Memorial Day Weekend

After getting back from my Utah trip, we turned around and headed out of town for Memorial Day weekend. Thursday afternoon we headed up to Door County. We had stayed there for our first anniversary (in November) and wanted to go again in warmer weather.
It was such a great weekend. We stayed right on Lake Michigan and had such fun. We shopped and went to the local Maifest. You know how I love a good fest. Corn on the cob and our new friend in Hee Haw overalls, made it a day. This guy came right up and talked to us for 20 minutes and kept pulling photocopied pictures out of his Hee Haw bag.
I fell in love with a piece of artwork from a local artist, Kae Taylor. She uses a dying process (Batik) that creates some incredible pieces. I saw her work last year at a street fair here in town and recognized her stuff right away. Beautiful, beautiful!
Our main activity was watching Nathan smile. He is so giggly and smiley lately and it makes me so happy. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Salyzat

You know when you go to certain blogs and you have to type your security code to leave a message? I just love some of the words they come up with to protect the innocent blogs from being inundated with filthy comments. I'm assuming this is the purpose.
I just commented on a friend's blog and my security word was salyzat. I think that should be a real word. It sounds very New Orleans and jazzy to me, but I don't know exactly what it means.
Any ideas? We could start using it as an actual word until it spreads and becomes so common that they have to add it to the dictionary. !!! Hooray. My new goal in life: Get a new word added to the dictionary. !!!
Anyone wanna help?
Leave your suggestions and we can vote. The best idea wins 10,000 bonus points!

Farewell, Land of Broken Down Cars

I have returned home from my trip to Utah and believe me when I say that I am relieved. Let me highlight some of the stressful moments of my weekend.
1) Friday night- Nathan screamed on and off all night, waking gracious hosts and stressing me out.
2) Saturday morning- Driving north from Pleasant Grove, I missed Salt Lake City all together. It wasn't until Bountiful that I realized I had missed it. For non-Utah folks, translation: I am a moron and drove way out of the way!
3) Saturday morning- Downtown Salt Lake City is NOT a heavenly place. Heavenly places do not contain 800 stoplights in a row that display the sign "No Left turn."
4) Saturday afternoon- follow directions to exit at Highway 89. Didn't realize that there are about 700 Utah exits for Highway 89. I unfortunately didn't pick the right one.
5) During my Highway 89 excursion, Nathan decided he had had enough and started screaming bloody murder. There's no better soundtrack to a roadtrip than a screaming child.
6)Sunday: on my drive from Pleasant Grove to Logan I realized in Bountiful that I had forgotten my wallet back yonder. Translation: I'm a moron and did not end up visiting with my favorite Wendy and family! I'm sorry! P.S. I hate Bountiful now.

Having said all that, I had a wonderful trip. Here's for the highlights.
1) Staying with Gina and Chris and convincing them to start a blog. I'm going to take full credit for this when they finally get going. They are too cute with Nathan and he is a huge fan. Gina lied to me two out of the three mornings when she said Nathan's screaming was 'no big deal.' She's going to get into heaven for sure.
2) Despite all my Saturday morning driving drama, I got to the wedding of a great friend JUST BARELY in time to hear them pronounced man and wife. Got to see his whole family which was a super treat.




3) Great reception food
4) Wonderful visit with my favorite little Laura Dawn. It's been way too long. Shopped, had ice cream and went to the park. Also had a surprise visit from my buddy Steve.

5) A visit with Amy. Nathan was laughing and laughing with no provocation at all. Apparently, 4 month olds have very funny thoughts. Wish I could get him to share.

6)The Purple Turtle. When was the last time you ordered a shake and they made too much and had to give you the rest in a separate cup? I just love a place like that.

So, all in all, I had a great time, Nathan did relatively well and I'm glad to be home.

I do have a question about Utah though. I've never in my life seen so many broken down cars and dead deer. I don't know if the two are related, but I want to know what was up with the cars this past weekend? I must have seen at least 30 cars on the side of the road. And no, I wasn't counting the same ones over and over. Note to Utahans: Get AAA


Just a couple extra treats!


And my favorite picture of the weekend
A little bit of Nathan crack. Apparently the diaper and the onesie aren't enough from keeping out the wedgies.

I'm Leavin' on a Jet Plane. Be back Monday

Nathan's first plane ride is 8 hours away. He was chatting with me last night and let me know that he's going to be a good little buster on the plane even though his congestion and runny nose have returned full force. I'm just hoping I don't have to use that nose sucker thing on the plane. Seriously! Unless of course there are empty seats on the plane and I can't convince the person next to me to take one of those. Then I might pull it out and offer to help them with their congestion. Gross I know, but a little extra elbow room is always such a nice thing.

So, we're off to Utah for a wedding. This is a weekend of weddings of some of my favorite people. Shout out to Andrea and Neal.

First, for Andrea. You are such an incredible girl! I remember first getting to know you and I thought you were so cute and shy and sweet, which you are. However, you are also hilarious and just plain good fun. I'm so glad that over the years you let us embarass you and you kept coming back for more.
I've heard that Andrew is wonderful and I'm glad to hear that. I hope he makes you laugh as I firmly believe that is the basis of any good marriage. I won't give any marriage advice because I don't know what I'm talking about :) and because you'll figure everything out. You are a smart cookie, my friend. I love you and wish that I was going to be with you on your special day. I couldn't find Flat Amanda or Not-So-Flat Amanda to send to the reception, so hopefully you'll know I'm there in spirit dancing my heart out and jumping around to Cotton Eyed Joe with the best of them. So, you probably don't have that song on your play list for the reception, but it's not too late. If you want a bunch of sweaty, tired people you might want to consider it.

Shout out to Neal will be much shorter because he doesn't actually read my blog. Holla! Way to go Nealio!

Now for a request. If you read this post sometime today, let's all have a collective group prayer that all the traveling goes well and I don't have to pull out the baby tylenol. Most importantly that I can manage to take care of Nathan while also reading People and USWeekly on the plane ride. Seriously, Kate might leave Jon and I need to get all the details about why he's partying so much with a wife and 8 children. Ya know! If I don't get to my guilty pleasure reading, I'll be hoping for a summary from one of you lovely ladies. Probably Rachel or my Wisconsin girls.

Well, I'm off. Wish me luck and patiently await some cute pictures on Tuesday.

Know vs. Don't Know

Things I know:

My YW counselors will always have better ideas than I do.
I am inherently lazy.
I hate weeding.
I don't want to be skinny, more than I want the bowl of ice cream.
I have more to do and less time to do it in now that I'm a mom. (I actually just figured this out tonight. Seriously, I was getting stressed and wondered why. I'm not the brightest.)
I have the cutest little baby. Angel face!

Things I Don't Know:
When I comment on someone's blog only to realize that I am not signed in and I have to log in before commenting, I won't actually log in right there and get it over with. I copy whatever comment I just typed, go back to my blog and hit the sign in button which automatically signs me in without typing my username and password. Then I go back to the other blog and paste my comment back in. What is wrong with me? It's like the inherently lazy thing, gone wrong. What I don't know, is why I do that. I'm a little crazy.

I don't know why birds wanted to make a nest in my attic. I hate them.
I don't know why I keep eating candy once the headache has set in.
I don't know why I should become a fan of things on Facebook. If I become a fan of donuts, does that mean someone is going to send me some? And does California care if I'm in it's fanclub? Cause just in case someone was wondering, I love donuts and California.

UNHAPPY WEDNESDAY

This post is NOT for the faint of heart. Those with bird phobias be forewarned! I mean it. Do not read if you think you might not be able to quickly find place to hurl. I am not afraid of birds and am still a little sick to my stomach right now.

'Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.'

The last week or so I have been noticing a mildewy smell in the nursery. I have cleaned the room several times and there are no burp rags hidden that have started to mold. I have no idea what is going on. So today, I decided that maybe I needed to get some better ventilation than simply opening the windows. So I went up into the attic to remove the cover from our house fan. I brought a flashlight because I wanted to see if there was any attic reason for the mildewy smell.
And this is what I found...




















What is that you ask????? A gigantic bird's nest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT THE HECK????????

I just don't even know what to say except that I want to die!

HELP ME!

Happy Mother's Day to me

Mother's Day for me this year was wonderful. John was asked to speak in church and he did a great job. One part of his talk was a letter from Nathan. It was so sweet and had me sobbing from my seat. I'm hoping that becomes a yearly tradition.
He also made dinner for me and took charge so I could get a nice long nap and soaking bath. Luxury!
Then yesterday, we went to get Nathan's 4 month pictures done and I got two wonderful pictures for my walls. I couldn't have asked for anything better.



And just a little something else. Lately, Nathan is growing in so many ways. He has started bouncing in his exersaucer, which is fun because he used to just sit there and play with the toys. The look on his face when he started bouncing was precious. Just about as fun when he realized how much fun it is to splash in the tub. It's almost too hard to get him washed now since his arms and legs are going so fast. He just loves the tub. I can't wait to take him to the pool this summer. I think he is going to be my little water baby.
He sits a lot in his exersaucer and in his Bumbo chair and lately when he sits in my lap, he doesn't lean against my arm. He likes to sit straight up. So this week, I decided to see if he would sit up. He can sit for a few seconds before he gets a little top heavy and falls back. When he's on the bed, he thinks it's a fun game. Here's a little picture of his new talent.

More Cuteness

4 Month Stats

We just got out of Nathan's 4 month checkup and here's the info, just in case you were wondering.
Weight 17lbs 9oz (92%)
Height 26 1/2 inches (93%)
Head Cir 43.5 cm (82%)

So, we've got a big baby. Not that I needed the Dr. to tell me that. He got his shots today and was so sad. He cried himself to sleep by the time he we got home and is sleeping it off right now.

4 Months old

It's so crazy that 4 months can go by so quickly and that so much can change in that amount of time. I didn't think to take a picture of Nathan until he was in his jammies and he had thrown up on them, but he did have a lovely nap with Max. The second picture is Max keeping Nathan's spot warm for him while he got his bottle.