3 years old

Wow! The time has flown by, and our little Jack is 3 years old. It seems crazy that he was just 6 weeks when we started our trek across the country to move to Cleveland. He has grown into a little boy and I am so happy to have him in our family. He definitely makes things more interesting and keeps us on our toes. :)

He has a strong personality but also has a great big heart. He loves to be with his "flamily" (as he calls it) and when he is in the mood, makes for a very good snuggle partner. He is a great big brother and is always willing to help me with Anderson. He is always telling Anderson that he loves him and talking about how cute his brother is. He is very friendly and will talk and make friends with ANYONE at the park, or swimming pool, or wherever we go. He loves to sing and will sing songs or make up one, while he is going throughout his day. Wolfy is still the favorite. I hope he is the favorite for a long time.

He is still a great eater and will eat things if we tell him it will make him strong like Batman, and then proceeds to show off his "HUGE" muscles! He loves to come in our bed in the morning and play "I spy" out the window. We have been going to the pool this summer and this is the first year that he has LOVED the water. He has been so brave and is even enjoying the deep pool. Last year, we would leave the pool and his hair would still be dry. He still loves movies and his favorites right now are Toy Story 1 & 2, Up, and Mickey's Christmas. (Yes, we watch Christmas movies year round...and I secretly like it). He loves to play sports and his favorites are soccer and baseball. He will be playing soccer in the fall for the first time.

He loves to play pretend, catch toy bugs, play with cars, but would prefer to play outside all day. (If only we had a yard for him to play in!!) He does not like to be without clothes (which is good!), does not like it when we ask him to go to the bathroom, and does not like to be dirty. He is getting so big and we LOVE to see his personality continue to come out.

Here are some of our favorite quotes from him lately:

"So....what did you guys do today?"

(He says this almost every day, and mostly at the dinner table).

"Look it Mom....Daddy is nuts!"

(Not sure where he learned that.)

"Happy Father's Day! When I love you, Happy Father's Day, when I give you a kiss, I love you!"

(This is what he told us that he "wrote" in Justin's Father's Day card.)

"Oh."

(Whenever we explain anything to him, this is his response.)

"Ugghh.....what is your deal!?"

(He was frustrated with Justin. He is totally quoting him. This is something he would say to Jack when he is being a stinker.)

"Say...Jack Heaton!"

(He will say this to Anderson regularly.)

"Be careful with that toy Mom/Dad. It's really expensive."

(We don't own anything that's expensive.)

"Are you all done being a dentist? Are you all done with your test? Did you fix people's teeth?"

(These are the regular questions Jack will ask Justin when he gets home from school.)

Jack is a little sassy, but we sure love him and think he is so stinking cute. That little face of his just makes me melt.

Happy Birthday Jack!!

We love you

Pictures taken by the one and only Angie Penrose. :)

Jack's Birthday Party

We had Jack's Birthday party while Denise was here so she could take part in the festivities. He was SO excited for his party and has been telling us for months that he wanted a balloon party. So we decorated with lots of balloons and had a friend from the ward come and tie balloon animals for them.

After it was all set up, he was waiting by the window and dying for his friends to come.

The kids were good and the whole thing just made Jack's day. They had pizza and cupcakes, tried to play pin the tail on the donkey (no one wanted the blind fold on), and watched the movie Up (sticking to the balloon theme).

The cowboy hat that Jason made, was the favorite. He is very talented with these balloons!!

Anderson thought all the floating balloons were great. He randomly got a hold of this one while in his chair and would not let go of it.

Jack had been talking about his big balloon party for so long, I was hoping he would be convinced that we had enough balloons. He loved every minute of it. He is still playing with all the balloons. At least the ones that haven't popped yet.

Random Catch Up

We are so lucky that Justin is Denise's dentist because we get to see her a lot! We went out to eat at Legacy Village and played around there enjoying the beautiful weather that we've been having.

That Saturday that she was here, we drove to Erie, PA where some friends and I ran our first 10k. The trail was so beautiful!! Part of it was right along Lake Erie and the rest was through some beautiful trees. We even saw two huge turtles right on the trail.

The kids were having fun together looking for turtles and waiting for us to finish.

Me, sweating and tired right after I finished. I do not consider myself a fast runner by any means, but I think I was on a big adrenaline rush because I finished first out of all the girls at the 10k at 58 minutes. Don't ask me how I did it, but I was pretty excited. My goal was to finish in an hour without stopping. I've never ran over 5 miles so to go 6.2 made me feel good.

Everyone at the finish line!!

Kara, Alison, Me, Cathy, Paige & Lisa

After the race, we headed to the lake to play in the sand. We stayed there pretty much all day. Anderson did great and Jack would have played in the sand and water for 12 hours if we would have let him. He was not happy to leave.

He LOVED building sand castles, digging holes and playing in the water.

I'm so glad that our boys are able to see their grandparents so much even though we live so far away. Even though Denise had a short trip, we were able to squeeze in a lot of fun!!

Justin was playing with the boys and Jack says, "Look Mom! It's a big huge cheese sandwich!" There is a restaurant by our house called the Melt that has a big cheese sandwich by the sign. I think Justin had told him they were making a Jack sandwich so it must have made him think of that.

Love that face!

After Kara and Steve left on Memorial Day, we went and met up with some friends for the Memorial Day parade. It was so hot and humid, we were all melting!!

Anderson and Max, hanging out in the jogger trying to get each other.

After the parade, we headed to the Bjarnason's for a BBQ. We were eating dinner and Jack was playing in the grass and on their little slide. He said he needed to go to the bathroom and I look over and he is going pee right there in their grass and on the slide!!! I was so mad. We didn't have any extra clothes so Becky was nice enough to go down to their house, which is a couple houses down, and get some of Macy's undies and shorts to wear. I was hoping that wearing princess panties and little tiny girl shorts would be embarrassing but, he didn't seem to care much. Darn it.

The Pothier's

Over Memorial Day weekend Kara and Steve were nice enough to make the drive out here from Milwaukee. It has been years since we have seen them and we could not have been happier!! Hallie and Hunter are adorable and it made me happy to see Jack play with them so well. Don't you love Jack's hand on Hallie's leg? :)

We saw the church sites, and hit up Chagrin Falls where they were having a Memorial Day fair.

The kids were loving the carousel. Isn't it great how such simple things can make their day?

It was very warm that day so we decided to stop at Sulfer Springs to stick our feet in the water and cool off. Anderson had been asleep in the stroller and sweating so bad, Justin thought it would be good for him to get in a little so he could cool down. He LOVED it!! He loves water so much more than Jack did at that age.

I LOVE those elephant knees.

When we were in Chagrin Falls someone put this big sticker on Kara's stroller. She secretly put it on Justin's back where it stayed until Steve couldn't keep a secret anymore and told him about it. Then he put it on my back, but I found it a couple minutes later and put it back on his back where it stayed until we got home. The funniest part is the little dance he did in the parking lot mocking us and saying that we couldn't get the sticker back on him, when it was already on there. We called it the Traveling Sticker. :)

There were lots of laughs and good conversation about where we want to end up eventually and hoping that we don't end up living too far away where it's hard to visit.

The kids were great. Hallie has the best laugh ever and this was the first time we had met Hunter. Kara and I were roommates in college and it is so fun to see our little families and what direction our lives have gone.

I love Kara, and I love that Justin has just as much fun with Steve. It is hard to find friends that both the wives and the husbands get along. I think Kara and I couldn't have chosen better husbands. I remember when Kara and Steve were dating and I was definitely rooting for him. He is so great. And the same thing happened when I started dating Justin. Kara was sure I had found the right one. They are both great examples of what a husband should be.

Seeing them, and picking up right where we left off was so great. I can't believe we waited that long to see each other. Justin and I are already planning a drive out to Milwaukee. We need to take advantage while we still live withing driving distance!!

Thanks for all the great pictures Kara

Newport, Rhode Island

After we finished our time in Boston with my parents, they headed up to Maine to do a little exploring and we headed south to Newport, RI. We had never been there and we had so much fun. Apparently New Port used to be an old resort town where people with tons of money would build HUGE summer homes right along the water. In 1895 the Vanderbilt family built the "Breakers" for their summer retreat. It is 138,000 sq. ft. with 70 rooms and 20 bathrooms. It cost 11 million dollars to build in 1895 and in the 70's (I think) their descendants sold it to the Historical Society for preservation for $399,999. We were able to take a tour and it was just as amazing as I had anticipated. It looked like a palace inside. You can't take pictures inside which was a bummer. It took 40 servants to run the whole place. We would have liked to tour some of the other mansions but the boys only lasted for one.

This is the back of the mansion that faces the water.

After the tour, we drove a little ways down the road to the beach for a few hours and relaxed and built sandcastles. Jack was in heaven. He did not stop digging the whole time. The waves scared him so he wouldn't get in the water but the sand was entertaining enough. He loved it and I loved watching him have so much fun. He was so sweet the whole time we were there. The strip of land behind Jack is where most of the mansions are.

Our sweet sandcastle!! :)

The water was so pretty and really blue.

After a little nap in his car seat, Anderson was ready to play!! He LOVED moving his little feet through the sand. It was so cute to watch him move them back and forth, over and over again. Did I mention that he is really cute?

After the beach we went down the Cliff Walk which is a pathway built on the edge of the water right by all the huge mansions. So fun. It was a perfect day! The weather was gorgeous and we had so much fun with just our little family. We have never taken a little trip with just us. We are always with someone. Justin kept joking that he was nervous to book the hotel ourselves because we had never done it completely alone. We had such a great time with my parents and we topped it off with a perfect little weekend on our own.

Some more mansions along the Cliff Walk. Pretty small, huh? Ha!

What a great trip. We loved every minute of it. Justin had the whole month of May off and needed something to take his mind off of school. He is now officially in his fourth year and wishing we were still on vacation! :)