Catching up with Luke

Oh my little Luke. He's growing up so much and it makes me sad! I want him to stay this little forever! Though maybe he could still grow out of his hitting and tantrum phase. He is the happiest and cutest thing going, but all of the recent changes in our lives have not gone unnoticed in his behavior. He has gotten noticeably more clingy and needing of my attention. Though this makes things much more difficult when trying to adequately take care of a newborn, I secretly love it ;) He wants me to hold him and cuddle with him all the time and I really love it.

But yes, he is going through quite a little hitting and throwing stage. I don't know if this is just his age or the move and new brother thing or a combo of everything, but it is a little difficult to deal with at times. Usually it is Mikey or the walls that suffer from this, but he has successfully landed a blow to Joey two or three times :( We're working it. Hopefully we can get over this soon. But aside from this he is doing great! He loves to color and draw, but we're working on the difference between paper and all other surfaces in the house. And he can also now count to 7. We love Luke!!!

I mean come on, look at that smile!

I just loved this picture all zonked out in his short shorts :)

And finally, only tonight Luke slept in a big boy bed for the first time!! He did great! He got right in and went to sleep! But we'll see if it holds up and how he does in the morning. I also don't know about naps. We might keep using the crib for naps for a bit just to keep him in there :)
Also, in case you're wondering that is Luke's Sonny Bear. We don't know where he got it, but one day he just started calling his bear "Sonny Bear." (Or maybe it's "Sunny Bear?" He didn't tell me what spelling to use.) We seriously have no idea where it came from.

(Okay, I also have a bunch of Mikey stuff to post, but it's super late so I'll get to it tomorrow.)

Catching up with Joey

Time to post all the pictures I haven't gotten around to posting for the past month! Our little Joey is just as cute as ever and is getting so big so fast (as they always seem to do.) He is now almost two months old and has grown out of his newborn clothes :(

He is doing great, but poor thing is definitely the third child (Lance and I both sympathize as fellow thirds :) He usually has to cry a little longer than either of the other kids ever had to, sometimes gets his feedings cut short or at least must take a little unexpected break in the middle of eating, has to share my lap with a brother while trying to nurse and has been hit on the head or face more than once as a result of a little two-year-old's "I just had to move and I just got a new little brother who takes all my mom's attention" tantrum. (More on Luke later.) Regardless of the attention stealing he does, his brothers are almost always crazy about him and love him a little TOO much, if you know what I mean. He has started to smile quite often and his brothers get even more excited when they can get a smile out of him. Nights still aren't great as he usually won't give me more than 3 or 4 hours at a time, but we're still getting by.

Now for some pictures you've missed:

Joey was blessed on July 11th...the day after we moved. I know, it was crazy. But you do what you gotta do, right! It was a great blessing with great people there and that is what is important (even if they had to sit amongst boxes after)

How sweet is this picture of Mikey and Joey! We were sad that we never got a picture with Luke after, but he fell asleep on the way home from church so he missed the whole party!

Just a whole bunch of cute Joey faces:




And like I said, more and more smiley!


This is for the grandparents. It's just the little wiggles and grunts of a 6-week-old, but moms and grandparents can't get enough of this stuff :)

Happy Pioneer Day!

The 24th was a (mostly) fun day for all! (I had a little work crisis that I found out about at 5:30 am and that I worked on until about 11:30 and it never really worked out all that great, so that made me a little extra tired and stressed that day, but enough of that!)

The boys all started the day with a little neighborhood parade led by a fire truck and a breakfast. I was sad to miss out on it, but they all had fun! Anyone who wanted to participate in the parade was welcome in whatever form desired. Mikey rode his bike and Luke rode dad. :) They came right by our house so I at least got to see them.

Then in the evening we went up Millcreek Canyon with various family members for dinner. Here is Luke with his cousin Abigail. The kids were covered in marshmallows and dirt by the end and were happier than ever!

We tried to take some family pictures, but getting the kids to hold still long enough to take the pictures were more difficult than usual.

Luke was using this lacrosse stick for everything he could think of including a butterfly net, a baseball bat, and as seen below, a horse.

Happy Father's Day (a little late!)

I meant to post this a month ago when we first got this, but then we were moving and I forgot! This was the picture the nursery sent home on Father's day for Lance. Could that be any cuter!?

Two wheeler

So Mikey has been begging us to take the training wheels off of his bike. Lance has taken them off and worked with him a little. I think he's still a little ways off from being able to ride the bike without training wheels, but still he needed to be properly protected. So Lance took him to the store to buy a helmet. As luck would have it, they had Spiderman gear--I think he's now more excited about his gear than actually riding the bike. :)

New House

As I mentioned earlier, we just moved! We have been looking for just the right house for about a year and half and it was well worth the wait! We couldn't be happier with our house (unless, of course, if it were in our last ward boundaries because we miss them!) But we have met some super nice people in this neighborhood and we know we will love this neighborhood, too.

We have been trying to get things unpacked and organized enough to take some decent pictures to post, but I fear that if I wait for that I'll never post pictures. So instead I thought I'd just put up the pictures that were used for the listing when the house was for sale (so none of the furniture is ours as it is all staging furniture--but I wouldn't have minded them leaving some of it! :) We have done a little bit of painting which we are super happy with, but for now this is what you get. I have not really bothered with putting these in any sort of order that makes sense. These are just a few random pictures and one day I WILL take some pictures when it looks more like our own :)

The Front (needs some pruning, flowers and things)

One of our favorite things! The view. We seriously comment on it ever time we go out on our deck. (And this picture doesn't even show the half of it!)

The laundry room (Who posts pictures of the laundry room? Well maybe you would if it was this AWESOME! I hate doing laundry so this was big deal for me. I love it :)

The family room

Master bath

Master bedroom

Kitchen

Finished basement (there is also a sub-basement that is unfinished)

More kitchen and dining

Living room

More living room

Entry

That's all for now!

Quote of the Day:

Mikey came in this morning all excited to tell me about what we are doing at the 24th of July neighborhood Breakfast:

Mikey: Mom! Do you know what we're doing tomorrow!? We're going to be in a parade and eat breakfast and do a Popsicle course!

I do not know what a Popsicle course is, but I'm excited to find out!

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea:
-Giving birth to a beautiful baby
-Having adorable and very active two- and four-year-old boys
-Buying a beautiful new house
-Moving into a bigger and much better house
-Having a business that keeps you busy

Bad Idea:
-Having each and every one of those at once...

Yes, we went under contract the day I went into labor. Then unlike when having my second child, this time I couldn't arrange my work to take a break so business continued as usual despite having a baby. And obviously we had to prepare to move which is never a small feat. So without going into too much detail about all the hurdles we had to go through to get the sale completed, in addition to minor troubles with our rental property in Florida and troubles with our landlords here, the last month and a half has been my craziest to date of my WHOLE life. (Okay, I'm being dramatic, but you can imagine.) If it weren't for my parents and my sister here to help with my boys I think I would still be in our old house curled up in the fetal position in the basement quietly going insane. So now you know why I haven't been showing off my perfect little newborn every day. Now that we are (slowly) getting settled, more pictures should starting popping up of both newborn and house. Just have a little patience.

But just a little taste:

View from our deck and the reason we get nothing done from about 8:30 to 9:00 at night:

My little sweetheart:

PS--anyone who gets this post's title's reference wins a prize (the prize being my undying and profound respect)

A little Joey fix

I just had to put up a few more of my little adorable, sleep depriving man. He's beyond cute, but man I wish I could sleep more :) Mikey and Luke constantly argue about whose turn it is to hold him.

He's 2 1/2 weeks now. At night he usually will go anywhere from 2 1/2 to 4 hours without eating. A 4 hour stretch feels pretty good (yes, that's sad that I get excited about 4 hours.) He eats like a champ and the scale shows it! At his two week appointment he was 9 lbs 7 oz so he put on more than a pound in a two weeks. The doctor was so proud! (Mikey weighed the same at two weeks, but he started out 11 oz more than Joey--Joey knows he's got to grow fast or get pounded on!) I'm so tired, but he's so worth it. I sure love him!

Not to be forgotten

When there is a newborn around the house, it is easy to focus entirely on that child. Of course, Mikey and Luke are not exactly the kind to sit back and allow that to happen so fear not for their little feelings. It's nice that Mikey has Luke to play with this time around. When I had Luke, Mikey was all alone. Now they are thick as thieves together and it's so fun to watch.

Honestly, we now can't remember what the boys were doing here, but it was something sneaky filled with lots of laughing.

The boys have been dying to swim lately. Mikey has been asking to fill up his little (dirty, broken) pool for the past few months (through snow and rain) so the day finally arrived. While Lance was filling up the pool Mikey came in with some very specific instructions: "Mom, I need some lunch on a plate outside. I need a sandwich cut like dolphins. Um....aaaand, I think some strawberries cut up." So after taking a little swimming break he and Luke sat down for some lunch. (Sorry, these are out of order.)

Mikey got some snorkeling gear for his birthday so of course he was anxious to try it out...yes, in 4 inches of water...flippers and all

Luke needed to test out his goggles

Okay so neither one actually put their faces in the water...one day soon we'll make it to the real pool...and maybe buy a little better kiddie pool

One Week Old!

I am still as in love with this little guy as ever--in love and VERY tired! We have made it through the first week. It was full of ups and downs. Ups because, well, we have this precious little newborn and we are all crazy about him! The downs are of course because I'm recovering from birth, remembering how hard nursing is at first (but so, so worth it!!), feeling lucky when I get two hours of sleep in a row, and having Lance go back to work and leaving me with THREE KIDS!! AHHH! :)

We left the hospital on Saturday morning and it was so nice to get home. Here is baby Joey all ready to make the trip. You will notice how he is asleep on his little arm there. This is how he sleeps all the time!! It's so cute. He's so tiny!

All strapped in and ready to go

After leaving the hospital in tears every time he came to visit (well, at least leaving in whines), Mikey was SOOO excited to finally have Joey come home. He just wants to hold him all day.

Zonked after a belly full of milk and on that little arm again

First bath at home!

He didn't seem to particularly love it, but we got through

All clean and fuzzy headed

Here he is today, one week old. How cute is this picture!

I know, he looks so concerned!

On a side note: Look at this kid on this day three days before Joey was born.

Here he is the day after. Do you see it?! He's totally like 10 times bigger than he was!!!Okay, you all may not see it, but if you were holding eight and half pounds of baby Joey you would see it! Luke suddenly seems so huge! It makes me a little sad because he's my baby :( I remembered this phenomenon clearly with Mikey when Luke was born, but I still can't get used to it.