Our Happenings

Well, our trips are over, our visitors are gone and we are back to everyday life. I love having company and visiting with people so it was sad to have it all come to an end. It was, on the other hand, really nice to wake up the next morning after coming home and knowing that we would be back on our schedule, nap times, and Jake would have his toys to play with. That all makes it nice to be home and have a schedule again. So here's what's up around here as of late:

Kind of random, but I felt so cute on Sunday so we took a picture. My new dress, earrings, new haircut, it's always fun to feel good!

There's nothing better than gettin' all cozy in nice warm sheets

Cooper is always searching for his feet so he can suck on his toe

This is him all day long, all smiles!

Jake ALWAYS goes out when Wesley mows the lawn. My mom and dad got him his own little bubble lawn mower for his birthday and he just loves it. He's getting used to the big lawn mower but at times prefers to watch from a distance... here's how I found him, on the porch in a chair with a snack and a drink in hand to support daddy.

At the Nature and Science Museum - he was less than thrilled about taking a picture

Such fun boys

Daddy reading the scriptures to the boys

After family night on Monday, we made No Bake Cookies. Jake loves to help me cook, he helps me with dinner nearly everyday. He's such a great helper!

Cooper is rolling over now. He started to while at Flaming Gorge. A week before he turned 4 months. He rolls over all the time now, constantly!- he hates being on his tummy for more than a minute, so we are constantly moving him back over, it's so fun to see them do new things!

Oh my sweet Cooper. He was laying on the floor the other night playing with his toy and he fell asleep on his side holding his toy. It was so precious!

My mother-in-law gives us a membership to the zoo every year for Jacob's birthday and it's one of our favorite places to go!

Tell me how real this elephant looks! It's just a cut out of an elephant but when you take the picture, I think it looks so real!

Flaming Gorge

We went to Flaming Gorge on Wesley's parents boat while in Utah. It had been a couple of years since we'd been there and was as fun as I remembered. I'll be honest that I was completely stressed and nervous bringing our boys on the boat 3 days in a row but they did just fine and were great on the boat. They both loved it.

We fished, skied, played in the water, relaxed and had a great time! The family is getting so big that we all have to take turns so Dave and Marilee go about 3-4 times every summer with each family. And Marilee has it down to a T! She has everything organized so perfectly, menus, snacks, drinks, you name it. She's a great hostess! It was such a fun trip! We had a great time with Dave and Marilee!

Here's Wes with one of the fish he caught - we just catch and release.

Flaming Gorge has the best views, it's just gorgeous scenery!

Wes, Jake and I playing in the water. Yeah, I picked the picture that was blocking my face on purpose...

"Going Fast" with daddy

Cooper driving with Grandpa

This picture doesn't really show how high this cliff was. It looked a lot higher than the picture shows, and yes, Wesley did this one solo. Too high for me!

My hot hubby and myself

Jake loved to drive the boat with grandpa

This is where COoper was most of the time. Just in between the driver and passenger laying down. He loved it. This was also where he rolled over for the first time, and of course, Wesley and I missed it. It was bound to happen since we missed Jake's first steps too. But Cooper is rolling over like crazy now!

Wes is a great skier. He is great at slalom, I just learned to ski a couple years back and I can do 2 skis, but I thought I'd try slalom this year... yeah, I never got up. I finallly got to the point where I had the right form, I just had to hold on longer (don't ask me how you are supposed to do that). It was so hard! All of you that can slalom are amazing - I don't know how you are able to hold on that long to get up! Maybe next year I'll try again. Here's Wes wakeboarding

Jake's favorite time, aside from riding the tube with Wes was when we stopped the boat and floated in the shade along the canyon wall. He'd take turns hanging out in the tube splashing and jumping. Here he is with Grandma enjoying the shade

On the tube with daddy - we didn't think he'd take to it so well, but he loved it and didn't want to get off

All tuckered out

Our family

Vick 40th Anniversary Party

We decided to drive to Utah this time - now that we need to pay for Jake to fly, driving seems a lot more practical. We were nervous because Cooper seems to HATE cars, he usually cries and cries. We were very lucky because our boys were wonderful travelers! Jake was equipped with his very own dvd player and ear phones, which he enjoyed to no end. Here he is watching his movie while eating a breakfast burrito - rough life, I know!

Feeding break - it worked well that Cooper would need to nurse every 3-4 hours allowing Wes to let Jake get some breaks from the car. Cooper enjoyed it as much as Jake.

So after our first stop, I was still feeding Cooper so Wes put Jake in his car seat. Then we changed diapers and got everyone in the car and proceeded to the highway. Just as we were getting on the on ramp, Jake says "BUCKLE, BUCKLE". We look back and noticed that we'd failed to actually buckle him in amidst the other things going on at the gas station. How grateful we are for a boy that actually enjoys and demands to be buckled all the time! Here's Wes buckling him in.

We got to Utah and went to my parent's house first just for the night b/c we had a Massachusetts reunion we wanted to attend with my family that night and b/c Jeremy was throwing a birthday party for his wife, Brooke. The next morning I looked at my mom and sister and we noticed we were all matching with our black and white, which called for a picture.

The kids are all so sweet, they always wanted to be near Cooper and make him smile and just watch him. Here is Dallen and Brenden watching over Cooper so much so that they both sat rubbing his head and fell asleep - what sweet boys!

Jen and Gabriella holding Cooper

Our favorite friend of the family - Leslie

My bro - Jer

My pregnant sister Felecia

Spencer was so sweet, he held and fed Cooper for me - wish I could have him around all the time! He's such a great helper!

My favorite picture of Cooper to date! He fell asleep on his daddy's arm, it was the cutest thing!

Grandma Lola was able to come with her husband Clair. There was a bit of a scare b/c Clair went to the dr. and they found he had pneumonia but he's doing fine now, thankfully. It was great that they were able to come.

The main purpose of this visit was for my parents big party, or I should say FIESTA to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary and their 60th birthdays. My mom had it catered with yummy Mexican food and she wanted dancing and entertainment which us kids surprised them with. Shad put together this great program of fun songs. The picture below is of Shad & Jen and Brooke & Jeremy dressed up as Mom and Dad in different parts of their marriage. They both lip sang to a couple of songs - it was hilarious. My dad has always sung the song about my mom since she's Mexican and it has a line that goes "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl". Shad and Jen danced and sang to this one.

Jeremy and Brooke sang and danced to the song - "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow" b/c my dad has always when writing in cards to my mom, he'll put the initials to that line in there for my mom : ILYMTTYBNAMAT . The grandkids came out with signs of each of the letters to that line.

My mom wanted to guys to sing "You've lost that lovin' feeling" and the girls to sing "Dancing Queen", which were both part of the program. THen the grandkids sang "A bicycle Built for Two" and "Families can be together forever".

Amanda & Scott put together a 20 minute slideshow of mom and dad through the years. We all found nearly every picture we had of mom and dad and sent/scanned them to Amanda. It was so cute. Brooke put together a photo book for mom and dad and we gave them a porch swing.

Lea and Sam made a cake of the Oakland Temple since that was the one they were sealed in. We all had a blast at their party!

The cake

Mom & Lea Visit

Mom and Lea were able to come visit on their way to my mom's house in Utah from Lea's house in St. Louis. They stayed for 6 days, I can't tell you how happy I was that they were here! We went to a baseball game (Rockes vs. Giants), very fitting to be playing San Francisco that night! We all had so much fun, and it was heaven for Jake to have 3 playmates all week long!

Early morning cartoons

Jake was going to watch a movie and Taylor joined him, too cute
Mom with the 2 kids

We had a dance party - it took the older kids longer to warm up but if you see these two below, Jake and Taylor, they didn't hold back. It was hilarious!

We made our own pizzas one night for dinner and the kids really enjoyed helping

We went to the Nature & Science Museum to this new exhibit called Expedition Health. It has some really neat things in there, you can see yourself and what you'd look like at the age of 70, it checks your wing span, stride, and all sorts of things. We all loved it.

Here's what Lea Mason and Lea would like at the age of 70. The one on the left is them at 70 and the one on the right is for Lea, adding obesity and for Mason, adding UV damage. It was too funny!

My sweet Cooper is getting so big! This is such a cute outfit my mom got him and it even has a cute golfers hat that's too big, but I wish it fit him to complete the whole outfit.

At the Rockies Game

Sam had work in Boulder so he was able to come and stay for a few days. We weren't sure what we wanted for dinner on Saturday

night. We ended up getting wedge salads from Carino's, the best wedge salad! And we got buffalo wings with Henry

Weinhart's rootbeer, our favorite! And the kids had pizza. Quite the combination but it was oh sooo good! This is

Wesley and Sam trying the nuclear wings - super hot! THe rest of us stuck to the mild. That evening we played 'Battle of the Sexes' - guys against girls. It was hilarious - we got the good old gut laughs from it, we were cracking up.

We let the kids play with water balloons. We got an apple out for Mason to bob for. It was funny - he did it though!

Cooper's usual way he lays on the floor - on his side.

We had tri-tip for dinner, I'd say it's my favorite thing Wesley grills, it tastes sooo good! Here are the kids

enjoying the food

I'm only posting this picture of the cookies because I was so proud. Most people that know me know that I'm not one to brag about my baking. I hate to bake; I never bake. My idea of dessert is buying a box of ice cream bars at the store. But my mom wanted cookies so I delivered. This was her recipe and every time I've ever made this recipe, they've turned out awful! Don't ask me why, they've always had this weird taste to them, every single time. But I'm gonna toot my own horn and tell you that these cookies were AMAZING - well, maybe not amazing but they were really good. I felt so proud that my dessert actually turned out! Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies. And we watched "Hello Dolly" while eating them - one of my favorites!

Lita and Cooper

Jake and Taylor quickly became best friends. They were doing everything together. I wish I'd gotten this on video but they wer

Side note: I don't go to garage sales very often, almost never. I never see the gems like other people do. But my goodness, the best people to go garage sale-ing with is my mom and sister, Lea. I have not clue how many stops we made, but they knew what they were doing and came out with some great stuff.

Another note: When it comes to bargaining, it's one of my favorite things, I learned it really well in Madagascar. But I realized that I can only bargain with people that do it on a regular basis, like for a living. When I went to New York, I didn't hesitate bargaining for things when we went shopping. But for garage sales, it's not easy for me since the people doing the garage sales aren't doing it regularly. Ok - so that doesn't stop my sister, Lea. I swear, at each place, I couldn't believe her bargaining! She was so good

at it that I thought the people would pay her to take their stuff - she was amazing!

Example:

I saw something I wanted so I went to the lady and asked how much.

Lady: 75 cents

Me: (Looking through my wallet for exact change)

Lea(whispering to me) Don't pay 75 cents for that

Me: Uh, ok, help me

Lea (to the lady) Here's a quater

Lady: I said 75 cents

Lea: Okay here's another dime with that quarter

Lady (Laughing) okay fine

You had to be there but it was hilarious how these types of things went on that morning. Too funny!

So when there was something I wanted, I'd tell Lea and she'd take care of it for me. It was the most fun, I wish I could go to more garage sales with these 2.

It was a great visit, went by way too fast and I wish they hadn't left. Now I just can't wait for the next set of visitors... any takers?