Happy Birthday Jakie!

Posted by Alyssa

Jake is 1 year old already, where does time go?!? We celebrated his birthday a couple days after his actual birth date, which wasn't such a great idea. The poor guy had shots that day, was teething, and running a temperature. He wasn't his normal, happy self, which didn't make singing, cake time, and opening presents that fun for him. Luckily we had another small celebration at my parents a couple days later so he could actually dive into his own cake with our tradition and was back to his normal self. At the moment, I don't have those pictures, but I'll post a picture later with his birthday cake and SMILING! This one of him and my mom is the only one where he's smiling at his party while watching Connor swim. Jakie is such a total sweetheart and cuddlebug. He has the cutest smile with his 2 little buck teeth and is always sharing it with everyone. He can sing the tune "clean up" when we're cleaning up, he makes high pitch barking noises when he sees a dog, he walked at 11 months, loves to clap his hands and get your "yay!" reply, dances to music by shaking his head back and forth, is a total water baby, and loves to be outside. Connor isn't always nice to him or share toys, but Jake can sure hold his own and stick up for himself. We're so lucky to have this happy little guy in our family, we love you Jakie boy!


Here's grandpa playing with the new toys and entertaining the chillins
Momma and Daddy got some snuggle time by the pool! :-)
Can you tell he doesn't feel good? :-(



His big brother enjoying the water






Mission Beach

Posted by Alyssa

Mike and I had been dying to take the boys to the beach this summer and after all our waiting.....let's just say it wasn't what we had in mind. We took Connor to the beach for the first time at the same age as Jake 2 years ago and had the most perfect day. Jakie didn't like the cold water (even though we were there in the middle of the afternoon it was super cold!) and after a lot of crying finally stopped when we started jumping the waves as they came in. Connor was scared for his life and whenever some seaweed washed ashore close to us, he'd scream and run "It's gonna bite me!" and begged for Mike and I to hold him. Not to mention we all got hardly any sleep in our tent the night before and Connor hadn't eaten either dinner or breakfast (no matter how much bribing and disciplining we tried) because he was too busy playing in the mountains. So, we didn't show up at the beach in the best condition-plus we were all filthy dirty from the campout! But hey, at least we got some good pictures out of it! :-)


Jakie eating a sand covered cheeto








Here's a picture of Connor trying to get as far away from the seaweed as he can



Mountains and Beaches

Posted by Alyssa

This past weekend we went to the Laguna Mountains for a ward campout and then headed off in the morning to the San Diego beaches. Because we have a ton of pictures of each, I broke them into 2 parts. These are from the mountains. It was GORGEOUS weather and it was so nice to get of the hot desert! The boys' favorite part was playing with the tent poles as we set up. I'm constantly amazed at how boys just have that masculine instinct in them to make every object a weapon. We got this tent when we were first married and after years of talking about going camping, we were so excited to finally use it! We love camping and this was our first opportunity when I haven't been pregnant or had a newborn. It's amazing at what just a little bit of fresh air can do for you. :-)


What a stud-he takes after his dad!
Once the tent was set up and the poles were no longer accessible, this was their second favorite thing to do: play with the water faucet






We rarely can get a good picture of these two monsters-they never can sit still long enough and rarely are they both happy at the same time, especially when they have to sit still!

Me and my boys-I'm one lucky mom!

Don't be fooled, this is NOT as comfortable as it looks!