Date Knight and Baby Bracelet

A date with my 4 year old knight? Of course. Thanks for the heads-up, Cindy. Chick-Fil-A had a special mother-son date night last Tuesday, and it was Noah's turn to go on a date. Saying he was excited would be a massive understatement. I found a coupon for Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, so I thought that since we'd be at City Creek, we'd eat dinner then go get caramel apples for dessert. Oh, and sidenote - Noah started saying his L's this week. An era is passing by. Sad, but adorable, because now he puts extra emphasis on L's. Hearing him say Chick Fil A is very cute. Anyway, Noah knew we'd be leaving when Gary came home from work, and the second he saw the car pull up he started doing Olympic-height jumps and saying, "Oh, yeah, I'm going on a date with mom and I get to eat at Chick Fil A and have one of those apples you hold on a stick!"

After a battle with finding the parking garage (sometimes I hate cities), I arrived with a very happy little boy at Chick-Fil-A. There was a special area set aside with table cloths and balloons, and the manager was our waitress. There was a little paper with conversation starters, which didn't think I'd do at first, but turned out to be really fun. We talked about how he was so brave when he got a shot, and how he'd rather live under the ocean than on the moon. Noah is a great little conversationalist, especially once you get him going. We thoroughly enjoyed our food, and then the waitress said she was giving us free milkshakes. Pretty awesome . . . At one point Noah said there was a pinkerhole in the bottom of his cup, and started laughing about it until his body shook. I asked him what that meant, and he said, "I don't know," and laughed harder. The whole experience was just so great, he was giddy.

Noah got a crest to decorate. He called it a shield. Can you tell he was excited?

I tried taking a picture of us . . .

. . . but then the manager/waitress did a better job.

He got to take a balloon! This night kept getting better.

See the charming waterfall behind us? Yeah, missed it.

After we had milkshakes, I was very FULL. I was thinking we could skip the caramel apples since we got shakes, but Noah said, "Yeah, we'd better leave here so we can get to the chocolate factory." I asked him if he thought we still needed them, and he said we did. It was his date, so yeah, we went. On the way I gave him a piggyback ride - he's the easiest of my kids to do that with right now. He had me cross each bridge on the way there. It's so fun that simple things can be so magical for kids. When we got near Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory we stopped to watch the most amazing thing - a "a fireworks show with water." Watching that cute little boy watching that fountain on a beautiful night . . . perfect. We went upstairs to the restroom and Noah noticed he could see everything from up there. As we sat and watched, I noticed the shops around me - Tiffany's, Porsche, some stuff too fancy for me to even know about . . . Stuff I wouldn't have enough dough to even look at. But, at that moment, I had absolutely no desire to ever get fancy stuff. My little boy and a fountain show is all I need to be content, so why worry about other things? After picking out our apples (which we wrapped up to take home since we were full), we went back and watched the fountain for a while more. We put our hands in the water spilling off the edge, and the way the light reflected made it look like we could write in water. We wrote our names, then we experimented with stopping parts of the water then letting it fall again. My cutie pie was so happy.

This is the apple Noah picked out. I had my doubts about it, but it was very delicious! 

Noah must have taken this picture without me knowing . . . Josh has been really into playing basketball lately with the neighborhood kids. We have a hoop and so does our neighbor, and they dribble the ball down the sidewalk between driveways.

Another way Noah is getting big - he BEGGED Gary to take off his training wheels the other night.

He can't quite ride yet, but he'll get it.

Josh's new soccer rules (having positions, a big field, and a goalie), is a WHOLE LOT different than before. Josh isn't able to be with the ball as much, but he still loves it. Here he is playing defender with his friend Ben.

Lissy played for at least 10 minutes with this bracelet on Sunday. She was trying to get it on her leg, and when she did, she got excited, took it off, then tried again. She got pretty good. :)

Yeah, she got it!

We stayed up too late a lot of nights last week, so besides soccer, we didn't accomplish much on Saturday besides going to Home Depot. But now we have an edging for the garden area in front of our house, so how's that for an accomplishment? Sunday was the dedication of the Brigham City temple, and it was very powerful. I was struck so many times by the power there is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I feel so grateful to be a part of His church on the earth. Then also on Sunday, Lissy took her first steps. Teeny little tentative girly ones, and we are so proud.