seattle part II

the last day of our trip was another early morning, we express checked our bags to the airport, but then had to exit the boat super early. all in all it was a great plan since we could hang around seattle without our baggage! we went back to downtown for breakfast and shopped around. i had to go back to this little place called chocolate box, it was pure heaven!! i was absolutely in love!! i only tried the cookies (a chocolate chunk the first time around and a chocolate truffle the second) and i seriously can't get them off my mind!!

we wanted to do something in the afternoon, so we hopped into the original, first ever starbucks

to see if the seahawks had a preseason game (they did... in denver) or if the mariners had a game (they did... during our flight home) and finally checked to see if the sounders had a game, they did and it was at home!! we went over to the field at game time only to find out only one ticket booth window (for the whole stadium) was selling tickets. the line was long and i swear we never moved! some guy walked up to us and asked if we were going to buy tickets, we said yes and he said "my friends didn't show so here's two free ones, i think they're pretty good, so today's your lucky day!" we were soo excited!! we walked in and here were our seats:

yup, that would be the second row from the field, corner flag! the same corner that the teams run in and out of for the beginning, halftime and end of game! we were soo completely blown away! the game, a complete blow out, was awesome!! this was totally the perfect afternoon!

after the game we left for the airport more that blown away at the awesome week and half we had just spent!! i LOVED seattle and LOVED alaska! i know i sound so repetitive when i say how beautiful washington, alaska and british columbia are, but i seriously felt in awe of the majestic beauty we got to see and experience! do i recommend this trip? i can't say yes fast enough!!

first day of school

brody started preschool this week!

he's now got a week of school under his belt and is asking for more, thank goodness the boy LOVES school!

finally four!

so brody has finally turned four!! i'm so excited! i feel like people are always doubting me when i'd say he's 3, but hello, obviously i know how old my own kid is. and now i can finally say 4, no one's asked his age in the past week, bummer. brody's an awesome kid, he's so full or energy and has been since day one! he's like this ball of energy and activity that's bouncing off anything and everyone. he loves hanging out with adults, jumping off things, swimming, his brothers and all things sweet. did i mention he likes letters, numbers and digital clocks? probably not, that kind of falls in to his "obsessed with" column. he's been so entertaining to watch grow, not to mention he's SO funny, what he says and the way he says it, just makes us laugh! plus he has a following, yup, crew is determined to be just like brody- it's almost a little scary. so cue the brody pics cause we love our biggest little guy!

3 months old

1 yr old, first day at the beach

2nd birthday

first kind-of big kid bike

3 yrs old

couple months ago

photos from the party:

planets cookies cake

yup, we love this guy!

um, there's a game going on

we were looking for a spot to start brody in for summer, and once we realized that soccer was held inside an air-conditioned building, we jumped to sign him up. i want to preface this post by saying i absolutely LOVE brody! he's hilarious, energetic and a little smarty pants to boot. however, he's one of the most easily distracted kids i know, and that's just brody being brody. well its no different on the soccer field, there's a lot of distractions: walls to run into, scoreboards that count down, a coach to chat it up with, not to mention all the grass to run around on. it's entertaining, and he's three so i'm not to concerned about it, but it does make for great video!

at least he's not one of the two girls that run around the field holding hands... that'd be awkward.

seven years

2004 doesn't really seem that long ago, but seven years have passed since justin and i tied the knot and sometimes i'm amazed how much has happened in 7 short years! open the time capsule, here we go:

we lived in provo for our first two years, finishing up at BYU. justin studied biology, worked at the mtc and translated for conference. i studied human development and worked as a ta.

finally graduation!

moved back to cali, and i started teaching preschool

justin's white coat ceremony at USC for the start of dental school

a year into dental school brody made his arrival!

and less than two years after that the twins debuted.

justin graduates from dental school!

we packed up and moved to texas!

we recently bought our first house and love it!

sometimes justin and i joke that school being over/kids/owning a house all seemed to happen in a blink of an eye, seriously, time can fly by! i'm so grateful i've got justin to share this ride with, he's the best dad for these boys and the best husband for me, i love him! happy 7th my sweet!

naughty and nice

my boys are crazy work, but like every mom they have the moments that make me feel so lucky to be the mom of these three little guys, they can be so sweet! a lot of people know that the twins went through a pretty long biting stage, apparently it's common for twins and stressful for moms. the biting has FINALLY subsided and now crew and kade feel the need to always sleep near each other, it's so cute. they's take all the pillows and blankets off their beds, pile them together and have a little overnight right next to each other, case in point:

now if you're observant or care about equality among children, you'll notice one boy (crew) has all four blankets and the other is bare (kade). that's just typical crew/kade behavior, i can't even begin to describe it.

another pic, crew loves to snuggle lately (it was a short lived phase) and since i was making dinner he opted to snuggle with brody, who graciously let him. crew was so excited.

a popular spot to eat in our dining area is on the window sill, i don't get it, but the boys love it! occasionally they'll all squeeze in and eat together. no fighting, pushing, or yelling- i love it!

again, the observant among you will notice the title is naughty and nice, so where's the naughty? i mentioned that the nice comes in little moments, that's because the majority of our day is things like this:

swim lessons 2.0

last year brody took swim lessons and it was a total bust. needless to say i was really hoping he might take to lessons a bit better this year- and seriously i was shocked! he totally loves it! every morning is a count down to swimming day! it's so fun to watch him learn something he's so excited about! here's some action shots:

under water swimming? no prob!

so excited to be there, i love it!

no hesitation to jump off and swim on his own (ok, that's kind of a pro and a con.)

proud of his work!

as a side story- at the end of each class the teacher has the students show what they worked on that day and tells the parent what they learned/need to work on. the first couple of weeks she kept mentioning things for brody like: "easily distracted," or "needs to focus a little more" and "gets excited and looses focus." as his mom i thought it was hilarious, i kept thinking distracted? loss of focus? oh yes, you must have met brody! so funny! she's since realized that's just how brody rolls and now she works with it, it's great. she a really good teacher and i'm so glad brody's loving his swim days! there's no stopping this little fish!