President's Day Party

Tyler and I usually don't need much of an excuse to throw a party, especially if we're in the mood for Tyler's famous jambalaya! But this time our excuse was that Ethney is home! Well she has been for a while but we haven't had the chance to celebrate it. So we threw a welcome home/ President's Day party. We had lots of great friends, delicious food, and fun fun fun! And Mike and Ethney gave a great FHE lesson. Our only regret is not having a big enough living room to invite all of the people we would have loved to have over. But we did manage to squeeze in a good deal of people!

Our friend Claudia came from Eagle!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends... They are great!

Enjoying dinner and some rootbeer!

Parker and his buddy Carter were showing off for the camera! They were both about ready for bed at this point but they hung in there like little troopers! Such cuties!

It was a very fun night and we hope that we can find time for more fun things like this!

Valentine's Day

Ok, I decided to blog about my Valentine's even though it's not over yet and I said in my commercial post I was going to wait... It was a great Valentine's! I am such a lucky girl. Tyler and I actually celebrated last night. My parents watched Parker so we could join our friends, Jeff and Laura for dinner at Tucano's! Yes, that's right, Boise now has a Tucano's as of February 11. Tyler was so sweet! I don't know if he remembered this but we were watching something on TV a while back and the guy got his date a corsage and even though a corsage is more for like prom, I thought it was so cute! Well Tyler surprised me with a corsage and a mixed CD of some of our favorite songs. He also bought me the Taylor Swift CD because I always say I want to get it and never have. I'm very thankful for a romantic and thoughtful husband! Love you Babe!

Dinner was fantastic, thanks for the invite Johnsons! We had so much fun! We all ate until we couldn't move! And the food was delicious!

Actual Valentine's Day we have spent relaxing, our favorite thing to do. Parker has been experimenting with the Johnny Jumper thingy. He has got some sweet moves in that thing. So we've been enjoying watching him play.

The only place in our house that works with the Johnny Jumper is in the pantry so he jumps around all our food.

I am so lucky to have two such charming and handsome boys to celebrate Valentine's with!

My Favorite Commercial!

I was going to blog about my Valentine's because we celebrated it last night but then I realized it isn't officially over yet so I will write about that within the next few days. So instead... I saw this commercial a month or so ago and I think it is pretty much the cutest commercial ever, mostly because I can see my husband doing stuff like this with our kids. Anyway, here is my appreciation for great dads out there. My dad was very involved with my life, luckily for him it was all sports and no cheerleading. I appreciate that so much! And Tyler is a wonderful father already, I can't wait to see him when our kids are older. Here is the link, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A2Ap3DyvLg

The Band-Aid Story

Well the first time Tyler told me this story I did not think it was funny... not even a little bit but he did and even my mom laughed. But now that it has been a day or so, I feel myself fighting a little grin when I tell it so I figured I'd share it and hopefully moms out there can use it to feel better about themselves by thinking, "at least I'm not as bad of a mother as Natalie is..."

The other night Parker scratched himself with his finger nail right in the corner of his eye so I decided that I needed to be brave and trim his nails with the nail clippers. Heartbreakingly, just as I was about to clip one, my little wiggle worm moved and I clipped the tip of his finger instead. That is the worst. I had never done that before but it was always a big fear of mine which is why his nails were long to begin with. Anyway, it just kept bleeding and bleeding and so I pulled out a Band-Aid and wrapped it around his finger.

The next day, I was at the hospital for clinicals and Tyler was getting Parker dressed. Tyler noticed that Parker was sucking on his Band-Aided finger. Parker sucks on everything so he didn't think much of it. Then he heard Parker start to gag. He looked up and the Band-Aid was gone! So frantically he tried to pull it out but was unsuccessful. So he picked him up and patted him on the back, fearing that he was choking. All of the sudden, Parker was fine. Tyler looked around and the Band-Aid was gone- no where to be found. So we are assuming it is in Parker's belly. Yep, he swallowed his Band-Aid. Tyler called me up on my way home to tell me about it. So if you are a mom and you are feeling down just remember the story of when Natalie clipped Parker's finger with the nail clippers and then was almost an accessory to his choking on a Band-Aid- that has to make you feel better about yourself. I'm sure we'll be seeing that Band-aid in much worse shape here in a few days.

Just Another Good Day

Yesterday I had my first nursing rotation in the ER! I was scared to death but as soon as I got there something just came over me and I just went for it! I learned so much in just one shift. I started IV's, watched blood draws, gave a shot, cleaned a wound and then watched the Dr. stitch it up, ran blood and urine samples to the lab, learned how to hook up patients to EKG and heart monitors, assessed four patients and visited with the sweetest 100 year old man! It was a very tiring 8 hours but I fell in love with nursing all over again! I really enjoyed it. 

My favorite part of the day however was late last night. Tyler and I watched a movie, I stayed up despite being exhausted! After the movie at about 11:30 Parker woke up! I was not very excited about this because I was finally going to get some sleep and he was now wide awake. But then Tyler got out his guitar and played and sang some "Lullabies" to us. He is so talented and Parker loves listening to his dad on the guitar, as do I! So I stayed up a little later and watched Parker listen so intently. I am so thankful for more of these little moments that bring me such happiness! 

Six Months!

Our little boy is six months old as of Tuesday! We can't believe how fast time has flown by! But at the same time we can't remember life without him. He has made our family such a happy one!

How can you resist? Honestly?

Love!

This was our last free night together before the semester started again. I am having a very hard time leaving Parker to go to class and clinicals. I am praying it is all worth it. And we certainly miss Tyler the nights he is in class. But his schedule is better than last Fall and this is his last semester and he'll have his Master's in Business Administration! Woo hoo! We are so proud of him. Any way, we are so grateful for the past six months of joy we've been blessed with!

The Loves of my Life!

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought life couldn't get any better and then some how it does for no real reason! Well these moments are becoming more and more frequent lately thanks to the two loves of my life. They manage to bring me smiles and squeeze in more joy than I thought possible. This is probably a little overkill on sappiness but I just love moments when you realize how blessed you are and that life just simply couldn't be any better than this:

This is what melted my heart! Aren't they cute?

Like father like son.

I love my boys!