Flashback Friday

It was this time 5 years ago that my friends decided that they wanted to go to this haunted house. I kind of wanted to go but at the same time I had a really bad headache and needed to catch up on some homework. I decided to be the responsible one and stay behind to catch up. My best friend and roommate, Shannah, wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You have to go, pleeeese.” I just didn’t understand why she wouldn’t let me stay behind. I mean I thought I had good reasons why I couldn’t go and besides one of our other friends were staying behind for homework reasons (no headache involved) and no one was giving him grief for it. Finally it came out that she had invited Nathan (without my knowledge) to come along and told him I would be there. I was ticked.

Side note/very long tangent: Don’t get me wrong I thought Nathan was cute and he seemed nice (I really didn’t know him. I just knew one thing about him and that was enough to turn me off…He was an RM!!!!!) As many of you know or think to be true RM stands for Returned Missionary. My brother on the other hand warned me of these so called RM’s. He told me that they want you to think that the RM stands for Returned Missionary but in reality it stands for Ready to be Married. My brother, Wade, also warned me to stay far, far, away from the RM’s. As a freshman in college and promising myself that I wouldn’t be one of those lame people that get married after their freshman year I was determined to stay away from all RM’s.

It was bad enough that I already agreed (to make Shannah happy of course) to go on a double date with Nathan (Shannah and Bryce) that would happen a few days after this haunted house thing. This whole thing seemed like a lose/lose situation. If I didn’t have a good time with Nathan, then I would have a date with him in a few days and that would be awkward. But if I had a good time with him (which wasn’t going to happen) I would have a date with him in a few days and it might be a little harder to stick to the plan. Anyways, after much persuasion I decided (or maybe forced is the better word) to go. I ended up having a great time and at some point in the haunted house Nathan and I ended up holding hands. To this day we still disagree on who held whose hand first. I’m always right though so he held my hand. I mean there is no way that I would initiate holding a scary RM’s hand….NO WAY!

Happy five years of dating Handsome! I love you (even if you were a scary RM!)

Frosted Graham Crackers

Nathan and I were talking the other day and found out that both of us used to have graham crackers with frosting when we were kids. My mom would use the left over frosting from birthday cakes to frost graham crackers where as Nathan's mom would buy the frosting from the can and frost graham crackers. We both remembered how much we enjoyed this little treat and so the other day at the store we had a coupon to get a $1.00 off the frosting in the can. We decided to pick it up along with some graham crackers to let Easton in on this wonderful treat! I finally brought out the graham crackers and frosting today and gave Easton a little taste of what he has been missing. He loved it as you can tell from the picture. I only gave him 2 little sandwiches (crackers cut in fourths with frosting in the middle with not that much frosting). From the looks of it I'm a little sceptical that he even got any frosting in his mouth. Oh well, he still seemed to enjoy the treat as much as I remember I did when I was a kid.

Flashback Friday

The first Halloween I ever remember was back when I was 3 or 4 (I think). Anyways, I remember how excited I was to go trick or treating because after all what kid doesn’t like free candy. I remember going with my siblings and my dad. We hit all the houses on my street and then started going up the street next to ours. It was the second house on that street that seemed a little scary. I wanted my dad to come with me but he told me that I could do it with my siblings and he would wait right there for me. It had a lot of steps up to the front door and my siblings had already started the ascent up to the front door. I quickly (as quick as I could) tried to catch up to them and right when they had reached the door (I was about ¾ of the way up) this black figure reached out the window and grabbed me. Of course this scared the crap out of me and I began screaming and crying hysterically and then ran down the stairs to my daddy. I wanted to go home. I was done with this whole Halloween thing. The owners of the house felt horrible for what they had done and came down the stairs to apologize. Apparently they thought that a couple of handfuls of candy would help the situation. As my siblings can attest to I loved food and would do anything for it so naturally candy could solve all problems right? For the moment it did, I mean I was in heaven. This house alone tripled (at least) the amount of candy that was already in my bag. However, to this day, anytime I walk past that house, I still shiver as I remember that awful Halloween night. It will forever be the scary house.

Halloween Party

Yesterday we went to Nathan’s school for the Halloween Party. It was really fun. There were lots of kids, lots of cute costumes, lot of food, and lots of candy. It doesn’t get any better than that! I actually took pictures of Easton at home in his costume the day before and I am glad I did because for some reason he was not happy to be in his costume at the party and all he wanted was for me to hold him. This makes it really difficult to take pictures and as it turns out I only took one picture of Easton and a friend of mine took two of me and Easton. As you can probably tell I made Easton’s costume (He’s a smore if you couldn’t figure it out). It was a hit. Everyone seemed to like it and thought it was the cutest thing ever. That made me feel better since I was a little worried that people would think it was a stupid idea (just like my brother did-thanks Wade). Anyways, there were a few categories for the costume judging contest and Easton won “Most creative costume”. He got a box of sidewalk chalk for his prize. Maybe we will go outside sometime today and play with his new chalk. Hopefully this time he will get more on the sidewalk and less in his mouth. We shall see.

Easton all dressed up in his smore costume.

Easton with his sidewalk chalk.

Videos

I can always tell when Easton really likes something because he attempts to shove as much of it in his mouth as he possibly can. He defnitely gets this from his daddy!

We had speghetti the other night and for some reason Easton kept trying to eat his like a dog. He would put his head down and try to like it off his tray. I tried to get it on video but anytime I took the camera out Easton instead would pose for the camera and say, "Cheese" (in his own way) over and over again. This is his latest. He loves posing and saying cheese for the camera.

Laundry and Prune Juice

Nathan was folding the laundry the other day and accidentally left the dryer door open. A few minutes later Easton is banging on something and screaming in delight. This is what I found. Here’s a video of Easton in the dryer. He is just talking away.

Easton had a doctor’s appointment on Friday (mainly to check his weight and height progress). He is now in the 5th percentile (finally he is above the dreaded line) for weight and 25th percentile for height. Nathan blames his height on me. He says Easton will be short because I’m more than 6 inches shorter than him. It’s not my fault he chose to marry someone who is short. While at his appointment I asked the doctor about Easton being constipated recently and he told me to give him prune juice. We bought some and Easton absolutely loved it! I was shocked. We gave him about 4-6oz early in the morning and then a few more ounces in the afternoon. We figured if he liked it so much we could just keep on giving it to him until his stool became soft. Boy were we wrong. Easton + prune juice = major blowout! It was so disgusting. It soaked through Easton’s clothes and got on Nathan’s shirt. I guess next time we will just stick to a couple of ounces and leave it at that. Prune juice definitely works (maybe a little too much)!

Fishing

Nathan had Monday off so we decided to go fishing as a family. This was the first time we had gone fishing as a family and it turned out to be a really fun day. We went to a local lake and it was absolutely beautiful. The leaves here are in the beginning stages of changing colors so the trees were all different colors. I love the fall here on the East Coast. We ended the day catching four fish but unfortunately or fortunately (depending on who you ask) they weren’t big enough to keep. We all were able to catch a least one fish on our pole so that was really exciting. We really didn’t have any luck until Nathan went into the woods and dug for some worms. Once we had worms on our hooks the fish were biting like crazy. More times than not the fish outsmarted us and got the worm instead of the hook. Oh, well we still caught four and we still had fun.

Easton caught the first fish. His pole was actually just a stick with fishing line on it! He thought the fish was so funny.

Easton caught the second fish too!

I caught the third fish! I was a little scared of the little thing because he kept flapping around when we were trying to take the picture. The poor fish that I caught actually ate the worm whole along with the hook so we weren’t able to unhook him and let him go. Nathan had to kill it (in a humane way of course) because he definitely wouldn’t have survived if we did release him. Poor fishy.

And Nathan caught the last fish!

Oh, the cute things....

Easton’s newest interests is spinning and jumping (although he really doesn’t know how to fully jump yet). Here are some videos of him spinning and jumping.

Easton also enjoys the nursery rhyme “ring around the rosie.” He especially likes the part “we all fall down” only he falls down way before that part of the song comes up.

Easton is still signing like crazy. His newest and most favorite at this time is hurt. I almost swear he tries to hurt himself on purpose just so he can use the sign. He’s a funny kid. He knows at least 30+ words.

Easton is trying to copy more and more words these days. It is really cute to see him try and say a word. He is definitely well on his way to start talking. It is only a matter of time. His favorite actual word these days is NOOOO! He doesn’t say it all mean or anything like that. He actually says it all nice and sweet in his high pitch voice. It’s very cute. Just so everyone knows, he already told me that he isn’t going to date until he is married. This is me, “Are you going to date before you are married? Easton replies, “Noooo” (as he is shaking his head back and forth). We will just have to see if he lives up to his part of the deal.

Just yesterday Easton figured out how to open the refrigerator. I think it was a fluke (at least I am hoping). He hasn’t done it since, but I’m sure it won’t be long before he really figures it out. I might be buying a baby lock sooner than I thought.

Easton loves to climb. He is climbing on the kitchen table chairs to get on the table to of course dance. He is climbing into his high chair, on the rocking chair (only he takes off the cushion first and half the time gets his foot or leg stuck), in the clam chair where he often times reads to himself (well okay just looks at the pictures), and he attempts to climb the kiddy gate. I’m a little fearful that it will only be a matter of time before he figures out how to climb out of his crib. I actually took the bumper pads out yesterday just so he wouldn’t have the extra boost. I’m hoping it will be a long time yet but I guess you never know.

Phillips Farm

Nathan and I took Easton to a local farm to pick out a pumpkin to carve for this year. It wasn’t as good as the farm we went to last year, but they had pumpkins and that was our main reason for going to the farm, so it all worked out. The farm also had some animals that Easton really seemed to enjoy. I think his favorite was by far the nasty, smelly, pig. It made me happy at first because pigs were always my favorite animal growing up but once I got close enough and smelled how stinky he really was, I couldn’t understand why Easton liked him so much. I think Easton was so interested in the pig because it was the only animals at the farm that he really hadn’t seen before, so it sparked his interests.

Easton with the chosen pumpkin.

Easton with the smelly pig.

Dad and Easton with the spider.

Before we headed to the farm, our apartment complex was having a fall festival. They had free food, games and activities for the kids, music, and a raffle. We really only stayed to eat but it seemed like it would have been really fun. We tried to put Easton in the bouncy house, but for some reason he was terrified to go in it (even when Nathan was going to go inside with him). I seriously thought he would have liked it because it seemed like a huge tent and Easton LOVES tents. Easton was tired and ready for a nap so maybe that is why.

After the farm we went shopping for some fishing equipment and a license. Nathan and I are going to attempt to go fishing this Monday. I have never had any luck with fishing but maybe this time I will. As long as I don’t have to eat any of the fish we catch I will be a happy fisherwoman!

Croydon Creek Nature Center

A couple of us girls and our kids went to the Croydon Creek Nature Center this last Thursday. It turned out a lot better than I thought. It was free, which is always nice, but you never know with free if it will be great or not. All the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves, so much so that it was almost impossible to get a picture of the kids looking at the camera. Oh well, at least they had fun. Most of the animals were in the discovery room. There were turtles, snakes, toads, fish, bees, and an owl for the kids to look at. There were also lots of books, puzzles, and paper for the kids to color on. After the kids played for a while in the discovery room we decided to go outside and take a little walk. We ended up at a playground were the kids got a snack and played for a while before we headed home. As always Easton found a puddle on the slide and decided to go through it on his stomach. He was definitely wet from head to toe. I just roll my eyes at him now because I know anytime he finds water; it is destined that he will get wet. There is just no stopping him.

Easton checking out the Toads

Easton and Bella at the top of the slide.

Husband Tag

I haven't done a tag before but since I haven't written in a while I thought it might be fun to write down a few things about the one I love.

Aren't my boys so cute?

Picture taken by Emily Hayes.

1. Where did you meet? My best friend, Shannah, introduced us. She worked with Nathan in the cookie factory.

2. How long did you date before you got married? 9 ½ months.

3. How long have you been married? 4 wonderful years.

4. What does he do that surprises you? He generally comes home, gives me a hug and kiss, and then asks what he can do to help out! Love it!

5. What is your favorite feature of his? I love his amazing blue eyes.

6. What is your favorite quality of his? He if very Christ-like. I learn a lot from him in how to be a better person.

7. Does he have a nickname for you? Babe
8. What is his favorite color? Blue (the color of the sky on top of Mt. McKinley to be exact).

9. What is his favorite food? Pork chops.

10. What is his favorite sport? Rock climbing and football.

11. When and where was your first kiss? In the club house of his apartment complex.

12. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? Basically anything as long as we can hang out (grocery shopping, watch movies, long car rides where we can just talk, etc.).
13. Do you have any children? 1 adorable little boy named Easton.

14. Does he have a hidden talent? I wouldn’t say it is hidden but he is incredibly smart. He basically only needs to read it or hear it once and it is forever ingrained in his head (I wish I had this talent). He is also a really good Mr. fix-it (at least I’m always impressed).

15. How old is he? 26 years old.

16. Who said I love you first? He did. It was over Christmas break on the phone. We talked for hours almost every night on the phone. I’m sure our families hated us.
17. What is his favorite type of music? He doesn’t really listen to music unless I’m in the car controlling it. If he listens to the radio it is generally talk radio (boring!) or he is listening to something for his scripture study.

18. What do you admire most about him? How genuinely nice he is and how he never gets mad. I also love how soft spoken he is. He is an excellent example of how a father and husband should be. I also admire his love for learning.

19. Do you think he will read this? I don’t know about right away but probably sometime in the near future.

Anyone who wants to brag about their significant other…