a very quick trip to Utah

This is the original reason for the visit.

My three bffs from high school were all going to be in town at the same time! So I decided to come join the party. The last time we were all together was at my wedding.

It was so great to see them and catch up on each other's lives.

I look like the odd-ball with my dark hair and pregnant belly

Jude and I made the journey while Carter and Dennison stayed home for a father-son weekend. Jude LOVED all the attention. He's not used to so much one-on-one time with me. Let alone all the attention from Grandma and Grandpa! He had a blast.

Jude with his new best friend. Both my boys just absolutely love my dad.
I think this is such a cute picture of them!
If Jude wasn't with Grandpa, he was looking for him and asking where he was.

He also loved spending time with Grandma. Who doesn't?!

Petting the kittens. This didn't last long..... he's a little too, um, rough, for such small little things.

So he decided to go chase the chickens instead.

He wasn't quite sure about the trampoline. His cousin Cache loved it though!

And of course, he had to get some swinging in.

We even got to see a glimpse of Uncle Rick while we were there! He picked a great weekend to drop in. Him and Jude were fast friends once Jude discovered the toy cat waiting outside our bedroom door in the morning, courtesy of Uncle Wink.
"a CAT!!"

I got to spend a little time (not enough) with my dear friend Sylvia and her two darling little girls.

Jude with his future love Macey.

We had such a fun trip. It was so fun to see everyone. I only wish I could've spent more time with you all!

Introducing....

Our baby GIRL!!!!!

Who sucks her thumb! She had her hand up by her face during the entire ultrasound.

Her cute little feet

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Look how cute! She had her little hands up by her cheek posing for us!

She already stole our hearts. We're so excited to meet her! On the way home after we picked up the boys, they were arguing about who's sister she was. I informed them that she is both of their sister and that they both were her brothers. They both seemed quite pleased about that :)

4th of July weekend

We kicked off the weekend with our ward's children's parade and pancake breakfast in the park. Unfortunately it was freezing cold so we didn't stay long.

I promise there are more kids in the parade than just our boys and Tori. Carter was going so slow at first because he kept looking back at the motorcycles to make sure they weren't going to get him. He was very nervous about them.

Then he picked up the pace and left everyone behind us in the dust.

Cool guy Jude. About a decade too late.
Reminds me of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

On the 4th, we went down to Lindsay and Brian's house. Amy and Jon and Ralph and Sandra were there visiting so we crashed their family bbq. It was so fun to see everyone and catch up a bit.

My boys LOVE Lindsay! And "baby" Van. Carter asks if we can go to Lindsay's house at least twice a week.
We really should get together more often.

The next day, we drove over to the coast and visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Carter, for some reason, has been dying to see seahorses. We thought this would be our best bet. And they didn't have any :( Oh well, we got to see a lot of other cool things. This is a weird picture but the boys are in a bubble inside the piranha tank.

Carter loved this huge turtle. Jude kept saying "ribbit! ribbit!". Any animal that he doesn't know what sound it makes, he makes it say ribbit.

Look how huge this crab is!

The jellyfish tank was my favorite

This was Carter's favorite. Or maybe his favorite was the gift shop.... either way, they loved touching the starfish and stuff.

There's this part of the aquarium where you walk through tunnels and there's water all around you. Carter liked looking through the window on the ground.

The last tunnel was filled with sharks. It was pretty awesome.

We bought these silly things for the boys. You've probably seen them before, you can make the shark's mouth open and close with the handle. Jude's is an alligator. They both keep feeding anything and everything to their new little friends. You can see that Carter found and nice pine tree branch for his shark to eat. His favorite thing to do is pull Jude's pacifier out of his mouth with the shark. It's pretty funny.

This seal was hilarious. He would swim straight at us and then do this little back flip and swim away upside down. They boys just laughed and laughed at him.

We headed over to the beach after lunch. It was so windy! Jude refused to walk in the sand so I had to carry him the whole time. Carter thought it was great until his pants got wet in the ocean. They both were so cold, so we didn't stay very long. Not nearly long enough to make the trip down and back up to our car while carrying way to much stuff and both boys worth it.
Now we know.

This was the only way Jude was happy. Eating sandy chips and sitting on my lap so that I was blocking the wind.

This face means it's time to go.

It was a short fun trip. Next time we'll spend a little more time there and maybe just skip the beach part.

sleep issues

So now that the boys share a room, they have a hard time going to sleep at bedtime. They just play and play for hours. The other night, after they FINALLY fell asleep, I went to check on them and turn off their light and this is what I found. I almost woke them up because I started laughing so hard. I know the mess could be a lot worse and I'm glad it was mostly just blankets. My favorite part is that Carter is sleeping in the drawer that goes under the crib (Kramer would be proud). I guess he didn't have many options since his bed was stripped down to the plastic. He does that often and tells me, "I want my bed NEW!" I guess that means that he likes it without anything on it like when we brought it home from the store.

These two are trouble.