Pre-Christmas festivities

Helping Grandma make sugar cookies

We got another 10-12 inches of snow on Monday, the day Chris drove here. So, Tuesday morning we got up and built a snowman with Nathan. He was so happy to give it a nose, mouth and eyes. He hugged it and loved it, and then after about 5 minutes he knocked the head off first. Then the middle and then he laid on the bottom. When he realized it couldn't be easily put back together again, he was so sad and started crying. We distracted him with the tractors. He helped Chris and my Dad plow more snow.

Last night we rode the "Polar Express" in Durango. It was so much fun and so much like the book and the movie. I've been prepping Nathan for it for the last month- we've watched the movie at least 10 times. We got all bundled up and ready to head to the North Pole! Nathan was all about his ticket and they punched it just like they do in the movie. It was pretty cute.

The train arrived at the station and the music from the movie was playing. I think I was more excited than Nathan was (he was pretty excited though). We boarded the train and it was all decorated with lights and garland. They served us hot chocolate and cookies, we listened to the story and music and sang Christmas Carols.

We arrived at the North Pole and it was all lit up and decorated with lots of lights. We could see Santa and his elves out the window. We headed back to the station and Santa got on the train. He came through each car and greeted each kid and gave them a bell. Nathan wouldn't give him a hug, but he gave him high-fives. It was a fun, memorable experience that I think we should make a tradition every time we come to CO.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

I decided since all my Las Vegas friends were blogging about the snow, I better show what we've been doing with snow since we got to Colorado. After a long delay in the Phoenix airport on Tues (7 hours) we made it to Durango, CO to my parents house. We got here to about 10-12 inches of snow. It was awesome- just what we were hoping for- a White Christmas!

We woke up the next morning and got all our snow gear on. It was quite the process, but it worked. We stayed warm and dry for a couple hours of playing in the snow.

We found Nathan's sand toys and decided they would work in the snow too. We helped my dad shovel the deck. Nathan was a good helper, scooping snow off the deck, throwing snow balls and eating snow.

He fell down a couple times and needed help getting up.

Nathan found his favorite thing- tractors. Here he is, trying to drive Papa's skid steer.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Sitting on Santa's lap at our ward party

The Cactus Gardens at Ethel M Chocolate Factory

Decorating our awesome tree!

Cutting down our tree in Panaca

Nathan at the "Gift of Lights"

(sorry I can't figure out how to get my pictures in the right order!!)  

I can't believe it's already almost the middle of December!  We actually started looking at Christmas lights around here before Thanksgiving, but I thought it was too premature to talk about Christmas until after we celebrated Thanksgiving.  While we were in Panaca for Thanksgiving we decided to go cut down our own Christmas tree.  Chris found a really nice one right away.  We both said it's the best tree we've ever had (but Chris said that his dad says that every year about their tree)!  We got it home and had a good time decorating it.  As soon as we got the Christmas stuff out, Nathan was on fire with excitement.  He's been bouncing off the walls these past couple weeks.  He can't stand to not touch the tree and play with the ornaments.  O-well, none of them are that fancy (oh, except the two glass ones that my neighbors made).  

Anyways, we have been enjoying the lights and festive things to do around here this time of year.  A friend gave us free tickets to the "Gift of Lights".  I have never been through it before, but it was really cool.  They gave us hot chocolate and egg nog and Nathan got to wear the reindeer antlers and eat a candy cane- who could ask for more?  

Then we went to the Cactus Gardens to look at more lights.  Nathan sat on every rock he could and posed saying "take a picture, Mom".  Then he would cheese it and practically close his eyes every time he smiled.  

We also had our ward party and Santa came.  Now, last year Nathan was absolutely terrified of Santa, we couldn't even take him near him.  I've been talking him up this year and we've already seen him in a few places, so we took him to sit on Santa's lap.  He did so well and talked to him and told him he wanted "that big present"  (there were big boxes wrapped all around Santa).  It was pretty fun.  

Thanksgiving in Panaca

We just returned from one of the most fun-filled trips to Panaca I've ever been  on.  We packed more adventures into one weekend than we've done in 4 years of going there.  We lucked out with some pretty nice weather for the end of Nov.  We, meaning Nathan, wanted to be outside the entire time, from sun-up to sundown.  He loved every second of playing with his cousins and they were all so good to him.  We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with about 40 of Chris' brothers and sisters and their kids- we were missing a couple families.  It was a little crazy, but there was plenty of food to go around and we all stuffed ourselves.  

On Thanksgiving night, we had a traditional family basketball game.  I didn't play this year, but there's more than enough people to play a full-court competitive game.  It was fun to watch.

This picture of Cody and Nathan was taken at the sand dunes (that I never knew existed) right in Panaca.  We rode 4-wheelers and drove my car up there and had fun riding around and bush-jumping (Chris and his brothers jumping off over the side of a steep sand hill over a bush).  Chris went rolling down the hill the first time and landing right on his tailbone the second time.  Nathan loved playing in the soft sand and went sliding down a huge hill on his butt.  Let's just say he had a diaper full of sand but it didn't bother him one bit!

These are a few of Nathan's cousins that he has so much fun playing with.  Wesley, Austin and Seth are so nice to him and they just kept hugging each other and running around together the whole weekend.  Nathan is at least 2 years younger than all of them, but he thinks he's just as big as them.  

All the kids got to ride horses one afternoon.  At first, I didn't think Nathan would want to ride, but he did and then he didn't want to get off.  He's riding with Aunt Maria in this picture.  He's not a city slicker anymore!

Chris busted out his new horseshoes that I got him for his birthday and I think he and Brent beat everyone.  Brent, Chris, Scott and James played a few games until it got dark.  I'm glad he's getting some use out of them.

We had a cookout one afternoon on the farm.  Here's a picture of a few of us chowing down on some burgers and hot dogs.  After lunch, we roasted marshmallows and made smores- mmmm, my favorite!

Here's the 20+ kids that we took all the way up Condor Canyon by 4-wheeler and the back of Scott's truck to this beautiful waterfall (which I never knew was there either).  It was a pretty sketchy road that got very narrow in some places and then we hiked the last half-mile or so to the waterfall.  The kids loved throwing rocks in the water and it was really pretty.

The Waterfall

Family picture in the cave up Condor Canyon.  It was gorgeous red rocks and some of the fall leaves were still on the trees.  I was glad I had my 4-wheel drive vehicle so we could go on all these adventures.  We did get to ride some 4-wheelers too and we always enjoy that.  Chris also went target shooting and got some good practice in.  We hardly had time to sleep with all the Rook playing once the sun went down the kids were in bed.  Chris and I remain the Mathews family Rook champions- we smoked everyone!!  Thanks everyone for everything!

Time for new but old news

I waited too long to post about Halloween, but Nathan was the cutest monkey and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share a few pictures from our Halloween festivities.  

The night before Halloween we went to our ward's "Trunk-or-Treat" which was actually in the church this year.  We went door-to-door and through some decorated classrooms to trick or treat.  Nathan was pretty good at it.  He needed a little coaching, but he would say "trick or treat" in his soft little voice and say "gank you" for the candy.  It was pretty fun. 

By the end of the night, he wouldn't take his costume off (in the beginning I was wondering if he'd even keep in on for 5 minutes).

The costume had a cute curly tail and a banana in the pocket!

Nathan and his buddy Easton, the elephant.

We got quite a good bag of candy that night.  Then we stayed home on Halloween night to pass out candy to the kids in our neighborhood.  Nathan wanted to dress up again and we sat on our porch for a couple hours and only had a few trick-or-treaters.  We passed out all we could and we still have so much candy left over.  He asks for "treats" every day now.  

Nathan also really enjoyed all the pumpkins and parties and still talks about Halloween.  

Now we are already talking about Christmas around here.  Even though it's still 80 degrees, there's Christmas lights up, Christmas trees and music everywhere and even some fake snow at Town Square.  He's even got pretty close to Santa already and I'm thinking maybe this year he won't freak out so bad when it's time to sit on Santa's lap.  If he could handle all the scary Halloween costumes and not get scared, Santa shouldn't be that hard to handle right?  

BOY OH BOY!!!

We found out today that we're having another baby BOY!!  We're so excited.  I've been waiting to blog about it until we found out the sex of the baby.  I could never wait 9 months to find out.  I love knowing and I love that Nathan will have a little brother to beat up on and play nice with too!  Now I don't have to worry about what I would do with a girl's hair, or all those other accessories that come along with girls.  I have all the clothes, the balls, the tractors and all the blue stuff I need.  Now I really won't have to worry where I am going to put everything I would have needed if I had a girl.  Now our 2-bedroom house will be put to good use cause the boys can share a room and share everything.  Can you tell I really wanted a boy??  YES!!

Anyways, I haven't really been into blogging lately, and I have so many cute Halloween pictures I want to share.  Nathan is getting SOOO big and Halloween was so fun this year.  I am already getting so excited for Christmas cause I can tell Nathan is going to be so into it this year and get so excited for it.  He is already talking about the snow, so hopefully there's some of that white stuff somewhere over the holidays.  Anyways, I'll blog more later.  I'm tired and ready for bed!!

Pumpkin Patch

I'm a little late in posting this, but we went to a cute little pumpkin patch last weekend, done by a couple girls in our ward.  Nathan had a lot of fun picking out his little "baby" pumpkin.  He loves his pumpkin and gives it kisses and loves to hold and play with it.  We haven't decorated it yet, but he likes to play catch and shoot baskets with it, so maybe he thinks it's a basketball  

Time for a new post...

Well, it's been a week since we were in Colorado for our short visit.  Nathan and I rode out to visit my family  with Chris' oldest sister Heather and her youngest Seth (4).  Heather was buying a 4-H steer for her son and gets them from some people my family knows in CO.  I tagged along for the ride and to see my family for a couple days.  It was short, but sweet as always.  It rained almost the whole time we were there, but it was a really nice change of scenery for us.  I actually wore sweats and a sweatshirt, and realized that I don't know how to pack for CO weather in the fall.  You never know if it's going to be 70 degrees or snowing!  I forgot to pack socks for Nathan, since he refuses to wear them anyway.  He wore his crocs most of the time, which doesn't work well

 when he wants to spend every waking minute at the barn in the mud and hay.  He still has his obsession over tractors and whenever it wasn't pouring rain, he was at the barn or on the 4-wheeler with my dad. 

Playing in the sandbox with cousin Kendrick and Hilary's kids Grace and Charly

 Here he is, driving the tractor for the first time.  I wish you could have seen the smile on his face.  He was lifting the loader part up and down and honking the horn with pure joy!  

Anyway, we got to see a couple of my good friends and their new babies.  Also, we got to say goodbye to my good friend Hilary and her kids before they take an extended vacation to Ireland!  It was a much needed trip for me, but it always makes it hard to leave.  I think Nathan makes it even harder to leave.  He kicks and screams when it's time to go and it makes me want to cry.  It's really hard being far away from family.  I am glad I get to go home as often as I do, I just always wish it was more.  

On the way home we saw a couple of my old roommates, Jackie and Katy.  We had a great time at Jackie's house- she has three boys and one is Nathan's age.  Talk about toys and tractors!  Nathan was in HEAVEN!  He could have played outside in the dirt all day.  It was a nice visit.

We are home now and enjoying some cooler weather here too.  Chris missed us and he's finally catching up at work now, so we might actually see him this week.  Happy Fall!

 

catching up

I guess I've missed sharing some important things that have happened in our lives in the last couple weeks.  I'm only a month late, but I wanted to talk a little about Chris, my husband, who I don't give any credit to on this little blog.  His birthday was a month ago, the big 29!  We celebrated by going to Mt. Charleston for a picnic.  It was nice.  

We got him a set of Horseshoes.  It's a favorite Mathews' family game and we enjoyed playing up in the mountains.  Happy Birthday Chris!  We love you!  

More news about Chris- after three years of internship at his work, he is finally as official licensed Certified General Appraiser.  He will still be working at the same office, doing the same thing, but he's gets a little more $ for his work now.  He works so hard and I'm so proud of his accomplishments and grateful for all he does for us.  I took this picture the day he got his license.  A pretty rare thing in Las Vegas- rain and a rainbow.  Must have been a lucky day!

Here's a couple random shots of Nathan.  Can you tell we're ready for summer to be over??  He loves wearing his hat and mittens.  I tried the coat on him and he said he wanted to play in the snow.  I don't think he even knows what snow is, but we can dream I guess.  Maybe we'll get to play in some pretty white stuff for Christmas in CO or something.  

This one night Nathan was so tired, he actually fell asleep in the middle of a PB&J sandwich and I snapped this picture.  I thought it was too funny.  I woke him up to clean him up a couple min later and he was ready to go again.  Not tired at all- he claimed!

San Diego: Part Two- the beach

After a day at Sea World we decided to take it easy at the beach.  We went to La Jolla one morning and this was probably Nathan's first time to the beach.  He loved it!  He went right to digging in the sand and even liked getting splashed by the waves.  Chris would take him out and I could hear him squealing with excitement when the water would hit him.  It was pretty fun- except for the stupid birds!  They were trying to get into my bag and take all our food!!

Ashlyn, Cody, Nathan and Brayden

The last two days we spent with Chris' brother Brent and his family.  We did the beach with them and the kids had fun getting buried.  

Good times in the sand.  

I should also mention that Chris got to go golfing with Brent and also did some body boarding.  The waves were pretty good at this beach we went to near San Clemente.  I enjoyed laying on the beach working on my tan and watching Nathan enjoy it too.  

Now we are home and I'm trying to wash all the sand out of our clothes.  I'm so tired.  We didn't get too much sleep for four nights and slept like a rock in my bed last night.  Nathan thought he had to wake up at sunrise every morning on vacation- I guess he didn't want to miss a single bit of daylight.  I just don't get how he goes and goes and doesn't seem to get tired.  I could barely keep my eyes open yesterday on the way home, and he didn't sleep one bit!!  The kid has an Energizer battery in him or something.  I'm ready to get back on a normal schedule and not sleep in the same room with him for a long time!!