Showing off Baby Alex

Baby Alex is what the girls always call him, especially Katie. They sure do love their baby brother! Katie gets so possessive sometimes, especially if someone other than our immediate family tries to talk to him or play with him or hold him or pretty much anything. She starts pulling on his leg and saying that's HER baby Alex and she'll cry and get herself worked up into quite a fit at times. She's funny.

I took Alex to Kiddie Kandids a total of 3 times trying to get him to smile cute for birth announcements but this was the best we were ever able to get out of him. I think he was still just a little too young and he wasn't very good at smiling on cue yet. He was about 9 weeks old when we did this. Then a few weeks later when he was exactly 3 months old I took him to Olan Mills for a free little package I had a coupon for and he never stopped smiling the whole time! It was SO frustrating! I did actually get some birth announcements in that package, too, but their styles are pretty plain and boring. I probably just need to stop being so picky with it all. =) Here are the results from that time. (Remember, you can click on pictures to view them at full size if you want) I just think he's such a cutie!

Oh, in case you're wondering, the Maximus contribution was all Joe. He's had a big Roman obsession for the past year or two so Alexander comes from Alexander the Great and the name Maximus actually means greatest in Latin so he thought it was perfect. Joe absolutely loved the names Alexander and Maximus together and he thinks it's just about the coolest, toughest name he could've possibly thought of (and he spent a LOT of time thinking about names for this kid!). I sure hope Alex shares that opinion when he grows up. =)

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay, I know I'm late, but I was thinking on Sunday I'd find a moment to post and it keeps getting pushed off. I had a really great day. Savannah finally got to give me a little present she'd made for me in preschool and she was SO excited about that. She brought it home with her on Thursday all wrapped up pretty and it was killing her to wait until Sunday to give it to me. Here's a picture of what she made and also the cute little poem on the back.

Joe gave me a certificate to go the next day for a 2 hour massage at a school in Salt Lake and it was SO awesome! He's been working a ton lately so it's just been me and the kids 24/7 plus I can never get away from Alex so going to that was the longest I've ever been away from him and the break was so nice. Joe told me to go shopping or go to dinner or whatever I wanted afterward and just relax so I was gone about 4 hours. Joe fed Alex a bottle of some milk I'd pumped and handled everything fine so that was a great present. After church I told Joe that the one request I had for the day was to take a picture of all of us together, something we almost never do. I think this is only the 3rd time since Alex was born that we've taken any sort of picture of all 5 of us (the first was the obligatory hospital shot and then one afternoon they were all on the couch playing so I quickly seized the opportunity and set up the camera on top of the TV with the self timer and jumped in with them but it didn't turn out well at all). I think it's due to my picture obsession (and Joe's persuasive example) that they all seem to hate pictures so much and just when everyone else cooperates it's usually Savannah sticking out her tongue or doing some silly, obnoxious thing to ruin it. I get so frustrated trying to take pictures of us all! We only got 3 shots but here's the best one.

All in all it was a really nice, relaxing Mother's Day, and it was gorgeous weather, too, so that always makes a day better.

Recap of our Philadelphia/DC trip

Hey, before too much time passes, I wanted to write quickly about our great little trip to Philadelphia and Washington DC from a couple of weeks ago. Joe had a nursing conference in Philadelphia so since his work was already paying to fly him there we arranged for his flight to leave 3 days early and bought a ticket for me to go with him. We had to take Alex since he's still so young and nursing but the girls stayed half of the time with my brother, Ryan, and half with my mom so any vacation without kids is a great one! I mean, having Alex still made it harder, but it's much better than all three! We left really early on a Thursday morning and our scheduled 2 hour layover in Denver turned into 13! Instead of leaving for Philly at 11am we had to take a red eye that left at midnight! I know, I was so frustrated I was actually in tears, but we tried everything we could think of and there was no other way. So our first day was spent in the Denver airport, but luckily a nice Frontier worker let us hang out in the unaccompanied minors lounge so it was much more comfortable and there were couches for me to feed Alex and even try to take a nap when I could. I've included a picture since that it basically represents our whole day. We got to Philadelphia at 5:15am the next morning but our flight was actually only 3 hours long (there's a 2 hour time difference) so we barely got any sleep on the plane and we were so tired. On the flight I requested that they at least give us an extra seat for Alex to stay in his carseat sleeping but it was completely full so Joe and I broke FAA policy and smuggled him on in his seat because he sleeps SO much better in his seat than in my arms but that meant I was stuck holding the big carseat on my lap the whole flight (good thing I didn't have to go to the bathroom because there was no way I could've gotten out) and then I had a blanket on top of it and Joe and I had to do our best to cover it up and look like I just had my nursing baby under the blanket. It was pretty funny.

Despite our sleepiness, we only had that one day to see Philadelphia so we got some breakfast and Mountain Dew and went on our way. We did the hop on hop off bus tour for a quick way to see all the sights and it was so much fun! What a beautiful city! I really just loved it. We walked around a lot, too, and I felt really impressed with everything we were able to see in just one day. A few of my favorite things were Independence Hall, the Rocky statue at the Museum of Art (where we couldn't resist posing Alex for a few cheesy photos on the steps and imitating Rocky's pose with Dad), the Thinker at the Rodin museum, seeing the basketball court where they shot the opening credits of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", the beautiful park where they have the LOVE statue, and of course the Philly cheese steak sandwiches. They have SO much outdoor artwork (more than any other city in the US, actually) so it makes it such a fun city to visit and just walk around in and admire. I thought it was beautiful.

That night we drove to Washington DC and stayed with my good friend, Ken, his wife Brooke, and their family. Ken is a traveling buddy from BYU that another friend, Aaron, and I went to Europe with when I was 20 so it was nice of him to accomodate us in our subsequent travels. We stayed with them for two nights to save money on the crazy DC hotel costs. Needless to say we slept GREAT that night and then woke up refreshed to see the city the next day. Ken gave us good advice on taking the metro rather than our rental car which I'm really glad we did but that meant lots of walking because the touristy areas around "The Mall" don't really have close metro stops. It was great exercise. We got off and walked to the Lincoln Memorial (probably the highlight of the day for me--I LOVED that!) and then walked on to the Washington Memorial, the Smithsonian and all of the other cool places along the way to the Capitol. We didn't see as much there as we did in Philadelphia because we spent the first half of the day visiting with Ken and his family and a lot of places closed at 5 so we couldn't go in but I still really had a great time just seeing everything and being there in front of all of those historic sights and builidings. It's really surreal being in places like that that you've seen on TV and in movies all your life and then you're standing in front of it seeing it with your own eyes. I really loved it.

Luckily we had a 2nd day in DC, which was Sunday. We went to sacrament meeting with Ken and Brooke and then said our goodbyes from there and rushed back into the city because we didn't have time on Saturday to go into any of the Smithsonian museums or go over to the White House. There are so many cool museums there that you could spend days just looking through all of them and unfortunatly we didn't have the time so we did very abbreviated visits. We saw all the really famous stuff like the Hope Diamond and everything was really impressive. It would be nice to go back with more time and without a crying baby. The White House was my favorite on Sunday. It's a beautiful area all around there and I enjoyed the walk to get there from the Smithsonian. Right in front of the White House there's a big park where we sat and watched the squirrels climb in the trees and I fed Alex and it was just a beautiful, quiet Sunday afternoon. I loved it.

My flight left from DC a few hours later and it was really sad to say goodbye to Joe at the airport. I was glad I had Alex so I didn't feel so alone. He had to drive back to Philadelphia all by himself and then his conference started the next day and lasted until Wednesday. Gosh, I had no intention of writing this much! Sorry about that. I think I just start typing and I type really fast so it's like I'm talking and I get really long winded and carried away so easily to the point that it's ridiculously long and detailed and boring. You can imagine what my journals get like! That's probably why I'm so bad about writing in them, half of it is this feeling of guilt like by writing it all I'm going to make someone feel compelled to read it and I feel bad for them because it seems like a cruel form of torture. ={ Alright, that's enough for today! Here's one more piture of my happy reunion with my daughters. They were so cute that night.

Savannah is playing soccer

Wow, Joe and I took a short little vacation to Philadelphia and DC right after my first post and that was all it took to throw me completely off of writing. Now 2 1/2 weeks later I'm back on track. =) My goal is to post 2 or 3 times per week.

Savannah started playing soccer through Salt Lake County Parks and Rec a few weeks ago and it started off really rocky but it's gotten better and she really likes it now. My mom had to take her to her first game because we were in DC and when she wasn't picked to be the goalie she was devastated. Always the drama queen, she ended up squatting down in the middle of the field with her face in her hands pouting while the rest of the kids tried to play around her. Here are a few photos from that first game.





Luckily, by her second game I was back home so I was able to prepare her that she probably wasn't going to be the goalie, but that I was SO excited about seeing her kick the ball. We had multiple conversations about it in the days before her next game and on the way to the park. I've had four years to learn how to manipulate her by playing her dramatic side to my benefit. At her next game she was like a completely different person. She kicked the ball like crazy and was one of the most involved kids on her team. The only "problem" she had was that she was so excited to be on the field and showing off for me that she kept jumping up and down waving at me every 10 seconds and a lot of times the ball would be right in front of her but she was too busy looking at me to realize it and kick it. Here are a few photos from her 2nd game.














Dealing with that girl can be a bit of an art form at times and my mom (like most people) doesn't have much patience to humor her like I do. Boy would she be hatin' life if anything ever happened to me! =)