rain, rain...

for the fourth of july, we headed over to some friends house for dinner and fireworks. we had a great time! grace and raegan love the sparklers and fireworks and wanted to be a part of everything. it didn't even matter that it rained the entire time.

happy birthday to me

29, here i come. bryan and i celebrated all weekend... first we hit up the mormon tabernacle choir on saturday, had cake on sunday, and dinner and a movie on monday.

six months!

ok, so jack is now 6 months old. well, actually, almost 7 months! what!?!? you say... yes, i hear you. i can't believe it either! and he is getting so big. he rolls all over and started army crawling about 3 weeks ago. he is so fast. he moves from room to room and gets in to everything on the floor. yes, today i pulled him out of the trash can at our computer.. yikes! of course, his favorite things are non-toys... like the remote, phone, and any sort of string or straps. and here is a video of him going after the remote.



well, here are the stats....

height: 27 inches
weight: 18 lbs. 1 oz.
teeth: 2 with a third on the way

i tell you, this kids is awesome, he is so happy and loves to play!

the waterpark

so, finally the kids and i am back and we made our first trip to the waterpark with grace and raegan. jack was an old pro, but this was a first for grace and raegan. holy smokes! they had a blast. they loved the little kiddie pool and slides... grace was crazy on the slides and they all loved the lazy river. since is it 100+ degrees here, the waterpark was perfect. the kids had so much fun and cried when we left. hallelujah for season passes!

family fun

after 2 1/2 weeks of missing the girls, jack and i drove out to missouri so we could spend a week at the lake with my mom and dad and rachel and danny and their family. this is a yearly tradition and we were so excited to be able to get everyone together (minus aaron). bryan drove up friday night and stayed for the weekend and then had to head back to work, so we missed him a bunch.

so, the cutest thing ever was how much grace and ty played together. they just loved each other and had so much fun playing. they were so cute together!


this is one of my favorite pictures of them playing on the stairs.


also, the chicklets love to play with jack! they were all over him and i think by the end of the week he was finally used to being around everyone (after 2 1/2 weeks of being alone with just me and bry, it was quite the adjustment back to the reality of being mauled by toddlers).


we had a few adventures on our little boat, and the kids loved to get their life vests on to go for a ride!




grace and aurora were best friends/cousins at one minute, then the next someone was getting their feelings hurt (i think grace did most of the hurting), but such is the drama of 4 year olds.


jack is getting so much better at eating his food and loves to eat... anytime someone is eating, he looks at the food longingly and wishes he could have some too... no wonder he is so big!



ty is so adorable and shy... i just love his little facial expressions and personality.


and finally, here are rachel and i. i miss her so much and wish that we lived closer and could see each other more. she is the best sister ever!

happy birthday, raegan!

well, raegan turned 3 at the beginning of this month. in the midst of buying a new home, moving, and all the craziness of summer, i am just getting around to posting the pictures...

the weekend of memorial day, we drove to kansas to go house hunting and stayed with paul and natalie in olathe. fun! we found a house we love and got things rolling with that. on memorial day, my mom drove up to pick up the girls and take them back with her to missouri for a few weeks. this is a fun tradition that we have in my family, when i was growing up rachel, aaron, and i would spend 3 weeks of the summer with nannie and papa in albuquerque. it was so fun and some of the best memories i have growing up. so, we decided that my parents would continues these fun times. and this was the first summer. so, my mom came a picked up grace and raegan and they drove back to missouri, while bryan, jack and i drove home to oklahoma.

can i just say... so sad... and so bored. life without two little girls and only one baby was so different. me and jack were so bored and made a trip to the waterpark practically every day. man, i missed those girlies like crazy. and while they were gone, raegan had her birthday. i was pretty sad to miss that, but we skyped the whole thing and it was great.

so, for about the last 6 months, grace has been asking raegan what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday... dora or tinkerbell... i think that these were the only two options that grace gave raegan because these were the kinds of cakes that she had wanted for her birthdays and i made for her. so, raegan has been saying for the last few months that she decided she wanted a tinkerbell cake, so we had one ordered and it was too cute!


raegan had a great party! the roberts' came over and celebrated with them and she received a plethora of gifts, including every barbie movie she didn't already have, barbies, polly pockets, and little dog she named sparkles.



so, i can't believe that raegan is already 3 and such a big girl. i love her to death and here is a look at the last 3 years.

oh, the day she was born... doesn't bryan look like 10 years younger instead of 3... hmm...


here she is again with grace for her polka dot themed first birthday party


and finally, last year, when she turned 2.


happy birthday, raegan! we are so grateful you came to our little family! we love your awesome personality and your sweet smile!

bbq anyone?

after 2 weeks of not using our grill, we find this...


i've told bryan we can't use our grill until these birds hatch and leave the nest, but i'm thinking we just need to get a new grill...

happy mother's day!

i like big butts...

so, honestly, i have debated about putting this picture up for a long time... should i? or shouldn't i? i guess i should...


welcome to the world of jack's backside... man... check out those thunder thighs... and not to mention the chub on the booty. gotta love it!

love

when she is not trying to pick him up or roll him over, raegan really loves jack... aka: lover shnuckums/lover baby/jackabees/jackman... all nicknames raegan calls him on a daily basis.

yeah, i can sleep anywhere

i love bugs... and all things creepy crawly

ok, so grace is my outdoor girl. she loves bugs and animals and apparently, toads too. here are few bug stories for your enjoyment...



we found this toad in our driveway in missouri after my mom's birthday party. grace was so excited... can't you tell... and did not want to let it go! she loves frogs! well, this one peed on her, so she promptly dropped it, only to snatch it back up again and not let go. we have to tell her that the frogs/bugs/worms have to go back to their homes so that they can be with their family. that's the only way she will give them up. while in missouri, papa found several tree frogs and toads for her to play with for a few minutes. she was loving it!

a couple of days before the toad in the driveway, the girls were outside riding their bikes and playing. we had the garage door open, and inside the garage was a little june bug. grace found it and asked if she could hold it. i told her that this was a nice bug and she could. enter child #2 who hates all things creepy crawly. as grace is bending down to pick it up, raegan runs into the garage and steps on it. while raegan proudly announced, 'i killed it!', grace started to cry.

and finally, yesterday i spent the morning mowing the grass (which was about 10 feet long thanks to massive amounts of rain while we were in missouri) and spraying ant hills that popped up in our back yard. i told grace and raegan to stay away from the piles of dirt while they were playing in the back. well, after a snack of mini chocolate muffins, raegan comes running into the house crying, 'get it off, get it off.' she runs to see me and says as she is crying, 'i have an ant on me, it's going to eat me.' upon further investigation, i realize that it is not an ant, but a chocolate muffin crumb stuck to her hand... so, i tell her, 'it's not an ant, it's your muffin!' so she eats it. nice.

missouri fun

while bryan was in honduras for 2 weeks, the girls and i took a trip up to missouri. yes, i drove all by myself with 3 kids for 9 hours. a nightmare? acutally, no... i found that when equipped with a dvd player, snacks, and coloring book, grace and raegan can entertain themselves for hours on end. yay! jack was also a great traveller this trip. he slept and slept and ate and slept. we arrived on friday afternoon and headed out to the middle school to surprise nana at work. my dad met me there as a distraction so she wouldn't see us come in and man was she surprised. she wasn't expecting us until monday, and so when we walked in, it was great fun!

one of the main things grace and raegan look forward to at nana's is pancakes with syrup and whip cream.


and no, the whip cream is not optional. they like it on the side, so each piece can be dipped in the whip cream. its more like... would you like a little pancake with your whip cream?

jack loved papa! and while we were there, jack became a big fan of fans... he was ever mesmerized by the ceiling fan.


here are a few more of papa and jack hanging out.



while we were there, my mom turned 50! so, we had a little get-together at the roberts' house. we ate yummy mexican food and had strawberry short cake for dessert. at the party, the girls spent the whole time outside with the trampoline and bubbles.


we had a great trip and were sad to leave at the end, but glad to get back to normal and to see bryan!

we only cut our hair when other people do...

taking a page from the tang book of hair care, we decided to cut jack's hair as well. rat's nest? no.... just really long hair. yes, we pulled out the clippers and probably took off 2 inches of hair on top... and the result? see for yourself.

and we have a thumb sucker

as much as bryan and i have tried to prevent this, apparently, we have no control over what he does when he sleeps. fortunately, jack is related to a dentist.

happy easter!

and don't ask me what is up with these kids' cheesy smiles...

yay for nursing our babies

at least they promote modesty while they're nursing... and i'm not quite sure why they were in the laundry baskets... i have yet to nurse a baby while sitting one.

flat head?

well, we have noticed that jack has been getting a bit of a flat head. hmm... to try to remedy this little problem, we have started to sit him up instead of lay him in his swing or on the floor. so, we pulled out the old exersaucer and purchased a bumbo. jack seriously loves the bumbo and will sit in it forever, and he has started to play with all his toys on the exersaucer. hopefully, these two things, mixed with some extra tummy time and a daily head massage, will prevent him from having to wear... 'the helmet'. only time will tell.