Practice Pays Off

Ok, make sure to read the previous post and watch its video so that you are ready of this one. Elijah's practice has payed off! Instead of jumping in his bed, now he's jumping off the small table. :) Yeah... we definitely let boys be boys... they are great climbers and jumpers... which is bad for us now... but we're ok with that. :) Elijah was only 16 months old when this was taken... Noah is such a great example for him! lol.

Practice Practice

Elijah asked to be put in his bed... I actually caught him free-climbing from the outside and then he asked me to get in. So I put him in and he just started jumping all around... I guess this was just practice for his next stunt. Oh, and Erin told me that he wasn't saying "up" but rather "help." And since this I've heard both... and this is definitely "help." :)

Christmas Time... And a Special Tree

Because of "Trouble #2," and his wonderful ability to get into anything and everything... like markers; we decided to do something different for Christmas.
An Upside Down Christmas Tree! This sucker is impossible to water and a bit tricky to put presents under... Yeah, I'm just kidding... It is fake... no real tree for us this year... Which is kind of sad because we usually go up to Apple Hill to cut one down. So no apple fritters or apple pies or cider from Apple Hill yet! We'll have to make a trip here pretty soon so that we can get our yearly fix. Erin made a tree skirt and wired all the branches not to fold. Yep, those fake trees when held upside down love to fold... so we had to get creative to keep them all out.

Noah did a fantastic job decorating the tree. He's standing on the stool so that he can reach up high. Eli can only reach the bottom 2-3 ornaments, so we'll see how this goes!

We wish all of our friends and family the best for this Christmas season!! Merry Christmas!

Love, The Nartker's (Justin, Erin, Noah, and Elijah)

Leaves Are Falling

The leaves are falling, and our trees are growing big enough that we have to rake up leaves... And what else do you do with a big pile of leave? That is right... so after a bunch of jumping in the leafs, Noah dragged mom into the pile with him.

"The Tagging Obsession Continues"... But ends with Justin

(from Jenni Springer's Blog)
My sister Jenni “Tagged” me… but I’m doing this because Jenni wants me too… I really don’t have time for this… but here it goes.

Jenni’s Rules (I’m not going to change them):
1) Post rules on your blog
2)Answer the six "8" items
3)Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving them a comment – NOPE, it dies with me, I hope the rest of your people keep it going, cause it’s done with me. :) Sorry, but this one is for you Jenni…

8 Favorite TV shows:
-Modern Marvels
-The Office
-Hogan’s Heroes
-Erin and I would sit down and watch Grey’s Anatomy before what’s her name “experimented,” we’re both done with that one now.
-SWAT Cats with Noah
-ESPN News (1 hour of it before I hit the hay)
-Seinfeld
-Can’t beat the Justice League Unlimited

8 Things I did yesterday:
-Worked at Placer County Recycles Day
-Helped clean the Lincoln Chapel
-Worked on my group project for CE 101
-Ran around Fry’s with Erin, Becky and cousin Dennis
-Shared an appetizer platter at Mel’s with Erin
-I drove... a lot
-Found out that the Mexico City Temple was being rededicated
-Wished that I was done with school

8 Things I look forward to:
-Being done with school
-Date night with my cutie
-Reading books with Noah and Elijah
-Sleeping
-Escaping on a bike ride with Josh, Jason and Dad or Noah
-Going to Italy with Erin, Becky, and cousin Dennis
-Working for the City of Rocklin (scary, but true, I love my job)
-Catching up with friends

8 Favorite Restaurants:
- PF Chang’s
-In & Out (gotta go “animal style”)
-Carmelita’s
-Carver’s (went out of buisness!!!! AHHHHH!)
-This little mom & pop shop in Cero Navia, Chile… completos & churazcos!
-Claim Jumper
-Peppers (in Pacific Grove, CA… I love that place!)
-There is a new restaurant in Rocklin, an Italian restaurant… on the corner of Pacific Street and… Cedar Street? I think it is called Rubino’s

8 Things on my wish list:
-I’d like to get a couple of acres and build
-Return to Chile (last time I went with Erin for a week… WAY not long enough)
-Get done with school… scary enough, I’ll probably go and get my masters degree
-Have time to bike across the great old US of A with my brothers
-Learn to Salsa… Erin wants to go soo bad… but I’m pretty horrible
-Have time to go on a bunch of field trips with my kids when they are in school
-A Nintendo Wii (seriously should just turn in my gym membership and get one! :)
-My boss has this great idea about doing a century bike ride each month for a year… I think that I’d like to do that with him… sounds fun.

8 people to tag:
-Pretty sure that I’m not passing this along… well, I might throw this at Erin’s family… Nah… I’m done… Back to family stuff, pretty sure people come to this blog-thing to check up on the kids and see what Erin’s up to… I’m definitely the minority guy blogger around when it comes to family blogs.

I promise that the next blog will be about something other than me! :)

Disneyland Trip

We went with Erin's family to the happiest place on earth this week! We left late Tuesday with Brent and his family and met Jana and Becky and their families along with Grandma & Grandpa Bigelow Wednesday morning. Elijah didn't want to go to sleep so Erin and I were only running on 4 hours of sleep our first day there!! Fun fun fun! It was nice to get away from work and school for just a couple of days. Noah really had so much fun. He LOVED all of the roller-coasters! Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad... Splash Mountain, not so much. :)

Here you can see Noah holding up his sign trying to get chosen to participate in the Jedi training... He did get chosen... but wasn't quite ready to try this without dad, maybe next year. Erin asked Dennis to take some pictures, he randomly started taking pictures... When I asked Erin about all of these random pictures she had to explain, here is 1 of 6 that he took. Alexah did Eli's hair... We always get our picture taken here in California Adventure... 1st time it was just Erin and I... the next one had Noah... and now we've got Elijah here with us.

Trick or Treat!!

As usual the neighborhood of grandma Bigelow was bombarded by the little Nartker Family. Noah and Eli were both so excited to go door to door and get candy. Look, can't even get them to look at the camera! They are both focused on the next door.

Erin and Becky found this little costume... It sure fits him well considering that it was made for the K-9 type... :) haha! Yep, look at the next picture and you can see how big the ear holes are, because this is a doggy costume! I was so confused when I saw this on him... "Hey Erin, what is whith the ears?" Becky and Erin had a good little laugh before they were able to tell me about that one.

Here you can see the ear holes that I was talking about!

This is Alexah, Eli, Noah, Ian, Josh, and Addison.

Eli was up knocking the door even before Erin was ready. The other video didn't come out so good, but we would ask Eli if we wanted to go and get some candy, he would nod his head, we'd put him down and tell him which door to go to, then with those short little legs of his he would sprint all the way to the front door and push the rest of his cousins out of the way. :) We had a lot of fun.