Jacob's 5th Birthday

Last Saturday was Jacob's birthday. He had a great day that included a Spongebob party, complete with this awesome cake that his dad made.

Let's take a look where this 5 year old, garbage, shark, Spongebob lover came from. This is when he was just a few days old and had jaundice. We had to stick him in baby light box for a week to help his billiruben levels go down. I did not enjoy.
Our good friend Cheri took Jacob's 1 year pictures. (If you are in Utah and you need an excellent photographer, look her up. www.cherirodasphotography.com) I love that he looks like one of his stuffed animals.
This was Jacob's 2nd birthday. After I took this picture, I could finally understand why everybody told me he looked just like his dad.
Three year old Jacob with his good buddy Charlie. (Yes Jacob is in his underwear and yes Charlie has a sad little cast.)
4 and a big brother.


Jacob is so sweet. He really is very thoughtful and loves being a big brother. He knows what he likes and good luck getting him to decide otherwise. He is quite a chatter box, but I almost always know what he is thinking. I love you Jacob! I am so glad Heavenly Father sent you to our family!

And yes ...

even at the beach, it's all about garbage!

The rest of our trip

I even made it to a wedding in between beach trips. My darling nephew (he is the oldest child of my oldest sister) got married in the Nauvoo temple and all of my siblings, except one older brother, was there. It was an almost perfect two days! My sister and I jumped on a plane early Thursday morning and flew to St. Louis. We drove up to Nauvoo and spent a couple of hours enjoying the history and sights, especially because we were both kid free.

This is Trevor and his cute, new wife, Shadow. Yes, Shadow. The darling one in red is my oldest sister, LeAnne, and this is her family. She has five kids and now a daughter-in-law -- crazy!

This was our ride. We rented a Spyder and it was a ton of fun. We even had truck drivers honking at us. It was perfect convertible weather.
The Nauvoo temple quickly became a favorite. There is so much history and it has a unique beauty. I gained a new appreciation for the early Saints and all that they sacrificed.
This is me with my three big sisters! They are each different and amazing and I love them. L to R (which also happen to be oldest to youngest) LeAnne, Cynth, Lauren, and me.
That's my cute mom in the middle and this is what we did A LOT! Just laugh.

It was so fun to be with my family and just enjoy them. We are all spread coast to coast and it kind of sucks. We just hung out the rest of Thursday as people starting rolling in. The ceremony was Friday morning and then we had the wedding lunch. From there we said our good-byes, made a quick stop at Carthage Jail, and then it was back to the airport (with a quick stop to shop first, of course). We got back to Virginia late, late on Friday night, I slept at Lauren's and then headed off to join Jamie and crew Saturday morning.

Back to the Beach

We were able to spend a week with Jamie's whole family, it was great! We were at the beach for a week and then a couple more days at Grandma and Grandpa's before it was time to head home. Once again, Jacob was in cousin heaven. Between Jamie and his two brothers, we have 7 kids, the oldest celebrated her 7th birthday last week (Happy Birthday Ashley!). Lots of little kids = crazy.

We even managed a family picture.

It was lots of digging in the sand ...
and playing in the waves. Kudos to Grandpa, he was in the water with the grandkids almost everyday and almost everyday he got wrecked by the waves. He kept going back for more just because his grandkids asked him too.
We also went to a water park that was perfect for our little group. It was very age appropriate for the kids we had. It wasn't too big, so it was easy to keep track of them. Nothing was very deep so they were comfortable to play and explore. They had this awesome tube slide that Jacob went on, by himself, over and over.
There was also a little slide that Parker was all over! He would climb the stairs and wait for his turn. The lifeguard was too cute, he would help Parker on and give him a little push if he needed it. Jamie would catch Parker at the bottom and he'd be ready to do it all over again.

In case I didn't mention it, we had an amazing 3 weeks! Thank you to all the family that housed us and the cars you lent to us. Jacob is still talking about our trip. Can't wait for the next one!

Parker's First Cookie

Tonight Parker was able to enjoy a chocolate chip cookie with the rest of the family. There was an article in a recent BYU Magazine that talked about a mom that created an allergen free cookbook after discovering her daughters numerous allergies (thank you to the friends and family that thought of us and guided us to the article). The cookbook is Sophie Safe Cooking and it has a lot of great basic recipes. Parker can now have pancakes, muffins, cookies, and much more. All the stuff I thought he would never get.

Thank goodness we are here together and we benefit from each others experiences. Like Emily Hendrix that spent hours and hours testing recipes. There are so many moms like me whose burden she eased a little.

Unexplained Absence -- Part 1

Remember that time I posted almost nothing in the month of August? Yah, we were gone. Where and for how long? (That's kind of you to ask.) We headed to Virginia to visit family and we were gone for almost 3 weeks. It was a blast!

We started at my sister's house. We spent a few days at her house and then it was off to Bethany Beach, DE to her beach house for the weekend. I realized I didn't actually take that many pictures, I was too busy just hanging out and relaxing.

This is Jacob and his cousin Mitch. They are only a month apart and they are too funny. Mitch was giving Jacob pointers on riding the waves. It ended up being Jacob mostly just standing on the board in the surf. When the wave would wash back out and move him an inch, he would come running back, shouting, "Mom, did you see me surfing?"

Parker enjoying some snacks. This was a lot of what he did the whole time, but seriously, how cute is this kid?

The boys burying Mason (the oldest of my sister's boys) then dumping water on his head. Good times, good times.

We got back from the beach and just hung out some more. We went to a really cute park that was huge and even had this fun carousel, for free! Unfortunately, it was hot as blazes and we didn't last as long as we would have liked.

While we were there, Jamie and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. We left our boys with my sister and went out to dinner. The restaurant was very fun, the food was delicious, and the conversation was uninterrupted. It was a really nice night. (We actually spent a lot of it talking about what fun trip we could take for our 10th anniversary!)

We really did have a lot of fun and loved that we got to see so much family. The boys and I were loving being somewhere else and having fun people to hang out with. Jamie worked a little less and sort of got to relax. We did get to see him more and we all enjoyed that. All in all, it was 3 crazy fun weeks.

(Don't worry, there is more to come!)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Jacob had school this morning, nothing out of the ordinary these days, except that this was the first school day that was also garbage day. I was dreading the fight it would be to get him to go to school when he realized there would be a chance he missed the garbage man. I was pleasantly surprised when there was no argument when it was time to leave. There was still discussion about the garbage and all it entails, but no freak out.

It seems ridiculous, but it was a huge relief that I didn't have to fight him over this, let's just say he is highly opinionated about the garbage. My relief was a little short lived, however.

I spent most of my Jacob free morning watching Parker run to the window when he heard what he thought was the garbage truck, pretending to be interested in all the garbage cans he could see on the street, and reading one Jacob's trash books over and over. That's right friends, I just might have another one. When we told Jacob he needs to be an example to Parker, this is NOT what we had in mind.