a few more from may

soooo despite all the high profile events in may, we had plenty of day to day goodness going on around here. a couple of the things i don't want to forget:

these boys are starting to play together so well, and i love coming into a room and finding them like this. so cute.

we still get out to the park every day, rain or shine. usually with friends.

mr. hudson is SO cute these days. his hair is super curly (especially right after a bath), he's talking in full sentences and he plays with / lines up his toys. he's also got a screech that can shatter glass and uses it about 100x a day when he doesn't get his way. 

jack is the best big brother. i can always count on him to help me out with hudson (or tell me when his brother is doing something bad). he sounds out words all day long, is a master lego builder, and is pumped for kindergarten next year. he's so social and is friends with every kid in his preschool; we had a parent-teacher conference last week and i was so proud to hear how well he does with paying attention and following directions. the teachers' biggest concern was that he gets a little too loud in class when he's excited. :) 

thanks to his love of ninjago, he'd been dying to try out "karate" (we ended up going with tae kwon do). eight weeks of class was all he needed to know he didn't want to do it anymore. :) it was pretty cute while it lasted; he especially liked sparring. 

one weekend we took the boys to meet friends at rigapalooza, our city's one-day event full of every type of truck you can think of -- and each one is open and available to climb inside. they were both in heaven. 

crazy may

this past month was nuts. all good stuff, but so busy!!

let's start at the beginning. on may 1 i got on a plane all by myself and flew to denver for my cousin meghan's wedding! we spent most of the weekend up in fort collins, a cute little town i hadn't explored before, and then drove down to denver on saturday for the wedding at the temple. (the second wedding i'd attended at that temple! the first one was my roommate brittany's back in 2008.) we also got to drive around that neighborhood a bit and go see the hospital where jack was born, me & b's apartment from his MBA internship, and a few other stops along memory lane. and also have lunch at sweet tomatoes...WIN. it was really fun to be sans kids, sans husband, sans siblings, and just hang out with my parents. i loved visiting with extended family and being on my own schedule.

the weekend after denver was mother's day! this was of course not a stressful day. b did such a good job making me feel special and appreciated -- he made breakfast, dinner, organized gifts & cards from him & the boys, etc. i looove getting a day off on mother's day. :) 

i also got to go to a delightful mother's day tea at preschool with my big boy. :) 

the third weekend of may was stake conference. we actually made it to the saturday night session and went out for dessert with friends after. the fourth weekend was memorial weekend! we made good on a years-long goal of camping with our close friends, the davises, and it was super fun. mostly. :) 

for being only my second camping trip ever, i'd say overall it was a success. we split meals with the davises so we cooked one breakfast and dinner, and they did the other. we had a really nice adjoining campsite at kalaloch, right on the beach, and got to drive / hike through the olympic national forest and hoh rainforest (with a side trip to forks, home of twilight) so that was cool. cons of the trip: raccoons and screaming kids the first night, not much sunshine, no naps. plus camping is just so much work! hauling in all that stuff just to try to create a comfortable home somewhere that isn't my home. it was fun though, and i loved giving the boys so much time to explore and adventure in the great outdoors. but i told b i'm good on camping until at least 2016. :) 

so we came home from camping, did a bunch of laundry, unpacked, then packed again! i took the boys to arizona for my cousin jeremy's wedding. yes, another cousin wedding. i only have 4 cousins on my mom's side of the family and two of them happened to get married last month. i ended up being the only cousin to attend so i was glad i could be there to support, and it was really fun to see all of my extended family who i barely get to see. plus, bringing the boys was awesome because my grandparents and aunts and uncles hadn't even met hudson yet. 

BUT. hudson had an ear infection and was barely starting antibiotics when we left, plus we had an event every night (bridal shower / rehearsal dinner / wedding) that kept them both up waaaay past bedtime, so my boys showcased some pretty questionable behavior. add to that the insanity of 107 degree temps and it was a sweaty, stressful weekend. oh well. yay weddings!

gotta hit the regular spots...

hot weather calls for lots of ice cream and swimming:

the wedding was OUTSIDE. sheesh. i was really sweaty. seattleites aren't made for the desert, that's for sure. 

is this not the most massive wedding party you've ever seen?:

this is what jack wrote in the wedding guest book...probably the cutest freaking thing i've seen in my life:

he also hit it off right away with some of his third cousins twice removed (?) -- the kids of my second cousins (my mom's cousins). they were so cute running around together at the reception. 

family at the wedding:

pretty picturesque spot for a wedding, don't you think? the venue was at the base of superstition mountain. once the sun went down it was a tolerable place. related: i DO quite love arizona sunsets.

and that's a wrap! we don't have any travel plans for a while and i'm quite looking forward to a nice, quiet summer at home. :) 

tulip festival 2015

we've lived in seattle for four years now and every spring i see hoards of people caravaning up to the tulip festival in the skagit valley (about an hour from here). it never worked out with our schedule to go before, but last week was spring break and the weather was gorgeous so we decided to try it. my friend jolee (who was my coworker at the PR agency in LA sooo many years ago) just moved to sammamish of ALL places so i roped her into going too. i am so SO happy she's here now and can't wait for more of our adventures. it's so funny that seven years ago we were both newlyweds climbing the corporate ladder in LA and now we're stay-at-home moms in seattle with two kids each (plus a third on the way for her!).

anyway! we went to roosengart and it was beautiful. the kids loved running through the little windmill garden and then we made the loooong trek (like 2 miles at least) through the tulip fields. we heard only mild complaining from the preschoolers, which was quickly diffused with candy bribery, and then we went back to the main area for a picnic lunch. it was a great day.

jack's favorite thing to do was smell the flowers, then act like they smelled so bad he was forced to fly backwards and die. (boys. ugh.)