Making progress!!

One thing I regret about doing when we built are house is deciding to do the landscaping ourselves! Its not hard to do, but finding the time and money to do it has been the issue! Last spring/summer we were able to get some grass and a few bushes in the planter area, but we weren't able to afford or have the time do anything else. Now that's its spring again and the weather is starting to warm up we want to get going again on some landscaping for the backyard and I am crossing my fingers to add at least a few more things to the front yard (that might me wishful thinking :) Well here is some exciting news! We started on the backyard!! Our backyard is pretty big and we just had a little slab of a concrete patio right outside the door. We decided to extend it out and make the patio area bigger. Skyler and one of our neighbors set a date to pour the patio, but sadly it ended up not being a great day weather wise! They started working on the patio about 7:30 am and they started pouring concrete about 9. At about 9:30 it started raining :( I was worried that it was going to completely ruin everything, but it had set up enough that it didnt! I guess you can pour concrete in the rain it just takes triple the amount of time! They were planning on being done with the patio by 11am, but since the rain put a damper on things they didnt end up getting done until about 4pm!! Needless to say I am so grateful to all the people who helped Skyler do it! I know it was probably so miserable! They did such a great job! Its so nice! I cant wait to get a patio set! We want to build a cover over the patio too, but thats probably going to have to wait until after we put in the sprinkler system and grass in backyard! Its so nice to have made some progress in the backyard! They had poured that patio saturday and on monday we were able to grill up some burgers on our new patio and enjoy the nice weather for FHE. I look forward to many more fun nights out on our patio! I took some pictures of them working on the patio in the rain, but my camera is lost so I only have these pics off Skylers phone for now.

Age doesn't matter

The age of a friend doesn't matter to Nate. He is always one who is up for playing with anyone and everyone! Whenever we go to the park he usually always tries to make friends with the kids that are older them him! Just the other day we went to the park and there were some school kids there on a field trip I guess and they were all playing on the playground and running around in the field. They were probably 5th graders, but Nate didnt have a problem with that. He went right up to one and they instantly became buds. It was so funny to watch! After about 20 minutes of playing with him, his new friend was called over by some of his buddies to come play football in the field with a bunch of other 5th graders. The kid said ok and went over to play. Nate started to follow him, but I called him over and told him he couldnt go play with him anymore that he was playing with his other friends and they were doing big kid games. Nate got so sad! He wanted so badly to go play with them!

One of Nate's best friends is Jayz Estridge. His family is in our ward and lives around the street from us. He is an only child and just turned 7. Our family is really good friends with them and we hang out a ton with them. Jayz and Nate have practically become brothers! Nate always gets so excited when we tell him he gets to play with Jayz. You would think Jayz would not playing with someone 4 years younger then him, but he is so good with Nate! They play so good together! Nate was invited to Jayz's birthday party last weekend. Jayz had 8 friends there that were all 6 or 7 and then there was Nate! It was so funny! Jayz's mom got a video game on the go truck to come for the party. It was really cool! It had 2 video screens on the outside of the truck to play wii games on and then there were 6 more screens on the inside to play xbox games. Nate is still a little young to fully understand how to play video games, but he did try and play mario cart on the wii. You can really just hand him a wheel and he thinks he is playing. He had fun trying to play the games with the big kids! He also loved eating the cake! It was a baseball cake and he told me that he wanted a baseball cake for his birthday party (So thats when I decided to make Nate's party a sports themed party). They also had a pinata! Nate LOVES pinatas! Is there anything better then hitting something and until candy comes out?? He also told me he wants a pinata at his party too! Going to Jayz party made him so excited for his own birthday coming up! To bad he has to wait a week after his birthday for his party ha ha!

I cant wait!

My sister comes home from her mission in about 3 weeks!! I am so excited!! She just sent home an email with pictures for the first time ever since she has been out and it made me so excited to see her! Lucky her, she is super tan because its the end of summer for her! I hope these next few weeks go by super fast! I miss her so much and family gatherings just aren't the same without her! It will be nice to have her home for a little bit before she goes off to college!

Any Luck?

We had such a fun St. Patrick's day today even though we didn't have any luck catching the leprechaun playing tricks at our house! I cant believe how much Nate got into this year! It was so cute watching him each time he found something that turned green and going and checking the trap to see if the leprechaun was there or had eaten any gold.

It all started with Nate and I sleeping in until 10am this morning (the leprechaun must have cast a spell on us to stay asleep, because that never happens!) Once we got up we discovered the leprechaun had visited the trap we made, but used his magic powers to escape leaving behind some empty candy wrappers from the pot of gold on our trap (forgot to take a picture of this, but I videoed it when he had done it again in the afternoon). Then Nate helped me make french toast for breakfast and that silly leprechaun left behind green residue in our batter turning our french toast green! Surprisingly it still tasted so yummy! I poured Nate a glass of milk to go along with his french toast and he noticed the leprechaun left behind green residue in his cup too! He stirred it up and his milk was green! He was watching some TV while eating breakfast when Grandma called and said the Leprechaun had come to her house too and left them some gold chocolate candy! He immediately wanted to go over there, but I said he had to take a bath and get dressed before we could go. He got in the bath and turned around to play with his toys and noticed once again green residue! He splished and he splashed mixing it into the water and his bath water of course turned green! He thought this was so fun! Once he got out and got dressed he noticed the Leprechaun had visited our trap again!

When we went into Nate's room tonight to get ready for bed he noticed the Leprechaun had left him a little present on his pillow! Chocolate gold coins!! The perfect ending to a fun day! We hope yall had a great St. Patrick's Day too!!

Oh so nice!

The weather last weekend was so nice!! We couldnt get enough of being outdoors! From thursday to saturday we pretty much lived outside! It was in the 70's and it was perfect. Not sweltering hot, but warm enough to wear shorts! It makes me so excited for summer! I love nothing more then going to the park and having a picnic while soaking in the sun and watching Nate play. Nate loves playing baseball right now and its nice to actually go outside and play instead of playing indoors! He is getting to good to be hitting the ball indoors! Saturday morning I went garage sale shopping and when I got home Nate was helping Skyler outside pulling weeds! He loved it...it was so cute! Skyler would pull the weed and then he would pick it up and put it over in the big pile. He then helped Skyler put them all in the trash can. I videoed him doing this, but we put them on Skylers computer so I cant post them today. Here are a few pictures from off my phone of some of the things we did this past weekend.

Picnic at the park
Riding the cow at grandmas house
Playing in the tree house at grandmas house with daddy! He loved being lowered down from the tree house to the ground in the basket! He wanted dad to have a turn riding in it. He told him he would catch him. To bad dad is to big to fit in the basket (and scared of heights ;)

Nate is always such a good helper! He loves helping me around the house by putting clothes away, matching and pairing up the socks, handing me the pillows while I make the bed, unloading the dishwasher, and rinsing his dishes after he eats. I am thinking about making him a chore chart because he is always so excited to help and I think he would love putting a sticker or a checkmark on his chart for completing a chore! He is entering even more of an independent stage and sometimes it really drives me crazy! He wants to do EVERYTHING himself, from climbing in and buckling his own car seat to mixing up his own chocolate milk! Everything we do takes triple the amount of time, so if we are in a hurry to do anything its a nightmare! I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that he is growing up so much! I love seeing him learn and accomplish new things, but sometimes it makes me really sad that he is already big enough to do certain things. He turns 3 in less then a month and I cant believe it! Where has 3 years gone?! Knowing me the next time I blog will be then. I say this all this time, but I need to be better about taking more pictures! We do so many fun things and I never capture the moment...maybe one day!

Valentines

Valentines started off as a great morning and ended even better! Nate helped me make heart shaped waffles for Skyler and we all sat down and ate breakfast. Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures of any of the festivities we did until night time and I am really regretting it right now! Why am I so horrible at that?!

Nate and I played Valentines picture bingo and he loved that! I showed him pictures and he would find the match on his game sheet. He is HUGE into matching things right now! He loves memory games and having to find the matches! The other day he helped me with the laundry by finding to matching socks and then I would fold them together! He is so smart and I have a feeling he is going to have a photographic memory just like his daddy and I am so grateful for that!!

That afternoon we went to deliver Valentines cards Nate made for his Grandmas and then we went and watched Skyler play in flag football games. Skylers team won both and they are the only undefeated team right now! After the games I went and picked up Durangos and ate it as we watched the movie How to Train a Dragon. It started getting late and Skyler said he had a surprise for me. We loaded up in the car and drove to Skyline Pond (which is the pond where Skyler purposed to me at :) Nate loved seeing all the ducks! It was so fun to go to the pond...we havent been there in awhile! He then told me to look and he had Nate hand me my wedding ring which he got sautered(sp?) together for me and cleaned! It looked like a brand new ring! It was so cute that he brought me back to the same place he had first gave me the ring to give it to me again! I love my 2 boys more than anything and it was so fun to spend the whole night with both my boys!!