Mikey's first Graduation

This was a few months ago, but better late than never....

My handsome boy all grown up and graduating from preschool.

Seems like only yesterday....

His first day of preschool. He's so little and cute!

And now he's so big. After seeing Lance with his graduation garb for Law School, he was very excited to get to wear "the hat."

The kids put on a little show with some very fun songs before "the ceremony."

Joe wasn't quite as entertained...more like really tired.

But we sure loved it as Mikey is never one to shy away from hamming it up.

He did not disappoint.

Congratulations, Mikey!

Stuffing the Cake

I said I'd try again later with this video...so here it is. It was seriously so funny. He's like a missionary trying to hide the food he doesn't want to eat at some crazy lady's house (not that I ever did that or anything....) Funny kid. ;)

Happy Birthday, Baby Joey!!

My baby is 1!!! I can't say it enough, and I know every mom in the world says it, but man, does time fly. Joey is our happy, happy little baby--though actually not that little. At his one-year-old check up he was over 25lbs. None of the boys have caught Mikey, who weighed in at a whopping 28 lbs at one year, but he did beat Luke by just a little as Luke was just a little over 24 lbs. Joey is a champ at going up stairs and will stand for a few moments in the middle of the room, but no walking yet. He waves a little and sure yells, "mama" like a pro. He absolutely loves his brothers. Well, he might enjoy Mikey a little more than Luke at this point, simply because Luke hasn't quite mastered the art of "being soft" and gets a little rough with him. He can't get enough of mom or dad being down on the floor and playing with him. He loves climbing up on top of us and attempts to eat our faces, scratch and occasionally slap. He sure thinks it's all funny. It's sometimes a little painful, but he's so cute it makes it all worth it. We love our little man!!

We've called Joey our little monkey, so monkey cake it was! Heather actually had a form pan that I borrowed which made it turn out all that much cuter. :) I know, he didn't really appreciate it, but the rest of the little kids did and it sure makes for cute pictures.

One day-of-vacation's work. So worth it for my babies :)

My babies

Opening presents. Or I should say, watching his cousins open his presents. (Luckily he didn't seem to mind.)

And the best part of a one-year-old's birthday party.... As you can see, we gave Joey just the monkey head. He was the fastest of all my boys to just dive in. We didn't have to push his hands in at all! (We did with both the others).

But eating was not what he had in mind. After a little squishing, he started grabbing handfuls and just STUFFING them UNDER the tray! He just stuffed and stuffed and stuffed! I have an awesome video. It wasn't loading right, but I'll try to post it again later.

We did have to help him get a bite to his mouth. He tasted it a little, but was more entertained by his first choice. See that mostly empty tray...?

There it is! (Yes, I know what it looks like...but I assure you it is just cake :)

Then came the worst part of a one-year-old's birthday party...the clean up.

Happy Birthday, Joey!!! We love you!!!!

Happy 3 years, Luke!!!

I can't believe my baby Luke is three! Seems like only yesterday....

Days old

One year

Between one and two...

Two years

Between two and three...

I love this kid so much it hurts! He is the happiest little kid around and such a little mama's boy... and I love it! If I didn't have a business and house to run, I'd do nothing, but play with him all day long because he is so happy when I do. Love him.

We were in St. George for a little family reunion for Luke's birthday, and Joey's birthday is a few days after Luke's so we did a little joint party. But this post is about Luke so I'll get to Joey's later.

The cake. Luke LOVED it. He is still talking about his "black cake" and how his birthday is coming up again. (I probably could have just plopped a Batman figurine in the middle of square, black frosted cake, and he'd have been just as happy... but let's pretend that's not true) This was my third superhero cake (but second Batman) and I've resigned myself to the fact that there will be many more. I was originally planning something way more complicated, but seeing as I had two cakes to do while on vacation, I decided simplicity was the way to go. And actually, it probably looks better being simple than if I did something complicated.

Presents...

And back to the cake.

Forever my little sweetheart

(No seriously, when I ask him who my sweetheart is he says, "Lukey!") Happy Birthday, Luke!!! Love you more than ever!!

Hawaii!

Over a year ago (while fat and pregnant, and with a husband wading through law school) I declared to my hubby, "we are going to Hawaii next spring after you graduate!" I knew I would be done nursing Joey and would (absolutely, positively...hopefully) not be pregnant and Lance would be graduating! So what a perfect time to get away! And it was :) Thanks to my wonderful (and after this, wonderfully tired) parents for staying with my kids and making this all possible.

Though we had some clouds and a bit of rain here and there...hey, it's Hawaii--there was tons of fabulous, fabulous sun (especially seeing as it continued to rain and snow in Utah).
We stayed in two hotels: first in the middle of Waikiki, and then more towards the West coast in Ko'olina for the last few days. It was gorgeous, of course, as seen above.

This was our first day lying about at the beach. Notice, all nice and pasty white-ness :)

Lance was in love with these trees.... Boys.

This was Lance's first trip to Hawaii ever, and my first since I was 16 so we did all the good, old touristy stuff. Hey. We're tourists :) So here is Pearl Harbor. It was very, very cool.

Hanauma Bay

Wondering around the middle of Waikiki at night. It was SO nice!

This was after our fabulous (but vomit inducing) dive trip. Whew. Never felt better to be on solid ground. (Read more about it in the previous post).

The beautiful Temple

We were staying in this room from August 28th to May 3rd. And so it happened we were in this room for two of the biggest history-book-writing moments the world has seen in, like, FOREVER!! ;) Lance is enthralled.... Anyone know...?

Now Lance is celebrating! Yay for killing Osama Bin Ladin!!!!!

(Or is that cheering for Will and Kate, the Royal Wedding... hee hee ;)

Just a cool, random ship? Cool? Yes. Random? No. That's right folks. That is the honest to goodness Black Pearl. It was being stored right there by our hotel! So cool.

And this was our last full day there. Okay, so you were supposed to be able to see this great difference in our pasty white-ness to our fabulous tan-ness compared to that first picture...but you can't really tell. We really did get a lot of color, but you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

Diving in Hawaii

Much to my mother's chagrin, we went diving in Hawaii (she just doesn't like "the danger" of it all :) With the scarcity of trips of this nature for us, and the near constant nursing or pregnancies of mine for the past 6 years, we have to take these opportunities when they come.

We saw some very cool things on this trip and the great thing was that our guide had a camera to capture it all. So in case you are interested, here is a (large) sample of the pictures taken...

That's right folks. We descended and the very first thing we saw was a shark. Actually, maybe two. We couldn't tell if these two were the same one as the one below had a hook in his mouth which we didn't notice the first time around...?

White-tip reef shark. In case your wondering. We have a really cool video of him, but it's like 10 minutes. And well, he's just swimming around so you can probably just google shark videos if you really want to see that.

Cute little puffer fish...

We saw a few eels that looked ready to pounce (though, that's kind of just how they look. I think he was really just chillin'.)

That's me

Me again

And there's Lance

View from the top of the wreck we were diving (which was an overturned WWII landing craft used for an amphibious assalt--Lance just googled it for me because I couldn't remember.)

On the second dive we saw at least 4 or 5 turtles. It was pretty cool.

That's both of us with the friendly neighborhood turtle

That's Lance

That's Lance in the yellow. I'm not sure about the others.

That's me

How cute, huh? Little sleepy sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor.

And a few other statues were scattered around

There were many, many more, but you're probably already bored so we'll leave it at this.

Lance loved the diving. He loves all diving. Even if it's dark and freezing. Me, not so much. I'm a bit more of a fair-weathered friend of diving. I like my conditions to be ideal (I just really don't like being cold or sick. Is that so weird?)

So this actual diving was pretty good. It wasn't too cold, which is important. Unfortunately I got SO SICK! I swear my stomach gets weaker and weaker as I get on in my years. The last time we went I got a little sick. So this time we went out of our way to buy anti-nausea medication...and I forgot to take it. So after the first dive, I climbed back into the boat...less than 5 minutes later I was hurling over the boat. First time I've ever thrown up on a boat! And that's saying a lot considering I was practically raised on a boat.

After getting to our next dive spot, I was still feeling it so they pushed me in immediately, backwards over the edge just to get me into the water because it usually helps. It helped some, but I was feeling it through most of the second dive. At the end of that dive, when I surfaced I immediately started hurling again! It was horrible. So that was kind of a crappy ending to the diving. (Lance is just holding his breath, so afraid I'm going to swear off diving forever... ;)