Added Back Comments.

OKAY - I turned the comments back on. Enough with the complaints! :) I took my blog off of Facebook so my new posts will no longer feed over and I guess this made a few peeps mad because you were able to comment there. Ha ha! I have a few new posts coming soon. Comment away...

Curious George Live

There are a few things that have been constant in our home for the past few years - Curious George and John Deere Tractors. Nolan loves them both dearly and I am sad to report that I think they will soon fade out. :( My sweet boy is growing up and moving on. He still likes them but I can tell that the original pizazz is wearing off. Nolan received a Curious George doll for Christmas when he was six months old from my great aunt and uncle. I don't remember reading George books when I was little. I mean I of course knew who he was, but he just wasn't a family favorite for the Willard girls. Nolan latched on to that monkey and so I bought him some of the old school George books when he was a baby. When he was two years old the Curious George cartoons were re-created and put on PBS. Nolan instantly loved them. We do not watch a lot of TV at our house - the boys simply do not care that much about it. (That seemed like such a good thing when Nolan was little - now two kids later...I am all about a little down time and it rarely happens!) One thing that both boys will watch though is George; I don't know what it is about that monkey. They will watch a whole episode - amazing because there is nothing else that they will sit and watch for 30 minutes. He is the sweetest little monkey and he is such a part of our lives now. Hudson is following in Nolan's footsteps and loves him too. We read George books before bed a lot too. When we found out that Curious George Live was coming to Nokia; it was the "must see" show of the fall. :) I looked up tickets for the presale and I couldn't believe how expensive it was. I had planned to buy tickets for the whole family but Scott put his foot down and said that we were not buying Hudson an $80 ticket. The next day we went to the baseball game with both boys and that sealed the deal. Hud didn't even make it through the first 10 minutes of the game without throwing a fit. We knew he would make the whole experience really hard and he would lose interest way before the show was over. We opted to leave him with Christi and Ryleigh. Ryleigh had been wanting to watch him but we just never seem to really have a need for a daytime sitter. This worked out perfectly because Hudson had more fun at their house then he would have had at the show. Plus, we had a little one on one time with Nolan which rarely happens. The show was great and Nolan loved it. It was nice to have such a well behaved big boy. He wanted to take his George with us to the show. I asked him why and he said Little George wanted to see his daddy. Ha ha! He seems so big and then whips out something like that and it makes me remember that he's only 5 years old.

This first picture is of Nolan at 2 years old. He was potty training and so we put a pair of underwear on George too so that they could both practice wearing them and going potty on the "big boy" potty. Look at that sweet little boy...

These are all pictures from the show...

MiMi's Birthday

Friday night we celebrated Joni and Wes' Birthday. Their b-days are the 18th and 21st so we celebrated right in the middle. We went to Mema's house and she made dinner and then we did cake and presents. I was SO happy to be there celebrating with all the family. PaPa Harkrider has been very sick and was in the hospital all last week. It was very touch and go for a while. He was given blood transfusions and the doctor's ran a ton of tests. They finally diagnosed the problem although I can't remember the name of it. Basically his veins and arteries that surround his stomach are twisted together and the pressure of the blood flowing through them can cause them to burst. Unfortunately there is no cure. They are able to monitor is blood levels and are planning to just try and keep them up so that if and when it happens again, he will be stronger than he was the last time it happened. Very scary stuff. I have been praying hard for him and the whole family. I was just happy to see him back home, feeling a little better and able to celebrate his children's birthdays. Joni and Wes have a great brother/sister relationship and you can just feel the love when your with them. It's super sweet.

Being Thankful

Nolan's teacher sent home the sweetest little picture today. It was laminated with Nolan's handprint on one side and then she had asked each student what they were thankful for and she typed it up on the back of the handprint artwork. The list of all of the students responses were really cute. Most of the kids said that they were thankful for their Mommy and Daddy. Some said their family, their pets, of course God and even food was mentioned a few times. Very serious, very sweet thoughtful children.

What did Nolan say he was thankful for?....

"I am thankful that my mommy put Thriller back on her iPod."

Hilarious. :)

Leaping Lizards

I think that yesterday's event will go down as one of the most shocking boy mom moments ever. Nolan and Scott came up with this great idea to collect all of the matchbox cars from every nook and cranny in our house. They dug them out of the closet toy tubs, toy boxes, drawers and even out of the toy bucket in the backyard. Nolan was tasked with hunting for the cars in the backyard and found a little buddy in the toy tub - A LIZARD. Something weird came over me and I actually picked up the little guy and held him. They usually scare me but I guess cause he was so little and really still I wasn't afraid. The boys thought this was pretty cool and Scott grabbed the camera. Hudson decided he wanted to hold the lizard. He was so excited! Look at his face in these pictures - so happy! After he held him I took him back and tried to get Nolan to hold him. I was telling him that he was really sweet and calm and that it would be fine to hold him. I then said "Look, Mommy will even kiss him." and I leaned in towards the lizard and puckered up like I was gonna kiss him. Then all of the sudden the safe, non-scary lizard jumped off my hand and onto MY FACE. I was still puckered when the little bastard jumped onto my lips. I froze for half second and then I freaked out! The boys laughed so hard and Scott just died. Scott actually caught this half a second on film. He was going to take a picture of me pretending to kiss it when it happened. Disgusting!

Seth's 6th Birthday Party

Nolan's best friend Seth from pre-school invited him to his birthday party at ASI Gymnastics. We have been there for a few other parties and it's always really fun for the kids. Nolan and Seth are so cute together. Both energetic, sweet boys. They went to different elementary schools this year. Nolan asks about him all the time and was so excited to be invited to his party. Seth's little sister Jenna is such a cutie pie and was also celebrating her birthday. It was sad to see the boys hug each other goodbye at the end of the party. We of course made plans to take the boys to dinner sometime soon but with hectic schedules it's hard to see each other that often. I hope that we are able to get them together again soon!

Cheeseballs at Granny's House

A tradition that we started about five years ago with my Granny is to make cheeseballs all together. It started out with my two aunts and my mom. Granny has a few types of cheeseballs that she has made and served with crackers at every holiday gathering my whole life. They freeze really well so it's one of those things you can make up well in advance of the holiday madness and just defrost it the day you need it. My aunt (who was president of the PTA and very active in her church) thought it would be a neat idea to make up a bunch of them to give as gifts. We wrap them in colored saran wrap with a little gift tag and the type of cheeseball listed on it. It has now turned into a party of sorts and even most of our extended family comes over for the cheeseball festivities. Ha Ha! Everyone shows up with their ingredients and we start the assembly lines to make up the different recipes. There is lots of chopping, shredding and mixing! Now we have all started hunting for other great recipes to add to our "core" balls. Becca and I even had a "pre-ball" party last week to test a few new recipes. We needed to test the taste, freeze-ability and the overall appearance of the balls. It's a tough competition but we did come up with a few new goodies this year. My PaPa is so cute, he just sneaks through the kitchen a few times during the afternoon to snap pictures and taste the new creations. I love my Granny, aunts and cousins - we eat WAY too much cheese and laugh for a few hours. It's hectic and messy but we all have a great time.