Endless Shrimp is Back!

It is fairly wide known that Red Lobster is Chris' favorite restaurant.  So it isn't unusual to get a gift card from time to time for Red Lobster.  All throughout the year we collect the gift cards until Endless Shrimp time, at which time Chris feels he finally gets his money worth!  It has been almost a year since we went last, and I was pleasantly surprised how well Cortney acted - for a two year old anyway.

We had a nice time, Chris didn't beat his high score - 140, but he came close with 120 shrimp admitting that he just doesn't eat as much as he used to.  Not as much but still a lot!  Shrimp Scampi is our favorite and we have learned a secret when it comes to Scampi I thought we would share.

The first order of shrimp is always bigger, and the scampi comes in its own little dish filled with a sauce.  When we are finished with our first order of scampi we keep the little dish full of the sauce to pour on top of the next couple rounds - because they put less sauce on for the refills.  This keeps the shrimp tasting yummy!  Also the longer you have to wait for refills the fuller you start to feel, so the trick is for me to order more for myself even when I am finished eating - that way he gets more shrimp faster so he can fit more in.

When we were done eating Cortney and I went and looked at the lobster in the tank.  The hostess asked if we wanted her to take one out so Cort could touch it.  I said yes, but when the lobster came out, Cort ran the other way yelling "AHHH!  MONSTER!!!"  I had to explain it was a lobster not a monster but I am not sure she was convinced.

 We have a couple more gift cards saved up!  We always enjoy Endless Shrimp Season!

Cortney's Book!

The curriculum that I got to teach Cortney at home has a lot of stuff in it that she isn't ready for.  This was a little book that I know she wasn't ready for but I know she likes to color, and I was kind of interested in what she would say,  I didn't help her with any of the answers, what I wrote came straight from her mouth.  Here it is:

 The first page says "A Book About ME" 

Then it says My Name is ___________ (She said Cortney)

I am a ____________(She said big girl) 

 This page says
I have ____________ (crazy) hair and ______________ (blue) eyes.    On our Yellowstone trip I took a picture of her when she had "Crazy Hair" and she loves looking at that picture.  In her drawing below you can see how she drew 1 blue eye, but then decided not to draw another one.

The bottom says I like to wear ___________(my swimsuit)  - she loves going swimming!

 The top says this is me with my family.  I give her points because she did draw the heads as circles, but instead of drawing the bodies down she drew them off to the side so it looks more like sperm.  I like how she drew Dad, Mom, Cortney, and Uncle Jason :)

The bottom is a picture of her home

I like this one!
The top says my favorite food is _________(she said ice cream)
the bottom says my favorite thing to do is _____________(eat ice cream)  I think she just had ice cream on her mind.  Either way Papa Kinville would be proud!

 Oh and this is a bonus picture.  I went into her room to check on her during quiet time and I found her face down on her bed taking a nap!  It is kind of hard to see, but she has her blanket wrapped around her head pretty tight.  We never really see her sleeping ever because we know after we tuck her in she gets up and plays with toys.  She does not wake up well either so we let her play with her toys before we go in and get her in the mornings so she is happier when she comes out. 

So this was during quiet time when she usually just plays with her toys - she doesn't really take naps any more.  It was a pleasant surprise to see her sleeping and I couldn't resist taking a picture!

Has it really been 4 years already??!!

We are celebrating our 4 year anniversary today!  to celebrate I thought I would post some pictures!
Here we are coming out of the temple!

 This has always been one of my favorites!

 Big group shot!  If you notice in this picture Ryan (he is in the front on the right side)  In all the other group pictures he was missing - to this day I don't think we know exactly where he was, but I like how everyone should be cheering, and instead he is just standing there :)  Love ya Ryan!

I have always liked this one

During these pictures Chris picked me up and swung me around.  I am not a fan of being picked up - not sure if you can see it in these pictures but Chris had such a fun time doing this because I was holding on to him so tight and making all kinds of little squeaks - afraid I was going to fall.

 We had our reception at my uncle and aunts house, they had a tramp in the back yard, so we had a little fun!

Ok, here it is important to know the story behind the pictures.  Chris and I had decided that we would not shove cake into each other's faces.  I didn't want to get all messy and he seemed on board.  Now looking back at the pictures - I see it in his eyes, that he has something planned...

 Here we are both gently feeding each other cake...

 I am still being gentle, but he is now shoving it in my mouth and up my nose...

 So I decided to smear it all over his face!

 I was blowing cake out of my nose for a couple days, and later that day I found a little surprise that a nice size chunk had fallen down inside the front of my dress.

 Our car was decorated...Just so everyone knows the paint is only for the windows - when you put it on the body of the car - it never really goes away.  Here we are 4 years later and if you get the right light you can see the hearts and smiley faces still.

 They also filled our car with balloons, rice and beans.  At first we were a little annoyed at the rice and beans, I mean who opens a bag of rice and beans and throws it in your car?  But after a couple years had passed it has started to become a game of who can find another bean.  We started collecting them and now we have a small jar with little beans in it.  To this day we still find a bean every now and then, and it reminds us of our wedding day!

Now it has been four years!  Nine months after we were married we found out we were pregnant with our little miss Cortney, and nine months after that we got to meet her, and we just love our little family!  We have had some fun adventures together, and are looking forward to many more!  Happy Anniversary Chris!  I love you, love me!

Playing Catch up!...again :)

It has been a busy couple of weeks for us!  And on top of everything I have caught some kind of cold or something that has had me feeling not that great.  But I figured it was time to catch up on the blog.  A lot has happened so I am just going to sum up!

Kim's Wedding!

We are all very excited for Kim, Chris's sister, who go married in Sacramento on the 20th!!!  This offically means I am the only Kim Nield, which is also cool!  We drove there - it was a long drive but Cortney did amazing both ways!! 

On the way there Chris and Cortney were enjoying sweedish fish, when we heard Cortney said, "Ahhh!  My face!!!  Give it back!"  She was biting off the fish heads and saying that :)

The sealing was beautiful and sweet and the reception was a lot of fun!  Cortney danced the night away, every time we went to sit down she would drag us out on the dance floor again.  Here is a link to pictures from the wedding that Aunt Paula took:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150291339749379&set=a.10150291339674379.355661.555199378&type=1&theater


Basically we had a really fun time!  All the siblings got involved when Kim sang and the Boys danced this is a must see!!!  From the left the order is Matt, Chris, Jackson and Paul!


https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=555199378#!/photo.php?v=10150291327624379


Favorite Quotes from the past couple weeks:

Cort's fish head one

Paul asking Derric, Kim's new husband, if he was going to come to the reception in Texas.

I asked Cortney if she wanted to play legos with me and she said "In a minute I am almost done"  - So grown up!

Watching Max and Ruby - Ruby says "Having a heartbeat is very important if you want to stay healthy" 


Cortney and I have also started a new "school" this week.  We call it Mommy and Cortney school because we do it at home but it has been so interesting to see how much she is willing to learn and do new things.  While we cannot afford preschool, we could afford to buy curriculum online.  The particular one  I found comes with over 10,000 pages of coloring pages, activities, arts and crafts projects, recipes and more.  Sometimes as I mom I feel like I don't really know what to talk about or what to do, and this has been fantastic and she has really come to get very excited about going to school everyday!

Our hot water was also out - only in our shower for a couple days.  The handle broke, we have a separate one for hot and cold - so we had to warm up the baths the old fashioned way.  So that was fun for a couple days, but we are very happy to have our hot water back!!

Chris also started school last week - which he is pretty excited about.  One year, two semesters, to go!  His internship was pretty cool, and we love the job because they are going to let him stay on part time while he goes to school!  Big blessing!

We are all getting excited for Jenn's wedding in less than two weeks!  I am going a little crazy not being able to show everyone her gorgeous bridals I took a couple weeks ago!  I am also excited to take her wedding pictures - I have been having a lot of fun learning new things about photography and taking lots of pictures lately!

Overall it has been a busy end of summer, but we have been having a ton of fun!

Angelina Ballerina

Everyday Cortney has quiet time in her room, for her sanity and mine.  Yesterday she started screaming in her room - sometimes this happens when she gets a poppy diaper so I run over to her door - but realize she is not screaming - she is yelling kind of singing, at the top of her lungs mind you, "Angelina Ballerina!"

One of these days I am going some how get a video camera in there so I can see what she does in there by herself!

Yellowstone Day 4 - Final Day!!!

This was our final day!  After going to our first sight seeing place I told Cortney that we just had a couple more places to go to.  She said "No more places!"  but after we went to our last one and we told her it was the last place, she said "More places?" like she was not ready to go home yet.  On to the pictures...

This was the sign that we saw as we left our cabin in the morning - thought it was appropriate for today, "So long pardner - come back soon"

These are pictures of the canyon area

 This was cool - it was a Glacial Boulder

 Some of that "yellow stone"

 Such a good view!

 After Yellowstone we decided to go through Star Valley Wyoming because that is where all the Nields come from I guess.  In Afton Wyoming we found a Nield Ave

Cort wanted to take her picture by the pole too - so we told her to go stand by the pole and I just love what she did!

 Definitely a pole - but not the right one :)

 We also found a Nield Business - Chris was more than thrilled about what kind of business it was - I guess it runs in the family!

 This was the Star in Star Valley

The one thing we didn't take a picture of was that we went and visited a friend Tasha in Cokeville Wyoming.  She was in our circle of friends up at school and it was great to catch up with her, and meet her family!  A great end to a great trip!

We had such a fun time on our vacation,  we got home at 11:11pm that night.  It was so cute when we got home Cortney went to her room and said "Look it is my room!  Look it is my bed!   Look it is my people's!  Look it is my legos!"  Even though we had a fun time she was so happy to be home, I think we all felt the same way!