A big four-year-old boy.

We celebrated our big boy turning four on Thursday last week. This day was VERY highly anticipated--he's been thinking about it for at least a month, and making demands about his presents, and asking what was going to happen. And luckily, he seemed totally pleased with everything he got and everything we did. I am discovering that I'm not much of a birthday person. All of the different components stress me out--okay, I have to remember birthday cereal, and a cake, and presents, and wrapping paper (we ran out!), and a special birthday dinner, and decorating the dining room. It seemed like too much even with the very little that we did! I can't imagine actually doing an actual BIRTHDAY PARTY (ahhhhh)--we have been lucky so far to avoid anything official like that. This year I was teaching Joy School at our house, so we made that Dane's party. I threw in a couple of fun dances for them (Animal Action and the Freeze Song) and made cupcakes and had party hats and had them sing to Dane a couple of times. And he was totally thrilled with it all. 

He was so excited he woke up at 5:55 to go potty and never went back to sleep. We finally got up around 6:30 to start our special breakfast. 

He was so excited to get Lucky Charms. 

We got a hand-me-down box of 50 Matchbox cars and presented it to him as a new present. He was SO excited.

The car transporter truck and the cars were definitely the big hits of the morning. I am a big believer in NOT getting a ton of presents, so he really just got the truck, the cars, a quillow from my mom, some books, and the bike bell, and some presents from his great-grandparents. I think it was a good amount and he was really excited about everything.

Graham was also immediately drawn to the cars as well. Luckily there were 50 of them so it wasn't too hard for Dane to share.

Dane also got a new bike bell for his bike, and he really wanted to go on a bike ride after breakfast to try it out. Tommy said he was ringing the bell the whole way.

Then we had Joy School at our house. These are his three little friends who are doing it with him: Mille, Preston, and Ben. Such a cute little group of people.

Dane was so excited to have cupcakes with his friends. And we all sang happy birthday to him.

And then we spent the afternoon just playing with his new toys. He didn't want to go anywhere--he just wanted to play with his new truck. We had a BBQ of hamburgers and hot dogs with Kurt for dinner, and he got his requested "banilla cake with blue frosting." He wanted to do the sprinkles himself, haha. It was so cute how proud he was of his cake.

One classy-looking cake right there!

Dane got calls and texts from all of his aunts and uncles on his birthday. He is one lucky boy who is so loved. I was so relieved when I asked him at the end of the day if he was happy with his birthday, and he said yes. He is really such a good boy. 

Uncle Austin comes to Texas

This is a little out of order, but I didn't want to forget about it. We were lucky enough to get a visit from Austin on his way back from his internship in Connecticut as he flew back to Utah at the end of August. He actually got a FREE trip out here because he was interviewing for a job at Capital One! It was his first job interview and it didn't pan out, unfortunately (because we would just die to have him here). But it was still perfectly awesome to get him to come out here with us for three days. He is an uncle extraordinaire, with pretty much endless excitement about seeing Dane and Graham. We love seeing him. It's the BEST seeing him. 

Dane had all of these plans for when Austin got here. First and foremost was for him and Austin to go on a "lion hunt," which basically involved them looking for and fighting lions. They did this several times over the weekend. It was pretty funny.

We treated Austin to our last snow cones of the year.

Dane also really wanted to take Austin on a bike race around our neighborhood. He was very nice and obliged.

On Saturday we were working out at the gym while Tommy was helping out at a move. I got a call from my cousin Brittney asking if we lived near the Dr. Pepper Stadium in Dallas--which is only about five minutes away. She told us that the BYU football team had just dropped one of their boxes there--one of their promotional things they do leading up to each football season, where they leave a box filled with some free BYU football paraphernalia somewhere, post a picture of it on Instagram and Twitter, and then the first person to get to it gets to keep the stash. We were so close, and we were already wearing BYU shirts (coincidentally), so we hopped in the car and drove over there. We weren't the first, but we were early enough to get free t-shirts from the box and get in the group photo. It was a totally random, fun experience. 

GO COUGS! (Dane was there too, but he refused to get in the picture.)

We were sad to say good-bye to Austin. He's a trooper. 

Utah Trip, part 2 (and then comes the part where we never travel again)

After all the wedding festivities were over, and my mom left town, we headed up to Ogden to play with cousins for a few days. It was definitely the highlight of Dane's trip--Zach is his BEST little buddy and he loves him so much. The one sad thing was that Dane had hand foot and mouth and passed it on to Zach by the end of the week--I felt SO SO bad. Dane's case was pretty mild and Zach got it worse. But they had so much fun together it almost made it worth it (on my side, anyway, since my kid wasn't the one getting infected). 

Graham LOVES Jet. 

He is so funny--he doesn't have any fear of dogs or of most things. I love this picture--Greg showed them how to get Jet to take things right out of their mouths (which I think is gross, full disclosure, but they were so happy I couldn't stop them :). Dane is standing up, trying to do it, but keeping his mouth a good distance away from Jet's so he won't actually get too close. Graham is right next to him and TOTALLY LOVING IT when Jet gets right up in his face. He was laughing so hard and doing it again and again. Dane would NEVER have done that (and still won't). We think Graham is a little toughie--probably because he has to be with his big brother around all the time.

We spent two nice days at parks around Ogden and Layton. We wanted to go to the kids' museum there, but it was closed for three weeks for cleaning! Such a bummer when we found that out. But it worked out, because they were just so happy to play, especially on the sand at this park near Melissa's house. They spent maybe 2 hours just digging around in the sand together.

We went over to their house to roast s'mores one night. So fun.

Dane and Zach got really into the trains while we were there.

They were so funny pushing each other around in this baby stroller for a long time.

After a few days, I headed back down to Orem to spend a little more time with my grandparents and siblings. On the way, I stopped in Centerville to see my good friend Libby who moved back to Utah from North Carolina. So fun to catch up with her! They seem so happy and it's so great.

It was so fun seeing these kids playing together. They knew each other as babies but are just so much bigger now. We played in their awesome backyard for a while and then went for a short walk (before the kids went nutty).

Then we went down to my Grandma Myres' house and let Graham nap there, and played in their yard for a while. We got to help pick some more fruit off their trees. Since we don't have any fruit trees or garden here in Texas, I loved showing my kids these things.

We had a cousin dinner at Jake and Kayleen's house! They were so cute and fun to host us all. I loved seeing some of my best cousins Jake and Jolysa. The three of us are all the same age and I love them both.

Dane and Grandpa Murphy had a lot of serious talks.

We got to go see Dallin and Krystel's new place. They're in the top story of this little house. It's tiny, but very cute. I hope they love living here.

Graham and Austin looking for motorcycles together.

We went and got pupusas/Mexican food for dinner. We had to document it because Dad would be so proud!

The next day I went to my cousin Annalise's sealing in the Provo City Center Temple. It was super nice and I'm so happy that I was able to be there. Of course I didn't get any pictures though. Then after packing up our stuff, I went to lunch with a bunch of my old roommates. SO MUCH FUN. This lunch made the extra week of the trip worth it!

I lived with these girls for two years and seeing them is always the best. BYU always bringing good people together.

Our flight home was at 6:00am on Sunday morning. Yes, the FLIGHT was at 6:00am. So I woke up at 3:45, got the boys up at 4:20, and headed to the airport with my very nice in-laws. It was one of the most stressful flights I've had. Besides the fact that it was a crazy hour of the day, these other things went wrong:
-No curbside check-in
-Long wait line at the American desk where I had to check in my bags/carseats, since there wasn't a curbside check-in
-At the American desk, they told me I had to check my stroller right there and wouldn't let me take it to the gate (apparently because it's over 20 pounds), so I had to carry Graham through the whole airport and security
-Dane fell over on the escalator and I was going up and couldn't get back to him
-The Kindle DIDN'T WORK so we had no entertainment for the flight
-Graham pooped and it leaked all over my pants AND shirt when I stood up to change him
-Graham smacked my cup (completely intentional) and threw soda all over the aisle

But the amazing thing was that we were sitting next to the nicest lady EVER, who spent 20 minutes showing Dane pictures of sea creatures on her phone, who played pictionary with him while I changed Graham in the bathroom, and even held Graham when he wanted to look out the window. She was also LDS and also heading home to try and make it to her afternoon church, just like I was. I was so grateful. And even more grateful to be reunited with Tommy by baggage claim.

Every single summer, I say, "That's it. Next summer we are NOT going to be doing this any more. We are not going to be traveling like this. It's getting OUT OF CONTROL." And maybe someday I will actually stick to that. Because every summer it seems like things just get more and more demanding and we always have so many reasons to travel and visit family! We don't want to skip family reunions--those are so important to me and for my kids. We don't want to miss important gatherings like weddings. But someday we are going to have to choose, because three major trips in four months was exhausting! And next year, with another baby, it will be even worse. I am not kidding when I say that at this point, I feel like never traveling again. Of course, by "never again," I really just mean for a few months until we can build up our stamina again. But I think we are going to make this our first year of not traveling at Christmastime, and then with the baby coming in March we probably won't be going anywhere until next summer. And I am truly relieved by that thought while we are still in recovery mode and trying to get back to normal. 

Trip to Utah for Dallin's Wedding, part 1

I will be honest. I was kind of/really dreading this trip to Utah. We were in Utah for two weeks in July, and then had visitors here for two weeks of August, and then had a few weeks of getting back to our normal routine, when we had to hop back on a plane again and head BACK to Utah again. I am SUCH a big believer in traveling to visit family, but I was also in the midst of morning sickness and feeling super overwhelmed with just surviving, much less packing for and going on a trip with our two crazy kids. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had just stayed for the weekend of Dallin's wedding, but back when I bought my tickets, I thought, "Why not extend my trip a week!?" And I was regretting it ever since, just because I was so exhausted. I literally started crying at the gym a week or so before telling my friend about it and what I had to do. 

But, there is no way out but THROUGH, and guess what--we survived. It was a lot of fun and a lot of tiredness. Dane got Hand Foot and Mouth while we were there and Graham was awake for half the night for maybe four nights in a row (we figured out he was teething after the fact). But I swear I got some major blessings because I only threw up twice the whole week and a half I was there, and I didn't feel sick most of the time at all. I got to see all of our family a lot and even a bunch of friends and cousins, which usually doesn't happen because we are so busy whenever we go to Utah. Each activity we did was SO nice--it was just the in-between stuff, like taking care of the two boys and dealing with naps and Graham waking up in the middle of the night all week, that was hard.

But it was so worth it to be there for all the wedding stuff! I was so happy to be there with all my siblings and to see the beautiful reception for Dallin and Krystel. And the sealing was amazing. It was hard being there without my dad (we sure missed you, Dad!) during the sealing. But all the craziness was worth it just for that moment in the sealing room, for sure.

We gave Dane an early birthday present--his own suitcase, with Spiderman on it, no less! He was soooooooo over-the-moon excited about it and so proud to pull it through the airport by himself.

Melissa and Jackie were so nice and picked us up at the airport and gave us a car. It was a little unfair because Dane got to see Zach for about 3 minutes and then we had to go our separate ways. 

We got to Grandma Myres' house about two hours before the reception started. The backyard was absolutely beautiful. And the couple was so happy. I didn't take a single picture the whole night so all of these pictures are stolen off Facebook from other people.

I was FaceTiming with my dad so he could see the first dance and the mother-son dance, even from Peru (where he was for trainings). 

The next day was the big wedding. We had such a nice time in the sealing. (I forgot my temple recommend and had to run back to Grandma Myres' house to get it. It was a close one!) Then we came out and waited for a while for them to come out. Dane was super excited about waiting. 

My sisters, Grandma and I.

They were so triumphant when they came out!

Dane came up with this plot in his own mind, all by himself, to run out and surprise them and to tickle Krystel when they came out of the temple. It was so funny. Good thing he's their nephew,

Spent some time on family pictures.

Mom and sisters.

All the siblings (still kicking myself we didn't get a siblings shot with Tommy and Brandon in it).

After the wedding luncheon, Dane was just about done with wedding stuff. NOT a fan any more.

So Dallin and Krystel went on their honeymoon, and we spent the weekend playing around with my siblings! We convinced everyone to hike the Y with us. Dane was super excited about it, but was begging to be carried after about 100 yards. We could still see the gate at the entrance. He basically needed to be held the whole time (even though we were already carrying Graham in a backpack). A day later he threw up and broke out in a HFMD rash, so he was apparently just already getting sick and SUPER tired while we were trying to drag him up the mountain, haha. Not our best parenting moment, perhaps.

Still a pretty good family picture on the Y, even despite the trauma getting there!

We spent the afternoon/evening playing in Grandma and Grandpa Murphy's backyard. The kids were in HEAVEN picking fruit off the trees/vines and eating it. Graham and Cora both inhaled peaches straight off the tree. They were so funny just walking around the yard dripping peach juice everywhere and looking totally thrilled.

Graham discovered the grapevines and spent maybe an hour picking grapes, walking around, and eating them.

Dane helped with the watering and sprayed everyone.

Graham following Cora around, trying to get her baba away from her.

The next day we went to go see the new Provo City Center Temple together. It was Sunday so the gates were closed on the grounds, but we still got to see how beautiful it was and to tell Dane the story of how it burned down and was rebuilt.

On Monday, we took Bee to Wal-Mart for some more shopping she needed to do and then got to see her dorm room. It looked great.

And then she treated ALL of us to lunch at the CANNON CENTER!!! This was the thing I was looking forward to the MOST. It was awesome. 

After Daddy left, Graham glommed onto Austin and didn't want to let him go. He was a huge, huge fan.

We went to revisit my old dorm room from 10 YEARS AGO (Wow, I feel so old).

Dane and Graham found some scooters that they tried out in the parking lot. Graham didn't want to get off--he was super disappointed when we started walking away. So sad to be 1.