Bryce

Bryce is usually the first kid up in our house.  He wanders around, hangs out with Chad for a bit, then requests his daily cup of coconut milk.  This morning he and I sat on the front porch and watched the sunrise together--it was so fun.

Later on, after Caden goes to school and Tessa lays down for a nap, it's back to just Bryce and I spending a majority of the day together.  We do some jobs, work on his "school work" and play outside together.  I spend a lot of QT with him.

Like any 3 year old, Bryce has funny quirks and is figuring out how the world works.  He will only wear certain clothes, changes several times a day, and has to wear pajamas at nap time.  

He insists on holding Tessa the second she wakes up--something that she tolerates for about 2 seconds.  She usually has a bottle once a day and he loves helping her take it.  Even on this day when he hadn't had a nap and was falling asleep while giving it--

Lately I have learned to watch what I say as so many of his sentences start with, "Remember you said...?"  It isn't until I have all of it repeated back to me that I realize how many things I say in a day.

Also, when I ask him to do something and he doesn't do it and I ask again,  he will sometimes say, "O-KAAAY.  If you'll stop saying that I'll do it!"  Little sass monster.  

He'll also say to me randomly when someone walks by us at the store or park, "I hate that lady, mom." And when I give him a sad look he asks, "But...do you love her?"

Bryce still idolizes Caden.  Caden can talk Bryce into anything.  The other day I heard Caden whisper to him, "If you let me go first, I'll give you a thousand pieces of candy..." and poor Bryce buys it.  Some day he'll wisen up.  

Bryce loves getting in the bath.  If anyone in our house is bathing, he feels it his right to also be bathing.  The other morning he poured half the bubble bath in while I was getting dressed.  When I turned around he just said, "Sorry, mommy. Are you mad?"

But how can I be mad at this face?

Summer 2014

Sure it’s October, but we can still reminisce about summer, right?

Gratefully, my apprehensions about a long summer with endless days of entertaining my boys were for naught.  We quickly got into a groove which included daily swims, picnics and plenty of popsicles.

One night we were heading to a neighbor's wedding.  I told Caden to run up and change and I’d meet him to do his hair soon.  A few minutes later, he called from the bottom of the stairs, “Presenting...CADEN!” and stepped out like this.  He was so proud of combing his hair all on his own.

The funny thing is, about an hour later, he told us his head hurt and he couldn’t move his hair. lol.

I love having so many girl cousins for Tessa.  She’ll never go without someone to play with.

Love all the thighs going on in this picture of Tessa and Kambree:

So cute how Tessa is reaching over to grab Lexi:

A majority of our summer days were spent at the pool.  Caden is a great swimmer--he's always loved it.  Bryce took a bit of warming up, but was definitely better by the end of the summer.  It was my happy place...sitting by the side of the pool watching the kids swim.  

There were a few days I would tell Caden that I couldn't bring myself to go swimming that day.  It was usually on a Friday after 4 straight days and I'd say, "I just can't handle getting everyone in swimming suits, sunscreened, shoes on, snacks, towels, and loading us in to the pool."  But almost every time I proclaimed that, I'd change my mind around 3:00 in the afternoon and we'd end up there anyway.  

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The boys were so brave to go down the slide alone.  Even Bryce would go down all by himself.  That's them on the stairs in this picture.  I heart those stairs and the way they would wear my boys out whilst I sat on a lounge chair at the bottom.

And, of course, Tessa got cuter.  Her personality is starting to come out and we love getting to know this new person.

Seattle!

Can I still blog about something that happened almost 2 months ago?  Good, because I still have some summer pictures that are coming.

At the end of August, Chad and I headed to Seattle for a long weekend to attend a wedding of one of Chad's classmates from veterinary school.  Of course, we had Tessa in tow, but it's amazing how easy one baby feels when we're used to 3 kids.  We didn't know just how breezy life was 6 years ago when all we had was Caden.

The couple who was getting married listed some of their favorite eateries in Seattle and we pretty much planned our entire itinerary around hitting up as many of them as we could.  Sometimes, when I lay awake at night, I think about the pork sandwich from the Honey Hole.

We saw the original Starbucks (in the background) and you can tell how thrilled Chad was by it.  Starbucks is everywhere in Seattle.  I think Starbucks is to Seattle what church steeples are to Utah.

We were just walking down a path when we unintentionally came to the gum wall.  I was gagging and could barely stay long enough to take a picture, let alone add my own spit to the wall.  Next time, maybe.

Pike's Market was a highlight, of course.  So many beautiful colors and fun things to see.  I had a fresh crab cocktail (yum!) and Chad ordered garlic fries.  And by garlic fries, I mean burn-your-mouth, smell-for-days amounts of garlic.  I'd pass on those next time.

We hiked around different parks and trails around the city to see different points of view.  Again, it's amazing how easy these things were with just Tessa.  I can only imagine the handfuls of skittles it would have required to get my boys through the day.

The non-food highlight of this day was the Ballard Locks and Salmon ladders.  I won't bore you with all the details of the salmon life cycle, but the transient woman who was hanging out there made it all so fascinating.  We stayed here for awhile watching ships pass through and salmon swim the ladders and I all but dragged Chad away to go to dinner.

On our way to the wedding the next day we stopped at the salmon fish hatchery to see the end of the process that we'd seen at the ladders the day before.  It was in such a beautiful area and really, truly amazing to see what the salmon do.  I know it's crazy, but the salmon were really one of the highlights of our whole weekend.

We also stopped at Snoqualmie Falls, but since Tessa was asleep in the car, we took turns getting out to see them.  

Selfie at the falls.  I sent it to Chad since he was in the car.

And the wedding was beautiful.

Seriously--look at this.

We had fun seeing Chad's classmates that had flown in from all over the country.  We danced, drank (lemonade for us--which was funny because we instantly picked our the other LDS couple there) and enjoyed being in such a beautiful place.

And this girl--she was a trooper.  But even the best of them get tired--