Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, I woke up to some sweet little notes and gifts from my boys. The best gift: getting to sleep in longer after Thompson woke up a little too early.

Trevor took him down to the basement so I could sleep some more. Once I woke up, Thompson was much less sleepy, and greeted me with sweet hugs and lots of kisses. Trevor made us all homemade cinnamon rolls. Another treat of the day was getting to enjoy my Sunday. Trevor usually has meetings Sunday mornings, but they were canceled for Mother's Day. The whole morning routine was far more relaxing than usual. We even got to spend a little time outside before heading off to church.

After church, we went up to Alpine to have dinner with Trevor's family. For Mother's Day, Trevor's mom really wanted some family pictures, and so much of the time after we ate was spent trying to keep Thompson happily posing. He was uninterested at first, but soon realized he was the center of attention, and took full advantage of the whole family's willingness to entertain him. He would even go and give someone a hug or kiss, pause, and then look at the camera. Such a little ham.

Although he got to stay up much later than he should have, Thompson had a blast with the Wrights, and watching him laugh until he couldn't breath made my Mother's Day even better. Other things that made my day perfect: getting to talk to my mom to wish her a happy Mother's Day and birthday; seeing pictures of my 1 day old niece, Samantha, who I get to see in only a few weeks; and getting to talk to my missionary brother, who I also get to see in just a few weeks.

Overall, a pretty good day. Although it is hard to not have a good Mother's Day when I get to be the mom to this little light of my life!

Captured: a typical afternoon (as of late)

One week. One picture. One memory.

An all too familiar sight this month: a tired and teething boy asleep in his stroller while his dad studies for comprehensive exams. 

Captured: baby love

One week. One picture. One memory. 

Signing "baby" while obsessively looking at pictures of his brand new cousin, Samantha.

Captured: center of attention

One week. One picture. One memory.

Taking advantage of the rare opportunity to show off to his uncle Nate. 

How Thompson would like to spend his every waking moment.

Are all toddlers obsessed with being outside? Because this one definitely is.

If it were up to him, we would go outside the moment he wakes up, and never have to go back in. His favorite thing is to alternate between walking around the neighborhood to saying hi to all the dogs (even the scary barking ones, which freaks me out) to playing with the playset out back all day long. He also loves to sign bird, flower, or cat when he sees them, and barks back at the dogs he hears.

It is a struggle to get him from the house to the car whenever we are going somewhere, because he wants to run free and play around. Pretty much the only way he will go in the car without fighting to make a break for the backyard is if we tell him we are going to the park.

Looks like mom and dad will be logging some major hours in the sun this summer. Maybe we will get some good tans out of it. (Ha. Who are we pale folks fooling?).

Meet Alonzo.

I am not exactly sure how, but we ended up getting our first family pet this week. We haven't had any desire to get any sort of animal for 4+ years of our married lives together, not even a fish, and we had no plans to. All of Trevor's past pet experiences have been scarring to say the very least (seriously, if  you want to hear sad childhood pet stories, talk to him), so I figured we better stay away from any animals.

On Monday night we went to Petco for a family night activity. Thompson has been OBSESSED with animals lately, and we thought it was cheaper/quicker than a trip to the zoo. The whole time we were there, he said or signed all the animals he knew, or whatever ones he thought they were (I guess ferrets look a lot like cats, because he insisted they were cats).

And maybe it had to do with the fact that Thompson especially liked the aquarium section at Petco. Or that he is especially cute doing the sign for fish. Or that fish are the cheapest and easiest pet you can get. But we left with our little baby beta, Alonzo.

This picture was taken about 2 seconds before Thompson tried to pick up Alonzo to say hello. So now he is up on a high shelf, where Thompson can say hi to him 20x a day, but from a nice safe distance. We are really trying to avoid re-creating the traumatic spree of accidental pet deaths that Trevor experienced as a child.

Captured: baby's best friend

One week. One picture. One memory. 

Visiting his very favorite neighbor, Dee Dee.