3 month catch up!!

Brittany, if it weren't for you, this post would have never happened. I got your message and decided I would finally do a blog post. So here's my 3 month catch up since I last did a post:

This is on Mother's Day...I had a nice one with my first actual gift made from Jake...in nursery he colored a pot holder for me. Marc waited on me all day and gave me a trip with the girls (pics further down in the post)

On Memorial Day we went to the beach for the day

Jake's favorite thing to do is crush all the hard work we put into making sand castles...so I've learned to not get too attached to what I'm building:)

He loves to run from the waves too

So for Mother's Day, Marc and the other husbands set up for us girls to go to Palm Springs for a weekend in May. It was wonderful! We laid out, read magazines...

got pedicures...

and went out to eat to lots of fun places. It was such a relaxing and fun weekend...kind of ironic how our Mothers Day present is to be away from our kids...haha. But I think every one deserves breaks like this.

Jake took swimming lessons in June. He didn't love how cold the pool was, but he did great...he has no fear with the water. By the end I wondered if it was a good idea, because at least he was more cautious before. Now he actually thinks he can swim...I can't take my eyes off him for a second. While the teacher was taking another child around the pool, Jake pushed off from the wall to swim, and of course started drowning. Thank goodness I was watching because the teacher's back was to him.

It was just Jake and his friend Brooke, and another little girl in the class.

For almost 3 weeks during the month of June, my cousin Alex came to stay with us. He is one of Jake's best buds and it was so fun to have him with us.

We bought summer passes to a local water park by us called Buccaneer Bay. So we took Alex with us a couple times.

Jake and his friend Brooke

Jake loves playing with Alex. They played with lots of toys

And we did lots of water time...at the pool and at the beach

We like to go play with cousins Luke and Matt...these boys are definitely Angels fans!

We took Jake to see Cars 2 at the movies. The only other time we've taken him to the movies was for Toy Story 3 and he doesn't remember that...so he was excited. He brought his toys that have Cars 2 characters on them.

I know I haven't posted many pictures of the house over the last year and a half since we moved in. I always planned on posting the "befores" with the "afters"...but the "after" pics are taking a while to happen! We actually really didn't do much on the house from January til May. My 1st trimester really wiped me out and I just couldn't work on it. Plus we had worked SO hard on the kitchen through the whole month of December...I think we just needed a break. But now this summer we have a goal to wrap up everything that we can before the baby comes. So, in a couple more months I should have the "after" pics:) For now I'm posting this picture because it was something that made me so happy...we took the carpet out of our family room (because soon it will have hardwood)...and that carpet was SO GROSS. From the day we moved in I would get whiffs of a wet dog smell from that carpet here and there...I can't even believe I put up with it for so long! So we got it out and I am way happier with concrete for the meantime:)

Here's my boys on Father's Day...getting breakfast in bed

Jake made him a tie in nursery...with chocolate on it!

Marc took a week off of work and we headed up to Utah for a little family vacation. We stayed at his parents house and got lots of playing time in with cousins. We went to this cool indoor aquatic center.

Jake loves water slides and always want to go on the big adult ones. At the splash park we go to at home, he's not allowed. But at this aquatic center they let him. (It's not the orange one in the picture, it was a bigger spiral one...the blue one you see on the left). He came out of it upside down so I guess he flipped all around...but he wanted to do it again and again. Now back at our splash park, he's always frustrated that he can only go on the kid slides.

We got to see lots of the Harpers while we were there. We went and watched BYU's Stadium of Fire fireworks from a parking lot. They made aerial fireworks legal in UT, so it was crazy how much aerial fireworks everyone was doing starting 3 nights before the 4th.

Jake and Emily being amazed by the fireworks

On the 4th, we did fireworks at Marc's parents house with all the cousins. It actually started to rain! But we just sat in the garage and watched from there.

We had stopped off in Valley of Fire (outside of Vegas) on our way to buy some aerial fireworks. So we had some cool ones this year

Here's the pyros...boys never grow out of lighting stuff on fire

with Grandma and Grandpa

The next day we all went to a local little pond to go fishing

Pretty much every adult and child caught a fish except....poor Marc! He was so dedicated to getting one before we left...it just didn't work out. Poor guy

fishing cousins

That night my aunt Tricia had an "in" for us to go watch the American Idol dress rehearsal for their concert. They were starting their tour in Salt Lake...and Pia is dating Mark Ballas, who is connected to the Hype Dance studio in Orem. My cousin dances there and Tricia's best friend owns it...so Mark Ballas invited all the Hype Studio people to come watch the dress rehearsal. It was awesome because there weren't that many of us...and we just sat in the first several rows in front of the stage, with the AI contestant's parents (who I feel like I know because they showed them on t.v. so much)...and this entire huge stadium was empty. So it really felt like a private show. It was really fun and a really cool way to get to see the show.

They asked us not to take pictures since the show hadn't actually started its tour yet...they didn't want pics leaked. So I got this from online. But this shows you our view and how close we were.

Here we are with Mark Ballas (from Dancing with the Stars)

So one of our main plans was to do a big camping trip in Utah. I wanted to go for like 5 days. But to make a long story short, I ended up being in agony for some days while still at Marc's parents house...I didn't know what was wrong with me. I went to the hospital and the baby was checked out (which he was fine)...and they sent me home still suffering. Anyways, I found out what was wrong with me once I...passed a kidney stone! So yeah, it was not fun. And our camping trip was postponed because of it. But once I was feeling better...we still went camping for 2 nights.

This is Jake taking a picture of us

It was really fun to do with Jake since he's at a fun age for camping...I really wanted to get a trip in before we have the baby and camping won't be as easy for a couple more years...I love camping. It's fun to me to be doing everything outside--we did foil dinners and smores over the campfire, we found hiking sticks and went on walks, and we rode our bikes (although I ended up walking my bike for the half that was uphill since I was on a beach cruiser:) I think one of the funnest parts for Jake was going to sleep and waking up in the tent...

On our last day before we headed home from Utah, we rode the ski lift at Sundance with the Harpers

We went on a hike at the top of the mountain

Back at home, we got back into our summer activities...here's the boys doing slip n slide

And here I am, 30 weeks prego with "Baby Jake" in my stomach (as Jake has named him)...and the 4d ultra sound pics are coming next!!