Cake and Trains

Andrew took this picture
His brain is working
Can you feel the love?


Michael now has seven teeth. And when one has so many teeth, you really need to test out them out. Chocolate cake would be the obvious choice. So, today, I gave Michael his first cake. I figured since Kathie already decided he was more than ready for chocolate (She gave him some of her ice cream in San Diego and now I think she may be his favorite Aunt ) I might as well jump on the bandwagon. He is 9 months old. :) I think most of it ended up on his face. He seemed to like it. Andrew wanted to take some pictures of the experience.
Some of you may not know that Jeremy is a very accomplished builder - of train tracks. Seriously, he creates masterpieces when I am building the figure eight. Once he built Nathan a track in Houston and Mama took a picture of it, so she could put it back together if it was broken. The boys love it and Michael even played with the train cars today.
Michael thinks Jacob is so funny. He will just sit and laugh at him. Sometimes, Jacob will just stand in front of him and jump. And every jump is somehow funnier and funnier. It is so cute.
My Jacob turns 3 on Wednesday. I still can't believe it. So, three random things I love about Jacob:

He has really long eyelashes.

He loves cheese.

He melts my heart when he talks to me. He gets out of trouble all the time after just explaining himself to me. I have a hard time punishing him when I hear the way his cute little mind works.

Bedrooms, Bunkbeds and Blessings

Jacob was sad, I told him not to touch the letters! Michael loves the rocking chair.

























On top of the world!

My boys are growing up. Andrew is now sleeping on the top bed on their bunk bed, which we put back together. Because - we moved Michael into the big boy's room. So, now all my boys share a room. My baby, Michael is big enough to start being a big kid. I think I am babying him, I'm not ready for him to grow up. The fact that he will be 9 months on Thursday just doesn't seem possible. I have been worried about Andrew sleeping on the top bunk since we inherited the bunk beds, but he has no problem at all. Sleeps toward the wall, hasn't given me any heart attacks, yet. We decided to go ahead and put Michael's crib in since we were rearranging and trying to make room for it. Lynne came down to visit us for the weekend, which was so fun. We saw Horton Hears A Who. Lynne always gives up her bedroom for us when we come visit her and we wanted her to have some space without little kids trying to wake her up at various times of night or morning, so we gave her our room. And we slept on the bottom bunk(full or queen sized) with Jacob. He likes to climb in bed with us at least a couple times a week, so he thought it was great. The next night he asked, " Can't we sleep all together, again?" So, we had our whole family in one bedroom. And it wasn't that bad. No one woke up in the middle of the night. Everyone slept well. It really made me realize that things that extra bedrooms are huge blessings. Families all over the world share a home with multiple generations. Families used to live in homes that were one big room. We had some friends, who after grad school, lived in a studio in Manhatten with two small children. We have friends now who live in NY with three children in a 600 sf apartment. There are times I bemoan having to walk outside to do my laundry which is in a little room at the back of the house with only outside access. Then, I remember what a blessing having my own washer and dryer. What a blessing to have a backyard to have to walk through. What a blessing to have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much to bless us with the things we need and some we just really like. We went on a hike at Saguaro National Park today and it was really beautiful. We saw so many cacti and flowers and climbed on rocks and saw birds. Andrew and Jacob are great climbers. I am so grateful for the beauty of our world. Something we didn't need, but He knew would bring joy. I am grateful for The Son of God who came to earth and suffered for our sins and pains and died for us and was resurrected - something we did need.
PS - Break a Leg, Kathie. You are going to do so well on your Orals tomorrow. We love you and our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Spring Break

We were just having too much fun!

I just love this picture!

Jeremy did his part to ensure they all had fun!

He loved the ocean!

Yea random lego man in our picture!

We had a wonderful Spring Break. It was a little hard to drive away from the ocean and my family.  Jacob and Andrew cried, I just wanted to. :) Our week was jam packed with fun activities. Everyone had a great time except maybe Michael, who cut two teeth while we there. Now he has a grand total of five, with two more on the way.  Once he got over that and a little cold, complete with green gunk oozing out of his eyes, he was a little happier. We started off with Legoland which was so fun, we decided to add another day. I think it was better than even Disneyland would have been, because the kids could ride on everything. There were only a couple that Jacob couldn't ride on. Thank goodness he was 36" tall or he would have been sad. We played on the beach and almost everyone ended up buried in the sand. Michael stayed under the umbrella most of the time. But he did venture a bit into the sand, :). It was such beautiful weather. I really understand why people would live there. We saw live seals on the beach at La Jolla Cove and then visited the Zoo to see animals in habitats. Andrew, Mandy and Jacob were mesmerized by the monkeys playing together and Andrew loved seeing his preschool Mascot, the Camel. All of the days were so fun, but the best part of the vacation was spending all that time with people we love. We miss being close to my family. 

I am breathing a sigh of relief tonight - the Relief Society Birthday Party is over, the playgroup Easter Egg Hunt went well (I am in charge of playgroup). SO, now all I have to do is get ready for our trip. The RS program went fine, no one threw any tomatoes. I am disappointed, because I wanted it to go perfectly. But, I am really glad I made it through. I forgot the words in the song for half a second, which I am embarrassed about. It could have been so much worse. I am sure I made so many other mistakes, but everyone was really kind and complimentary. It was good for me.
The boys were so cute at the Easter egg hunt. It was a beautiful day here, perfect for running around. The boys helped me stuff the eggs last night before they went to bed. It was fun to work with them. Then, when I woke up this morning, I found Jacob had taken all the candy out of the eggs. :) Thankfully, it was all individually wrapped and he couldn't open any of it.
Michael has a crib sheet with cars, trains, helicopters, etc. all over it. When I was laying him down for his nap, he was so funny. He kept reaching for the sheet and trying to grab the cars on it. He had this serious look on his face as his hands kept closing without the little toy. He reaches for people now. If he is sitting on my lap and one of the boys is next to us, he will reach out and touch them to get their attention. He also has started having conversations with us, usually when we aren't paying attention to him. He will look at someone and just start babbling. I love to hear him.

The end of a season

I am a little sad. My milk is gone. No more nursing for my Michael. Truthfully, I am surprised that it lasted for eight months. And he wasn't nursing very frequently anyway, because there wasn't much there. But, that still doesn't keep me from wishing things had worked out differently and I never had to use formula. I hope that what little breast milk he did have helped him somewhat.

It is really warm here in Tucson, I think it is 80 degrees today. So, the boys spend a lot of time outside. They have been digging daily in our sandbox that we call a backyard and come in covered in a layer of dirt. It is a so cute until I see the dirt footprints on my pillow or their filthy shoes. :)
We went to the park yesterday and they spent two hours making a lake and river in the sand with a couple of other kids. They just kept filling buckets with water and carrying them over to the sand. It was fun to watch them all play so well together and create something. Yea for buckets and shovels. I am hoping that it will be warm enough in San Diego to get some beach time.

I am doing the program for our Relief Society birthday party tonight and I will be talking about the strength of women past and present and my experience playing a pioneer and ...... singing a song. I am singing a song all by myself. AHHHHH! I will let you know how it goes, hopefully not a repeat of Bob's Farewell! :) I don't think my self esteem could handle it.

Kindergarten Roundup

Yesterday, Andrew and I attended Kindergarten Roundup! I feel like I need a rope and cowboy hat. What I really needed was two proofs of residency, a shot record and his birth certificate. Who knew? I came ready with only a birth certificate and my cute soon- to- be kindergartner! Oh and his social security card, which did not prove to be helpful. They took the kids on a tour of the classrooms while we were to stay and register our children with the help  of the before mentioned items. I was told to come back later. Sigh, what a good start to our school years. Andrew came home to tell Jeremy all about the classrooms and that there were two parks there and was very excited. The kindergarten has it's own play scape - which I think is a good idea. No crazy fifth graders taking over the slide! He vacillates between wanting to stay at Mrs. Tellez's school (his preschool teacher) and going to Kindergarten right now. The visit was not a complete waste - I feel better about Andrew's preparation for school. One of the teachers soothed my fears. :) This picture was of Andrew's first day of preschool. He was seriously thrilled. He looks bigger now to me. 

I am really ready for Spring Break to come - we are headed to San Diego. I can't wait. For some reason, I really want to escape. Right now. 

Brothers

Michael is now almost eight months old and is getting big. I picked this picture because you can see his teeth. He has three and two more are coming. He loves sitting up and the new world of toys he has discovered. He is also our little thief - if you are holding something and he is close to you, he will try to grab it. It still surprises me when he does it. The boys think it is so funny, I'm waiting for when they realize he is taking their toy away and not just being cute. 

They both just love him so much. I am excited for when he can really play with them, but not yet. I still want him to be a baby! 

We have survived another tech week. Jeremy's show previews tomorrow and we are so glad to be out of the rehearsal process. Hooray! And this time our church is earlier, so I don't have to do church alone when he has a matinee on Sunday. When he was doing Bus Stop, I had all three kids by myself at church for a month. I didn't appreciate how much Jeremy does at church until he wasn't there! 

We had a really fun weekend in Phoenix last week with Lynne and Emily. They made me feel very loved and the kids loved spending time with them. They never want to leave. We came home with a bookcase and a chair from IKEA. Now we have enough chairs for all the members of our family!