Three Things

As I'm trying to think up three things for this, I ask Nathan to give me three things about each of the boys. His response? "Nice things?". Yep. It's been one of those days as a parent. Sounds terrible, I know. Just keeping it real. But on a good day....

Three Things about:

Drew:
1. Loves to create books. He draws the pictures, and then I write the words as he says them. This one was a Winnie the Pooh book and is one of my favorites he has created so far:

"Winnie the Pooh climbs a honey tree. A bee stings him."

2. "Tigger knocks on Pooh's house."  3. "Owl hears a sound."

4. "Rabbit picks some of his vegetables from his garden."  5 (backwards five). "Piglet walks by the river."

6 (also backwards). "Roo was calling for all of his friends for the picnic. The end."

2. Officially moved to a booster seat in the car and is super excited about it. I made him wait until he had reached the height limit of his five point harness carseat before making the switch and it took until just before he turned six to get there. Drew would tell you this took "forever".

3. Is starting to read. Will now ask for simple words to be spelled so he can tell you what the word is. It has sort of become a game for us. We also play the game vise versa where I give him a word and he spells the letters of the word back to me. Simple words like "Mat", "Dog", "Pan", "Hand", etc.

4. Loves to ride bikes and scooters and build wildly imaginative Lego creations.

Collin:
1. Can now draw a person...the kind that are just a circle for the body, with two super long arms and two super long legs. Sometimes the bodies only have the long legs. These are some of my favorite types of drawings!

2. Calls Drew, "Bud"...."Hey Bud, want to go play outside with me?". (Technically Drew calls Collin this most times too).

3. Loves to play with toy swords and stashes them inside the back of his shirt with the bottoms of the swords tucked into his chonies so they don't fall out. He can then reach behind his head and whip out a sword for a quick draw at a moments notice.

4. Also loves to ride bikes and scooters and keep up with all of his brother's cool tricks.

Tanner:
1. Loves to spit. We're working on this.

2. Loves to make sure he has your attention and then pull you or make you follow him to whatever it is he wants you to see or be a part of.

3. Does this fake laugh right now. Actually, I don't know if I can even call it "fake" at this point because it's his go-to laugh for most things right now. So funny, and so weird!

4. Loves to sleep on his pillow only, like a puppy on a dog bed. At first when he would move onto his pillow while I was tucking him in, I would pick him up and move him back to having his head on the pillow and his body on the bed. I've totally given up though on trying to have him lie "normally" in bed. He will immediately move back up to the pillow and then pat his hip asking for the covers to be moved up to him on his pillow. Whatever! As long as he sleeps, I'm a happy camper!

Nine

One last thing from January...

Nine years I've been married to this boy.

I'm still smitten with him.

To celebrate, we took a long overdue trip to the Ahwahnee Hotel. Long overdue because it was supposed to be our destination the night we got married, but we were snowed out (and to think, this year we spent most of January in the mid-70s).  I always love Yosemite in the winter because it's practically empty of people! We hiked the redwoods and eventually made our way up to Wawona Point where we passed maybe two other people along the way. It was still, and peaceful, and beautiful at the top. Such a treat at the end of a long hike. You couldn't help but sit there and marvel at what our God created and be thankful for it. Amazing.

The Big Three-Oh

Let's pretend it's not already March. And that I'm not so far behind on blogging that I'm blogging about something that happened way back at the beginning of January. When it's March. Let's pretend, shall we?

I recently attended the most amazing birthday party.

A birthday party that up until arriving, I had no idea I would be attending.

Or that I would be the guest of honor.

You see, I recently turned 29.1 (or as the rest of those around me keep declaring, gulp, thirty).

There. I said it. I turned thirty.

And although I should have known that something like a surprise party might come my way on such a momentous occasion....

I was completely caught off guard.

Completely.

In fact, for months leading up to my birthday, Nathan would ask me what it was I wanted to do for my big day.

"I don't know", I would reply. "Dinner? A day off. Anything really, but no parties..."

"And no surprises."

Sounds so depressing, doesn't it?? But we really did have that conversation and to me, dinner and a day "off"(...off of dishes, laundry, clean-up, wiping hineys, cooking for three munchkins that, *gasp*, dare to request at least three meals a day....the horror, I know.) really was the ideal. And I really am not a surprise person.

Or so I thought.

So how exactly did all this come to pass while I went blissfully unaware of anything? Well, my birthday came and went on a Tuesday. I got my wished-for day off, as my fabulous mother-in-law (Seriously. She's the best!) whisked me away for a surprise afternoon at the spa, and wrapped up the day with a great sushi dinner. Perfect. Day. Nathan and I had a small get-away planned over the weekend for our anniversary (which happens to be the day after my birthday), so I really thought all birthday shenanigans had been taken care of.

They hadn't been.

On Friday as I was driving Drew to preschool, he and Collin mentioned that they had a surprise planned for me that night with Daddy. "Oh?". They were super excited about it and had a hard time keeping quiet about whatever it was. They did, however, emphasize (over and over and over, again) that they had thought of this surprise all on their own. So, just as they had said, when Daddy arrived home off we went with three bouncing, extremely excited boys on their surprise adventure (come to find out, they only knew about their adventure and actually had no idea about the party until moments before. Good call Daddy.).

The only catch? I had to wear a blindfold. To be honest, my first reaction was something along the lines of "Are you kidding me?", but, there were three small, giddy faces waiting in anticipation for me to put it on, and the reality is, there's not much I wouldn't do for them. So on it went, no questions asked.

I did learn that there would be two stops. The first, Drew's choice for a surprise and the second, Collin's.

The first time the blindfold came off, I found we had arrived at mini golf, the boys' all time favorite activity (should have guessed!). We spent an hour or so playing with the boys and then off to the next adventure we went, blindfolded yet again. I tried oh-so-hard to pay attention to where we were going...which turns we were making, how many lights we had been through, etc to try and get an idea of where we were going, but Nathan must have been driving in circles because by the time we had arrived at our next destination, I was so lost!

So, after a very long walk to "Collin's restaurant" for dinner, I opened my eyes to find (Ahhh!) so many of my friends and family waiting for me!

...Lots of family, actually! Lots of out of town-had-no-idea-they-were-in-town family! And even a few out of town friends!

Every tiny detail had been accounted for.

My kids were whisked away, back to our house, by babysitters they adore and that had been pre-arranged to come and pick them up....

...Major hubby/sister planner assistant points for that one.

My dress and Nathan's suit were ready and waiting to be changed into. Hello, cocktail attire party!

...and hello, hair dresser sister ready to transform "mom hair" into fabulous hair! (Thanks Christinie Weenie! You are the best!).

And the decorations! The oh-so-fabulous decorations! (Hello, giant shout out to sneaky Auntie Jenn Jenn and Uncle Burkie...planner/decorator/party-site-host extroidinaires!).

And you know...a funny thing happened. I very quickly became a surprise party LOVER.

...And an after party lover. *grin*

I also think it made me love my hubby just a pinch more than I already do (Pshh! As if that were even possible...) for all the effort he put in to making me feel so special and loved. Awww.