More Jude quotes

• Jude calls Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh "Christmas-topher Robin".
• Buttons are "bundts" and I love it when he says "I pushed those bundts."
• I was trying on some shoes and there were some Converse on a nearby table.  Jude said, "Don't wear those shoes, Mom. Those are for kids. 
• "Sometimes you just get bonks."
• "Mom, I'm eating this comb."  "Does it taste good?"  "No...it just tastes like chicken."
• As of a couple of days ago he calls me "Honey".  I chuckle every single time.
• I was in the middle of the bedtime routine in Jude's room, Graham was getting cranky so I put him next to Jude, and Jude goes, "Get off!" and then put his hands over his eyes and whispered "Get off get off get off get off!" like he was using every ounce of self-control.  :)
• "No, no, no buddy," to Graham when Graham was banging on the fireplace.
• He's dying for a Lego VW Bus set, and I told him maybe for Christmas.  He goes, "I am Christmas."
• This week while singing him Primary songs at bedtime, "I just need to hold your hand."

Out of the mouth of Jude

• "I'm dancing a little bit.  Just a little bit."  (He was walking in a circle at medium speed.)
• "I make this for you, mommy.  It makes you happy."  (It was a blanket molded into a "cupcake.")
• "I just kissed your nose.  YOUR BIG NOSE!"
• While Graham was crying on the way home from the pool: "I know, Graham, I know [dripping patronization in his voice].  We just can't go to the pool anymore today.  Maybe -- maybe next time."
• While I cleaned the bathroom today, "Oh, I LOVE it!" copying my voice inflection from when I praise one of his artistic creations.

He sings a song about how Jesus Christ loves the very hungry caterpillar.
He calls the guitar a "pitard," tomatoes "pomatoes" and a cocoon (hungry caterpillar obsession again) a "pacoon". 
Love of my life.

More about Jude

He is cracking me up. Today I brought the boys with me to church to help set up for a fundraiser, and as we left Jude stopped for a drink from the drinking fountain.  I heard him nonchalantly say to himself, "Oh, up my nose -- I'm ok." 

He burritos himself in a big blanket and pretends to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  He tells me he's eating an apple, and is going to have some ice cream after.

When I tuck him into bed, we talk about what we're going to do the next day.  He gets this wide-eyed look of thrill.  And then he'll tell me a few times he's going to go to sleep, then he'll wake up and snuggle me, and then we'll go DOWNSTAIRS ("downstairs" is always very loud and celebratory).

He draws hearts and circles with sidewalk chalk and colors them in, staying pretty much in the lines.  Other things he draws are maybe not so discernible, but he drew a bunch of "temples" the other day; the next morning he told me, "I need to go check on my temples." 

So many other charming things, but it just feels so tragic that so much of the sweetness is in his delivery. I hope I remember all the little nooks and crannies of his 3-year-old self.

"The Big D"

For Christmas, Jude and I got Disneyland passes.  This gift was a subject of some debate.  On one hand, I don't want our kids to think Disneyland is no big deal, or be spoiled to go there so often.  On the other hand, having it so close is a perk of living in Southern California, passes used often make entrance pretty darn cheap, and it's an activity that we ALL enjoy.  You know those gem activities when you're in the trenches of raising young, dependent children, those activities that both parent and child are happy to participate in?  Jeff wouldn't be able to go much because the passes we got are blacked-out most Saturdays, so he didn't want one, but I convinced him that he'd never forgive himself if he wasn't there for Jude and Graham's first visit to Disneyland. He got a one-day pass.

One Saturday in January, the boys were still a teensy bit wobbly in the tummy, but we had nothing pressing on the schedule, Jeff didn't see a weekday coming up he could escape the office, we realized black-out days don't apply to the first time an annual pass is used, and so we filled the bottom of the stroller with Pedialyte, Gatorade, cheerios, granola bars, and zipped up the 5 to "The Big D" (as my parents used to call it). 

It was a little crazy to be the parents in this situation.  I kept watching the kids thinking, "So this time we're the parents bringing our kids here??"  Very surreal, and it felt like a very big step in parenthood.  But so much fun. Jude vacillated between overjoyed and overwhelmed, and Grahamsky was just happy to be along.  Here is some photo proof of the day:

Dumbo

Screenshot of Jeff's Instagram of the obligatory flower Mickey Mouse family photo -- it looks like I was digging my nails into Jeff's shoulder/arm, but I promise I wasn't.

Sssshhhocking!  Disneyland wore out my baby.

Before he got worn out, though, he blew out his diaper.  (I did bring a spare outfit, but he looked so cute and pleased in his nakedness, plus he'd pinched Jude's cup of Gatorade, and I obviously had to take a picture.)

While we waited 45 minutes in line to see "Mickey" (see total biff below), the boys played in line like hooligans.

About 3/4 of the way through the long line to see Mickey at his little house in Toon Town, we realized there were only little girls surrounding us in line, and the closer we got to the house it was very pink; we'd gotten in the wrong line and we were going to see Minnie. Woops!  Luckily, the boys didn't give a woopdeedoo.  In fact, this was a stop we made pretty early in the day when Jude was a little weirded out by the characters.  He would freeze up a bit and cling to us but I could see it in his eyes, he was suspicious, pitied them, and admired them all at once.

Main Street really is still exciting to me!



Meeting McQueen "Muhkeen!" blew Jude's mind.  We also saw Mater, and Red the Fire truck.  He still talks about this.  It's like when my mom had been reading the Cinderella book to me and Elizabeth for months on end, and on our first trip to Disneyland, within a few minutes of entering the park, Cinderella approached us on Main Street, knelt down, and gave Elizabeth a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  My mom said it brought tears to her eyes, and she wanted to ask, "How did you know?!"  McQueen didn't kiss Jude on the cheek, but if you tickle his headlights he giggles, and the whole thing just made our day!

Jeff and I were both so impressed with Radiator Springs.  On some rides Jude would not let himself be excited until it was over.  He'd sit with a deer-in-headlights face until it was over, and then as soon as his feet hit solid ground he would jump up and down and yell about how it was the best thing he'd ever done in his life :).  A major error on the part of MOI: after 6 hours at the park, the boys were fading and we figured we had enough time for one more ride before the boys would be deranged by exhaustion.  I thought it would be awesome to go on a ride that's been around since the 80s -- aka a ride I'd gone on as a child.  The shortest wait was for Pinocchio, so that's what we picked.  As soon as the safety bar was lowered and the lights dimmed I realized this was a baaaad move. And with each subsequent millisecond the ride got scarier and scarier, and it took Jude all of 2 seconds to start wailing, and then he wailed louder and louder.  Do kids even enjoy that ride anymore??  It's all loud carnival music, creepy images popping out at you, you get eaten by a whale, and there was nothing to do but sit and live through it and hope the car we were on would pick up some speed.  Jeff and I had a pretty good laugh about it, but we booked it outta there and of course they fell asleep before their car seats were even buckled.  He seems to have tucked that nightmare somewhere deep into the dark corners of childhood terror memories, and has not mentioned it since. :)


And since we've gone about once a week.  I'm such a lucky mom to get to go with my kids and my friends -- they love it every time!  Jude dances while watching street performers do Newsies numbers, loves the Jungle Cruise, Monsters Inc. ride, and I think next time I'll try Pirates of the Caribbean. 

J&G

More stuff:

That little hand: Jude can be quite the Mr. Bossy Boots.  Sometimes this results in me saying, "Jude, I'm the mom."  Sometimes we'll be driving and he tells me which direction to go, and he does the cutest thing guiding me with his hand.  Fingers together, his thumb extended, he holds his arm out and ushers me (or tries to).  "This way, Mommy, go this way."  Sometimes we aren't going the way he wants me to and wails from his car seat, unfortunately.

Sometimes Jude says, "Hello, my mommy!"

He's way into "I did it a' by mysef!" but is very kind in crediting everyone he loves with creating anything he likes around the house.  Like, Grandma made his blocks. :)  I ask him a lot "Jude, are you happy?" so now he will just volunteer it, "Mama, I'm happy."  On Sunday he said, "Mom, snuggle me."  "Ok."  Sometimes I really want to call him my baby boy, but don't you dare make that mistake.  He will sob (like a baby) and say, "Noooo I a BIG BOYYYYYY!" 

Whenever I'm on the floor, usually kneeling or squatting and changing Graham's diaper, Jude comes up behind me and tackles me, knocks me down or throwing his arms around my neck and choking me. They beat me up every single day.  They drop heavy toys or objects on my bare feet, pull my hair, Graham is obsessed with chewing on anything and his razor teeth hurt every time, he bonks his gigantic head into my cheek bone and/or gives me a fat lip, really, I get pummeled on the regular.

Graham has been such a mom's boy lately and I'm loving it.  He hides his face in my shoulder, gives me coy smiles, and only wants me to put him down when he thinks I'm staying close by.  But on the other hand, while we're out and about, he wants to be free of a buckle or human hip of any kind and wants to crawl wherever he fancies.  Speed crawling just like Jude did, putting holes in his pants, probably a month or two away from walking. 

Graham is still my crazy bottomless pit, eating at all times of the day as if I only allow him a lettuce leaf for meals.  He says, "MMMMMMMMM" whenever he sees food or I put him in his high chair.  He also says "uh-oh" which makes me worry that out of all the words he hears in our house, that's the one he hears most consistently :).  He loves to pick up a ball, throw it a few feet, laughing hysterically, and then he chases it, and repeats.  He buzzes his lips and squishes his chin down to glorify the chub under his there.  I want to eat him.

My favorite thing from today: Jeff came home from work and I ran upstairs to take a shower.  As I came downstairs I could hear laugh-squealing.  All 3 of my boys were wrestling and jumping on the giant teddy bear, Graham was wild with delight to be in on the frenzy and kept pouncing on the bear and biting it, it was all pretty great.

Jude, my 3 year old

This little hunk is going to be 3 tomorrow, and I don't really know what to do about that.

It just is crazy how much he's changed in the last year!  Not just with speech, but he's taller, toilet trained, his imagination is exploding, he's in a "big boy bed," not napping (humph!), eating almost anything, and just is so darn grown up.  I see how suddenly this growth means I must relinquish some amount of control.  I don't even want to think about the control withdrawals that await me in years to come!  (sob!)

He turns his giant bear into anything from a "boat in the ocean!" to a "wocketship" to a tent.  He sat in the laundry basket and it was a boat, and he took his nerf gun and made it a screw driver to fix a leak at the bottom of the vessel.  He will point to a crack in the sidewalk and tell me it looks like the letter Y.  He counts to 10, usually when he's letting me know how many M&Ms he wants as a reward for relieving himself in the potty.

Which brings me to: potty trained is AWESOME.  I was not looking forward to it because I was sure we'd be stopping every 20 minutes of life to go to the bathroom.  I also worried about it dragging on and on forever, and that he'd have accidents all the time.  I mean, he's so strong-willed!  Everyone kept telling me to wait until he was ready.  I wondered, "What if when he's 'ready' it happens to be when he's 5 years old?!"  Well once again all my concern was for naught, because the readiness dawned at 2.9ish years of age, and he has done an amazing job.  Only a handful of accidents, and I wouldn't even have minded keeping him in a pull-up at night, but he doesn't need one!  I'm so proud of him!  And buying diapers for 1 child is so very nice.  He's very proud of himself for #2 and will tell me all about just how he pulled off the job.  I also love having him potty trained because his little bum is so adorable without a thick wall of diaper covering it! 

Which brings me to: he's very into modesty lately.  What happened to the little boy who would do anything to run around in a loin cloth??  He freaks out if he doesn't have all his clothing on. 

Lately the things Jude says most frequently are:



• I wanna hold you. (The snuggle inclination is still at a steady incline.)
• I come with you?  (Which always makes me chuckle -- he ALWAYS comes with me.)
• Gammy, come pay wis me!
• I wanna bite it.  (This is referring to food.  He doesn't bite anyone, but he pinched Graham today.)
• I need Daniel Tiger.
• I need [insert food, blocks, candy in the grocery store check-out line, etc. etc. etc.].
• Mommy came back!
• It's DEEEEElicious!
• I love Grandma/Grandpa/Mimi/Papa/trucks/Gammy/Daddy -- I hope when I'm not around he's reporting to other people that he loves his dear old MOM!
• This is my Gammy.  (He loves to introduce his little brother.)

He said to me the other morning, arms outstretched, as he came over to my side of the bed upon waking up, "Welcome!"  Welcome, indeed!  He runs me ragged, makes me laugh, and I couldn't ever explain to him how much we love having him.  Happy bday, Juju!

From the mouth of Jude

Walking by this interesting display in Nordstrom (a huge cage with a mannequin inside it), Jude goes, "Mom!  Look at THAT time out!" Like he was thinking, "What poor sap blew it big enough to wind up in THERE??"


As I tucked him into bed tonight: "Thanks, mom.  It's Chistmas time."


Jeff was tucking him into bed the other night and said, "Jude, I'm just going to rest here for a minute."  Jude pointed silently in the direction of our bedroom and after a few seconds exasperatedly said, "No, sleep in there, with mom!"


In his car seat: "Mom, I'm a little stuck!"  Well, yes my child, that is the whole point.


That's all I can think of for now.  I love his little ways!

Jude Lately

I don't know how I almost have a 3-year-old, but in less than a month, the calendar will make it so!

Jude is the comic relief in my life.  The running commentary is beginning.  I always won the "Talks the Most" award at Girl's Camp, so I am not very surprised.  He is always buzzing on about who's awake, who's happy, who in the room is holding what, he talks about what he's building with his Duplos, what noise ____ engines make, where we could go, who we could play with, etc.  Honestly I still don't understand all of it, but I understand enough.  One of our favorite things is when out of the blue he says things like, "Mom, I love trucks." or "It's fun at the park!"  Well shucks, buddy boy, I never would have known!

He's gone through a pile of recent evolutions that force me to realize he's growing up.  First of all, he doesn't want diapers anymore so we are potty training again.  Somewhat clumsily, but it's going a lot better than when I tried a few months ago.  I don't know how I'm supposed to stay 100% positive through every pitfall, but I'm trying with gritted teeth and a singsongy voice.  Second, he grew 2 inches in the last couple of months.  I know this because a week or two ago we were in the exam room at our pediatrician's office, and they were taking FOREVER.  The kids were getting antsy and my bag of tricks was running low.  Then I remembered they have that little measuring device in the cupboards and was curious if there had been any growth for either Jude or Graham.  So I looked in a couple of cupboards, located the height measuring thingy, and voila!  At another time of life I never would have dreamed of rifling through those cabinets, but such is the willingness of a mother desperately seeking to avoid a tantrum.  Anyway, Jude has grown 2 inches and is back in the 90th percentile for height.  Go, Jude!  Then the last way he's growing up is he loves to come snuggle.  The fact that he can slow down long enough at any time of day to do this is astounding.  :)  He is very good at it, too.  He'll often sit on my lap and reach back and rest his hand on my cheek.  And then I'm thinking, "You're killin me, smalls!"  He loves to climb in bed with us (and now that he's back to doing it at a reasonable hour, like 6:30 instead of 5am, we love it too), and he peppers us with kisses and cheery announcements that it's morning and he's awake.

I might have put too many chocolate chips in my chocolate chip cookies, but he needs potty training incentives.

This is what happens when you ask him to "say cheese".

Messy face, clean heart.

At Christmas time in Utah we went to our usual lunch at Litza's pizza.  He didn't even want to sit with us, he was so enamored of his cousin Ella, and he sat at the kids' table.  It was so cute, though, I didn't even mind, and I somehow love those Reynolds kids 10 times more for being so great with Jude.  Ella helped Jude wait until his pizza was cool enough to eat, helped him with his bites and drink and napkin -- what a sweetheart.  Jude still asks what Max and JJ are up to.  Cousin friendship -- there's nothing quite like it.

Firetrucks and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood basically rule Jude's life; I love the firetruck thing because I just do, and Daniel Tiger is an off-shoot of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, which is nostalgic for me, but I am sick to death of those songs being stuck in my head.  If anyone ever wants a performance of If you wanna go potty, Stop! and go right away or Everyone is big enough, big enough to do something, just let me know.

There you have it.  Jude at 35.5 months.

Classic: I was looking for Pedialyte for Graham and Jude grabbed as many bottles of generic brand Metamucil as he could hold and came over to me with a hopeful smile, "I like it!"  Hmmm, not today, Juju.

He's started taking pictures on my phone.  Such an artistic eye ;).

"I wa hold Gammy!"

Jude Lately

In a nutshell, Jude's crib became a thing of the past in October, and by the end of October naps pretty much also went the way of the world.  I am saying this at the beginning of this little session of recording Jude's latest stuff, because don't we all want bad news first?  Not that this is bad new for anyone but me….

He doesn't do quiet time, either.  I have no problem sleep training babies, but he looks so incredibly hurt and heartbroken when I try to put him in there, I know in my gut that it's not worth it.  Sometimes he'll fall asleep in the car, but he's on to me and if we happen to be driving around and I look back at him, sometimes he'll meet me glance and say, "I'm awake!!!" 

I won't mince words, it is extremely exhausting and hard to be ON 12 hours straight, every single day.  Like when I had a full time job outside the home I could reasonably expect to use the ladies' room and take a lunch break undisturbed, right?  That skips me over every single day!  Last week my brain and body were wiped out by about 2:30.  Graham was napping and I didn't know how I was going to last until bedtime.  I put on a show, set out his Duplos and coloring books and said, "I'm going to lie down for a little bit.  You can snuggle with me or play or watch a show if you want."  "Ok, mommy!"  But HRH Jude would just do a cannonball on me every few minutes.

We are working on a solution here….

Anyway, there's good news: Jude is turning GOLDEN.  I'd been looking forward to having a 3 year old, because Elizabeth's 3 year olds and some others I've known have just been wonderful.  Sweet, communicative, funny, clever little friends.  Then a few months ago a whole bunch of people on Instagram shut that down saying 2 year olds are the best and 3 year olds are terrible.  BUT: I can see it, he is going to be the good kind of 3 year old.  Jude rarely throws tantrums anymore.  He is the most enthusiastic and cheerful person.  He gives hugs and kisses all day long.  He says the funniest things, and the fact that he's saying things at all (even though it's part of why I miss the naps -- he jabbers my ear off!) is so fantastic.  He loves to color in his coloring books, draw on the back patio with chalk, play his "Letter School" game on the iPad, teach Graham the ways of the world, etc. etc. etc.

Time for some bullet points because I feel like it:

• He loves to help me make "pancaycaykes" (pancakes).
• He requests my banana bread, and it flatters me so I often oblige.
• He loves to say "I did it!" for anything and everything he was involved with.
• He gave me a flower from the back yard the other day and I was making a big deal about it and went to give the flower a kiss and he said urgently, "Don't eat it, mommy!"
• He no longer screams and tries to abandon ship when I pour water over his head in the bath.
• He's obsessed with day and night -- when we moved him to his big boy bed, he wanted to start the day anywhere from 4am on.  We had to explain to him ad nauseum that if it's dark outside, you can't get out of bed.  It really penetrated deep, because he talks about it ALL THE TIME.  
• We got his hair cut a couple of weeks ago because it was starting to look like Bozo the Clown.  Every previous haircut has been a real battle, but this time he sat there with a deer-in-headlights expression.  So cute.
• He's happy to sit in Sacrament Meeting during church, as long as he's got a coloring book and maybe some milk.  So now of course Graham has to kick it up a notch and yep, that's right, I'm clocking time in the hallway and foyer again.  Blech -- when will I be able to enjoy 3 hours of church again?
• He came up to me the other day with a toy wrench and started "fixing" my hair.

Other than getting possessive of his toys with Graham, like screaming when Graham even starts to head his direction because Graham is surely scheming to destroy his latest Duplos creation (when Graham could not have cared less), he's growing out of so much of his toddler angst, and is a happy, loving, devoted little boy.  He makes us laugh and fills up our little hearts.  

Mama mia

Having these babies of mine means that I know so well what it's like to have them drift off to sleep in my tired, jiggly arms. I get to be the person to seize the endless opportunities to pump them full of love and self-esteem, and I know their smells and their facial expressions.  I am around when Jude goes from having no interest in crayons and coloring books to choosing to sit at the table and scribble on page after page. Yesterday I saw Graham holding a binky in one hand, and a board book in the other, and then he figured out that if he bonked them together, it made a really cool noise, and then I watched him play his new game for a little while.  Because I have little kids, and am not done having them, I am trying to let it go when a fly comes in the house because Jude doesn't understand yet that you have to shut the door quickly on a hot day.  I have to accept that the house will just be a little messier than I want it to at certain points of the day.  Tonight I held Graham on my lap during dinner, and when I was reaching down to fetch his binky, he pulled my plate of rice and beans onto the floor.  It had been a long day and it's so dumb but I almost cried.  I'm so used to spit up.  Buuuut, if I leave the room for 30 seconds, when I come back in Jude yells, "Mommy herrrrr" and runs and jumps into my arms.  We have a family handshake.  Graham lets me squeeze him as tight as I please, and squish his ample cheeks against mine.  I have had so many times when I'm running errands with them and there's some breed of child-spun disaster, even when I prepare well, and I think to myself, "Can't I just do this ONE THING??????"*.  And then I vow to only ever grocery shop by myself at night forever more (this resolve never lasts).  When I cut my finger wide open the other day, my cute little 2 year old wouldn't stop talking about my owie and has given it about 20 kisses.  Today Jude was talking all about how "Chwist fwends" (Christ's friends) were speaking on tv for General Conference.  They just pull these things on me and it charms me more than anything.

It's so many good things and so many bad things and I love it.  I used to be cooler, but I think hunkering down with my babies makes my life awesome**.

Note: I did not pose these pictures at all.

* Whenever there's a meltdown amidst attempted productivity and I think to myself, "Can't I just do this ONE THING???" I then automatically hear Will Ferrell in my head from that SNL skit, "Can I just finish one damn story??"

** Last week Jude's Speech Therapist asked me after his session, "Who in your family says 'awesome'?  Jude was saying it non-stop today."  I laughed -- "My husband and I both do.  Everything is either awesome or crappy."  We need to start infusing some different adjectives.

Jude's Words

Speech therapy has been so great for Jude.  I think his current contract is almost up, and if they don't renew it, I would be fine with that.  I really just wanted him to be able to mimic, and he's been doing that for a while now.  The rest will come in time.

Now that he's talking, he's also showing us we must be using a very chipper, sing-song tone with him a lot, because that's what he does back to us.

"Ready?  OK!"
"Good MOOORning!"
"Gammy CUTE!"
"Tha's REAwy HOT!"
"Oooone, two, free, four, five!"

I don't know when I started calling dirty diapers "stinky bums" but that's what they're called now.  We got him a stuffed animal (a monkey) when he was a wee baby, but he never really wanted to make it his constant companion.  Last week he saw a dog stuffed animal at the store and is IN LOVE with it.  He takes doggy everywhere, changes its stinky bums (trying to apply Desatin at times), and puts it down and wakes it up from about 94 naps a day.  We all must use quiet, nap conducive voices per Jude's instruction.

Whenever I have both boys in my arms or on my lap I say (more to myself than anything else) "Two buddies!"  Now whenever he's right next to Graham he says that, too, and when we finish with bath time he wants to go have "Two Buddies Time," wherein I lie them down next to each other on their towels in the hallway outside the kids' bathroom and put lotion on them.  *Sigh*

He used to call his green smoothies "soonies" but that has evolved to "foonies."  I have to say, it is so completely adorable to hear him talk about and ask for foonies and I hope he does not drop it any time soon.

Other cute mispronunciations or invented names:

*He has his friends La-Li (Violet) and Sheby (Shelby)
*I get those squeeze pouches of baby food for Graham and so all of a sudden Jude is in love with them all over again.  For whatever reason, he calls them "Huggies."
*Hallelujah: he doesn't ONLY want to watch Cars anymore, he also likes to watch The Incredibles.  To top off this amazing development, he pronounces it "Incebidoes" or "Cebidoes."
*Digger trucks are "gidders."

That's all I can think of at the moment -- this is a really great age.

Why We've Loved Summer 2013:

+ Beach days with pals -- we've actually gone so much it makes me feel like we're getting our money's worth (mas o menos) with California's hellish cost of living.

+ Breezes cooling off the house in the evening.

+ Hopping over to the pools.

+ Hopping over even more to the park.  Sunscreen was slathered, scooters brought along, moms sat under a tree on a blanket or stood in the shade of the park structure, and the kids were adorable.  Jude has really gotten gutsy and independent and the park is not a chore to me anymore (most days).  He doesn't need me to escort him up and down the structures like he used to, he goes up and down the ladders, steps, slides, and I just make sure he is playing nicely and not pushing anyone out of his way, and then I clap and get excited for him when he goes down the "wee" or slide.

+ Jude sleeping in just his diaper, and Graham sleeping in his sleeveless blanket-sleeping bag.

And now I'm ready to be done :).  Sand in my car, sand in the stroller, sand in the shoes.  Sweaty all the time and concerned about sunburns on the boys and Jude's ear tubes.  I'll be excited again about summer next time it rolls around, but for now I welcome the break.  Now Fall just needs to actually arrive.....

And now some mem'ries in photo version:

A hug for Dad after playing in a fountain at an outdoor mall.

Woop woop!

I'm sweating like a toasted cheeser!

Jude and his red scooter

Jude still has a belly button, FYI.

Brothers

His idea to hold my hand while riding his scoot scoot to the park.  Swooooooooon

Plotting all sort of mischievous deeds, one can only assume.

Pizza party to kick off summer in the neighborhood. 

Love em both

Sometimes he holds my hand while I read him books.  Honestly, it fills my heart with immeasurable joy. 

Graham and Lyla's little brother Eli.  I think these two are going to have a great time together, but for now they just sort of grab each other's faces.

Graham, the sunburn possibilities on your porcelain skin scare me a little.

My turn to wear Jude's hat.  This hat got lost somewhere this summer.

2 Merzy feet and 1 Jeff foot

There's the omnipresent scooter + Beckham

As recent as last Christmas Jude would NE-VER have touched this slide with a 10 foot pole.  Now it's his oyster.

4th of July at Baby Beach

Mom -- LET ME OUT!

Shocker -- they found trucks on another blanket and stole them.

Apples and tomatoes on the counter

Getting to work lining up cars and trucks, OCD style

I love him.

I love him too.

We started solids, much to Graham's delight.

It was all we could do to keep him from climbing in through an open window.

Dance Central with Cam and Kacie

Meeting BFF and Cousin Rower

$1 smoothies at Jamba Juice.  I know being a kid can be rough, but really, I don't see any of it here.

Graham thinks Jude is 100% entertainment.  Jude could sneeze and it would have his little brother in hysterical, gleeful laughter.  They just love each other.

Thanks, summer!  You've been good to us!  Now it's time for "pumpkin everything" season.