around so he doesn’t kill himself.    Matt forgot to leave info regarding where he was going and staying so Levi sent him this look over the phone.  Don’t want to mess with him.The weekend would not have been complete without some train playing time.  I came down with a horrible headache and Net was able to come to the rescue and help me with the boys one evening by taking us out to dinner.  It was a nice break to have someone above the age of 5 to visit with.  :)  Four days of fun was topped off when Matt came home with a turkey, which made Nathan very happy as he LOVES to eat turkey!

We didn’t teach this!  Promise!  But, we don’t stop it either.  :)

Levi has used his middle finger on his right hand to point since the beginning of time.  We still find it amusing to watch him flip the bird here and there.  Have to find humor in the small things.  There will come a day that his middle finger won’t be so cute.  

 

To wrap up Nathan’s birthday week of fun we celebrated on Saturday with a family party!  My grandparents from Nebraska were in town and got to experience the joys of a young boy birthday party.

Nathan asked for dinosaur decorations but train activities.  So, I put on my thinking cap (searching Google and Pinterest of course) for great ideas.

With everyone helping, we put on a fantastic party!!

Nathan came in to see a volcano tunnel with train tracks on the ground leading around the house.  The boys put on cardboard trains and chugged along the tracks to various rooms in the house where I had different trains/tracks set up to play with.  We own more trains and track than any household should so we just brought some of our gigantic collection over to my parents.  The boys, especially Levi, LOVED the tracks and ran (literally) those tracks dozens of times throughout the party!

It was great that I made 3 cardboard box trains so the adults could get in on the fun too!

Nathan helped pick out all the dinosaur decorations and accessories!  The dinosaur hats were fun for the boys.

Aunt Mikki and Uncle Ryan were put in charge of many items including naming the food.  We had Cretaceous Cruchies (chips), Triceratoppings (toppings for the hot dogs), etc..  It was so fun!

After dinner we enjoyed opening presents, cake, and a pinata.  Nathan has been great about having a little brother helper wanting to open his present, blow out his candles, and play with his new toys.  He’s been very patient and okay with Levi’s help!

The most exciting part of the evening was when Nathan found his gift from Net and Griz.  He had to follow some scavenger hunt clues and the gift was hiding in the garage.

Here’s his reaction…priceless….

“My very own Jeep!!!!” 

Nathan took Levi around for a spin in his new Jeep!  Nathan’s driving reminded us all of how the car looks when Aunt Mikki drives a stick shift.  :)  Stop….Go….Stop….Go!  Levi may have a little minor whip lash from all the jerking.  :)  They both loved the Jeep, or as Levi called it “the wagon”.

On the 15th Nathan knew it was his birthday so we had a small celebration with just the four of us complete with cupcakes and a few presents. 

What kid doesn’t love some cash?

 

 

Saturday Nathan, my mom, and I had a special date at the movies.  We took Nathan to see The Crood’s.  He LOVED it and is still saying, “da, da, daaa” quoting the little sloth character Belt.  

Monday morning Matt took Nathan to Village Inn for a breakfast date.  Nathan said he ate “sausage, pancakes, and syrup”.  I’m pretty sure he ate his body weight in syrup.  :)  Must have been a wonderful morning because after gymnastics and lunch I found him in him room during quiet time like this:

Nathan celebrated his birthday at school today.  He got to pick one of his favorite books, which I read to the class, and then served treats to all this classmates.  Nathan picked Press Here, which is an interactive book that the kids loved.  Nathan was so excited about his special day at school and to finally be 5 like so many of his friends!!

Nathan’s birthday events will come to a close this Saturday with a family party/celebration!  Levi has been asking and even getting upset that we have not gone to Net’s house for the party yet.  He says, “Net’s house happy birthday cake” and each day when I tell him no not today he says it in an angrier tone until I can distract him with something else.  It’s not like he understands waiting until Saturday!  Better be some good cake or Levi will be very disappointed.  :)    

 

 

Nathan is 5!!  The past 5 years have flown by!  At this exact moment 5 years ago I was sitting in a hospital room 4 hours past an easy delivery, amazed we had a boy (swore Nathan was going to be a girl), scared of how to raise a boy, shocked he came 2 and 1/2 weeks early, and more in love than I could imagine.  Nathan entered at 6 lbs 6 oz and I will be amazed if he tops the scales at 32 lbs when we go for his well check soon.  He’s pint sized but full of excitement, enthusiasm, and knowledge beyond his years.  He’s entered a challenging phase.  A new, not very nice, tone has started escaping from his mouth!  He’s telling us “no” much more frequently and getting in trouble more routinely.  Our little compliant, pretty easy going boy is growing up and starting to exert his stubborn and troublesome side.  Although I’m sad to see him growing up so quickly he’s really getting to be tons of fun.  He’s always making me laugh with his random comments – like the other day he told me “well, I learn something new everyday” or this morning when he was fixing items under my bathroom sink and exclaimed “that ought to do the job”.  Nathan still loves his trains but is expanding his likes to dinosaurs, volcanos, maps, and the solar system.

We started his birthday celebrations early by taking him to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (him and half of the other children in the Denver area – a former teacher should know that Friday’s in spring are field trip time).  We spent a good deal of time in Space Odyssey.  I think he knocked the socks off one of the volunteers with his extensive knowledge of the solar system identifying planets, stating facts about each planet, and answering questions most adults would not know.  I was impressed myself that Nathan could name all 4 planets that had rings in our solar system.  Seriously, where does he learn this stuff!?!?  We saw a Sesame Street planetarium presentation that was pretty good.  At least, it was just the right length for Levi.  :)  We saw the dinosaurs and had a great lunch before heading on our way.  

The boys LOVED the museum!

There are more birthday celebrations to come!  A trip to the movies, birthday breakfast with dad, and a special train and dinosaur party.  Stay tuned!!        

Two boys in a basket!

 

Does the sticker go HERE?

How’s the view from THERE?

Come see what’s in HERE?

Oh!  Oh!  Let me in THERE too!

How did you find me hiding in HERE eating cookies for breakfast?

Mommy, what did you do THERE?

I think I’ll just lay HERE!

What are you reading THERE?

Yep, we are happy HERE!

And THERE you have it!  The end!

As Nathan came into our room Easter morning we wished each other a Happy Easter!  He quickly ran back to his room bringing back into our room his “Bible book”, teddy, and monk (his stuffed monkey) and started flipping through the pages of the Bible until he found the Easter story.  ”Mommy, will you read this to me!”  What a wonderful way to start our Easter morning!

With the boys dressed up we headed off to church before hunting eggs and opening our Easter baskets.  The Easter bunny so cleverly hid the eggs in the basement so they wouldn’t be a distraction as we were heading out the door to church.  Nathan did require a quick peak at the goods in the basement just to make sure the bunny made a stop.

The bunny brought some fun new toys, a book, and some camp chairs.

The egg hunt was a great success Nathan.  Levi took some prodding to keep going as he wanted to open each egg as he found them.  He would NOT move onto another egg unless he knew the last egg had been opened.  We had to stop Nathan from finding all the eggs so Levi would be left with some.  

We celebrated Easter with my parents, Mikki, and Ryan.  The highlight was the confetti egg hunt outside.  Nathan LOVED finding these eggs and cracking them on the heads of family members.  Levi was even able to get them to break with his mean, fast throwing arm.  I think Levi wold have hunted for these eggs forever.  I’ll have to remember to buy more for next year.

After some long naps by all family members the boys finished out the evening watching Dr. Seuss on YouTube in their new chairs.

We had a wonderful, blessed Easter and loved being able to celebrate with each other the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.  He is risen!!

Nathan was on spring break this past week and I was looking forward to a fun week with the boys!  We enjoyed our time together but it wasn’t the fun I had envisioned.  Nathan battled croup and a nasty cold most of the week.  While I had him at the doctor Monday afternoon (with a 105 fever and barking seal cough) the doctor asked to see Levi because of the constant chronic runny nose he has.  Levi went to the doctor on Wednesday after our family trip to the dentist on Tuesday.  :)  At least we are all healthy and have clean teeth!  

Easter weekend was exciting and fun for this family who had spent half the week in and out of doctor/dental offices!  We started Saturday with an Easter Egg Drop.  A local church uses a football field to lay out eggs and then has a helicopter fly in and drop even more on the field.  It was lots of fun to watch the helicopter come in but the egg hunt was short lived.  With all the sidelines covered with families and anxious kids it was a mad dash for eggs and once the center of the field was reached by the masses of people the hunt was over.  The popularity of this event hit this weather (partially due to the amazing 65 degree weather) and a good handful of kids walked away with no eggs at all.  :(  Sad day.  I’m not sure we will head back next year but the kids seemed to enjoy it this time around.

Here comes the helicopter!  It made several passes by the field.  We had these awful thoughts of the helicopter crashing or dumping eggs on people in the crowd but decided really the only person at risk in this whole thing is the man who leans out the helicopter window to dump the eggs.  Seems like a really bad idea to me.

Aunt Mikki met us at the egg hunt, which turned out to be a blessing.  I badly jammed my toe last week and could barely walk.  She took Nathan, Matt took Levi, and I took the camera.  Our children are still at the age where once they find an egg they want to stop and open it to see what is inside.  You could just hear parents chanting “just get eggs and we will open them later”.

The good news was that we did not lose our children (not everyone could say this) and we did come away with enough eggs to make each child happy.  

 We tried to take a family photo…

Nathan and I made resurrection rolls to help him understand the Easter story.  We took a marshmallow (represents Jesus) and rolled it in melted butter and cinnamon and sugar before wrapping it in a crescent roll (represents the cloth Jesus’ body was wrapped in after he died) and then baked them in the oven (represents the tomb).  When we took the rolls out of the oven and opened them up to see the marshmallow, only to find it is not there.  Just like Jesus had risen and was not in the tomb, the roll rises (sort of) and the marshmallow is gone.  Extra bonus is that these rolls are delicious!!

We finished out our Easter prep with dying Easter eggs.  It was a quick, hurry up task so that we didn’t have the time to spill the dye on the carpet.  We never did finished decorating the eggs or icing some Easter cookies we bought at the store.  I’m thinking we can prolong Easter another day or two and finish these activities.