Happy Birthday, Kate!

Kate turned 6 in October and had a party at Chuck E Cheese's, which happens to be right by our house so Mikey got invited! Thanks for the fun party, Kate!

Ben, Mikey, Kate and one of her friends.

Mikey on the carousel. (It's been hard to get good, smiling pictures of Mikey lately so we're lucky to have this one!)

I lost track of how many tokens we used here, but Mikey and Ben just rode this and rode this until it was time to leave

Mimi had the tough job of hanging out with Luke and newborn Anna. I know it was rough, but she hung in there.

Mikey and Kate's cousin, Ester driving around town

Family play group!

A few weeks ago we decided to do a little family play group (because my mom was secretly* in town for the birth of my new niece...shhhh). It was so much fun to have all the cousins together that we hope to be able to start holding regular family play groups. I know, I have the cutest nieces and nephew (yep, just ONE nephew. I'm definitely the one pulling most of the boy weight around here!) But just look how cute! Mikey and Amanda. Yep, Mikey's pushing around a stroller! He loves it! (Luckily he also loves everything trucks, balls, dirt and bugs, too)

Luke just sat back and watched it all. Just like the little, old man that he looks like :)

Abigail and Caroline

Kate, Ben, Mikey and Abigail

Here is Mikey, Amanda and Ben having a little party. I peeked outside just before we were leaving and I hear Mikey say, "it's a birthday party!" And as he touched each of their heads he said, "Birthday hat, birthday hat, birthday hat."

*By the way, when I say my mom was here "secretly," I mean she didn't tell many people because it wasn't a social visit. She did, in fact, have the proper permission to leave her mission. :)

My sweet boys...

That's all. That's all I have to say :)

Remember when....

...You were a little kid and could fall asleep anywhere and it was okay?

Falling asleep in the car isn't too surprising to anyone, but when they both do it? Bonus!

Falling asleep in the middle of jumping? A little more effort involved there. (And no comments on how our jumper hangs over the stairs! It was that or on the door to outside and it's getting cold here! It's the only place it fits!)

Asleep in the swing. A frequent occurrence.

"Hey Luke, are you looking for something? Did you drop something?"

Nope, just asleep

Lest you think I'm a bad mom and don't pay enough attention to my child to get him to bed when he needs it--one minutes he's jumping and smiling then I turn around for one minute and he's asleep! (Okay, you can still think I'm a bad mom if you wish, but you should know that judging is bad!)

Growing up so fast!

I can't believe how fast time is flying. Luke is getting so big so fast. And we are loving every day.

At 4 1/2 months he can sit up! Not every time, but he can do it!

He wants so badly to roll over, but he just can't get those arms over. As you can see, he can get his hips rolled over and almost completely flat, but can't get past those arms. He does this frequently and it cracks me up. He actually has rolled from stomach to back, but it was kind of an accident.

And his first solid meal. I was going to wait a little longer, but he suddenly started grabbing spoons from my hands so I thought it was time. And he loves it! He doesn't stop until I do!

Family photo shoot

So last Friday we decided to get some family portraits done. It was FREEZING so Mikey was not in his usual, smiley, cheesy, picture-taking mood. But I think we still managed to get some good ones. They will not all be available for another two weeks, but the photographer put a few teaser pictures up today on her blog. Look how cute! http://photosbysamantha.blogspot.com/
She was great and we really loved working with her. She was great with getting Mikey out of his freezing, grumpy mood. Anyway, you can be sure that I will put up the rest when we get them!

Teach them in their youth

So the other night at dinner, we were trying to get Mikey to calm down enough to say the prayer. He did his usual: kind of stop what he's doing and hold one forearm with the other hand, then as we're saying the prayer, take a bite or two of food while we finish. I often have my doubts about him always "getting" the prayer thing. But this time AFTER the prayer he got out of his chair. We immediately started in with, "Mikey, where are you going?" "Get back in your chair." "It's time to eat." But he continued around the table over to Luke and grabbed both his hands and tried to cross them. So then, while holding both of his hands, he bowed his head a little and started mumbling another little prayer. When we finally realized that he was trying to get Luke to also fold his arms and participate in the prayer, we quickly bowed our heads and joined in. Now every few prayers or so, Mikey goes over and tries to help Luke pray, too. Looks like Luke will have a big brother who looks after him and keeps him in line. :)

4 months old!

Luke was 4 months old last Monday and he is as cute as ever! (As you can see below)

He smiles at everything and it's so much fun. He now always wants to be sitting up and does not like being ignored. He is grabbing things and putting it all in his mouth and is so close to rolling over.

(I just thought it was so cute when he fell asleep with his arm up like that.) At the doctor on Wednesday he was 17.15 lbs 25.59 inches

Boys aren't cute

Conversation with Mikey in the car:

Me: Mikey, are you tired?

Mikey: No

Me: Mikey, are you cute?

Mikey: No! I'm a boy!

Me: Oh. What is Luke?

Mikey: Luke is cute!

Mikey does a lot of watching and learning and often fawns over Luke the way we do. It's so cute to watch. He certainly loves his little brother and Luke smiles more and more in response to his big brother. Unfortunately, we didn't get the best of what went on in this video because Luke was grinning ear to ear at first and we missed it. It's still pretty cute, though.

The State Fair

So we went to the state fair.

And here we are...

...with cows

Say cheese.
Okay seriously, though. We went to the state fair a few weeks ago and it was great. Mostly probably just because we were with our favorite firends and ate funnel cake (for the first time--I know, can you believe it?). Mikey loved a lot of the animals, though actually not the cows. He suddenly didn't want to get out of the stroller when we were around the cows, but we made him :)
Of course he and his girl were the cutest couple there. :)

3 months!

Okay, so he was actually 3 months old two weeks ago. I'm always a little behind. But these pictures were all around the 3 month mark. I can't believe how fast time is flying! Anyway, here is my little cutie...

This is, hands down, my favorite picture of him to date. Just look how cute!

This one's a little goofy, but man I love him!


Mama and Luke playing footsie.

Luke actually has Moss feet and Mikey has Bastian feet--completely different, but I love all their feets!

Just a cute little mug.

Everybody say "CHEESE"

All my happy boys :)

So I was trying to get dinner on. Mikey had just woken up and was grumpily sitting on dad's lap when Luke started fussing (and was probably hungry). So I plopped Luke on dad's lap and thought they could all cuddle until dinner was ready. Well, I guess you can see how everyone felt about that. (Okay, so dad was just trying to match the overall mood set by his boys.)

Oh, Mikey...

So I guess first I should explain that Mikey calls just about every toiletry product "lotion." This includes such things and mousse, hairspray, shampoo, liquid soap and of course actual lotion. He also thinks that it is almost always supposed to be put into your hair (one would assume from the mousse confusion). So anyway, one evening, after bath time, I was lying with Mikey in our bed watching a show before bedtime. I fell asleep. Suddenly I heard Lance come upstairs calling for Mikey and I jolted up. I could hear the panic in his voice as he could not find him. I immediately joined in the search and one of the first places I looked was into the pitch black bathroom behind the door. After turning on the light, this is what I saw:He was crouched in the dark which tells us that he was quite aware that he was doing something he shouldn't have been doing. And yes, that is baby shampoo. He had been pumping it into his hands and rubbing it into his hair.
It was one of those don't-let-him-see-that-you-think-he's-funny moments because we were sure trying not to laugh. Though it was annoying to have to wash his already clean hair again. Funny kid.
I just thought this picture was funny. This particular evening he really didn't want to put a shirt on so we didn't make him. He was quite relaxed that way.

Yay for Lance!!

Congratulations, Lance! This weekend Lance completed an Olympic triathlon. Due to a series of unexpected delays and troubles (more on that later), mama, Mikey, and Luke arrived a little late so we did not get shots of him diving into the water or jumping on his bike. But we did get the bike-to-running moment.

Here's Lance rolling in on the bike.
Getting ready to start the final leg
And off he runs! (I had the camera zoomed in so I could get the previous shots and then suddenly he was running at me so this shot was a little close up)

And he crosses the finish lineAll done. Yay! It's all over! (Thank goodness)

As adorable as this picture is, it is here to actually show the burn on my face from unexpectedly being in the sun for 4 hours on Saturday, of which at least 1 1/2 was spent walking to and from the shuttle and standing in line waiting for the shuttle. The circumstances were not quite as we thought they would be for the spectators at the triathlon. What we thought to be an easy shuttle ride to a shady, grassy park area to wait (and quite kid friendly), actually was a shuttle ride to a spot on the road a mile away from the starting point. The trek to the starting point was partially along the race track which left me pushing a double stroller and a big bag of toys for Mikey to play with in grass, half on asphalt, half on gravel dropping off the side down into the lake. Luckily I (barely) made it without falling off the edge, but then we found it was not a grassy area where we all waited and watched, but gravel on the side of the road. No playing for Mikey and sitting in gravel to nurse Luke wasn't ideal. It was a little rough, but the boys were surprisingly good considering the circumstances and it was so fun to see daddy. (Next time I may leave the kids at home, though.) Way to go Lance! We're so proud of you!

Happy Anniversary to us!

That's right, folks. We've made it 4 whole years. It was actually a month ago now, but like I said earlier, I'm playing catch up right now.

So we took ourselves up to the beautiful Park City to celebrate. You may notice that we had our kids with us. And that is true. We stayed there for two nights so we had Mikey for one night and then took him to my sister's for the second night. (Thanks, Heath!) Luke, of course, stayed with us the whole time (since he's nursing and all.)

Mikey got to ride the Alpine slide with each of us and loved it both times.
Luke enjoyed just hanging out
Finally (almost) alone (you can see little Luke peeking out back there), we went out to celebrate Lance learning to love sushi, I mean our Anniversary by getting sushi. It was some of the best sushi we've had. (I worked on him for 3 1/2 years and now he loves it as much a I do!)

Being Clean...

Takes a lot of work with two boys, one of which is two (and yes, I know it will only get worse). But we try to have fun getting there. Luke pretty much smiles any time he gets attention. Bath time is no exception.

I know, he's getting huge!

Did you know that ham is spelled M-I-K-E-Y? At least when the camera is on.

(see comment above)

And I don't know what it is, but I just love this picture.