July wrap up

Well this month we have actually had one thing going after another. We started the month going to St. George, Lucas was sick for a week or more after we got home, mixed in there were Lucas and Brian's birthdays, I spent a week recovering the car seat, and then my mom came for the last week!

Lucas has become quite the little helper. He is pretty good about cleaning up after himself and he LOVES to help do laundry!

We have a "garden" aka one enormous zucchini plant. I swear from one day to the next we have a little zucchini that starts growing and then the next time I look at it, it's 16 inches long and 3 inches in diameter.

I am getting a lot more into sewing. My latest things were recovering the car seat, making a cover that attaches to it (with a peep hole), and making cute Activity Bags that I am selling if anyone is interested!

That is my super quick recap since most things were covered in other posts from this month

Mom's visit

For the six days my mom has been here visiting and it has been lots of fun! We haven't done a ton, but we have had a few outings and she has been able to help me out with Lucas a lot. Although we are sad to see her go tomorrow, it won't be long before she and my dad pop back here to see the baby!

Since it is monsoon season here in ABQ it hasn't been the best of weather for going out and about. On Tuesday it was the only clear day while she was here so I decided to take her to the zoo and of course Lucas had a blast. His obsession with peacocks (and of course feeding the fish and ducks) grows with every visit. This time he chased this poor peacock for probably 5 minutes, all over the elephant enclosure, until finally the peacock went into a roped off area and I pulled Lucas out of the roped off area and carried him away screaming.

On Thursday since the morning was supposed to be clear we took the time to go and see the Temple. It isn't as "grand" as the old Utah temples but like all temples, still was beautiful in its own way. The only real downfall in my opinion is that they don't even have a visitors center here! I had never heard of a temple without a visitors center.

It is going to be weird to have an empty house again! Hopefully it won't be for long. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our little guy. Oh!! We finally found a name we can agree on....ddddrrrrddddrrrr (drum roll)..... Levi

I forgot to add this picture! So one night my mom was making me my all time favorite food and she likes to "beat" the dough with a plastic bag on her hand to limit the mess. Without us realizing why he was doing it, Lucas pulled out my box of sandwich size ziplock bags, pulled a bunch out, and then opened one of them. He then put his hand in the bag and was trying to reach up on the counter and stick his hand in the dough!! Because he was so excited about it, my mom put the dough on his table so he could help. This kid is seriously so observant and just plain smart!

Brian's Birthday!

Well Brian turned 28 this year!! It was cake overdose by the time his birthday rolled around so Brian asked me to make a frosted Angel food cake. Although it doesn't look the prettiest it was pretty good :) Lucas thought it was especially fun to help blow out so many candles. Now every time he sees candles he says "cake!"

For you dirt bikers or motorcycle riders we got Brian some really good priced gear on www.cyclegear.com. He was excited to get his first (ever) pair of new riding boots and a new helmet.

Lucas's 2nd Birthday!

Well I know that I am WAY behind on posting seeing as how I have skipped the entire month of July.

We went to St. George for a few days over the 4th of July (more posts soon to come) and while we were there we decided to have a party for Lucas. So, on the 4th we invited the family out to a cool park we had never been to (Highland Park - in Bloomington Hills) for a little get together. I was especially excited that some of my family from Brazil was able to be there and experience an American birthday party.

It was great to have everyone together for a few hours. The kids had a lot of fun playing on the play ground, but the most fun was filling up balloons and throwing them around! Poor Dad had one of the worst "explosions" when he caught a balloon!

This year Lucas was lucky enough to have two cakes! He had a Yo Gabba Gabba cake in St. George and then on his real birthday I made a cake for him and put Curious George on it. I am not the best cake decorator but he did like how he could take the characters off of the cake and play with them! I think that next year I will have to step up my skills, but for this birthday it worked out great.

4th of July in SGU

Since Brian got 2 days vacation over the 4th we were lucky enough to be able to make the LONG 10 hour journey to St. George. We had lots of fun crammed into 3 days of actually being there. Someday we hope to be able to spend at least a week there so we can see more people and not be quite so rushed, but who knows when we will get the chance for that!

We got to watch a Brazil game with my mom and dad. Which unfortunately was their worst game of the cup and got them eliminated. It was hard not to let that ruin the rest of our day, but there was too much to do! Towards the evening we got to go swimming with Brian's family and it was a lot of fun to see them and especially see Lucas and Mya enjoying the water. Those 2 are pretty close in age (6 months apart) so it is too bad that we live so far away.

It was also really nice to have a chance to see my best bud Shannon pregnant! We were only due 3 weeks apart (so why does my belly appear to be bigger?) but she ended up having to deliver early (4 weeks early?) a few days after we left. The boys were giving each other high fives through our bellies :)

Sewing Projects

Well yes I realize I have fallen off the face of the planet. It is because I have become obsessed with sewing again :) These are the projects that I have actually finished. Total I made 7 quilts, 6 fish, 1 bag, and am half way done with 2 car seat covers (photos soon to come). For now here are the pics I have!

ABQ Zoo

I know I post a lot of zoo pictures, but we love the zoo! We bought a pass when we very first moved here and I try and take Lucas at least once or twice a month. Due to the size of my belly it is getting a little more difficult to enjoy it there so we will see how long I can keep it up!

Father's Day

This year instead of planning something for Brian for Father's Day I told him he could pick whatever he wanted to do and we would do it. Naturally, his choice was his dirt bike.

We all went to a motocross track for the first time (well to ride anyway, Brian and I had gone to watch races before). This track is on the other side of town and Brian was really excited to get a membership there and he plans on going there at least once a month to ride. It wasn't always easy to keep Lucas entertained but in the end we all ended up having a good time there. Brian was really impressed that he was being able to keep up with riders considering this was his first time ever on a track!

Mud

How is mud so much fun?

There is this sprinkler pipe thing that comes into our patio that has been leaking for a week onto our patio. It is really ridiculous that it hasn't been fixed already, but they say that MAYBE it will get fixed on Thursday...

Anyway, after so many days I had to cave and let Lucas walk around it for a while on Sunday. We are trying to grow grass back there or I would have let him sooner. He had a blast walking around in it!

Biopark Adventures

Well we have had a fun little visit from Brian's mom over the past few days. She arrived Thursday afternoon and just left today. It was fun to have a visitor here because we did stuff that we normally probably wouldn't have done otherwise!

Here in Albuquerque the Biopark Society is comprised of three things; the zoo, the aquarium, and the botanical gardens. With our handy dandy pass we decided to start out at the zoo and then take the zoo/aquarium train over to the aquarium and to the gardens (which are side by side) and then ride the train back to finish at the zoo. It was lots of fun to show Julie all of our favorites and since we had never been to the gardens that was especially fun for us.

They had an awesome Childrens Fantasy Garden, with oversized everything. Lucas loved the tree slide in there so much he cried when we finally said it was enough sliding and time to move on. I will definitely have to take him back there! I really enjoyed the Butterfly area because I got to take some great pictures with my new camera (Brian got it for me for my birthday).

After we were tired from walking and the sun beating down we decided to drive the few blocks to downtown and eat at Tucanos. Brian especially loves the food there and we all tried to eat until we were exploding to make sure we got our money's worth.

Dirt Bike

Suddenly I feel bad that all of my posts are mainly about Lucas so I am making up for it. This one is for Brian :) Two weeks ago Brian finally got the bike he wanted! It's a 2003 Yamaha YZ450F. This is the 3rd bike he has had within about a months time. He just kept on trading up on bikes until he got the one he wanted. Sometime I will get some pics of him actually riding it, but for now you just get the ones he took in the garage...

Lucas got a bike!

Well thanks to my great friend Robin, Lucas got this bike when he was just a tiny thing and today we finally put the training wheels on, fixed the pedal, and patched the tires! Lucas has been super into bikes for a while now and this afternoon he noticed the pint sized bike in the garage and was instantly fixated on riding it. Now if we can just get him to figure out how to push the pedals on his own! He was so super happy on it...as you can see.