laking.

it's been a long time since we've been on a real family vacation. especially not while pregnant. it's been even longer since we've been camping with babies. {with the exception of the backyard, never} and it's been even longer since we've been camping as a family {besides the treachorous honeymoon lowry houseboat, never} . sooo we figured why not go with a big group of friends for three days with a newborn and toddler to re-introduce us to the camping world?

it wasn't that bad to be honest. we are all exhausted, and sore, and on our fourth load of laundry, but we all had a great time and it was nice to be able to escape, i think that it was just what i needed to feel re-juvenated and a better mom. 

we went about three hours south to lake san antonio with some friends and a whole bunch of their friends. 

 it was peaceful. hot during the day, and colder at night. perfect. 

 

conveniently, our friends have kids exactly the same age as ours. greysen's little girl friend gwendylan aka dylan is a month older than him and they are quite cute together. 

and this is dylan's older brother ronin. who, depending on the day and what toy each is playing with, is zak's bff. or his enemy. 

 zak had a great time with his friends. although somehow, he ended up being the only one filthy, digusting and more filthy. he is 100% boy. 

 notice the "war paint" above. and the pants, and shirts below. ugh he was just so gross. thank goodness for showers. 

we spent saturday on the boat and rock beach which was fun. we haven't been boating in several years so it was a nice refresher course. 

 obviously, being awake is exhausting. 

funny thing is that he actually weighs more than dylan, but she's just so much more squishy looking than him. =) 

i also learned how to wake surf, which was a lot of fun and it only took me a couple of tries! {minus the sore arms and back today}

 i thoroughly enjoy this picture for some reason. it cracks me up. 

 i owned that business now. 

war paint. this was zak's first time on a boat, so he was not very sure about it the first time. but he did like to watch mom and dad "do tricks". unfortunately i don't have pictures of levi doing tricks because we had to switch off boating with the kiddies and such. 

this is our host, and kiddie's mom, nancy and i =) 

we had such a great time, unfortunately, levi goes back to school tomorrow. so we're back to the real world. boo.... only 12 more weeks until christmas break. =)

two months.

this handsome devil turned two months today. look at those gorgeous eyes. don't you wish you had them?? i sure do. 

-he is now 12 lb and 10 oz. & 23 1/2 in long. exactly what his brother was at 2 months. that puts both of them in the 75th percentile. funny that he was a whole pound lighter to start with. 

-he sleeps on his tummy. and absolutely loves it. i'll be honest and say that i still wake up in the middle of the night to check on him, because we never stuck zak on his stomach so it's kind of scary for me. but he sleeps amazingly like that. 

-he sleeps best in his bed. which makes mornings kind of tricky aka we don't leave the house until 11 because it takes us so long to get ready and i don't want to wake him up for fear of awakening a grouch. 

-he is still the easiest dude. he cries only when he's hungry or tired. and as long as we fix one of those things, he's instantly better. 

-he smiles ALL the time. you don't even need to work for it, you just look at him and he cracks up. it's so cute. 

-he loves getting his diaper changed. he could be screaming his head off and you wipe him and he instantly starts smiling. super weird. 

-he eats every four or five hours during the day, goes to bed around 8:30, wakes up to eat around 3:00 and then around 8 or 9. it's awesome. like i said. he's amazing. we've been so blessed!

-he's beginning to like his brother. zak's still a little loud and obnoxious for him, but when he's being quiet and talking to him, greysen's all over checking him out and laughing with him. 

-he looks totally bald in all these pictures, but he's not i swear. his receding hair line has been coming in blonde now, so you can't see it yet. and he has quite a bit in the back. gotta love baby hairs. 

his wide variety of faces are hilarious. 

i can't believe he's only two months right now, it seems like he's been here forever. we love this little dude so much, and i can't wait to see him grow up more and play with zak. that's going to be so great! 

catch up. in iphone pics.

this blog has been neglected the last several months due to being tired, pregnant, not pregnant, more tired etc etc. so be prepared for a long/sporadic post. 

after we had the bebe, i was dying driving around the subaru with the kiddies and the stroller. which basically took up the whole trunk. so, i spent some time googling, and found a little gem. meet our third baby:

our toyota highlander. it was several years older than our legacy, but seats 7, has 4WD and can fit more than just a stroller in the trunk. it's amazing. i absolutely love it. and the best part was that we were able to trade them straight across, so we didn't pay a penny for it. =)

the next week, we celebrated our 4th anniversary while levi's parents were in town, so we had willing  babysitters. {thanks a bunch mike and kelly!} =) we went out to a tempanyaki place, down in redwood city. it was great and so nice to be out by ourselves. then we went to batman. oh the simple date night, but we loved it. i'm so glad that four years ago i married this handsome man. he is the most amazing husband, and dad, and we've only gotten better in four years. muah. 

a week or so later, we celebrated my birthday, a whopping 23 years old. dun dun dun. i know, you didn't actually think i was that old. but, it was great. all i wanted was some peace and quiet. sad how that becomes what you want when you have two kids. but levi graciously listened to me, made me breakfast in bed and gave me some gift cards to let me go party by myself in between my four hours. it was fantastic. i got myself these lovely boots. 

we then went to macaroni grill and had some delicious pastas and bread, and went to target to buy the hunger games. which we didn't end up watching because sleep became more important to us. oh the joys of parenthood. but it was a great birthday and my husband did a great job appealing to exactly what i wanted. plus, i got to spend it with my favorite boys. 

for the first time in quite some time, i did a craft. i must be getting less tired or something {finally}. pinterest always works wonders for me. but i made these canvas' with our new family pictures. they aren't really canvas, but more pictures mod-podges on canvas. which cost me about $100 less than getting them printed for real. i definitely like them better legit, but the price tag doesn't work for me so these will suffice until we've got more moolah. plus, aren't our pictures so cute? i love them. 

as an update on my favorite baby, he is still amazing. he will be seven weeks tomorrow and is just the easiest baby ever. so happy, and has just started cracking us up. he's learned how to smile and can use it to pretty much get whatever he wants from us, it's just so cute. i don't know how you can look at these pictures of him and not laugh. 

we have learned that he doesn't like mexican food just like his brother did, but juicing a little ginger in our carrot/apple/celery/beet/whatever we have in the fridge juice, has made a big difference in calming his stomach. he also has begun to sleep {almost} through the night. holla! he's been going from about 9:30 or 10:00 until 4:00 or so. and it is amazing. even though my crazy mom senses still wake me up to make sure he's still breathing if he sleeps any longer than he's supposed to. we really have been so lucky to have blessed with such great, easy going kids. he's also caught up to his brother in terms of his height and weight, which cracks me up considering zak was a whole pound heavier than him when he was born. must be feeding this one extra good. =) 

his big brother is doing fantastic. he is getting so smart, he knows all of his letters and numbers about to about 15, and can sing you almost any nursery rhyme/primary song. he's quite the performer. sometime i'll have to get it on video so that we can put it in his wedding video someday. he is still a great big brother. minus a few incidents and getting overly excited to help swing him, he is so nice and loving to greysen. he's recently developed a passion for going "mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, momma, momma, mom, mom" for no reason in an escalating, obnoxious voice, and yelling/demanding we serve him, so we are working on toning it down. but other than that and trying to run away, {which we've also been working on, he's gotten 100 times better now that we talk about it before we get out of the car every single time} he's a great kid. 

some of his funny quotes of the week are: 

"what that big brother doing?"- which we usually ask to greysen, which zak thinks is hilarious and frequently asks us so we can ask him what he's doing. 

"these are my most favorite _______ {insert nachos, cereal, shoes, underwear, pretty much anything}."

"come on, underwear, you know how to do this". when referring to pulling it up after going potty. which we say to him {minus the underwear part} because he gets sidetracked after relieving himself and we have to remind him what he needs to do.  

"when greysen get big big, i'm gonna share a room with him and get bunk beds". he is so stoked you have no idea. 

{showing his muscles}

and as a final update, we went to reno this past weekend for the rib cook off and to see my padre. it was great. the weather was nice, it almost made me miss summer, the food was delish and we saw friends we haven't seen in quite some time. 

we went swimming, but mom didn't pack our swim suit, so he was left with swim diapers from his good friend rahlee. they were hilarious. good thing he could care less. he also swam in the pool all by himself with floaties on for the first time. he's usually in with us, swimming with nothing, or in a shallow part, so that was interesting. he did great! rahlee's mom is a swim teacher so he got to watch an expert friend in the water too. =) 

 the rib cook off was fantastic. unlimited ribs, gloriana in concert, funnel cake, crafters, and a cool reno evening. it doesn't get much better. minus all of the super classy people there, it was great. 

our weekend was great, but the traffic going home left much to be desired. burning man finished yesterday which added 50,000 people going over the pass with us. we spent six hours doing a 2 hour drive through the mountains, most of which involved us parked or going about 20 mph. it was terrible. our kids did amazing though, no screaming/crying fits, minus zak getting carsick from watching the train app go by too many times on the ipad. {that was lovely btw} 

we also stopped to see our bff's in sacramento, because they just had the most precious baby boy but alas, we didn't get any pictures of all the boys together. it was great, and i can't wait for all our boys to grow up and be bff's too. 

last but not least, i dyed my hair! well one of my bff's did, and i love it. i was hoping that doing it would make me not have it in a ponytail as often, which it worked for most of the day today, until i got hot. so hopefully it'll still work it's magic in a couple of weeks from now. i've decided the ombre hair style is for us lazy people who don't want to go get their roots done every six weeks, so we just dye the ends to make it look different and call it good. but, i don't really care, i still love it. and my hair curls so good in reno {not that i ever wear it as curly as my fantastic hair dresser did it}. dang humidity here. 

phew! if you made it to the end of the randomness, congrats!! although, i don't think that anyone reads this anymore anyways because we never update it, or post anything besides our kids on it. oh well.