David's Blessing

The night before David's blessing, we all went over to our angels'/Alabama grandparents' house for dinner and for a boat ride on their lake. We love the Van Kampens so so much.
 
 
 
 
On Sunday, David was blessed and we are so grateful to our family and friends who were able to make it.
 
 
(I think David is finally used to getting awkwardly loved to death by his brother.)
 

The zoo and ugly faces

We feel so blessed that both of our families were able to come out for David's baby blessing. My in-laws came early Thursday morning before the blessing. While they were here we hit all of our favorite places to eat, the park, the zoo (of course) and Bass Pro Shop. They also watched the kids while I took a nap every single day they were here. I felt like a new woman with that extra sleep!

For the amount of time I spend talking about the zoo on this blog, I feel like I have done a pretty good job at holding off on the zoo pictures... Not today!!! Behold, the zoo photo dump:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
The only thing better than watching tractors for hours from your carseat is actually riding on one.

Bass Pro Shop
 
While we were having fun at the zoo on Thursday, my family began their trek across the country. My mom sent me a text saying that Elizabeth declared a "best selfie" competition and that I was supposed to be the judge...




According to my instagram poll, Elizabeth was the winner. I wanted to participate in this competition as well so I sent this picture:


I received this text: "How do you take a selfie when both hands are on your cheeks? You cheated" and then I got disqualified.
 
Our selfie contributions:


Not pictured on instagram:
Day 2 selfies (I think James is the winner here)




Day 3 selfies were just plain scary:





 
 
A million selfies and 3 days of driving later, my family finally arrived! And if you arrived to the end of this post, I will not congratulate you, but wonder why you just waisted your time looking at zoo pictures and ugly selfies???

Things I'm loving on this depressing Monday

The last two weeks have been so fun. Both of our families visited for David's baby blessing and we just got back from a wonderful beach trip. Now it's back to real life and we aren't too happy about it. Jack has been crying for "Ikiss, Bess, Nana, and Papa" (sorry James) for the past two days and it is kind of heartbreaking. It must be so confusing as a toddler not being able to comprehend why your favorite people would just up and leave.

I have a long list of things I'm not really liking about today, but I will filter that out of this post and stick with the things that I'm loving.

• A fridge full of grapefruit that my family brought to us, fresh from their trees in Arizona. 

• The fact that we get to have round two of spring break next week! (Spencer ditched out on all of his classes last week to go to the beach for my family's spring break... he has "last semester of graduate school senioritis," if that is even a thing.
• Learning that I really really love apple fritters. For some reason I had never tasted one until last week when my dad bought the most amazing giant apple fritter (that looked like a cow pie).  We ended up buying THREE more and I ate more than I would like to admit. The reason I am posting a picture is to show that it was the size of a gallon size bag and of course, to show off my amazing food photography skills.

 

• Knowing that my 471 unread emails are nothing compared to the amount of unread emails and texts that I discovered on my mom's phone. I think I inherited digital hoarding issues from my mother :)

• This sweet boy. When Jack was David's age, I think we already had 5 hours of video of him sleeping and kicking and doing nothing. David doesn't get nearly as much digital attention. Poor second child. 

• I got cleared by my doctor to exercise again which means running and endorphins and strength training so that I can do jumping pictures with my sister and not look like an idiot!

 
 
 
I'm hoping Jack and David take naps at the same time again later this week so that I can again ignore my messy apartment and unpacked bags and get some more blog therapy in. I certainly have my priorities straight.

The thing I'm loving

Playing soccer, rollerblading*, napping, biking, walking on the beach, and eating steak dinner, all in one awesome day.
 
 
 

*It took me a whole 3 years and 9 months of marriage to convince Spencer to put on what he calls "fruit boots." He told me that he's letting go of being cool. I'm so proud :)

Stuff we've been up to

Spencer turned 26 on Friday!!! We ate, shopped, ate, slept, ate and ate, in that very order. We ate donuts, Chinese food, Indian food, and cake & ice cream, in that very order. It was intense.
 
 


I need to give up on Bobas that aren't from The Street in Mesa. I get all excited, then depressed when they aren't nearly as good.
 

Jack thought it was his birthday again.
 

 
The only activities that I am brave enough to do on my own with two kids are going to the park or parking at a construction site and watching tractors from the car. I didn't realize how pathetic my life was until I reread this text I sent to Spencer:


 
 
 I love my soccer stud. I am brainwashing him while he is young.

Other than that, we hang out at home most of the day, which kind of makes me insane. Here is proof of the one time I actually did an activity with Jack and didn't turn on a show for him. (I'm not telling you how much TV I let Jack watch in a day)
 

Jack's favorite show as of late is "T-bell" (Tinker Bell) on Netflix. When I was talking to Spencer about how funny that is, Spencer defended both Jack and Tinkerbell in all seriousness by saying, "Well it is a pretty cute show." Then he went grocery shopping and came home with this for Jack.


My awesome friends spoiled me and threw me a baby shower! It was so much fun. I love my Alabama friends.
 
 
 
 
In the middle of the night after nursing David, I went into the kitchen and saw a bajillion cockroaches on the floor!!! I killed 26 and a ton got away. We see cockroaches here and there but I had no clue we had that big of a problem. As I killed those cockroaches, I said a prayer of gratitude that they were just cockroaches and not bedbugs. #itsallinperspective #pestcontrolcomingtomorrow #ipromisewearecleanpeople #canyouusehashtagsonablog?

We have some exciting things happening this month (more exciting than watching tractors if you can believe that) and I GET TO SEE MY BROTHER, JAMES, IN THREE DAYS!!!! I can't wait.