Fun with the Forest's

We went to Jed, Aubrey, and Tate's house and tried out a new pool! It wasn't crowded, Joe swam a ton, and the best part was our hubby's took Tate (2 months older than Lynden) and Lynden inside to go down for naps while me and Aubrey watched Joe, talked, and layed out! That doesn't happen very often! It was fabulous!

We went to BJ's for dinner and these 2 had a hard time keeping their hands off of each other.

So Lynden is pretty petite with her clothes on, but the dress comes up and you see those chunky thighs you realize she is not so little. On top of that she has the biggest bum ever. I feel like the diaper looks huge on her, but at times it feels like it's pretty snug. We love our little chunk!

Cousins drop in

Ash, Dave and Summer were in town! Party!!! Here are the 2 great granddaughters on the Rea side. They are only 4 months apart.

Lynden's new obsession is pointing her finger and giving directions. She sees me do it from time to time with Joe!

Excited to be in the refreshing water which almost makes the Arizona heat not as terrible.

Joe dodging the water guns

We went to Red Robin with our cousins for dinner and their friends, Ashley, Todd, and their sweet baby boy. It was fun because we already knew Todd and Ashley from the basketball season. Todd and Steve played on the same team twice. "Red" walked past and Summer got a picture with him. I definitely didn't think Joe would want one. Well, I was wrong. I had to follow the thing up and ask for a picture. Who freaked out at the last minute? Joe. Who had to stand in the picture also? Me.

There's Lynden with the finger pointing

Joe, Summer, Lynden

Both of Summer's parents are tall, sorry Lynden you might always be a head shorter than Summer! Thanks for the fun visit! We love you guys tons!

The life of Christ

Another Relief Society lesson! I got the call Wednesday night to teach Sunday! Being the stress case I am, that was not a good enough head's up. We were also called Wednesday night to speak in Sacrament meeting, but I politely declined because if my kids wanted any attention the rest of the week I was going to be able to only do 1.

Like most of them, it seemed very intimidating to me. I really enjoyed teaching it and reading parts of the book, "Jesus the Christ." I got some insight from my mom, dad, and sister in law Julie. I loved the lesson and was glad I got to give it. Once again, Chantelle got the decor from her mother's house and everyone loved the Jesus statue!

Lynden 7 1/2 months

Beginning of June 2010

Doesn't it look like Lynden is taking her own picture here? Haha I love it! Lynden is pulling herself up and standing now. She is still scooting like a seal and hasn't started the whole crawling thing yet.

She still adores her brother, he is the one behind the camera getting her attention. They laugh at each other for a good portion of the day. Lynden naps like a champ and is starting to sleep better through the night. She is a little chunk and eats more baby food in a week than I probably bought for Joe in a month. She gets so excited when dad walks in from work and is still our sweet baby girl. Thank heavens for little girls!

Happy Father's Day

I saw a sweet deal for Shutterfly Father's Day cards and so I snapped some shots real quick to put on our card for our Grandpa Joe, Papa Steve and Great Papa Jurca in Chicago

I'm pretty convinced that there isn't a job more fun than staying at home with these cuties

Who is behind the camera? Joe, and that is why we are getting big laughs!

This looks like a school portrait because there was some type of bribe/treat for a smile!

Taylor's Birthday Party

May 27, 2010

Joe went to his first big boy party, where I left him there for the whole time! Taylor had an awesome pirate party! Joe loved it and Jamie said he was the only one who didn't take his bandana or eye patch off the whole time! He was probably nervous that he'd get in trouble!

I picked him up and we went to Zack's parents to watch the Lakers-Suns game where I realized his patch was making him not see clearly. He got a few bonks before we decided to take it off.

Here are the kids at the party ready to go on their treasure hunt! Joe had such a fun time! Thanks Taylor! Also today was the last day of preschool for Joe. It was a really fun few months and he loved Miss Wendy and learned a lot, but we are ready for summer vacation!

Happy 25th Birthday to me!

May 25, 2010

I never thought I would be the type of person to have some type of meltdown about getting older, but this year I did. I'll admit it, I was crabby. I was excited, but I was really nervous about what was going on with my knee, I needed some dental work done, and my birthday was during the week. I hate that because it's at the end of the month so it's always a busy time for Steve and we can't go all out like I would like. After 7 years of keeping my California license I had to switch it in for an Arizona one because it was expiring and I wasn't planning on going to California any time soon, plus with my luck I'd get pulled over. So after living in Provo, Alpine, San Francisco, and now Phoenix, I gave up my parents address for an Arizona license. Bla! Fortunately my kids were awesome at the DMV and that made it better. Also I think I'm so used to having the month of May be an ongoing party. We have 12 birthdays in our family in the month of May and so only celebrating mine has taken some getting used to. Nichole saved the day and threw me a party! Steve saved the day and brought delicious desserts.

I ate almost this whole cake by myself. It was delicious...I do like chocolate, but would pick white cake with strawberry filling 1st anyday

He also got an ice cream cake, mainly because he loves them! Obviously this was the more popular choice :)

Scott & Nichole's dog, Bailey, had 12 puppies a few days before and it was a real treat to get to hold them and get our puppy fill. Joe loved all of the chocolate brown ones. It made me want one for him, until I remembered they grow.

Nichole, me, and Jamie. I love these ladies!

Joe still wanting to hold whichever brown puppy that isn't eating

I loved the golden ones!

A few days later, Steve and I went to The White Chocolate Grill in Scottsdale. It was yummy and fun to hang out and laugh about how old we are, even though we aren't, but it feels like it! Thanks Nichole and Scott for watching our kids. You guys are awesome!

Girls Night

May 24, 2010

After Steve's basketball game, we had a quick girls night. Kelsey was moving back to Utah, Valerie had a birthday, I was having a birthday and it seemed like a great reason to get together. I have so much fun at girls nights! There are always different people and always lots of laughs!

End of basketball-Glendale round

May 24, 2010

We got to watch our sweet daddy play basketball again with his friends for a few months with a different league this time. They came in 2nd, they were robbed, not much more to say :) It was fun though!

Camping

May 22-23, 2010

Our friends were going camping for the weekend and they invited us! Steve didn't think I could hack it, and honestly I wasn't sure if I could either. Wilderness, tent, no bathrooms/showers, 2 kids-1 crawling and 1 boy-enough said, and barely any cell phone service. I wanted to go to hang out with friends, but I also wanted to go to prove Steve wrong. I did take 4 desserts for comfort food, which I would have eaten more of if it wasn't so windy. We couldn't go Friday because of work, but we left Saturday morning and started driving the 2 hours to "mountains & Christmas trees" in Arizona. We did get lost! We laughed about it which is unusual for me when it comes to communicating on directions! We finally found it! Our tent was set up for us and all the work was pretty much done. We have great timing! The girls went on a rhino ride...Nichole, me, Jamie, Andrea

While we were bumping along, I watched Nichole roll right over this snake and I started freaking out because it was on my side-front right-and I was hoping it wouldn't strike. I rode the rest of the ride with my feet up and hoping our tent was zipped tightly shut!

Joe absolutely LOVED playing outside the whole time, getting dirty and wearing his fireman boots, thanks Kena!

The guys built a huge campfire pit with the help of the kids.

We found a lizard and Steve tried to get Joe to hold it with no luck, but Cole fell in love with Lizzy and was so sad to have to let her go!

True Jurca here...mother this gun is a red ryder gun

Joe and dad shooting the real thing

The guys going to look for elk
So the pictures look like we had a great time, which we did, but here were some of the funny-only Jen-stories...well there was the snake. Then I went back to the tent to feed Lynden and while moving around on the aerobed that was losing air because it had a hole in it, my knee popped out of place and Steve couldn't move because the aerobed would drop me into the ground when he got up and my knee would pop up...horrible feeling and so we had to let Joe get out of the tent and try to get Lynden to Steve and finish feeding her. My knee popped out once the week before and it took between 1 and 2 hours to slide back into place. I had a mini anxiety attack because I was in the wilderness with no cell service and I felt bad that our friends probably thought we were being rude just hanging out in the warm tent. I tried to be brave and just kick my knee back into place, did not work. It tightened even more. After about 40 minutes I got it back to normal and was freaking out about walking on uneven ground in case it gave again. Then I had to pee and I asked Nichole what to bury/cover/whatever you do in the wilderness. I guess she said cover it with a pine needle and I wasn't thinking and grabbed a pinecone, a thorn from the pinecone went right into my thumb! Sweet, 3 great experiences in about an hours time! Shooting was fun, dinner was fun, and hanging out was great. Joe opted out of dinner which was hot dogs and hamburgers and at 6:15 in the morning was throwing up water all over our sleeping bag and aerobed, probably because he was starving. That just added to Lynden wanting to cuddle most of the night because it was cold, so Steve, me, Joe and Lynden slept together on a flat, queen sized aerobed. We decided to end the hap-hap-happy camping trip without breakfast and get on the road. Once we got some cereal in Joe's belly, he was right back to normal. We really did have a fun time, I just think "I" didn't have the best of luck this time. Hopefully we will try again one day, but only with a group of friends, not by ourselves!