Elmo came to dinner last week

This week has been so busy I never did get a chance to blog about Elmo coming to dinner last week. He showed up in honor of Lyvi's birthday. She LOVES ELMO. Who doesn't?
After dinner the kids played outside...Nathan got sand in his hair,
thank heavens his dad is full of a lot of hot air!This is possibly how the sand got in that little guys hair. He thinks he is one of the big kids and he was right there playing with them the whole time!

Poor Jacob is getting so very tall he has to bend over inside the playhouse. We need a taller play house. He actually did bump his head on the door frame once.

Miss Alyvia Jade and her bowl of sand...man that girl LOVES sand. We had a great time and the whether has been beautiful! VERY, VERY beautiful.
Arizona is amazing this time of year!

Lyvi hangs out at Gram's House

Lyvi's Mom and Dad were celebrating their 3rd anniversary and so Lyvi came over to play with me for a little while! She is hilarious and fun and adorable. I love that girl. First of all we noticed that we both had pink flip flops...what cute feet, right? (Eat your heart out Nikki, I know you are jealous of my toes that are not necessarily lined up in decending order!) Then it was on to the Playhouse and lots of hard work for Lyvi. I just took pictures and smiled A LOT!

Lyvi has a fascination with the little sand boxes on the back of the playhouse. Actually she would like them to be empty and for the sand to be ....
...here on the ground, where she throws it!

Gotta answer a quick call. She doesn't look like she is enjoying the interruption. In fact, after the call she threw the phone out the window onto the ground. Sorry no picture, laughing too hard.

This is what she spent most of her time doing. Filling her shovel with sand and putting it...

...here, in the sink! Thank heavens for NO drain pipes or we could have been in big trouble. I tried to teach her to stop doing that but she is almost 2-And really good at it- And she pretty much just ignored me. Then Gramps said, "let her do it, I have lots more sand in the shed." Nice!

She loves to ring the doorbell. I love this picture of her trying to find it through the window in the door. (sorry picture is so over exposed. Need a new really nice camera like Bekah's...hint, hint!) Lyvi never did ring it from that position so she had to...

...do this! Walk all the way around the door.

(Notice the little pile of sand on the gound on the right side of the picture.)

Then she checked the mail box!

Caught her!

See her throwing sand out the puppet show window?

She is trying to get a little sand out each window I guess. Maybe she thinks the landscaping (what landscaping?) would look better with a little sand! Now you might think that all the sand ended up outside.

NOPE, quite a bit was on the floor of the Playhouse so she went into cleaning mode.

Just sweeping it between the cracks! What a good girl!

(Not as fun as throwing it, in fact, not really fun at all!)

"I'm getting kind of tired in here! "

(I know what you are thinking BUT shutting the door was HER idea!)

Whew, what a pretty day, now we'll enjoy the picnic table for a while!
She had so much fun, I thought she would get dizzy with the whole sand to sink back and forth thing but if she did it didn't slow her down one bit. She loved everything but going back inside, I kind of felt the same way!

Happy Anniversary Justin and Sarah!

Nathan's StayCation

Nathan's StayCation

We were so lucky the past couple of days to have Nathan James Danielson stay at our house while his parents took Jacob and Luke to Disneyland. Now you might think they would be sad to leave him but as you can see from this picture...not so much. OK I'm just teasing. They were kind of sad but I was proud of them that they left him without too much fanfare or tears. Here is a log of his stay in his own words. I got off to a good start my first night. First of all my Mom and Dad left me, then within a couple of seconds Grams and Gramps left me as well. Thank heavens for Tyler and Bekah because they stayed with me that night and we had a lot of fun playing and snuggling. I love to snuggle! I was sound asleep when G & G got home and I would have slept even longer if it wasn't for the fact that I was really thirsty at about 4:30 a.m. when I woke up and wanted a drink of milk but then I went right back to bed until about 6:30 a.m. . That's good for me but I was on my best behavior.

I really liked hanging out with Grandpa while Grams was taking her morning walk. Grandma thought he was so nice to let her go and him stay home but he told me a big secret...he really doesn't like walking that much and he was so happy to have a really good reason to stay home. Don't tell anyone I told you that though.

I ate pretty much whatever I wanted but my most favorite thing was the Lucky Charms (marshmallow maties). They are delicious. The only problem is sometimes when you rub them on your head they get stuck in your hair.

It was ok though, Grams just gave me a bath and I played and played until I had washed the cereal right out of my hair.





Then she wrapped me in a big warm towel and took me upstairs to get me dressed.

After we put my clothes on I was a little tired. Grams just held me for a little bit until I caught my breath again. It's sometimes hard on a guy when you have asthma. Good thing I'm a snuggler at heart. As you can see I'm wearing my favorite blue plaid shirt. I'm feeling very G.Q. Grams spiked my little hairs and I look amazing.

What are you kidding? Gramps is also wearing a blue plaid shirt today. This is so embarrassing. Grams is taking our picture again. Man I wish I could have worn my jersy today. Oh well, Grandpa looks so happy that we match.

I guess I'll just take one for the team today.

I sure did love getting to hang out with my Uncle Chase. We had breakfast together a few times. He likes Marshmallow Maties as well but he never did get them stuck in his hair. At least I didn't notice if he did.

After breakfast Grams and I went for a walk.

She sure does like to walk and I loved being out in the sunshine.

That evening we went to Target just to kill some time and so that Gram and Gramps could buy me a new toy! It was a BLAST! We had a lot of fun. Here I am getting in my car seat. You can see how excited I am to go on an adventure by the smile on my face. I actually thought they might be taking me home but no, oh well, I was still happy to go shopping.

At Target we found lots of interesting things. I found out that I looked adorable in bunny ears. Grandpa found out that he looks kind of goofy in a big green hat with a mug of beer on it. Kind of out of character for grandpa but he didn't figure out what it was until after he posed for the picture. Good thing he doesn't ever read Grandma's blog! :)

I had a hard time deciding on a toy. We looked at the balls, the pails and shovels (I got that it was just a dollar). I finally decided on a baby lap top. Turns out maybe I should be more proud of my blue plaid shirt, do you think they have pocket protectors in my size?

Tuesday morning when Grams went walking me and Grandpa had a hard time getting out of their great big bed! We watched cartoons right there for a while. It was WAY fun.

We practiced walking which kind of wears me out.

I ate and ate...I know my face has a little cookie dust on it but Grandma can NOT resist a smile like this. Could you. That's why I turn on the big dimples.

Tuesday night Grams and Gramps both had church stuff so Chase and Lauren said they would tend me. I love Chase but honestly, if you could choose between this beautiful girl and your uncle who would you choose. That's right and so did I. Lauren pretty much held me all night. She played with me and gave me my nightly meds and breathing treatment. She knew just what to do because she has a brother with asthma as well. I had a lot of fun. She is so sweet, I am so glad she is going to be my Auntie. Here we are showing off our dimples!

Well after a long wait my family finally came home. If you thought they were smiling big when they left it was NOTHING like the way they were smiling when they came back. Everyone was happy to see me and I was so excited to see them I didn't want my mom to put me down for a minute. I will probably torture her and make her regret she ever left me for the next few days. That's just the way I am!

Epilogue by Grandma
Nathan was so fun to have here on a vacation. He could not have been a better baby. I feel bad that I didn't get a picture of he and Lyvi when she came over yesterday. They were so funny. He is almost the same size as her...difinitely weighs at least the same and I bet more. He can be a little bit intimidating. When Lyvi saw him she said, "Hi baby, hi baby" then he started to crawl towards her and she started yelling, "No Baby, NO BABY!" he just kind of runs right over the top of her. He's used to playing with the big boys! What fun grandchildren we have. The little boys who are actually the big boys that went to Disneyland had a blast with their parents. They stayed for hours and hours at Disneyland and California Adventure. Jacob went on a roller coaster that goes up side down! WHAT? I have got to go and see this some day soon. It's nice they could have a fun time without having to worry about a little baby. We were so lucky to have a couple of days with Nathan, he was the perfect little guy.

We'll miss you Nathan, after all who wouldn't miss this smile...even through his binky!

Nathan's StayCation

Cake Pops at our Meeting

Here are a couple of pictures of the Cake Pops at their debut at the Church!