Summer Fun-- in parts

Dear Kate and Riley,
It is totally overwhelming to even think about writing about this vacation so I think I'm going to have to baby step through it.

We left for Utah AGAIN in July for ten days. Our drive out was uneventful. A late night stopover in St. George and we arrived in Salt Lake the next day.

First stop-- uncle Andrew's house. Since the purpose of the trip was the Hansen family reunion we tried to squeeze in a little O'Farrell time when we could. We were able to spend our first afternoon with some O'Farrell cousins and Zach got his first try on the slip-n-slide. Zach kept looking out at the back yard and saying "Look mom! A park!" poor kid, some day maybe we'll have more than just a patio.

Zach took a bit to warm up but then he thought the slip-n-slide was cool. So cool he had a hard time taking turns.




loving his popsicle


the babies! So fun to have them 2 weeks apart.

More to come!
Love,
Mom

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!