Finally

Finally, a few minutes to get some pics up. Life at our house is so crazy these days. The boys are great - Jackson turned 3 a few weeks ago. Lucas just turned 19 months last Thursday. I'm going to get some pictures up of the past few months this week. Tonight's post has a few pics from Jackson's 3rd birthday. We actually had 2 parties for him this year. We had one down in Auburn with some family on Saturday, the another one here with family and friends on Sunday. The theme was Thomas the Train, a favorite of J's. Here was his cake:

Here's the birthday boy. He had so much fun and was so excited! It was a blast having some friends over to celebrate.

Everyone enjoyed the cake :) Somehow J was the messiest one, but I suppose that's to be expected when you're the birthday boy!

Everyone wanted to help open presents and play with the new toys!

Even cousin Mark got in on the action! He reminds me a lot of J at that age because he's already into everything!

I can't believe that my sweet firstborn is already 3! The time flies by so quickly. He and L are a pair - already so close. L follows J around and they have so much fun playing together. Now that the weather is so nice, we're outside playing all the time. Later this week I'll have a post with our new backyard photos. It's awesome and exactly what I wanted....which it should be because it took us 4 months to figure out exactly what we wanted!!! I'm so glad the boys like to be outside as much as we do, and I look forward to many nights out on the patio by the fire pit :)

Beach Pics Part 2

Here are the rest of the beach pictures, which got delayed by our week long trip to Seattle for the AANA Annual Meeting. More on that later! The chair in the picture below has been in Wes' family for a long time! L is featuring a cute onesie that Nonnie got him while she was in Alaska :)

Catch me if you can!!! Outside on the balcony at the condo

J catching a ride on Pops' shoulders

L had a blast swimming :-D

Of course, all that swimming makes one very tired

Nothing beats digging in the sand

Slightly windblown ;)

He wasn't sure what to think when I grabbed him for this photo, lol

Sleepy boy on the beach

J is in his element at the beach! He loves it more than anywhere else!!!

Always a ham

One of my favorites. Since he was 6 months old, the boy has loved the ocean

Eating a snack

Photo session 2. Went slightly better than number 1.

I think he actually said, "Hey, why'd you stop walking, Mommy?"

My favorite!

Come on, brother!!!

Still for about 1 second, then off again

Our sweet boys!!!

Clapping makes him smile the most

We had so much fun, and we can't wait to get back to the beach, but with football season just around the corner, I'm not sure when that will be :( The summer has flown by, and the boys' information for playschool came the other day. But, we are glad that they will be back in school - they need that time out of the house (and Wes needs that time without the boys, lol). Wes has one more securities exam to take, and he'll be good to go :) Hopefully by the end of the year everything will be in order and he will be working!!! He has worked so hard, and it will be great to see his hard work pay off. Post of Seattle soon!

Beach Pictures Part 1

Here are about half the pictures from our beach trip a few weeks ago. We wish we were still there, and today when I was looking at these deciding which ones to post, Jackson asked when we were going back. I wish I could have said right now! We had such a good time and can't wait to get back to the condo!!! Jackson has always loved the beach. He was like a little turtle, crawling at 6 months old right out into the ocean. Nothing has changed, and I hated that he couldn't play in the water a lot. This was him the first day down there. He actually wore the hat for a while, and he played with his trucks and shovels in the sand.

It's a little hard to tell, but you can see the line of the booms, and the boat helping to clean up the area. The water was gorgeous when we were down there. No tarballs and tons of people in the water!

Wes watching the boys

This was really the first time Luke has played in the sand in his bathing suit. When we were there early this year, we took him out in his pants, and he loved walking in the sand. He wasn't so sure about it this time. He did figure out how to shovel sand on himself though, and once he had sand all over his face, he really didn't know what to think of it. But he figured out not to dump it on his head eventually!

Step 1 - shovel sand

Step 2 - close eyes and lift shovel

Steps 3 and 4 - dump sand on your head

Step 5 - laugh and try to figure out how to get the sand off your face

Just hanging out

Luke looking pensive

I was not able to get any pics of them both smiling on this day. It was hard enough to get one with both of them looking at me. L kept watching J instead

Sweet smiles :)

I just want to play with the shovel in the sand!!!

Plotting his escape to play

More to follow soon. Wes has his next certification exam on Monday, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers. J and L are doing great - grow, grow, grow. We are (impatiently) waiting for L's molar to finish cutting. They have taken FOREVER! J's took about a month, but this is twice as long. And we can tell they are bothering the little guy, and there's just not much that is making him feel better now. This too, shall pass, I know, but I hope for his sake (ok, for all of us!) that it speeds up!

Week at the Beach Preview

I can't believe it's been a month since I updated the blog!!! Time flies! This week we've been at the condo, and I've got some great pics of the boys, so I wanted to go ahead and post a few. I've got some photoshopping to do on some of them - it's so hard to get a good picture with both boys in it ;) Here is one of L looking at a bird:



And another of L smiling for the camera - he's a hoot!!! We've had a blast, and I'm sad that we have to leave. The weather has been beautiful and the ocean looked great. No tarballs :) There was a little bit of oil that you could see along the edge, but I still got in and threw out for a little bit, with no luck though. More pictures to follow soon!

Night at the Barons

These are pictures from a few weeks ago when we went to the Barons game with the church group. It was a blast. We actually made it through 6 innings, which impressed us with the boys. Thank goodness the stadium wasn't crowded. Maybe next year we can make it through a whole game :) Jackson is growing way too fast!


Lucas is now walking everywhere!


We spent Memorial Day at Wes' parents house. Jackson, Uncle Mike, and I polished off 5 pounds of crawfish - despite the look in this pic (we had asked him to smile) Jackson LOVED the crawfish. Mike was very impressed, lol. J loves seafood and has since he was 12 months old and Wes gave him shrimp (I was not really happy with that!). And he also loves the spicy foods, like this crawfish that we had. He's so awesome!
Lucas grabbed Pops' hat and threw it on his head like a pro :)
My fav pic from the ball park! Does he look like he's 2? They are growing way too fast!

Hope everyone is well - and we want to wish congrats to our friends Enrique and Laura who welcomed Baby Liliana into the world a couple of weeks ago. She's adorable and we are so happy for them!!!