glad to have you

Nicholas turned three on Thursday.

I got my first taste of how birthdays are maybe just a little bit kinda stressful as a mom.  

But as Kent took Nicholas upstairs to go to bed that night, 
Nicholas told him that he had
"The best birthday ever."


And as I tucked him into bed he smiled at me and said,
"I'm so glad you're my mommy."

So yeah, totally worth it.

And I'm glad to have you too, Nicholas.
Happy three years old.

licorice, peek-a-boo, and a chipmunk

One thing about the way I feed Ellie the same food I'm eating.

If I'm ever eating,

and she's not?

She is NOT happy.  

And when Ellie isn't happy, everyone knows.

She has this pterodactyl screech.

So, she gets lots of vegetables and fruits and grains and meat,

but she also gets to sample treats.

Because if Mommy gets a licorice,

Ellie needs one too!

I know I've told you how much Ellie likes to play peek-a-boo.

But really, this girl loves to cover her head with her blanket,
flap her arms around wildly and breathe really fast for a minute or two,
then pull the blanket off her head and laugh and laugh.  

The best way for me to get her to take a nap while we were camping was for us to strap her into the stroller and take a long slow walk around the campground. Then I'd park the stroller in the shade and let her sleep nearby.  

The morning we were packing up, Ellie was napping in the stroller down by my car.  
I brought a load of blankets down from the tent, and when I got to the stroller there was a chipmunk sitting on Ellie's lap!  She was sound asleep, and she had a chipmunk on her lap.  

I should have taken a picture, 
but my mama-bear instinct was
"Get off my baby, you creature!" and I scared him away.
Maybe next time I'll pull out my camera first.

bear lake top ten

We went to Bear Lake with my family last Saturday.

My ten most memorable things about that trip:

1. Building a drip castle. Err, Kingdom.

complete with castle, cathedral and cemetery, blacksmith shop, stables, stone-laid roads, two motes, outer farmland and duke's chateau, central marketplace, trees, and village homes.

2. Nicholas before Sammy arrived: 

 Sitting in the shade, making us rinse the sand off his toes every few seconds, avoiding the camera, whining, asking for more cheetos, and using his hair and his eyebrows as napkins...  
(oh, and I forgot to bring his swimsuit...)

3. Nicholas after Sammy and his family joined us:

4. My mom finally getting Ellie to take a nap via the same method I napped at bear lake when I was her age.

5. The weather.  So perfect.  The lake water was the warmest I've ever felt it.  The beach was crowded.  As in, they actually closed access and stopped letting people in.  But we lucked out and didn't feel overcrowded in our spot. Oh, and we got to watch someone get married in a shade canopy up by the bathrooms.   Yeah, it was about as glamorous as it sounds...wedding gowns and swimsuits and a pavilion and an outhouse in the background...

6. Taking the raft out--Kent, Sarah, Josh, and me.  I was laughing so hard at one point that I thought I might drown.  To sum:  at one point Josh did an unintentionally perfect impression of a seal sliding back into the raft. The seal barking was intentional; the perfection was not.

7. So glad Kent got to come with.  And thank you, thank you, Mom, Dad, Sarah, everyone for helping with our kids so we got to do some playing too!

8.  Raspberry Lime shakes from Quick and Tasty.  Heaven in a paper cup.

9.   A moment of smartness that told me not to leave my keys in my unlocked car while I was sitting in my mom and dad's van while we were waiting for our shakes.  

Followed by a not-so-smart moment.  

Kent ordered a hamburger.  It was taking forever.  So my parents headed home.  Nicholas rode with them.  
Me, Kent, Sarah, and Ellie waited for Kent's food.
Kent's food came.
We got in the car.  
Where are the keys?

In my mom and dad's car. Heading home. In the canyon. No cell phone reception in the canyon.

Sent a text to Mom, Dad, and Josh.  "MY KEYS ARE IN YOUR CAR!  Cause I'm an idiot."
Knew it would be about 45 minutes before they saw the text and another hour after that before they could come back for us.

10.  SO, we walked. We tried to help a man driving a semi cab find a house named "3D."  We stood in line to get a taco and then changed our minds. We sampled fudge. Ellie was happy as a clam in the moby wrap. We read a sign about fish that are androgynous to Bear Lake. (six species!)  We found a  place that sold a survival tent, a pink sleeping bag, an air mattress, gas station food, ice cream, chandeliers, and cabin furniture (all in one place).  

And Dad came and rescued us. We bought him a brisket sandwich, got one more raspberry lime shake, and called it a day.

my boy and his best friend

I have a cousin who is just two weeks older than Nicholas.

Sammy is the reason Nicholas had so. much. fun. while we were camping.

These two boys are inseparable, always get along, and are just plain cute.

Sammy gives Nicholas some bravery (which my tender boy sure needs at times!) and Nicholas plays leader and they play and play and play.

We shared a campsite with my aunt and uncle last week, and these two boys hardly even stopped playing long enough to eat.

 You have no idea what it means to have Nicholas so willing to give me a real smile for the camera.  (Teresa and Heidi, you really do know what it means.) 
He did this readily every single time I turned my lens towards him the entire week.
He was having the time of his life.  

They insisted on holding hands while we walked around the lake.

 Tonka trucks are a long-standing tradition for the Murray family camping trip.  The kids sit in the back and slide down the hills in them. Crazy, dusty, fast, and maybe a little dangerous.
Sammy and Nicholas pushed those trucks around hour after hour after hour, filling them up with dirt and rocks and pinecones and dumping them out somewhere else.  

Only, Nicholas, because he is Kent's son,
was convinced they were actually called "taco trucks."
Of course.

They also spent equal time pulling toy boats with strings around in the dirt, pretending to shoot off fireworks by throwing pinecones into the air, making their own "parades" around the campsites and requiring us to throw pretend candy at them,
riding the bike (and taking turns with no problem at all!) and hunting for "mice" (chipmunks).

A conversation from the first day we were there:

The two boys ran up the hillside in the weeds, then came back very excited.

"We saw a mouse!  We found a mouse!"
Sammy:  "It was gray!"
Nicholas: "It was purple!"
Sammy: "It had a tail."
Nicholas: "It had a bandaid."

Nicholas: (with his fists in the air) "I'M SO LUCKY!!!"

I think I know which boy I'll be listening to when they come to report some trouble-making they've done...Nicholas just didn't quite get those facts straight.

Although, I didn't see the squirrel/mouse, so who knows?

something about that y chromosome

Boys and dirt. You just can't keep them apart.  
Nicholas had the time of his little life while we were camping last week.

Kent wasn't able to come with us because he's pretty tight on paid time off at his new job so far.  I was a little worried about camping with just me and the kids, but I knew I'd have plenty of help from all my family.


And it turned out that my kids were awesome.  Seriously.  Happy the whole time.  
They slept great at night.  They played and ate and Ellie even napped as long as she was either in the stroller or in the moby wrap. 

 Throwing rocks into the lake. Always a favorite for boys of all ages.

The Murray family camping trip is basically a family reunion.  Everyone who can make it comes.  We've been camping there every year for as long as I can remember. 
We had four connecting campsites this year, and it was perfect-the kids just ran from camp to camp and we all visited and played. 
At our dutch oven dinner on Tuesday night, we had 66 family members there.  We were only missing 8 or 9 out of the whole family!  My grandma came up for the dinner that night,
and she came again the next day with Aggie ice cream, of course!

 Carrying my sleeping girl as we hiked around the lake.  
It got pretty warm by the end, and I had to strip Ellie down to her undershirt because she was so sweaty.
Oh, and my brother Josh pointed out to me that I had a huge hole in the seat of my pants...
Us Andersen girls hike in style.

 My mom and dad have perfected camping.  Seriously.
I have a theory that the reason most people (women particularly) don't like camping is because they've never been camping with the Murray family.  We eat like kings when we camp, my mom knows exactly what to pack to make things just right and comfortable, and she always brings an entire rubbermaid tote full of goodies like homemade snickerdoodles and banana bread and licorice.
Always licorice and cinnamon bears.
They've got camping all figured out, and we're almost as comfortable camping as we are at home.  
That is, if our air mattresses stay inflated...Mom and Dad didn't have quite as comfortable an experience as some of the rest of us.

Such a fun week. I'm so grateful I live close enough to come camping with my family.

A few memorable quotes:

"But Batman doesn't have wings..."
"Does he look like Andre the Giant did? 'Cause that's a disease."
"I'M SO LUCKY!!"
"We're camping, right??"  
"But, I'm not clean!"  (Nicholas after falling in the dirt...as if he just noticed)
"It was like a tri-tone ethereal weedwhacker."
"This water cooler needs new batteries."

And seriously, next year we've got to try the walking-around-with-the-screen-tent idea.  It would be Epic. With a capital E.

every day's a good day when you paint

My sister, Sarah, has been with us for the past 10 days.


According to Kent, when Sarah leaves, we're going to cry.


And yeah, I think he's right.  I'm taking her back home tomorrow and oh how we're going to miss having her around!


For example, a few days ago I needed to go meet my dad near Salt Lake to pick up some paint.
Nicholas was being super whiney and tired.  
I took Ellie with me, left the two-year-old with Sarah, 
and asked her to clean up a bit.


When I got back, Nicholas was quietly watching a movie (something he rarely wants to do anymore).  The dishes were done, the floor swept, toys put away, countertop sparkling...
and I hadn't done any of that work!  So awesome.


I've put her to work (that's why she came--to earn some money for school).  She's washed windows, cleaned out windowells in the basement, done laundry, made pipe-cleaner badges and crowns, weeded tons, painted my master bedroom, vacuumed and mopped and done dishes over and over again, watched the kids while I organized closets and cleaned rooms, helped with bedtimes and bathtimes, and babysat nearly every night while Kent and I went on dates.  Yesterday we got to go to the temple together for the first time since December because we had Sarah here to watch the kids.


On Saturday, Kent and I managed to clean out the garage,  wash both cars, went shopping--groceries, costco, and home depot--got an oil change, cleaned the house and hosted a barbecue with our friends, all with no stress, thanks to Sarah helping wrangle the kids.


We've also done a bit of playing--between the "Joy of Painting" remix video, numerous "parades" in the house, frozen yogurt and shave ice trips, and working on a recipe book for Sarah to take to college, well we've certainly had a lot of fun.  


 We might have watched that Joy of Painting video more than a few times yesterday while we were painting my bedroom...
Because as Bob Ross says, "Every day's a good day when you paint."

because my kids have young uncles

Army hats and toy guns...my brothers Jonah and Nathan teach my kids all the important things in life. 


We went up to my parents' house for the 24th of July last week.  Pioneer Day, kind of like a second 4th of July celebration. So fun.  We had a family picnic, went to the parade, had a water party, and spent a ton of time outdoors.


Oh, and did some ca-razy big fireworks.  Kent bought some monster ones--like the real ones you go to a show to see.  He was in heaven, as you can imagine.


I didn't get any pictures of the fireworks, though, because Nicholas was 
in full panic mode--screaming and shaking and crying.  I did my best to calm him and show him that there was nothing to be afraid of, but it was pretty bad.  Poor kid.


And a bit ironic that the son of the man shooting off the crazy big fireworks was the only child that was frightened by them...

We went to the city parade--Nicholas was not in the mood for pictures.

I love this picture--Nicholas saw the parade coming down the street.

Nicholas is the same age as my cousin Sammy.  They had matching swimsuits.  These two boys play together so well, and they spend hours pushing their matching lawn mowers.  My Grandma pretends to "pay them" to mow the lawn-they LOVE it.

My mom and dad always host a big water party for all the cousins on the 24th of July.  
I love this picture of Kent at his post, squirting the boys as they come down the slip-n-slide.

These boys-my brothers and cousins--have so much fun together.  They are always outside, running back and forth between houses, making all sorts of crazy fun, building things, inventing games, just being boys.


Nicholas was outside all day, every day we were there. I feel like I hardly saw him the whole weekend.  I love that he gets to be with his uncles and cousins, running and playing outside.  That's what boys are meant to do, after all.

Baserman cape!

Grandma has awesome sewing skills,
and thanks to her,
my little Baserman now has a superhero cape to match his friend at the park.


Oh goodness how he's turning into a darling little boy!