Nicholas turns 5!!! April 17, 2011

Today my little boy turned 5. I can NOT believe it has been 5 years. Time is flying!! He is growing up so fast. I woke him up this morning around 7am wishing him a happy birthday. He woke up suddenly very excited. Then he said "I'm getting old and will have grey hair soon." He cracks me up. I made blueberry muffins for breakfast. Then because Chad and I couldn't wait until after church we gave him his present. He had to find it in our room. He uncovered a bike!!! He was so excited. He had been telling us he wanted a bike and to throw him off we said we would have to talk to Santa and see if he could get one for Christmas. We had every intention of buying him one though. He was so excited he rode it through our dining room and into the kitchen a few times. Now Jake wants one for his birthday too. Then we went to church. The primary sang Happy Birthday to him which he was happy about. After church we had just a little family party with my 2 sisters and brother in law. He is having his big party for everyone in 2 weeks. On Friday he had his 5 year doctor check up. Everything was great. He weighs 38lbs and is 42 inches tall. He had to get one shot and did great. No crying or anything. He just said that he was so strong that the needle didn't even hurt him. He is very excited for kindergarten next year. I just can't believe how fast he is growing up. Happy Birthday Nicholas. We love you and are so proud of the young man you are becoming.

Chad's Birthday April 1, 2011

Chad is an April Fools Day baby. He has never really liked that his birthday is on April 1 and I can't blame him. I remember being pregnant with Nicholas and being due in April and thinking "any day but the 1st!!" We don't really do a whole lot of jokes around here mostly just focus on Chad. So yesterday he turned 34 (or as he likes to put it "It is the 13 anniversary of his 21st birthday;) We had some family and friends over for dinner and cake. We had homemade pizza (I spent all day making pizza dough....so thankful for my bread maker) some salads and then he requested ice cream cake. I always make the birthday cakes for our family. Even though I usually get very little sleep the night before one of their birthdays I really enjoy it. Honestly though, I was a little relieved when he wanted a cake that I couldn't make. Less for me to do in my already crazy day. We all had a great time. We watched Tangled (love that movie!) and Dispicable Me. We didn't get a whole lot of pictures but it was fun hanging out with our family and celebrating Chad's birth. Chad, we love you!! Hope you had a wonderful birthday.

What we have been up to March 2011

It has been forever. Not that things haven't happened that I could have blogged about. I just haven't. Quick update: Chad is still in school. He enjoys it but was very happy for the break this past week. He also got to ride his motorcycle a few times in the past 2 weeks. He is always happy when tht happens. Nicholas is loving preschool. He gets registered for Kindergarten in May. I still can't believe he is going to school in the fall. His birthday is coming up next month and he is very excited. He has been interested in the solar system lately and he knows all his planets (in order), which is the hottest and coldest, biggest and smallest and so on. He surprises me sometimes. Then he makes these comments if he is cold he'll say "I'm as cold as Neptune." he is too funny sometimes. Jacob is getting so big. I can't believe he will be 3 in a few months. He just got potty trained. He still wears a diaper at night but during the day he is strictly in underwear and it is wonderful. I am so proud of him. We told him he can take swimming lessons this summer if he was potty trained so we need to sign them both up. I also just registered him for prechool in the fall. It is 2 days a week for 2.5 hours. He will love it and I'm sure I will love it as well. He usually wants to stay when we drop Nicholas off so now he will get too. I have been keeping busy. It seems like I'm doing a lot of sewing projects right now. I have 3 baby quilts to make. The Faith in God girls sewed purses this past week which was fun. The only problem was my machine couldn't handle the jean material and I broke 2 needles. I have never even broken 1 before and in about a 30 min time span I broke 2. Crazy. The Relief Society met last night and we made these caddy's for when we have the linger longer after church. We can bring our own dishes and utensils. It looked so cute I just has to make one and surprised myself when I did. It is only for 2 people though so when I got home I cut out material and made one for the boys as well. Not quite done but will post pics when I am. Sorry this is so long. Onto our project for this month. Our home has very little closet space. It has been frustrating me lately because I have baskets full of things and piles of blankets that have no place to go. In our bedroom we have 2 windows that go right out on the front porch. We have NEVER used our front porch (and probably won't since Chad built us a beautiful deck off the back.) So my thought was to take out one of the windows and build a closet onto the front porch. Chad wasn't to thrilled when I asked if he could do this but he said it was possible and he went to work drawing up plans and a materials list. Well in the week he had off of school he started and finished it. I LOVE IT!!!!! It is spacious and has enough shelving for all of our things. We also decided to use our small closet in our bedroom as the linen closet. I am so thankful for a husband who is able to do things like this and improve our home. He really is a very talented guy. Hope you are all doing great. I am going to get better at blogging more. Here are some pics of our closet and 2 of the boys before they got their haircut:)

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had such a great day. Nicholas had a Valentine's day party at school and passed out valentine's to all his friends. Plus they had lots of yummy treats. We also dropped off valentines to my sisters, brother and sister in laws and the boys cousins. I got home and found a package from pro flowers on my porch. Chad got me a vase with 2 dozen roses in 6 different colors (they were beautiful) a teddy bear and a small box of chocolate with a very romantic card. I was very surprised. Then we went to Dave and Chrissy's house and Chad and Dave made Chrissy and I a delicious dinner. It was Chicken Sorrentino with baked asparagus. It was amazing. They also melted chocolate and dipped strawberries in white and dark chocolate and made them look like little tuxedos. we played a game and enjoyed some quiet time with the kids all playing downstairs. It was a great night. I hope everyone had a great day and got to spend time with the ones they love. I feel so blessed to have my husband home this year to celebrate with. I love my boys:)

February 2011

I have been so bad about blogging. I am pretty sure I haven't taken any pictures lately either. i have no excuse other than life is busy. Chad started school a few weeks ago. He was getting frustrated that jobs weren't working out and decided to go back and finish his degree. It has been great for him to have this to keep him busy and get more of a schedule back into our lives. it has been an adjustment with him being home but it is getting easier and we all love having him here for dinner every night and spending weekends together. he also got called to be the elder's Quorum President a couple weeks ago. He was really surprised by this calling. Not at all what we were expecting but isn't that how it usually works?? Heavenly Father always has something else in mind:) He has really enjoyed it so far. Nicholas has been busy with preschool. Although he has had 3 or 4 snow days in the last few weeks from ALL the snow!! He had a Superbowl party on Friday and had a lot of fun. He is excited about his Valentine's day party next week. I made some Valentines for him to give to his friends and he signed his name on them. Jacob loves to talk....nonstop. I wonder who he got that from;) He loves his big brother and loves to play made up games with him. He is enjoying reading books and watching Handy Manny (he knows all the tools by name) and a new show called Bubble Guppies. He is my little love bug. I have been busy as well. I am teaching a new class in primary this year. I have three 8 year old boys in my class and they keep things interesting. I am also in charge of doing Faith in God with the girls twice a month. Chad and I got to go to the temple together last week. i'm sad to say that it has been a few years since we've had that opportunity. It was so great to be there with him and to do some family names. We have made a goal to try to go once a month. So far so good. I am also training for a 5K. It is in April. Training is going well and I'm excited about accomplishing this goal. Sorry I haven't posted any pictures. I need to get better at taking them. i hope you are all having a wonderful 2011 so far.

Holiday Parties/Christmas Dec. 2010

Wow....I hadn't realized it had been almost a month since my last post. So much has happened and it just flew by so quickly. Chad came home permanently just a few days after my last post. We were all so happy to be done with that part of our lives. The day after he got home we had the Healy family Christmas party at our house. It was so fun hanging out with my siblings and their spouses. My brother Brian also brought his 2 daughters and the boys were so happy to have playmates. We did a yankee swap with presents and I think it went well. Chad ended up getting small frying pan that had molds of Santa and snowmen. I thought it would be a cute new tradition on christmas morning to make pancakes with it. I got a mug with very fancy hot chocolate, a yankee candle and a borders gift card. The other gifts were good as well, that's just what we got. The following day (after church) we had the Fichtner family Christmas party at Dave and Chrissy's house. Always a fun time hanging out with Chad's family. The amazing thing was that Chad and ALL of his brothers were there at he same time. It seems like getting 2 together is common but anymore than that seems impossible. I know Chad really missed hanging out with his brothers while he was away. We also did a Yankee swap at this party (one for adults and one for the kids) Nicholas got a set of playfood and Jake got a Zooble. Its kind of girly but he really liked it and I even found them some other ones since then. Chad got some Christmas pot holders and I got a Christmas wreath. Good food and good company. Then we will fast forward to Christmas Eve. We went to Eric and Rachael's house to visit then we went with Michelle to drop off cookies to church friends. We interupted a family Christmas party but they were so great about it and even let us stay for their Christmas play. Afterwards we went home and got the boys ready for bed. Michelle was spending the night too so she could be here bright and early. I didn't have the energy to make any more cookies for Santa so he got oreo's. I didn't hear any complaining. The next morning we ended up having to wake the boys up at 7:45am. normally we would have let them sleep but we were planning to head over to Eric and Rachaels' house for breakfast. So we had to get moving. the boys were SO EXCITED when they saw the tree. We passed out the presents and they had a great time opening them. Jake got these books about a duck named Little Quack (which he loves) When he opened the present he was done. he just wanted to sit and read his books. Nicholas got a remote control car which is what he had asked Santa for. The boys had a lot of fun and so did we. Michelle got us tickets to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra for the following day. That was awesome! Chad got a book on cd and a new cd player for his truck. (his old one hasn't been working so well) Chad got me an ipod which I have used almost everyday since Christmas. Breakfast was great and then just realxing and watching movies all day. This was the first year that I saw "A Christmas Story" from start to finish. Anyway this post is so long I'm going to split new years into another one. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. It is so great hanging out with family and celebrating the true reason for the season together.

Making Cookies/Christmas Program Dec. 15, 2010

The boys and I made these yummy swirl mint cookies the other day. I got the recipe from my friends blog and when I saw the 3 different colors cookie dough, I knew I had to make it. I was unsure how I felt about the "mint" part of the cookie but I am SO glad I added it. They were so tasty. First we made the dough. Then we seperated it into 3 equal parts. Dyed one red (kind of pink) one green and left one yellow. Then we rolled them into long strips, cut them and mixed the colors together as you rolled it into a ball. The boys had alot of fun making these. Nicholas had his Christmas program at school last night. He has been singing these songs for about a month (almost driving me insane!!) come to find out a few days ago, his teachers says that he doesn't sing at school! I know he knows all the words because I know all the words and these are Christmas jingles I've never heard before. So he didn't sing a lot at the program but I did see him trying to at a few parts. He looked so handsome in his white shirt and tie. He got to keep the red and white scarf he was wearing. We had to leave a little early and when we were in the hallway putting on our coats, guess who walks in the door??? SANTA!!! The look on Nicholas' face was priceless. He was in SHOCK!! He gave Santa a high five but other than that he was to nervous to talk to him. After we got a picture and said goodbye we walked outside and Nicholas asks "Where is his sleigh with all the reindeer?" I told him he probably parked it on the roof. He was so excited to go home and call daddy to tell him who he saw. It was a fun night. Both my boys are growing up so fast. Chad is due home in the next couple of days. We are all very excited and that is really the best christmas present we can get.