How's the view? Not so good!!!

This is what Memphis sees 99.8% of his day.

"Hands-On" Family

The other day, Sean's mom pointed out that every picture we take of Memphis he seems to be holding his hands. My mom compared him to Wall-E in the latest Disney movie, hilarious. Well, with all that being said and Memphis just turning 4 months I wanted to take a walk down memory lane of Memphis and those infamous hands of his. Up above is the day we brought him home from the hospital. He was born on a Friday and probably started holding his hands from day 1 or even in my womb but this is the first documented evidence I have of him holding his hands. We got home on a Sunday so this picture is of him at 3 days old.

Here he is around the 21/2 month stage. They really are his best friends.

Here he is at 3 months trying to change it up with a toy. He doesn't mind an accessories now and then but I think he still prefers the simplicity of his hands all by themselves.

3+ months- now he's cooing and talking all while holding those cute chubby fingers of his. BTW those are my dads harry legs not mine, just in case you were wondering.

Ahh and here's a more recent pic. of our little man. Now that we've caught on to his little buddies we've been able to catch him more often so this is another 31/2 month shot of him and his hands.

Some fun facts about Memphis' filangies:

- They like to steal Memphis' pacifier out of his mouth, wait until he cries and then poke him in the eye with it until they get the pacifier back in his mouth. Naughty hands!
-In pursuit of trying to accomplish the above task they occasionally whack Memphis in the face trying to get to the pacifier. He of course still cries even though it's self inflicted.
-When he's really hungry and moms chasing after boy #1 they will temporarily sooth his hunger pains.
-And last but not least they always sooth him to sleep.

I try and make sure that he has them touching each other, in his crib, so that he will wake-up less often at night. The hand thing is definitely out of control but it's one of the things that just cracks us up about Memphis at this stage. You've gotta love 4 month olds.

Fresno's The Island Waterpark

This is our favorite place this summer. It's the water park in Fresno and we've been going there a lot this summer to cool off. Merrick loves it and we love seeing him happy so it's definitely a win-win for the whole family.

They have a kids section equipped with like 5 slides (all different), waterfall mushrooms, and little hideaways throughout the main structure so needless to say Merrick just goes and goes.

Here are some of the slides Merrick has been going down. He's barely 2 1/2 and he's already going down the big slides, crazy. He likes to try and walk up them, too, but he usually gets bumped into by the person coming down the slide.

The mushroom waterfalls.

Memphis really enjoys it too. We sit together in the shallow end and let the water brush up against us. Sometimes he kicks his chubby little legs at the water and sometimes he just people watches. Sometimes I'll lay in the water and hold him up so that we're face to face and that usually makes him smile. It's one of my favorite things to do with him at the water park.

Cute, Cute, Cute!!!

Hmm...

I don't know about this...

Alright, you can take my picture.

Merrick's PIRATE phas

Merrick is going through a really BIG Pirate phase right now so to satisfy that fetish we picked up some really BIG Pirates of the Caribbean posters to color/ paint. We're thinking about making him a pirate for Halloween. We'll see.

You've GOT to LOVE good hand-me-downs

Summer Cool

We love our pool here in our complex not only is it beautiful but it's also not too cold. I found Merrick's COOL sunglasses and put them on both kids as we were on our way to the pool.

Poor Merrick suffered a brutal attack from our clippers by no other than dear ol' MOM. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Poor guy looks BADDDDDDDD. Good thing it's only hair and it will grow back ( very soon I hope). I like to say it brings out his eyes.

Still swimming like a little fish though, hair or no hair. I made sure that his little bald head was covered with a good layer of SPF 50 sunblock.

OHHHHHHHHH!!!

The first thing Sean said when he saw Merrick's hairless head was "Memphis has more hair than Merrick" Yikes!

Swirl Art

This is a really neat art project if you don't mind getting your salad spinner a little painted ( it washes right off).

The site I got this idea from used paper plates but I used paper towels because i didn't have any paper plates. So you place a paper towel in the spinner and then throw some paint in it...

like so.

Put on the lid and spin, spin, spin.

And voila spin art. The paper plates came out more splattered so I can't wait to pick some up and try this art project again.

Painted Bread + Merrick

I finally got Merrick interested in eating bread. I saw this great art project with food on Maries Makes and Takes blog where she food colored milk and let her kids paint the bread then toasted it and then put some butter on it. Totally cute and so easy to do in the mornings when your getting breakfast ready for the fam.

The first time we did it we used like half the loaf of bread so everybody ate painted bread that day.

The second time we did it was while I was making oatmeal for breakfast and you know how oatmeal takes time so we practiced our colors with the food colored milk and Merrick totally knows his colors now, yeah, so proud.

We made Sean breakfast in bed with the bread, scrambled eggs and juice. Merrick got to take it to him so it was pretty cute. I need to remember to do things like breakfast in bed more often, it just brings a warm feeling into our home when we do things for the heck of it.

Bumbo + Memphis

The Boys

Look at how CUTE these kids are. Both totally asleep on a nice summer day.

Bubba and chubs. I love how rolly polly Memphis looks in this picture.

Memphis' Blessing

We blessed Memphis on Sunday, July 6th in our Merced Ward. He cried a little but the blessing Sean gave him was so beautiful I don't think anyone noticed. We love Memphis so much and in the end there's only ONE thing that really matters in this life and that is that he return to Heavenly Father and to us as an eternal family. That is the only thing that matters and Sean blessed him with characteristics to fulfill that sole desire. We are too blessed sometimes and in this case it's the simple possession of a priesthood holder in our home and in our family. Thank you, honey, for always being worthy of this gift.

Both of our families came to enjoy the blessing.

Sean's family, minus Fawn (WE MISS YOU FAWN AND WE WISH YOU WERE HERE).

4th of July

We got invited to a street parade for the 4th of July and we were told to decorate our stroller and bring the kids in super cute patriotic gear so here are a few pictures of that.

Here's our chubba wubba being so cute and so patient as I try to catch a good picture of him wearing these glasses.

Aunt Meg modeling the sunglasses I worked hard into the night to make, hahaha.

Merrick trying to open some of the delicious candy that was thrown unto the streets from some of the other kids. I really wanted to be a part of the kids outfits so I sewed this quilt like flag on his shirt, I think it turned out okay. I also did Memphis' onesie, nothing big like this just an iron on but it still turned out cute.

Merrick would never make it as a kid model. He HATES taking pictures.

Ohhhh but he's still sooooo cute, I'd hire him to be a model even if I had to chase him all around the set to catch that perfect picture.

I Heart COSTCO

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Oh yeah!!!