#SoBlessed

What with family being in town last weekend for Emery's baby blessing, I am a week behind on this blog post which means that A LOT has happened since I last updated! I feel like July has just flown by! I can't believe that summer is already over half-way over and I only have 5 weeks left to be full-time with my babies before I go back to work. It makes me realize that I need to get serious about this whole pumping thing because I want to build up a freezer stash before I go back. Also it means we need to get real about teaching baby girl to take a bottle. Up until now she has flat out refused all binkies and bottles. This little one likes her milk on tap! Haha. Which I don't mind when I'm home- especially since she's a pretty quick eater and almost never takes longer than about 16 min tops to nurse- but it's got me a little stressed about what's going to happen when she goes to daycare. So I would say that's my biggest To-Do before I go back- teach Emery how to drink from a bottle!

Anyway, as I was saying, a lot happened since I last wrote. First of all, we had 4th of July which was a blast! In the morning, our ward had a 4th of July pancake breakfast. Eric had to work, but I took the kiddos and Levi had a blast. One of our ward members brought his high powered air pump and we made paper rockets and shot them off. Levi loved the rockets! He was simultaneously nervous and excited. He wouldn't let go of my hand and stayed super close to me when we were by the launcher but he would excitedly count 1-10 (he didn't really get the idea of stopping at 3) and then yell "blastoff!" and clap his hands excitedly.

Levi with one of his rockets (he did the coloring, I did the assembly)

Eric worked only a half day so we got to have him home with us in the afternoon. And in the evening we got together with friends of ours for a BBQ at the park.

I made my third annual Flag fruit "pizza" Mmmm it's so good! 

 It was so nice because the littles just played together and since two of our friends have slightly older kids (5 and 6) we didn't have to watch the toddlers quite as closely because the littles followed the bigger kids around so were less prone to running off. Levi is still quite the runner and takes off without warning at times which is.... challenging. Unfortunately, Emery started to kind of lose it by the end of the evening so that put a damper on things. I was pretty worried for a while there actually that Emery was becoming colicky because she had a week or so where she was pretty fussy but now that I've got her on a more strict napping schedule, she is doing a ton better! I guess it's not so much a schedule and more of a general rule that if she's been up for an hour (an hour and a half max!) I try to put her down for a nap. This works well for her right now. She just needs a lot of sleep and when she does get it, she's a calm, happy little baby and has gotten really good at smiling. Emery has also been a rockstar nighttime sleeper so far! Over this past week especially she has stretched out her asleep periods. Usually we have been trying to put her down for the night around the same time as Levi which is really nice because then we have our alone time in the evenings back! We've even started doing piyo again in the evenings and we have a workout plan and schedule in place. I am super excited to get back into shape! Anyway, so we put the kids down at 8 and then Emery will sleep for a good 5-6 hours before she's up again! And then all I have to do is feed her which takes about 25 min including the diaper change between sides and burping time and then she goes back to sleep for another 3-5 hours! It's amazing. Haha. She still pretty consistently starts to stir sometime between 5:30 and 6:30 but then I just bring her in bed with me (or us if Levi is sleeping in and Eric isn't up with him yet) and she quiets back down and sleeps till 7:30 or 8.

So yeah, 4th of July happened. Then the next week Eric's parents and my parents and Eric and Natachia came into town for Emery's baby blessing! It was so great to have everyone here! Saturday morning we all went berry picking and got a TON of blueberries, marionberries and raspberries. Levi was in heaven and probably ate as many as he put in the bucket! And now I have a bunch of berries in my freezer and a ton of super delicious recipes pinned to make with them including some dark chocolate raspberry brownies that I am going to make later today and that already have me drooling haha.

Can you tell which bucket is Levi's? Haha

I actually should have taken this picture after we got home because Levi ate almost a whole pint of marionberries and blueberries in the car and he got soooo much more messy than this! Haha he looked a little like the joker from batman only not scary, just adorable! 

Sunday the temperature outside was supposed to get up to 100 degrees so on Saturday I had a mini panic attack that my kids were going to get heatstroke and die. Like seriously, I was legitimately worried about all of us in our third floor unairconditioned apartment. But thankfully, one of Eric's co-workers gave us a window unit and Eric and his wonderful dad stayed up way late on Saturday night installing it for us and it has been a miracle. Oh my goodness it is so nice to have!!

Sunday was Emery's baby blessing and it was so beautiful. I really felt the Spirit and I could tell that Eric was really listening to the Spirit and the things he was blessing Emery with were what Heavenly Father wanted to bless her with. He blessed her with the gift of faith, the gift of love for those around her and the gift of being able to communicate that love to others well. He also blessed her to be a strength and a support to me and Eric. And with all the sweet smiles she has already been showering us with and the patience she shows with us, I know that's true. I had more than one person come up to me on that Sunday and tell me to thank Eric for listening to the Spirit and giving such a beautiful blessing. It was really wonderful.

Carma made Emery's blessing dress for her and she looked so cute in it!

Everyone together at the church

I love the way Emery is just looking at Nona in this picture like she is talking to her! 

While the family was here, I really appreciated the time everyone took to spend time with my kids. Papi especially made a point to take Levi and spend some quality one-on-one time with him. Papi and Nona bought Levi some luggage of his own (he was soooo excited) and Papi took Levi and his luggage to ride on the train! Levi LOVED it. He also took Levi to a splash pad and took him to the carwash and they washed my car for me! It was so great and I love that Levi will have those great memories of when Papi and Nona came to visit.

Levi is so excited to have new luggage all his own. 

Riding the Wes with Papi!

Splash pad shenanigans!

Anyway, so the family stayed for a few days and by Wednesday everyone had gone home again. Wednesday through Friday were a little rough for me because on all three days Levi didn't take a nap or took a super short nap so I got no alone time during the day. But we survived and then thankfully the weekend arrived with more fun. We had dinner and a game night with friends on Friday night and then yesterday was Porter and Rylee's birthday party so we went to that and had a lot of fun doing the hanging donut challenge and going to the splash pad. Then last night, Eric took me out on a date and we did a penny date where we flipped a coin at each intersection we came to to determine whether to turn right or left. Then after 13 turns we picked the closest restaurant and ate at it. It was so fun to do it by chance like that and we ended up at this great place in Lake Oswego with live music, beautiful outdoor seating and really good food! And thankfully, Emery slept almost the whole time :)

So yeah, that's been our month so far! Here are some more pictures of the cute little ones who fill my days!

Love this smile for brother's kisses!

She is just so stinking cute!

Sometimes when it's super hot outside but we need to get out of the house, I just take the kids to Cabelas. I wear baby girl and she sleeps and Levi has fun running around and playing with the pop guns and looking at the big fish. And I just enjoy the really good air conditioning haha. 

Milk drunk smiles

Levi loves to "help" in the kitchen!

Emery really likes to lay on her playmat. She is much more content there by herself than Levi ever was I feel like! 

Two Thursdays ago it was pay-your-age day at Build A Bear. I had originally planned on going, but it turned out the crowds were insane. My friend Shalece got to the mall before I did and told me the line was ridiculous. But we decided to go to the mall anyway and not bother with the line but instead just give Levi and Lincoln the chance to run around, play in the play area and ride the escalator together. So we did and Levi had a blast! But I honestly have never seen that many people and especially kids at the mall before though! It was crazy. 

On Thursday evenings down in Wilsonville there's this awesome little farmer's market at a little park with a splash pad. Eric and I like to take the kids down there and Emery hangs out on the blanket and makes cute faces at me while Levi runs around in the water and we all eat delicious local produce and food offerings. It's my happy place. 

Soo sweet! 

One of the days last week I took the kids up to the children's museum. Levi is recently really into putting on the hats as he plays in each of the areas. It's so cute. 

He also likes to sing and dance on the little stage they have there. I think he is imitating Coco which is one of his favorite movies right now. 

Levi is just very two right now. One of the days last week he tried to flush some toys, dumped two cups of flour all over my kitchen and played in it while I was in the back with baby girl, dumped out a full cup of juice and another one of milk, and picked the last of my flowers off of my plants outside. Heaven help me! Haha. 

Levi and his friend Liam in Liam's toy truck. 

Sometimes Emery wakes up early from her nap because of gas (or because she pooped) and then she has a hard time going back to sleep. So when that happens, we do a lot of snuggling on the couch.