Journals

 I thought it would be a fun idea to get journals for the boys and try and write in them as they grow up.  Some of it will be in retrospect, since I'm just starting now.  I figure my goal will be to write it them at least once a year every year around their Birthday.   Hopefully more.  I may include some of the funny stories and such that might normally be in a baby book.  I got these journals from a fancy shop on etsy that makes personalized, handmade leather journals (Earthworks Journals).  They make them custom order, so I had them put the boys initials on the lower right corner of the cover.  I think they are just beautiful.  Lots of pages too so we will not run out.


 

I was writing some of the retrospect posts today while the boys are napping together.  Of course I am crying the whole time thinking back about their births and such, but that's ok sometimes.  I am thinking maybe I'll give them to Luke and Jake at their weddings or something.  We will see how it works out.  I just hope that they will appreciate reading back at some point about their lives.  It will be fun to keep a record of all the fun we have together!

We moved!

As if having a new baby wasn't enough change to our lives, we decided it would be a good idea to move into a bigger place too!  We have always been able to keep life interesting :).  It has worked out really well though.

For the last two and a half years that we've been living in Bakersfield, we were in a 2 bedroom apartment.  It was fine for us then, and we didn't know how long we would be living down here.  It's looking like we will be here for a while though, so we needed a change.  We have much more space in the new house to accommodate four of us, and a huge backyard for Luke to run wild.  Of course we still all sleep in the same bed, but I'm not ready to give up all the baby cuddles quite yet! My family went to our house in Orangevale and got a bunch of our furniture.  Then they brought it to us down in Bakersfield and helped us move everything here.  Needless to say, we couldn't have done this without their help! Thank you!

The main room is really most of the house, which makes it easy to keep an eye on everyone.

 

We have a little guest room/nap room for our occasional visitors.

 

The best part of the house is definitely the toy room! We spend a majority of our day in here.

 Luke spends a lot of his day pretending to be Buzz Lightyear with his arms outstretched to fly.

 Hilarious!

 

 I had these prints made for the boys from etsy (link here).  I love how they turned out!

 Running around.

I had to have one girly room, so I made it the guest bathroom.

We also have a big master bedroom and bath. There is one more small room that Jon has all of his music stuff and some of my crafty stuff in.  It's not picture ready yet though.  So far we are really enjoying the house. We bought a lawnmower and an edger so that Jon can maintain the grass (and weeds in the backyard since we haven't taken the time to plant grass yet).  Luke loves spending time outside working with Daddy on the sprinklers and digging holes.  I can't wait to have two little boys running around out there!

All about Jake

Jake was born on March 28th 2013.  It was one week before my due date and I was already around 5-6 cm, so the doctors decided it would be fine for me to go in and "urge" Jake out a little.  I hadn't had any real forceful contractions, but somehow my body had already started the process.  I got an epidural (that worked well this time!!) around 9:30am.  Water broke around 10:30am.  I never had to feel a single bad contraction! It was great!

 

A few hours before Jake arrived.  We look drugged, but I'm pretty sure it was just the camera flash :).  We did have a second to sit down and relax together though, which was very nice.

Then around 3pm Jake was ready to come.  I pushed him out super quick because I just couldn't wait any longer to see his face (and it hurt really bad and I wanted to be done)! He came out screaming his head off, the most beautiful sound you can think of at that moment.  He was a bigger baby for me at 7 pounds and 14 ounces.  Super healthy with beautiful skin, and lots of blonde hair!  It was such a wonderful Birthday for the little guy!

 Admiring our brand new little man.

 So glad that my Mama was able to be there and help things go smoothly for Jake's birth.

 Luke was able to come meet Jake within the first hour after birth.    This is our first official photo as a family of four.  Luke had way too much fun hanging out with Grandpa and Uncle Cory while Jon and I were at the hospital.  He hardly even noticed we were gone.

 Ready to get out of here and go home!

 Hanging out with Grandpa.

 Papa and YiaYia came to visit.

 Grandma with little Jake.

 

 Aunt Melissa tastes yummy!

Uncle Kyle talking to Jake.

Uncle Cory rocking him.

 

 Second Mommy Mia came to visit and took some great pictures of Baby Jake.

Jake is such a blessing to our family.  He is very sweet and loveable.  He's a bit of a chunky monkey compared to his big brother, and I love it!  He's a good eater, a fairly good sleeper, and he loves to smile and is almost laughing already!  He's 2.5 months now, so I'll fill in some of the details in a later post too.

More Jakey pictures

Love his sweet little face!

 Most of these were taken by my fabulous friend Mia at Emmy Cube. A few by my Mom too.  Thank you!!

Fun at Nana and Grandpa's

At the beginning of March, Luke and I started staying with my parents for the final stretch of pregnancy and to have baby Jake delivered here with medical staff we know and trust.  Jon had to continue working in Bakersfield during the week, but he was able to have three day weekends and at least see us almost half of the week.  It was tough to be apart, but we managed to have lots of fun here in Modesto also.  Luke loves Nana and Grandpa, and gets a kick out of chasing the dog and cat around ALL day long.  Uncle Cory is also staying here in Modesto right now and Luke has had fun getting to know him better since they hadn't seen each other much before this past month.  We are closer to all of our family, so Grandma has had fun visiting us as well.

Here are some of the highlights of Luke's time here so far:

For some reason, he would literally run around for hours with this box on his head.

 There are tractors at a construction site across the street.  Every little boys dream!

Luke has really enjoyed having a backyard to play in.  It makes me really want to move into a house.  He's entertained for hours and hours out here.

 Helping Daddy work on the spa.

Drawing helicops with Uncle Cory.

His first popsicle.  He wasn't too sure about it.  

Playing stickers with Grandpa, and "driving" Grandpa's non-working porsche.

We took a few trips to the mall, and this fountain was definitely the highlight.  He ended up soaked, but he had so much fun.

And of course, relaxing with his iPad like the lucky little man that he is.

Making Valentine's

This year I decided it would be fun for us to send out Valentine's from Luke.  I've never really made cards before, but a friend of mine makes some lovely ones ( Alisha from Creations by Alisha Rose) so I thought we would try it and see how it went.  I found this little kit of Valentine type papers and stickers on Steals.com, and a trip to Michael's allowed us to get the rest of the goodies for the cards.

 He enjoyed playing with the glue sticks and coloring on the cards, but that was about all the attention span he had for this craft.  That's ok though, he can't love everything.  So the cards were mostly made by me, but it was so much fun to make them pretty!

Luke decided to take a break to fly Buzz Lightyear around and climb on Mommy.  Excuse my fresh out of bed look, we did this at like 6am one day.

He did color the back of each card and pick out a special Toy Story sticker for everyone though.

Here is the final result!