Austin waited all day to dance at the pow wow

 

Easter 2013 {in Havasu!}

My sweet family of 5




This was our first time spending Easter in Arizona with "Great Grandma" ... it was so special & fun!!


I love Jake leisurely floating in the background as I try to coax Andrew in. The water was freezing, and Jake kept saying, 'it's only cold at first, it's actually pretty warm right now! my fingers are numb!'

Ohh!!! They Grow!!!

Again, it's been forever since I've posted! But recently I came back to the little blog world to visit some of my friends' places... and it was so nice to read updates & see the photos! So I decided it was time for me to stop by again. Here's a pic of the 3 boys on Christmas morning.



The boys are wonderful... Jake is 3 1/2. It's a bit shocking to me! He's going to be 4! And go to school and stuff!!! I love watching him learn. I was sitting at the table last week and he was drawing in my study book. He wrote some letters and started naming them... I, E, F, D... I was taken aback! And then I took a picture. That's what I do!



At church they must have been reading books about trust, because he has been incorrectly using that word since last Sunday, it's hilarious! He says, "Oh! I'm so trust!" Or he will be playing drums with Austin and will look at him and say, "I TRUST youuuu!!!" He also says boring, but has no clue what it means. He says the funniest things sometimes!

Jake 3 1/2 yrs

Austin is 2 years old now, which is also shocking! He is absolutely adorable and manages to keep me laughing (out loud, often hysterically) every day. I probably don't do as much "teaching" activities with him (like numbers, letters, shapes & colors) because I think I'm in denial that he's not a baby anymore. So, even though I'm sure this is absolutely normal for his age, he totally surprised me by counting to 13 while he was playing.

What else... I gotta have updates for all three! Oh, he got glasses! He's so cute in them, but we've already broken them 3 times, and one of those times we couldn't repair them ourselves and actually had to have a part replaced. All in the first TWO months of having them! Thank goodness for warranties!

Austin 2 yrs

This was the day he got his glasses- such a cute, funny photo! I also got glasses around the same time. It's amazing to be able to see things that I didn't even know I was missing! Everything is so much more beautiful!!

Andrew is 5 months (as of 1/6). He is a sweetheart and warms my heart. I am cherishing every moment. His smiles & giggles are the BEST!

Andrew 5 months

Today I tried some rice cereal with him. It was, of course, mostly breastmilk. It was funny & cute. Most of it ended up down his bib, but he definitely liked gnawing on the spoon! The upper edge of his teeth have been visible since the end of October (crazy!!), but his bottom left one is finally beginning to poke through. Just a tiny glimmer of white. He loves his Bumbo & got an exersaucer for Christmas and he's starting to love it.

1/17/10

More older pics:



(This picture of Mr Drewsie cracks me up... purple lips from his thrush medicine (Gentian Violet) and a bow on top of his head, (courtesy of Austin)... it just looks so wrong!! heehee)


Andrew's first Christmas! 4 1/2 months

We started a Christmas tradition-- Santa letters! The boys had a blast with them

Our full house. I am happy~*

Easter Festivities

It was quite a funny group of baskets this year-- Kevin and I used the velvet basket that usually holds all of our scented linen sprays & fragrances in the bathroom. Jake had a cute metal 'cars' bucket, and Austin had some random "Easter-y" basket I found in a cabinet. (Those little red sand-buckets were supposed to be their baskets, but I went overboard on their toys & they wouldn't fit!)





I didn't want to put any candy in the boy's baskets, but I was feeling generous in the wee hours... so each boy got 3 Robin's Eggs. (Mommy & Daddy got lots more candy than that!) The first thing Jake did when he got his basket was go for the toys... Whereas the first thing Austin did was stuff a huge Robin's Egg in his mouth!






What a perfect picture, it makes me laugh!! This is his 2nd piece of candy ever!





This year was the boy's first egg hunt. It was also Kevin's first time hiding eggs and my first time hiding them for my *own* kids... so I had to, of course, take photos of that part too!

The boys had so much fun finding the eggs! Austin still enjoyed throwing them more than anything, but that was fine with me... we're going to crack them anyways.

After our morning festivities we had yummy strawberry pancakes, went to church together, had a small lunch (correctly guessing that the 2:00 BBQ would be more like 4-5:00), and then headed down to San Diego to hang out with family at the lake. It was absolutely beautiful. Despite the horrendous crowds, we got a better "spot" than I could have imagined... on a little 'island', a cluster of 3 tables with a BBQ, and plenty shade. Amazing! (And, of utmost importance for me, being preggo... it was just a short walk to the restrooms!)

As I've mentioned before, my family is a little blog-shy, thus the lack of photos that include anyone but Kevin & the boys. Here are just a few that I think are safe to share.

Cousin Adam (my nephew) with Austin

Uncle Pete (my bro) playing catch with Jake. (With a water balloon!)

And Jake & Daddy (Kevin) under the bridge

We had a wonderful day, relaxing together as a little family and creating some of our own traditions... and also spending some much-needed time relaxing with my side of the family, whom we miss sooo much! It's so refreshing and fun!

Though Kevin and I agreed that it was hard to fully relax, being surrounded by water and having two toddlers... I can't tell you how many panicky "Where's Austin?!?!?" or "Where's Jake!?!?!" moments we each had! (Luckily, the other one always knew the answer to those momentary heart-stopping questions!)

A Zillion Easter Egg Pictures

Jake had SO much fun dying the Easter eggs tonight!!! It was his first time ever... and I'm sure he'll be asking to do it again many times over the next few months!




Austin had fun, but he mostly kept saying, "BALL!" "BALL!" and pointing at the eggs. He didn't get to go near the dye (for obvious reasons), but when we handed him an egg and crayons to color...



It ended up on the floor within seconds. He loves to play "ball!" I love this shot (above) of his wind-up!




Pictured above, Jake later gave a newly dyed egg to Austin to look at... same scenario except this one left a trail of pink dye on the hardwood floor as it rolled across the room!

So cute & so much fun!!!

You may not be able to see details below, but dying eggs with boys is so much different than my experiences growing up! I had to draw lightning bolts on one, a star, and Lightning McQueen (a race car) on another... But I still got in a few with hearts and polka dots!

And below, Jake "cleaning up" ... not so helpful! But it was a special occasion, so I snapped a few pictures before I snatched him away from the dye.

Happy Easter, friends!!!

Santa's Railroad

Here's a post I started a few days ago & never finished... and I'm not going to finish it.
hah!

So basically, it's photos and ONE sentence. Gotta get on with it though!






We took a choo-choo train to the North Pole to visit Santa.