Nathaniel's Birthday...

Nathaniel was quite into the idea of birthday this year. Last year we held off on presents, cake, etc. until the weekend because his birthday was the same day as Joshua's first day of school, Brian had class that night and more. This year we're holding off on cake & ice cream to Saturday again, but we couldn't really hold off on presents. He KNOWS that you get presents on your birthday and asked about them in the morning. We told him that he'd get presents after his birthday dinner when everyone was home from school and work.

So he started the day with breakfast...when asked, all he wanted for breakfast was yogurt, preferably blackberry yogurt, please. He loves yogurt! Eventually he did add that he wanted some chocolate chip Mickey Mouse pancakes. So here was his birthday breakfast...





Later that morning, he and I ran to our storage unit to unload some stuff and I empty partial boxes and some bags and made a little progress there. Then after I paid the rent fees, we went to the store to see Grandma. He usually gets a cookie at the store when we go there (they give cookies to little kids), but being as it was his birthday, Grandma had gotten him a special treat...a little 6 pack of Oreos! And then I let him pick out ice cream for dessert since we weren't doing his cake. When we got home, we shared the Oreos (I managed to snag two...he was pretty protective of them). I've had some Oreo scrapbook paper for years and was always going to take pictures of the boys eating them, but never have. Now I've got some pictures :)

After lunch we played Cooties (he beat me, fair & square, I couldn't roll a 1 for anything and by the time I got my Cootie body, he already had everything but a couple of legs) and then it was time to pick up Joshua from school. On Wednesday (1st day), we'd waited for him in the car, much to Nathaniel's dismay. He wanted to see his brother's new classroom! So I told him that we'd go for his birthday. Joshua was pretty thorough showing us around the classroom. When we got home, Joshua played with him for the rest of the afternoon - he'd planned all kinds of special things for his little brother's birthday. It was so sweet. Joshua always wants to do stuff like that on people's birthdays. For my birthday 3 years ago, when I was expecting Nathaniel, he planned some games and snacks for my special day. Here are the decorations and "plan" for his party with Nathaniel.

One thing they did was plan out some puppet shows. I have one picture of that and then I videoed their little acts. Unfortunately, I don't think I can load them to blogger...it hasn't let me load videos for awhile. Just trust me that they were hysterical. Joshua's narration was wonderful.

For dinner we had homemade pizza (another Nathaniel favorite) and then he finally got to open his presents. He got some toys and some clothes and art supplies (like big brother has) and finally he got his monkey boy blanket! He was torn between playing with his toys and eating his ice cream...finally he ate a little ice cream. Going to bed was not high on his list of priorities last night, but finally he crashed, leaning against me sitting on the floor next to his bed.

Joshua was the present bringer (though he wasn't always fast enough for Nathaniel)

and the card reader.

Finally, my monkey boy blanket!!!!

Daddy reading him his new musical pop up Thomas book...

He was quite the happy little boy. Today I need to bake his cake and hopefully decorate it (as a monkey) tonight so we can eat it tomorrow with Great Grandma when she comes up.

Birthday Boy!!!

In three short years we've gone from this...

to this....

to this...

to THIS!!

Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!!!

First Day of Second Grade

Today was Joshua's first day of second grade - finally!!! He's been ready to go back to school for a few weeks now. His teacher is Mr. Fasenfest and the whole 2nd grade is in one class this year (last year there was a 1st grade class and a 1/K combo)...I feel for the teacher...he has 28 (at least) students...I had 28 and sometimes more when I taught 4th grade...but at least at 4th grade they could be a little more independent than 2nd graders!

We're less than three weeks away from Thumpy's due date now...not that that really means anything since both boys were 5 days late. Due to my eleveated blood pressure at the beginning of the pregnancy (it's been fine the past few months, don't know if that is the medication they've had me on or what) I get to go to the hospital twice a week for fetal monitoring. Today was a monitoring day and Thumpy and I did fine...though I was having contractions about every 7 minutes or less for most of the time I was there...they did stop and I came home. Nathaniel is enjoying it because he gets to go to Great Grandma's when I go over. And as much as he loves Joshua, he prefers to go to Great Grandma's all by himself and was thrilled to get to be there by himself today. In fact, he's informed me that he can get there by himself, he knows how to get there and he can just walk, thank you very much. Can't get him happily convinced that it's about 15 miles to Great Grandma's and that's a long walk for a little boy (for anyone for that matter). When I came to pick him up, he thanked me for bringing him there. Cute kid!

Hidden Treasure...

Last spring, Joshua brought home 6 little seedlings that they'd started at school...the zinnia, marigold and sunflower just didn't make it. However, the green bean plant, the zucchini and the pumpkin have all done well. His green bean has done better than the other ones that have been planted! One zucchini plant has provided more than enough zucchini for all of us and Grandma Darlene. And the pumpkin plant has spread like an octopus through the end of the garden (and through the fence) and produced one large pumpkin...the other evening, Mom, Brian and the boys went out to pick some yellow squash and to check on the pumpkin...here are the boys with the pumpkin...

And then here is our "Hidden Treasure"...this guy was hiding out somehow and was missed by everyone for awhile...

It weighed in at 5.8 POUNDS!!! That's a lot of zucchini bread!

Nathaniel could barely stand up holding it...

And this is what it ended up as...18+ cups of grated zucchini that today, some of will be made into a cake, and 2 kinds of cookies. Any good zucchini recipes anyone?

Siskiyou County Golden Fair...

I can't believe that we're nearing the end of August already!! And I've neglected the blog for a month now - time is going too fast!

Last week was our county fair...which I haven't gone to or participated in since 1993, the last summer I came home from college. That's quite a long time. Well, this year, I had several entries...mostly in the sewing/textiles department. In years past we always entered a bunch of ceramics. I did a little of that and was shocked at how very little ceramics there actually was (my 2 entries and someone else's 2 entries were all that I found!) They've changed how they do things from when I was a kid, so Joshua was very limited in what he could enter, and received no money for his ribbon.

Here he is with his ceramic frogs (Grandma Lorrayne did the eyes - she did my santa ones too):

Nathaniel was disappointed that he didn't get to enter anything, but his monkey boy quilt (that he doesn't get until his birthday next week) did quite well...1st place in beginner quilts (it was my first time hand quilting) plus a $25 bonus from the Siskiyou County Quilters Guild!

Everything I entered got ribbons except for these 4 items...I didn't expect to get one on the afghan for Thumpy, especially when I knew I was competing against my Grandma! There were tons of crocheted & knit baby afghans this year. The knit purse is something that was supposed to be a scarf, but I didn't have enough yarn, so with some ideas from Mom it became a purse...and the baby tag blankie thing is from a pattern I got at Walmart...they probably had no clue what it was! The britches were just for fun...I don't know if they figured them out.

The stocking was something Mom found cut out in a box in her sewing room that she gave me to finish...the Elmo bib was one I started either before Joshua was born or shortly after...and I just finished it last month. The dishcloth I did do specifically for the fair - it turned out nicely. The Halloween placemat is for Joshua (I still need to sew Nathaniel's). The pattern (from the same thing as the tag blankie) is nice, but a little small...I need to figure out how to make it bigger.

My other big surprise, besides the quilt doing so well, was this cross stitch pillow. I finished the cross stitch piece early last year or late 2007, I can't remember. I put it in a frame, but didn't really like it framed...I decided I wanted to make it into a pillow...sadly, it hadn't gotten wet during the great storage disaster of June 2009 and I hadn't realized that. I rinsed and washed and rinsed some more, but still had water spots on it, though they were hard to see. I had no pattern for the pillow, but knew how I wanted it to look. Things aren't totally straight, borders aren't quite equal, but hey, someone liked it because it got Best of Show!

I only did 2 ceramic entries...both Christmas, both Santa...the tall pillaresque Santas are some I've liked for a long time...and finally got around to painting them. There are 3 so eventually each kid will get one (the boys already have it figured out who gets which)...the little thimbles were fun to do...I've done several sets for gifts and never kept any for myself, so this time I will.

This is the first time I've ever entered scrapbook pages in a fair...it was fun. They just limit you so much - only 4 categories (I didn't do the wedding one because I had nothing to scrap) and only 1 entry per category. I think the Honorable Mention is because they didn't figure out that the flowers moved and behind them were the names, etc. for each of my ancestresses...there was a note saying that I needed to label them...they were labeled, just differently. So I'll remember next year - NO HIDDEN JOURNALING!

Swimming Lessons...

Joshua finished his swimming lesson session yesterday...for which I am very glad. It's getting hot and there is no shade at the end of the pool where his lessons are so we sit in the very bright very hot sun watching. Nathaniel runs up and down the little hill that goes around the pool (when I was a kid and went swimming there and took lessons there...and even when I was in high school, there was a fence right around the concrete that goes around the pool, but not any more) and gets sweaty and tired. Luckily, Brian was able to take him to some lessons during the 2 weeks.

Joshua did wonderfully, considering that I skipped him a level. I thought he'd done levels 2&3 last year in Winters, but he'd done 1 & 2...I'd signed him up for level 4. But he did well and learned the back stroke, improved his crawl A LOT (he actually turns his head to the side some of the time instead of lifting it straight up and doggy paddling) and learned the breast stroke. The highlight was jumping from the lifeguards perch...I wanted to take a picture of him doing it yesterday, but the teacher asked me to spot the kids jumping. Which was oh so fun trying to hang on to Nathaniel so that he didn't jump in too. I told the kid that taught that class that he'd just better not expect me to jump in for any reason. So I didn't get a picture of him doing that, but I got a couple of others.

Nathaniel's highlight yesterday was a getting to touch a swallow-tailed butterfly. It was flying low over the pool and where we were sitting and he was chasing it (luckily not into the water since we were sitting at the deep end). It landed right by our bench and I told him he could carefully touch it. It was missing half of it's swallow-tail and some wing, which is why it was flying so erratically. He was so thrilled to touch it...simple pleasures!