Sarah and James Plus Two : Fall break catch-up

It is fall break! Yippee! That means I have an extra three weeks off that I get to spend with my babies :) It has been quite a while since I have blogged so I am going to share a bunch of pictures from the last few months to catch up on everything that has been happening. I am so bad that while I was going through these pictures, I even forgot what some of them were from! So here goes ;)

Having fun playing outside with Daisy. I think Spencer is trying to kiss the dog here!

I'm so glad that Daisy is so patient with Spencer.

Playing in the water table.

I love these pictures of Spencer with James :)

Spencer's face is saying, would you get a load of this guy?

Henry had been wanting to go camping for a while now. I was afraid he would get scared not having a nightlight, a real bed, hearing strange noises, etc… So I kept putting if off. Finally, the weather was nice enough (not too hot and not flooding!) that I relented and let Henry go camping in the backyard with James. He was beyond excited!

Setting up the tent with daddy.

Spencer wanted to help too!

Chillin' in the tent.

Spencer is like me, camping is not her thing ;)

I'm outta here!

Abandon ship!

All the cool kids hanging out in the tent, yeah I'm not a cool kid.

Peek-a-boo!

Baby too!

Fourth of July this year meant a party with my college friends! I hadn't seen Jenn and Victoria in years and I was so excited to get to see them again! Somehow the only pictures I got on my camera were of the kids. I got others with the girls but they are on my phone, grrr! I was so glad I got a group shot of all the kids. Between the three of us, we now have six kids! A boy and a girl for each of us :)

L to R: Tyler, CJ, Amelia, Katie, Henry, Spencer

Fourth of July also means sparklers! Henry loved playing with the sparklers and James wanted to try out a function in our camera. We got some pretty cool shots :)

Henry playing with the sparklers.

James and Spencer

James wrote Henry with Henry sitting in the background, cool!

Me and my babies.

Aww isn't that cute?

James's sister Barbara and her family came to visit so we had a little get together at our place. Again, I am a loser who didn't take too many pics, oops.

Eating and talking (L to R: I think James's dad, Butch, Barbara with Spencer, James, Aunt Paula, James's mom and Natalie)

James is trying to get Spencer to make her duck face :)

Henry playing with his cousin Nathan. Luckily, they got along great!

James let Spencer try a pickle.

She kinda liked it.

A little.

Spencer makes this adorable pouty duck face that we kept trying to get pics of and failed. But we got some close ones ;)

Kind of the pouty duck face.

Blue steel.

Magnum.

This is the, are you done taking pics yet, look.

And Henry showing how to do the pouty duck! That's the way Spencer does it but I can never catch it!

Feeding baby girl a super yummy sugar cookie, she loved it!

Henry got a yummy cookie too!

Henry and auntie Em built a fort in the living room.

Baby came to investigate.

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on August 3rd. My siblings and I wanted to do something fun and memorable for them. We got some cake and did a little get together for them at the church and then with just us later at the house. It was fun!

The cake for the church. There was another cake for us later which is even prettier!

I got my mom a bouquet. I tried to replicate her bouquet from her wedding as best I could.

My pretty mama :)

She so does NOT look like she's been married FORTY years!

The bride and groom :)

So cute!

Spencer is having fun with uncle Matt.

My mom got out some of her wedding stuff and we had fun playing with it. Here is Emily wearing my mom's veil .

This is such a cute picture and may have gotten some interesting comments on Facebook ;)

Does the bouquet still look good when I'm wearing a tank top and yoga pants?

Here is the super pretty cake I got for our dessert. Again, I tried to replicate the wedding cake. I think it looks pretty close and it tasted great! Yum!!!

My mom made an awesome speech that made everyone cry, good job ma!

I made a speech that would have made my grandpa proud… here's to my old commander MacArthur :)

Cheers!

Smooch!

Yes, I made them do the cutesy thing with the linked arms :)

Emily had tracked down some sparkling burgundy because that's what they had at their wedding reception. It was really yummy! So, start filling out the mother of the year paperwork for me on this one. Henry really wanted to try what we were drinking, so I let him!

Priceless!!! Maybe he'll think twice about drinking it again ;)

This bust was in my grandparents' house for years. We were getting a bit loopy at this point.

Cutting the cake.

Again, getting loopy. Or my mom's reaction to me telling her she actually had to share the cake ;)

Baby girl LOVED the cake!

Hanging with papa.

I think I missed a few months with Spencer (oops) but here is my attempt at 10 months.

I tried to get a picture without the binkie and here is her reaction ;)

One of our many summer monsoon rains.

Ok moms, ready for a heart attack? Enjoy these pics of James tossing the baby pretty high in the air. Yikes!!

At least she likes it.

Aftermath of monsoons means playing in the mud!

Spencer started taking little baby steps at about ten and half months. We were amazed since Henry didn't walk until well past thirteen months.

Popsicle time!

Look at that face!!!

Cookies!

Time to fly a kite :)

Henry is reading a book to Spencer, makes me so happy!

We went down to my parents' again, this time for my dad's 60th birthday! Happy birthday dad! Sorry, all I got were pictures of the baby :)

We tried to get pics of both the kids, but no one wanted to sit still long enough, so this is the best we got.

We good cuz I'm out!

My parents got a little house outside San Diego. It is so cute! As fall break drew closer, I started thinking what fun it would be to take the kids to the beach for a bit since they both loved it so much at summer. I was concerned though, because James couldn't get the time off to come with me. So I had planned on making the trip on my own (gulp) with the two kids. Thank goodness my mom asked my dad to watch my brother's kids so that she could come with me. I am so glad she came!!! There is no way I could have done this alone, NO way! My mom sat in the back of the car on the way over and back to help keep the kids happy, helped me wrangle the kids at the beach, got dinners, ran errands for me, etc… Thanks mom, you are the BEST! Since James didn't come with us, I promised him I would take a ton of pics. I took some (pretty crummy) ones the first day at the beach with the camera and then after that first day I only used my phone so those pics are already on Facebook. Not sure what's up with these pics but you can still tell what's going on, kids having fun at the beach :)