Preschool Taft

The day finally came for Taft. He has been dying to start school. It was a tad anti-climactic though because when I picked him up the first day, I asked with a lot of energy in my voice: 

"Did you have so much fun?!" 

"Kinda."

Well, ok. I think he does like it. So far all I've been able to get out of him is what he plays with and he has a friend named Henry. He has two teachers and they are both so sweet. It's not too academic, but for his first year at least I just want to make sure he's having fun and has a good first impression of school. 

Taft loves to do preschool workbooks at home, knows shapes, all his letters and their sounds (single sounds, not blends yet), colors, numbers (can count to 15, recognize up to number 10), and is starting to write letters on his own. It's so fun to watch the wheels turning in his head and see how he figures things out. 

And I'll end with a Taft-ism:

In sacrament meeting at church Taft said to Seth:

"You. Me. Let's get outta here.

Trip to the Beehive State

We just got home from a week long trip to visit family and friends in the great state of Utah. It was the SUCH a nice time of year to visit. I was reminded of how absolutely gorgeous Utah and the Wasatch mountains are. I wish we would have spent more time hiking around, but we were able to spend time there.

The biggest news of the trip came the night we rolled in to town. My sister got engaged! Yahoo! For the first few nights of our trip my parents rented a condo in Park City. We rolled up to the condo about 11:00 p.m. We walked in the door and there was my sis, flashing a diamond ring on her left hand. She's getting married in late December so the wedding planning began immediately. I was able to go wedding dress shopping (she found one!) with her, my other sis, and my mom. We even found the place she'll being having her wedding reception.

We were very, very busy all week. It's hard for me when we go to Utah because of course I want to see family but also have so many friends I want to catch up with. I did live there for nearly 26 years after all.

This post is going to be super longer. Here are the highlights:

1. Park City adventures: Alpine Slide, Alpine Coaster, Main Street, Canyons
2. Silver Lake, Bridal Veil Falls, Donut Falls
3. Lots of mountain biking for Seth- Wasatch Crest Trail, Millcreek, City Creek
4. BYU/Utah game with Herways and Colie (not really a "high"light but memorable)
5. Most of all....seeing family and friends!!

Silver Lake

Silver Lake

Bridal Veil Falls

Nature Tuke

Top of Guardsman Pass

Cousin BFFs

Got together will a group of girls from elementary school!! All of these girls but me grew up in the same ward. I hadn't seen some of them since high school.

More Visitors

We had all of my family visiting, except Pete, who was away in Vermont for a 7-week training for work. They were here for just a quick visit, but we were so glad to have them here. Carissa especially gets lots of points for making the trek down to see us. She was visiting her family in northern California and drove 8 hours just to be with us for one full day! We were so glad to get to see her, Jayda, and the newest member of our family, baby Alexander.

Everyone was here over Seth's birthday so we had extra people to celebrate. Over the time they were here we went out for Seth's birthday dinner, rented wave runners for the bay, played tennis, swam at the hotel pool, and hung out at the beach. It's so nice living in a place where people actually WANT to visit!

The pictures below are all out of order but you get the idea.

Lukie at the pool. Eating of course.

Grandpa and Lukie at the beach checking out military planes/helicopters/jets in the sky.

I'm not really sure what going on here but I like it.

Mermaid Jayda

Lanx and Trab (Travis)

Nana and Alex

Sunday evening walk along the bay

Me and the Birthday Boy

I said, "Taft you're a fish!" he said, "No! I'm a SHARK!"

I love this picture. Alex has a lot of fans. His grandparents are high up on the list.

Fun Grandpa

Missing Pete!

Sissies

Peekaboo

My parents. They're the best.

Independence Day 2012

I'm a tad behind on things that have been going on around here. We'll start with the 4th of July. My cousin, Amy, and her friend, Kristen, were heading back to Texas (where they live) after a trip to Santa Cruz. They stayed with us for a couple of nights and spent the 4th with us. Seth was working nights the week of the 4th so he was able to join in all the day time festivities. The day started off with a 15K that I ran with a friend. Our ward always hosts a breakfast before the parade along Orange Ave. It works great because then we all have great seats for the parade too. The only bummer was instead of breakfast food they decided to do hamburgers and hot dogs. At 9 AM.  Gross.

Seth had to go in to work around 7 so he had to miss fireworks. Taft and Luke were also spent by the time fireworks rolled around. In fact, Taft had fallen asleep after a walk to the beach so he went straight to bed. Kristen and Amy headed out to fireworks and on there was ALL OF THE FIREWORKS WENT OFF AT ONCE. I heard it at our place and it shook the windows. Every single firework in the San Diego Bay went off early simultaneously.  People had camped out the night before to get good seats. Such a bummer!!! The mess up made national news.

Kristen and Amy

Lukie feeling the rhythm 

Lukie is not impressed with the parade

Too early for a picture.

Luke is 18 months!

Yukie. Tookie. Bubba. Wubba. Lukas. Yukas. Tukas. 

Lukie is 18 months old now and he is just the greatest 18 month old on the planet as far as I'm concerned. Here's an update on my little beach baby toe head. 

Lukie likes  LOVES snacks. Our snacks were within his reach in our pantry and have since been moved. He would eat all day long if I let him. Sounds familiar (ahem...me.) Sometimes I think he might be hypoglycemic because he gets crazy grumpy when he's hungry...which is about every 20-30 minutes. He's getting more picky with what he will and will not eat which is kind of a bummer because it's getting harder to make him eat veggies. 

Lukie loves to bust a move. My favorite dance move of his is him running in circles while kicking one of his legs. Just like Taft did at this age, he will bop his head and move his arms to any music wherever we are. 

Lukie does NOT like the bike trailer and/or wearing his bike helmet. It's the law here that he has to wear a helmet so I don't really have a choice in the matter. Sorry Yuke. 

Lukie and Taft are playing with each other more which is so cute to watch. Today they played together without a crying incident for at least 30 minutes. It was pretty great. 

Lukie values his sleep and takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. He is pretty good at going to bed at night, but if he's not ready to fall asleep he'll just babble to himself until he falls asleep. He still takes a binky and the goal is to take it away after our trip to UT in September. We all NEED that binky for the 12 hr drive!

Lukie still has fluid in his ears so he's not hearing 100%. We are scheduling his surgery for ear tubes within the next couple of months. He is starting to say some words/communicate:

Cracker: "Ca-Ca"

Water/drink: "Wa"

Dada

Shoes: "Doos"

Ouch

Out

Thank you: "Dee-do"

Car/Truck: "Cuck"

Hi

The Herways, The Herways, and The Herways and Picture Overload

All of last week we had the most wonderful stay-cation. Seth's parents, along with Seth's older brother's family, came to stay in Coronado for the week. Seth's parents rented a house big enough for all of us for the week. We stayed at the house, even though we only live a stone's throw away from it. Otherwise, we would have missed out on the late night chats with the grown-ups. It is one of my most favorite vacation activities after all.

Seth had the week off from work which was fantastic. Before his vacation week started he said he wanted to be lazy and watch "a lot of TV". I don't actually think he ended up watching any TV but he did get in a couple of early morning bike rides with his brother. (FYI Seth loves bike rides)

Taft was on cloud nine hanging out with his cousins all week. Like any other time spent with his cousins, Taft laughed at just about every darn thing Brauer (almost 4) did or said. Like belly-busting, side-splitting laugh. At times we had to tell Taft to give Brauer some space. Taft loves his cousins.

Lukie also soaked up the attention he got from all of his big cousins. He loved it.


We spent a lot of time at the beach, went to Cabrillo National Monument, checked out the tide pools near Sunset Cliffs, took our kayak out, and ate, and chilled, and ate, and relaxed.

After our family left I decided all of the people I'm related to need to get together and decide on one place to live and we all move there. I really like my family.

Boys at the Padres' game. Grammie was there too. Um, the kid behind Pop looks like he hates you guys.

Lukie with a snack in each hand. Pretty standard.

To get Taft to smile Grammie said, "Who wants ICE CREAM?!"

Cabrillo National Monument

Lukie and another snack.

Other than us, these guys are the coolest couple we know. 

Daph. She's growing right up on us. When Seth I were dating she was 4 and pretending she was a baby tiger/leopard/animal half the time. Now she's a boogie-boarding, science loving, sea-creature finding, gorgeous-looking almost teenager.

The little boys...next summer there will be another one!

"Gaaaak!!" says Lukie as an airplane flies over head. 

Scarlet. This girl. Everyone needs/should definitely want a Scarlet in their family. She's the sweetest.

Tide Pools

Eeek. Don't know how this girls touches all this stuff.

The crew

Dudes.

Cute family huh?

Zaner and Lukie. I was so surprised to find out that Zane was not only NOT annoyed by my boys but actually played with them TONS and gave them lots of attention. Both Lukie and Taft loooove Zane. 

Pop and Zane

Brauer might have been reading here and trying to hint to Taft that he needed some alone time. Taft didn't catch the drift.

Our family before church. And the TV.