4th of July!

Dear Kate and Riley,
Summer fun is in full swing around here. After our fun weekend at home with Dad we just had a few days until we headed of to St. George with the O'Farrells for the 4th of July.

We drove during the day and it went great, the boys did really well and we made good time. Zach was SOOOO excited to see his cousins although he didn't really get that we were staying in St. George since last time we just spent the night there. He kept asking when we were going to our cousins' house.

Despite the 103+ degree temps we managed to have a great time. Zach just loves every second with his cousins and it is so much fun to watch. I love hanging out with Dad's fam and being silly. I'm grateful that our introvert (Dad) and his pretty introverted siblings (for the most part) all married extroverts. Everyone got in on the fun and although I have no pictures to prove it, we played a great game of "Bum Charades". It is going to be a party game for some time to come I think!

Our drive home was pretty terrible since we hit quite a bit of holiday traffic. Guess it just meant that we should have stayed a few extra days!

This is going to be major picture overload!

Decker and Zach crashed

Brady getting ready for his first time in the pool!

First time in the pool!

Eating strawberries by the pool

Ready for fireworks!

Autumn and Maddie ready for fireworks!

Cute Myra

At least Zach isn't the only one obsessed with the "puzzle phone"

While waiting for fireworks we played a mean game of "Mrs. Sally Walker" it was a new one to me but brought me right back to my days of EFY

All the cousins minus Zach who was having a tantrum (are we really surprised?)

ALL the cousins plus me crouching down behind Autumn and holding Zach

There were like ten of these with Zach not looking until SMART aunt Stacy yelled, "Oh look! Lightening McQueen!" we know how to fool a 2 year old.

Don't you just want to eat those toes!? Brady does.

The babies are getting big!

Let the popper wars begin. Zach was INTO it this year

Cute Jake

FINALLY!!! All I wanted, both of my boys looking at the camera. Turns out poppers are a good bribe.

All the girls, very cooperative

All the boys, this time it was Jake's turn to have a tantrum

Sparklers!

Zach would only hold his sparkler by the ground. After a lot of encouragement he finally started waving it around, only to have it singe his hair! Guess we should have left him in "safety" mode!

Getting ready for our firework show "in the street" as Zach kept reminding us

On Monday we headed to the Washington City rec center which was REALLY cool, for all Zach knew we could have been at a full blown water park. He had a blast. The pool was actually indoor but all the walls opened. It was really nice to be out of the sun!

Sooo sleepy!

And really, the summer trips have just begun!

Love,
Mom

Furloughed

Dear Kate and Riley,

A few weeks ago Dad found out that with work being slow everyone was going to be forced to take some vacation days. It is a bummer since we use his vacation days carefully to save them for planned trips but we decided to make the most of it.

We decided to put our new zoo passes to good use and check out the Wild Animal Park. It was SO hot that day, if the weather forecast I had read had been even close to right I probably wouldn't have gone but we still had fun. After the Wild Animal Park we headed down to Uncle Adam's house for some swimming. Zach is fearless in the water and had so much fun, he's lucky that his older cousins love playing with him and helping him in the water.

We also got to go see Toy Story 3, which was Zach (and Brady's) first movie in a theater. They both did well and it was a fun family day. Saturday we headed back to Uncle Adam's to watch soccer and swim and just had an all around fun weekend.

Up close with a cheetah

On the safari ride

Being brave on the slide at Uncle Adam's

with Maddie

Jumping off the rocks

Love,
Mom

Four Months!

Dear Kate and Riley,
Well I only have a week left to even do this in the right month but I did not want the whole month to pass without a Brady update.

At four months Brady is getting bigger every day. At his 4 month appt. he was up to 75th percentile for height and had slimmed right down to the 25th percentile for weight. I still think he has some good rolls even though he's thinned out a little.

Some 4 month milestones:
Can roll from tummy to back but not back to tummy
LOVES his toes
wants to put everything in his mouth, his shirt, his blankie, his hands, my hands, you name it
has no schedule (I can't decide if that is good or bad)
still sleeps really well on the go
is sleeping at least 6 hours straight at night and about half the time up to 7 or 8
likes the bumbo but gets tired of it pretty quickly
LOVES Zachary and spends most of the time in his carseat hunched as far forward as possible trying to look at Zach and listen to him talk
is more and more attached to mom and cries when I leave the room
is finally taking a bottle without too much of a fuss
is overall a really happy and easy baby!

We love our little Brady!

Love,
Mom

Sadly, these are the ONLY pictures I have of Brady from this entire month. Hopefully with our upcoming vacations we'll get some more!

Laguna Hills Half

Dear Kate and Riley,

I'm so behind on blogging! But there are a few things I really didn't want to miss here. Over Memorial Day weekend a few girlfriends and I ran the Laguna Hills Half marathon (ok more like I ran in their dust!). It was the same one I ran after Zach was born except Zach was born in October so I had MUCH more time to train than I did with Brady. In order to be ready for this race I had to start running as SOON as Brady was 6 weeks old. It was tough but I was so glad that I had the race to motivate me to get out there soon. I am also so grateful for Melissa who stuck by me when I was so slow.

The actual race day was great, despite feeling undertrained I felt good during the race and was able to run faster than I thought I would be able to. I ran it about 15 min faster than I did after I had Zach but I was about 18 min slower than the fastest half I've run but I have time to build back up to that. I ran it in 2 hours and 26 min which made me happy even though it was still pretty slow, I mean hey, I had a baby less than 4 months before!

Aunt Jenny and Uncle Chris were here for the weekend so it was fun to have my own little cheering section. We had a blast with them all weekend and Zach was so sad when they left.

The painful finish, I thought I was going to die!

My fans

My chubby bunny. Love this kid.

Aunt Jenny, it was so fun to have her there!

Julia was the last of the fasties to stick around for us slow girls. No one should have to take a picture next to Julia while wearing spandex.

Melissa, my training partner. This was her first half ever and I was SO so proud of her!

Zach's favorite part of the race

Exactly what I wanted to be doing

Love,
Mom

Father Sons' Campout

Dear Kate and Riley,
*I got the idea from Nicole to have DAD write about the Father/Sons' campout since I wasn't even there!*

A few weeks ago Zach and I went on our first Fathers and Sons campout at San Onofre beach on camp Pendelton. Zach was excited to go camping and sleep in a tent. When we first got there we had to find a place on the beach to set up the tent. We found a place that would keep us dry from any high tide, which was a good decision since high tide washed out a few tents and made some people leave that night. Once we found a spot, taking two trips to the car making sure that Zach didn't wonder off, I was able to put up the tent with assistance from another father. Luckily we didn't have to stake down the tent we just spread our stuff out in the tent.

It was fun to see Zach run around with the other boys and try to imitate what the older kids were doing. For dinner Zach enjoyed roasting hot dogs with his buddy Will, he didn't want any help from me, but I had to keep an eye on him so our hot dogs didn't come out all ashy. There was only one fire pit and a lot of tin foil dinners so some dads decided to start a make shift fire pit. We tried to roast more hot dogs on the new fire pit but Zach wouldn't stand close enough to cook the hot dogs saying that it was "Too hot, dad" and turn away.

The best part of camping by the beach were the trains that passed by and Zach yelling "whoo, whoo, that's a diesel train, dad." He did this every time even as we were in our sleeping bags ready to sleep. Zach had no problem sleeping on the sand, he rolled around a lot, and even talked in his sleep which woke me up at 3 in the morning. I had a hard time sleeping on the sand, I thought it would be soft but it was anything but soft. In the morning Zach sat in the beach chair eating Fruit Loops out of a ziplock bag with a spoon, that he picked out at the store the night before telling me that he needed them for the campout. This gave me plenty of time to pack up the tent and take all our stuff to the car. Although it was a short camping trip, I look forward to more camping trips with the whole family in the future.

Love,
Dad