Brothers

Just some pictures from this morning, SM is trying to be a good brother, but its hard for him sometimes to be gentle. Luckily GJ is getting very chubby and much less breakable.

Red Top Mountain

So we went up to Red Top Mountain State Park today for a picnic. Its just up I-75 so only about 30 minutes away, but there was construction so it took us longer than I would have liked to get up there, but oh well. We had a nice picnic and walked some trails around the lake. It had just rained so it was pretty cool and we had fun. We would like to do the ward campout up there, but its pretty popular, so I have to see if we can still make reservations. But we will for sure go back there camping as a family.

We finally say goodbye

Lisa finally left today and I am glad she gets to be with her husband again after a month, but we will miss her a lot -I cried on the way home from leaving the airport :(

What a baby.

Thanks again for coming to help us. We will have to come sooner than later to Puerto Rico.
So which sister wants to come and visit Atlanta now? I am going to go crazy if I don't have anything to look forward to.

Fun in the Florida Sun

First off, let me just say again, if you haven't heard me say it: I love craigslist!!!
So we had been talking for over a month about going to a beach in the Florida panhandle. I have heard the beaches are beautiful on the Gulf side. So of course I put planning it off and once I really started looking for a beach and a hotel, it was too much. First off, even though I asked some people, there are just so many places to go and it was a bit overwhelming. After I decided to search a particular city, it was so hard to tell how close the places where to the actual beach. I of course wanted to be right on the beach so we could easily get back for naps or what not, a pool is always nice even if you have a beach, hotel versus condo. I wanted a condo so we could have a fridge and kitchen and rooms to but the baba's to sleep in, plus they are usually closer to the beach, but you have to buy them for the whole week, and we just wanted a long weekend, so that wasn't working either. So after looking all week and late into Thursday night, we pretty much called it all off because we couldn’t find anyplace to stay that was reasonable. We were just going to drive to a state park or something just for the day on Saturday. But Friday morning, Tad went to school to give a presentation to his lab for his 8:30am meeting and I just thought I would check vacation rentals on craigslist as I never had before and it hadn't occurred to me until then. There just happened to be a posting from Thursday for a last minute deal for two nights in a condo right on the beach! It was super cheap compared to everything we had been looking at and was a 30 second walk to the beach! It slept 6 people so there was plenty of room and SM even got to sleep in a bunk bed. Let me just tell you again that I love craigslist! I found it at 9am, we had paid for it by 9:45, and had packed the van and gotten ready and were on the road by 11:30. It was awesome. If you have flexible dates and places, I say its the way to go. We had a wonderful vacation in Destin, the beach was beautiful and the kids were great in the car. I have to say my favorite part though was leaving the boys and Lisa to nap and Tad and I swimming in the gulf alone! But get ready for lots of pictures, not in order, we had a blast!

SM playing in the sand. He kept throwing it in the air, he has a ton in his hair and a chunk behind his ear. It was funny.
GJ sleeping in his beach chair
SM was so excited to go swimming, we are still working on getting him to dress himself. He was putting his shorts on his head.
We had some shovels the first day, but we didn't get the bucket till later in the day and were in the pool all afternoon, so he didn't get to use it till he got back to the beach that evening.
Family shot, my cheeks are still a little rosey.
Lisa and SM jumping waves. That is Tad way out to the left. It was so shallow and clear!
He enjoyed putting his head into his bucket and hearing his voice echo.
Out to eat seafood, yummy! (he had grilled cheese, but the crab cakes were the best)
On the balcony. I love palm trees!
In the car, sad to go home. The van was so great to travel in! You can make fun of me all you like, but I love driving a minivan!
I highly recommend Destin, FL. It was not too bad of a drive, a beautiful beach, and very relaxing. You should go! We will definitely go back and stay for longer next time.

Poor Winnie

I am a middle child. I know my sister's will laugh at this because they always say SM looks just like I did when I was little in all the pictures I post, except he's not crying. I seem to have an odd amount of pictures of me crying trying to get in and out of clothes when I was little (of course no one would help me, they just took pictures of me, how mean can you get?) so here is one where he did not want to get ready for bed and I only got his arms out of his shirt and he managed this. Yesterday, much to his fathers dismay, I gave him a sweet mohawk, though his hair is too curly, it won't stay straight up. I will also add that his face is covered in ketchup. When he won't eat a particular food, I try to get him to eat it with ketchup, but he has caught on and now just dips the food and sucks the ketchup off. He did it with grapes and potatoes yesterday. Makes me so mad he will down french fries but he has taken a stand against any other form of potato. Come on, I'm from Idaho. But my sweet baby doesn't have any trouble eating, as you can tell by those cheeks.

Mejorando

We are still working on how to hold the baby. He likes to grab his head.

So everyone seems to be doing better. We took GJ back to the emergency room Sunday just to check up, he was still running a fever of 101, but it finally came down and we went to the pediatrician today and looks like its just a virus, nothing to serious so he should be fine. He is a lot less fussy now and almost back to normal. SM came home from a party with Tad Saturday and looked like he had been attacked though. He had gotten licked by a dog and one eye was almost completely swollen shut. Tad said he looked better than an hour before though, so I am glad I didn't see it then. Even after a couple doses of Benadryl, he still went to church the next day looking pretty bad, but today you can't even tell. I wish I had taken a picture though, he looked terrible (though he acted fine and seemed like he could care less)
Megan came over and took some pictures for us the other day, here are the few she sent so far. I just love little toes! He is sure getting chubby!

Friday the 13th in the ER

So GJ had his one month check up yesterday morning and was a healthy 10 lbs 8 oz, but by evening he was super fussy, and by 2am he had a fever over 100.4 so we had to take him to the Emergency Room at Children's Hospital. It wasn't fun as they had to get blood (that took 3 tries to get it out of his tiny veins that kept clotting) and they had to test fluid from his spine, so you can imagine how fun that was (I left the room for that, I couldn't take it). Overall I only cried once though, but I feel so bad for that little baby we love so much! All the tests looked okay though so they sent us home at 7am after giving him an antibiotic shot. Hopefully he will do better, his fever was up to 101.6 at the hospital and then down before we left, but he is still running a fever and I am supposed to take him back to the ER tomorrow (since its Sunday and they want to see him in 24 hours and the pediatrician isn't open) just to get checked out, but they said they probably won't run any tests unless they feel they need to and will probably just give him another shot. SM was calling for his brother all morning and wants to play with him. But the poor baby (who has never been fussy) just screams (not cries, screams) every time you move him. Breaks my heart. Hopefully he will be better soon!

Growing and Growing

I can't believe how fast my babies are growing up. SM suddenly got an opinion in the last few weeks. He never much cared what we put on him, but the other night he wouldn't put on the jammies I got out and went and got his fire truck jammies. He has three pair with fire trucks on them and luckily with a baby we do a lot of laundry because that's what he always wants to wear now. Last night we were listening to songs, he loves his CD's and actually starting marching around the room in a circle (we used to do that when we were little to the same tape) and he made Lisa put his shoes on over his jammies. He is so silly.

He loves is when dad swings him around. GJ is getting so big already, he will be 1 month this weekend and I know he has already gained several pounds!

Not Too Spicy

I am not usually too keen on 'trying new foods' much to Tad's dismay. He really likes Thai food and as I don't like anything too spicy or with curry in it, that doesn't leave much for me to eat when we go out. But I do let him take me out to Thai once every two months and I have to say yesterday we found my favorite and I would actually go back there, and even sooner than 2 months from now. So if you live in Atlanta, you should try SPOON, its right off Marrieta St by then Engineers bookstore right North of campus. Pretty trendy, but we went with two kids and it was fine, almost every female worker in the restaurant came and talked to SM. I would say go earlier than later though, there were only two tables filled when we got there at 6:30 on a Sat night, but it was filled and people waiting for tables by the time we left. But it was delicious, I of course only ever get Pad Thai, but I even tried Tad and Lisa's and it was good, and not too pricey for Thai food in general. So anyway, that's my two cents for a good Atlanta restaurant.

So Lisa took a picture of us leaning together... and we tried to get her and SM to do the same, but he just copied her and leaned the same direction. What a nut. (notice he is eating tortilla chips. Like me, he is more in to Mexican than anything from Asia)

Happy 4th of July

We went downtown to watch a parade for the 4th, it was a q walk from our friends house and I mostly sat in the shade with the baby and everyone else went up to the road to watch it. It was kind of of overcast luckily though and there was a cool breeze so it was really nice. It wasn't quite so homey like the Perry, UT parade last year, and there was no candy but it was still a lot of fun! We then had dinner and walked to Centenial Olympic Park (or just outside it) and had great seats just 3 blocks away for the fireworks. We had plenty of free Diet Coke though, as it was its 25th anniversary and they were giving it out free at the new World of Coke. What a wonderful company :)

SM in his red, white and blue.
With Lisa getting ready for something to come down the road.

His favorite balloon was Elmo. (Great head shot of Blake)

View of the Peachtree Towers, it was right downtown. We love living in the big city (most of the time)

SM and his Daddy This was later when we were trying to rest. SM wouldn't take a nap, which kept me awake, though Lisa did get at least a half an hour on the couch. And this may be embarrassing later, but I had to put it up, look how cute he is reading on the potty and picking his nose!

Stone Mountain

We went to Stone Mountain on Friday and had so much fun, though it was very hot! Here is our family photo at the top. SM couldn't keep his eyes open though because it was so bright, and GJ is tucked away tight in the sling. We rode a sky lift all the way to the top. SM stole Ricky's hat to keep the sun out. SM was so excited to be up close to the sheep and goats. They had a little show they did where they did all kind of tricks, though it couldn't hold his attention too well. He just wanted to pet them. We took a riverboat ride around the lake, he wasn't to thrilled he had a wear a life jacket though and kept trying to pull it off. Tad was very nervous of course that he would jump off the boat. Locked in jail. Notice I am sad and Tad is having the time of his life locked up. Sawyer petting an armadillo. They had a cool animal show with snakes and hedge hogs and an alligator, though it was too hot for GJ and we went and sat inside. The Frozen Lemonade machine was broken and we were pretty bummed about that and had to go for the $4 ICEE's, sad to say that they were worth it though.

Fun with Uncle Ricky!

We have had a nice relaxing week and then Uncle Ricky came to visit us (though mostly to see his wife!)

At the Georgia AquariumWatching the big wall of fish. Its huge!This was the cutest, Lisa and SM on the porch shucking corn. He is such a good helper!