My boys

I have 4 boys in my life now. Wahoooooo! Love them to pieces. I thought I'd do a little newborn baby comparison of my 3 little boys to see their baby pictures side by side.

Joshua Monroe
born 7/21/2007
8 lbs. 8 oz.


Nathan Fred
born 8/7/2009
6 lbs. 0 oz.


Michael Reid
born 11/21/2011
7 lbs 6 oz


So far the boys are loving baby Michael and are so sweet with him. And after a short stay in the NICU, we are super glad to be all home as a family!

weddings, birthdays, babies and missions

That sure sounds like a lot to hear about in one post, huh! I will try not to bore you. We have been adventuring for over a month now and I thought I had better post something. I flew with my mom and the boys to Washington DC in July for my sisters wedding. Stephanie and Josh had a lovely wedding in a little garden behind a church. Josh's dad is a minister and performed the ceremony. It was just perfect. We love Josh and are so happy to have a new member of our family. In our little family we refer to him as "the big Josh". He taught our Josh how to do some skateboarding while we were out there and that was pretty cool. I haven't gotten copies of pictures yet, so I will have to post one of the happy couple later.

We also got to spend a little time downtown as a family. This is Justin and the boys trying to push over the Washington monument. Josh was super fascinated by the monument and it was the only request that he to do while we were there. He wanted to go close to it. I am sure glad their muscles weren't QUITE strong enough to knock it down!


Joshua also turned 4 while we were in DC! I know I should be posting a picture of the birthday boys, but I don't want to bore with pictures and I am quite proud of my cake-copying skills this year. My mom helped me recreating both of the kids birthday cakes. The ideas came from the Disney Family Fun magazine-my new favorite! Joshua saw this pirate map one and he HAD to have it. It was pretty adorable. The one thing he kept telling me for the weeks leading up to his birthday was, "but Mom, the volcano on my cake is just a pretend one, right? Because if hot lava comes out then we will have to run." We just kept it to a chocolate volcano.


We got back from DC and headed staight up to Snowbird for a few days with Justin's family. At the end of the week, my parents took the boys for the weekend while Justin and I finished the late celebration of our 5 year anniversary. We stayed in the bed and breakfast we stayed in when we first got married. It was an awesome relaxing weekend!

Nathan's birthday was on August 7th. He wanted a fish cake. He told me that for weeks before his birthday. Actually, it started out as just "a big cake", but fish became the theme before too long.


Since Nathan's birthday we have mostly been in Provo where Justin is doing some research with the Wheatley Institution in exchange for the payment of his trip to Poland in June. We are having a blast hanging out with family. Emily, Bryan, Penny, and Isla came up from San Diego for the week before Justin's brother Zach went into the MTC. Baby Isla is one of our new fascinations. Nathan loves her. She, on the other hand seemed fascinated by Justin. (I am too!)


Here we are with Zach right before he went into the MTC. He's going to Paraguay. We have loved talking about missionaries and missions. Josh even asked me out of the blue the other day, "Mom, where am I going to go on my mission?" Super cute.



Oh yeah, and I also posted this picture so you could all see my growing belly. I feel like I am 8 months pregnant instead of 6, but oh well. We have gotten lots of peeks at the little guy, the most recent being yesterday. Joshua and Nathan got to see him on the ultrasound for the first time and thought it was pretty neat. My due date is December 7th, but the ultrasound yesterday said I was measuring a week early, so we'll see. We are sure excited for our new little addition, whenever he shows!

Yosemite

We went up last weekend to visit our dear friend Cristina in Modesto, CA. While there, we went for a day to Yosemite. We saw some pretty great water falls. Nathan loved them and kept saying "see a big water fall!" over and over again. Though Josh was somewhat fascinated with them, I think he was a little worried he would fall in or something, because he didn't really want to get very close.






The 2nd day we were up there, we went to Point Lobos State Reserve near Monterey. It was also beautiful. I think we spent an hour just throwing rocks into the tide pools. Will someone remind me why we even buy toys? Seriously. We had so much fun and can't wait to visit again!




I had to add this last picture of Nathan because he was so proud of himself. He was trying to be like Cristina, who was holding the water bottle in the pocket of her pants. His pocket wasn't big enough for the water bottle, so we made his shirt a "pocket". He's so cute.

Sharky and Bones

Josh's new favorite show is "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" on Disney Junior. Nathan rather likes it too. When I found out that Sharky and Bones were doing a free concert in LA at Union Station, we decided to take the kids to see it. There was even a special appearance from Jake! We had a blast and now every time we hear Sharky and Bones singing on TV, Josh says, "we saw them!" And I have lots of pirate songs going through my head aaaall the time...





P.S. How have I not posted since February? Ai yi yi.

700 square feet of luxury

(Side note: This is mostly for my husband because he gets automatic updates in his email when I write a new post...I don't know that anyone else does. I don't know that very many people actually read this either, but I don't care! Love you babe.)

So our house is less than 700 square feet. We have toyed with the idea of renting elsewhere at times, but we cannot beat the price of University housing. There are a few things that I wish I could change, though.

1. A garbage disposal. I want one. I hate digging out the gross things that are not supposed to go down the drain. It's gross. Ew. Ew. Ew.

2. A counter. The only counter I really have is on top of my dryer. We actually have a big mov-able slab of wood on top of it, though, which actually makes it like a counter sort of. It has to be able to move because otherwise I wouldn't be able to empty the lint trap. Too bad that I have to empty the piles of things that are on TOP of the counter every time I need to discard the lint...

3. Carpet/Paint, anything to make it a little less...plain. Tile floors, white-washed walls...it's just boring sometimes. Some day I am going to have every room in my house a different color, just because I can. And I am going to make my mom help me. (Don't worry, I doubt she'll ever read this)

4. Speaking of the floors, I wish that every time I stepped on that squishy spot in front of the kitchen sink, I didn't think about all of the horrible things that must be going on under all of the layers of floor to make it that squishy. And the walls. They just paint a new layer every time someone moves in. I just try not to think about what got stuck in between every layer of paint...

5. I know most of my neighbors would put this as one of their first ones-a dishwasher. I honestly don't mind too much the whole no-dishwasher thing. Justin makes a pretty good one. hehe. No, but really. I mostly just wish I had two more sinks so the dishes had somewhere to pile up.

I probably could sit here for hours, but I won't. (And don't judge me if I have spelling mistakes and bad grammar. I am just trying to finish quickly before Justin gets home from class.) The cheesy point of my post is that even though there are things I would change about my physical surroundings if I had the chance-it's kind of fun and cozy and crazy doing it all with my sweet husband and two little guys. The neighborhood couldn't be better, and Justin makes it all seem like we're living in luxury. He treats me like a queen and Josh and Nathan are our little princes. And that is better than any counter or dishwasher ever could be.

New Hobby

Here is what I have been doing with a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Most of this was done over Christmas break. Currently I am working on an afghan for my dear Mother. I LOVE love crocheting! (Thanks Em, I owe you big time)

This one is for baby Annie who has yet to make her arrival...


This was for baby Gray who I wish I could see more often!