thumb-sucker!!

Everett's Blessing.

Have you ever seen anything sweeter???

Everett was actually blessed on Rick's birthday, May 17th. We were horrible parents and did not take a single picture the day of the blessing. These were taken in his blessing outfit last week!

Peanuts, anyone? (Don't worry; Carson kept them to himself.)

Strawberry Picking and Tractor Watching.

We are certainly enjoying the precious time we have left with Rick before he leaves for Officer Training Camp. We've had two blissful weeks with his full attention on US instead of school!

Our most fun family activity yet: strawberry picking!! We went last Monday, 6/1 to Clodbuster farms.


Everett hung out with me.


Rick did 99% of the work of the actual strawberry picking.


Carson had a GREAT time. There aren't too many activities that an 18-month-old can participate in and be successful with, but strawberry picking is a winner. He learned to peek under the leaves and find the bright red ones, and then ask me if the one he picked was ok to keep.
He also frequently snuck a taste!


Yummmm.


And then, he spotted some farm equipment near the strawberry fields. This is when one of the tractors (a front-end loader??? I don't know!) started actually picking up dirt. He was mesmerized!!

Finders Keepers.

Yesterday, my jogging buddies and I happened upon a wonderful little yard sale. We were just completing our 6.5 miler when we couldn't help but notice some people setting up some dangerously cute pieces of furniture in their driveway. We headed straight over, and found some keepers!

This hutch and table combo is my FAVORITE. It just needs a coat or two of paint. 25 smackers! I'm just not sure where to put it yet...



Carson got these little doggies for mere cents. He carried little Schnitzel around all day.



I got this old fashioned-looking Monopoly game, too. It has little wooden pieces for the houses and hotels. You can really play it! 5 bucks.













And finally, a pretty necklace and matching earrings. I'm usually not big on wearing accessories, but I always wish I was. 2 bucks sounded like good deal for this nice (brand new) set.

After all that yard sale shopping, I just had to go home and give my chubby little thing a bath. Mmmm, nothing like a clean, squishy baby.

BROTHERS.

Absolutely the cutest picture I've ever seen:




And, all the other pictures it took to get that good one:

How He's Grown.

See this nice, squishy, rotund body??

And these chubby, chubby cheeks?
I'll take ALL the credit.

(I think I deserve it after spending approximately 1/3 of my life over the past 2 months in this nursing chair.)

Note to self: blog about the following..

• Rick's birthday.
• Everett's baby blessing.
• My sisters'/nieces' visit.
• Rick's sisters' visit.
• book reviews.

party animal.

This kid got his first invitation to a friend's birthday party.






If the party's even half as fun as the invitation, we'll have a great time tomorrow.

Smarty Pants.

This post is me shamelessly bragging. I think Carson is super smart. His memory amazes me. I'll read him a book once, and then a week later I'll open it up and he can identify random things in the book, like some rare animals in our Mammals book.

I started to put together a video with all the clips of him identifying letters, shapes, animals, etc., but the thing turned out to be like 30 minutes long. I'll spare our blog that one and save it for the grandparents only. Here is our little smarty pants with just some of his letters:

His Favorite Place to Sit.

This green bouncy chair is the current favorite. He can be nice and close to baby brother.

He can even read him books!

Or, he can get a little wild and play in the green chair himself.

Sometimes Everett even gets a bouncy ride.

Different day, same spot of course.

We three spend a lot of time in very close proximity to each other.

smiles: little and big.

Carson's down for his one nap of the day. I should totally be fixing dinner for the missionaries right now. But I cannot focus on anything else when my baby just started smiling!!

Here are some tiny beginnings of smiles, and some just cute faces:

Just imagine, that tiny smile may someday be as big as this one:

We raced for HER cure.

We like Jeanel.

We'd also like her to be cancer free, chemo free, and in perfect health. We pray for this daily. There's not much else you can do when you live 2,000 miles away.

As soon as we heard about the Race for the Cure here, we joined a team and were excited to be able to do something else to recognize Jeanel and the battle she's fighting. (Thanks to Sara and the Better Halves group, especially for sponsoring Jeanel's tulip!)

These girls (and babies) all participated in the race, some thinking about their own family members who have had breast cancer.

Our family photo at the race.

Sara is included in our "family" as Everett's surrogate mother, while the real mother gets to actually RUN the race!*

*Rick and I are very similar when it comes to physical competitions. We both said we were going to walk the 5k or just take it easy, but I think in the back of our minds we were both determined to run it as fast as we could. So, as soon as the race started, I told Rick to go ahead and not worry about staying with me. I'd push Carson (baby plus stroller = 40 pounds) and let him run his heart out. He ran the fastest 5K he's ever run, 21 minutes, mentally running hard for Jeanel. I reached my goal of doing it in under 30 minutes; not bad for 4 weeks postpartum pushing that stroller!

Our family plans on doing the Race for the Cure for many years to come; it was a great experience for us! Thanks, Jeanel, for being our inspiration in many ways.

family of four.

We should have taken one more...

Either Carson is carrying some random box and not smiling...



Or you see the result of me tickling Carson so he'll smile and then quickly returning to position, startling Everett.



And this guy is getting so big and chubby!