Happy Father's Day!

Both Mother's Day and Father's Day have been a little hectic for us this year. Tommy graduated on Mother's Day, and we have no furniture or food in the house on this Father's Day. Luckily, we both still feel loved and appreciated, even if the official celebrations of these two days has been pretty non-existent. But oh man, oh man, Dane and I are sure lucky to have such a wonderful daddy and husband as Tommy in our lives.

I have no words except: He is the best. And we love him.

We also love our two wonderful dads, and my two amazing grandpas. I sometimes can't believe how lucky we are to have such supportive and loving family on all sides for us. We love you all!

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers in my life!

Last two weeks in Durham

We got back from our trip out west with two weeks until we move out. So these two weeks have been all about packing, moving, and saying good-bye to people (sob). 

We had these awesome plans to go to the beach for an overnight trip with Tommy's cousin Devin and Cathy and kids, but a terrible weather forecast made us second-guess it--and then, of course, the weather turned out to be fine. But we ended up going to the Marbles Kids' Museum in Raleigh one of the days instead, and we had a blast. Dane has been talking about Emmy and Kylie ever since--seriously, every day, he talks about Emmy. It is heart-breaking to me since they have now MOVED to Virginia and we are moving to Texas and by the time they see each other again he will have completely forgotten all of them. So sad. But we have pictures to prove that they were friends and hopefully that will be enough!

Some pictures from Marbles:

Making a pepperoni pizza.

Tommy and Devin probably had more fun at Marbles than the kids did. They spent maybe half an hour building this big fort out of the giant legos, while the kids "helped"/puttered around them. The dads were so into it. 

All four kids were dressing up and doing a "play" for us. This was absolutely the best picture I could get of Dane and Preston together. They are impossible to photograph. 

And then Dane wore this chicken costume for about 10 minutes walking around the play area. It was hilarious and oh so cute. 

Love seeing these boys on their dads' shoulders. 

We then had Devin and Cathy over to dinner one night afterwards to help us use up some of our food, and to feed them since they had everything packed. Tommy helped them move on Wednesday, and they are now up in Virginia! Our lives have overlapped with the Busbys' so much over the last five years. We bought their contract at their apartment in Provo and lived there for our first year of marriage, then lived in Durham together, then Santa Monica the same summer, then back in Durham. But now we are going to be a few states apart and the era of us always living in the same place has ended... but we know that we'll eventually randomly end up in the same place again. It's only a matter of time! So we're not acting too sad. 

I also hung out with my friend Kyra and her son Milo one more time. Dane and Milo had fun at the park but it was HOT outside! It was so cute to see them riding in the wagon together and talking to each other about the cars that we passed. 

We also had some friends throw a really nice farewell party for us and our friends the Morrises, who were moving last week as well. It was awesome--we just hung out at the pool for the afternoon and ate hot dogs. Exactly as chill and relaxed as I love for parties for myself. We had a great time and it felt like a perfect evening. I am so grateful for our wonderful friends here--thank you so much to the Towers and Dibbs and Merrills for planning it!

Today was our last day of going to church at our ward here in Durham. True to form, Tommy taught YM for his last day and I was subbing in nursery with Dane. So we were working in our old callings until the bitter end, haha! I was almost tearing up as we left today. We have been so blessed by being able to meet all of the wonderful people in the Durham 4th ward and being served by them. We have just LOVED our ward here and are hoping beyond hope that we will be so lucky to fall into another good one in Texas.

Tommy with two of his young men he worked with this last year: Samuel and Rene. 

We have been able to drive our friend Bennie to church for the last two years. He is the best--always happy and always ready to go to church. We are definitely going to miss him. 

We've also hung out with some other people that we haven't remembered to take pictures of (dang it!), and we still have a few more days and a few more good-byes that will be said over the next week, but we are really getting ready to go. Although we're sad to be leaving, I am ready to get this move OVER WITH! Texas or bust!

a gift

We were driving in the car today and I was just struck by how lucky I am and what a gift the last few years have been for me, to be able to spend (almost) two years with my boy, just the two of us. When else in my life will I be able to do such a thing, with so little else to bother us or affect our schedule? All we do all day is whatever will make Dane (and therefore me) happy. What more could anyone ask for?

It's a great life. I am grateful.

Dane update

This might be the most obvious statement of the century, but: I have noticed that parenting goes in waves, waves where you're up on the high peak of loving every second and your child is the most amazing creature to have every existed, and then waves when you're down in the depths of terrible naptimes and incessant crying for who-knows-what reason and you're having a really hard time of it. 

We have been on one of those high peaks lately, and it is lovely. Dane has been an absolute angel. Our nonstop, five-hour flight from LAX to RDU was probably one of the easiest flights we've ever had with him (what a present to give us) and he has been the happiest boy ever since we got back, just playing contentedly with his cars and trucks and giving hugs and kisses to us 25,000 times a day. Ever since we got back from Mexico, he's been coming up to us and wanting to hug both of us at the same time, just wrapping his arms around both of our necks and holding us there together close to him. We are happy to oblige for as long as he wants us to. 

He has had a language explosion over the last few weeks. He's starting to talk with sentences! Seriously! He said, "That's silly!" today during lunch (when I was telling him not to throw his food on the floor...) and last night pointed to a car and said, "That car Daddy's car" (although it wasn't). He is learning his colors and knows yellow, blue, pink, and green pretty reliably, and is always asking for his "pink ball" or "blue ball." We came back from our trip and he was saying "Eagle! Eagle!" over and over again after going to the zoo with my mom. I can ask him if he wants something and he'll tell me yes or no, he'll ask for the food that he does want, and he understands if I say it's all gone or we're all done. (Speaking of which, he's also started saying "All donnnnne" and "All gonnnnne" with the N sound instead of just "Ada" and "Aga" like he was before. So cute.) I'm pretty sure all these new words and communication has helped his happiness level too. It is so fun to actually be having real conversations with him.

He has LOTS of opinions and he bosses us around like nobody's business. He's started dictating which sippy cup he wants to drink from: "No, THAT wawa!" Yesterday he saw my hat and yelled till I gave it to him and put it on him, and then he said, "Picture!" And made me go get the camera and take his picture:

And then he did the same thing with these sunglasses. He made me take his picture and was telling me how he was "cool" wearing the sunglasses (Tommy taught him that one). 

He likes hiding in random places, including the guitar case.

He is SOOOOO into hugs and kisses lately. You can see him giving the dinosaur a kiss here. He offers kisses to everyone and everything he sees, without being prompted. He kissed our neighbor Caleb yesterday, without Caleb even looking. He blows kisses to the balloons and the pool and the grass and the random dog he sees down the street. He really is a sweet, tender boy.

And, he loves talking to EVERYONE. He is a social, social boy. He'll see someone down the street and yell "HI! HI! HI!" whether or not they respond. Same as kisses--he'll say hi to all inanimate objects he encounters in addition to the people and animals he sees. He saw this turtle statue at the zoo and bent down to talk to it and said, "Hi, Turtle." (although for some reason the turtle didn't respond). 

He loves little stuffed animals and makes friends with them. He adopted this dog he called "little dog" while he was in Irvine, from Bethany's closet. (He's learned the words "BIG" and "little" and it is soooo cute to hear him say them.)

He is super silly and cheesy too, when he wants to be.

He just gets more and more and more fun every week, it seems like. When he was born, I could only really envision having a BABY, and thought about how much I love the three month stage, and the six month stage, and the nine month stage. And I really, really did love those stages. But oh, this toddler age is such a blast! He is so hilarious and cute and I can tell it's only going to be getting better as he learns to talk more and more. We can't get enough of this kid.

Irvine

So while we were in Cabo, Dane had a blast hanging out with Papa and Rara (his attempts at saying Grandpa and Grandma) and Buhbuh and Cole. We loved getting pictures of him every day of what he'd done that day. He 

Before we left, we all went to the OC Regional Zoo at the Irvine Regional Park. It is absolutely tiny, which meant it was the perfect size for Dane. We'd been talking about taking Dane to the San Diego Zoo, but when we saw the prices we thought we'd wait until he was a little older and would actually care more. So the OC Regional Zoo (cost: $2) was perfect for us. Dane loved it! He saw owls, eagles, mountain lions, snakes, sheep and goats . . . what more could he ask for?

In front of the mountain lion pen. Dane couldn't stop looking at them!

He was terrified of the goats. They kept making loud noises and he was really freaked out. We had to keep him far away.

He decided he would pet the baby goats, if Mama was holding him.

And then we went on the little train at the park! (Dane has been so spoiled getting to go on trains all over the place, haha!)

Dane and Papa and Cole.

Dane learned about happy, sad, and mad faces while we were there . . . although maybe not very well. This is what he thought mad faces looked like.

Grandma!

So spoiled staying with Grandma and Grandpa!

One day, Grandma took him to yet ANOTHER zoo in Santa Ana. And there was a merry-go-round there! We got this picture after we landed at LAX and we couldn't stop looking at it the whole way home, he was just so dang cute.

The whole time he was at Grandma and Grandpa's house, their whole schedule just revolved around taking him to the park and swimming and on walks and doing things he wanted to do. Such a lucky boy.

Grandpa and Cole took him swimming several times too.

He is one water-loving baby!

 It wasn't all fun and games. Whoops.

 Oh, he was so happy to see us when we got back from our trip! It was soooooo cute to have him back with us. He kept wanting to hold us both really close, like this group hug. He was really clingy for the next few days, but he's already adjusted back to normal. I don't think we'll be able to do this again for a while!