Why hello there, ALASKA!

It's the truth! We cruised to Alaska and back. With an 18 month old. And while I'm pregnant. And we liked it. A LOT!! But honestly, we could have cruised to Siberia with the Dittos and it would have been a blast. How can you not have fun when you have unlimited food at your disposal, and your husband and all his brothers sing Backstreet Boys for karoake? :)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Since the ship took off from Seattle, of course I took advantage of the opportunity to head out a few days early to hang out with my sista. Mel and Randy are the best host and their 4 boys taught Owen how to be LOUD and have way too much fun.

Airplane delays are the WORST.

The nice people at Delta made it so we had an ENTIRE ROW to ourselves.
I was expecting to have him on my lap (he's still free after all) so this was totally
awesome and made the flight a piece of cake.

Remember how they live 5 minutes from lots of gorgeous lakes?! We need
to move to Seattle. We were in heaven!

Is it bad to call my kid a weirdo sometimes? His cousins were off having a blast
on the slip n slide and all he wanted to do was sit on top of the a/c unit. See? Weird.

Weird but cute!

 The next picture needs some explaining. While Mel & Randy went out on a hot date (woo woo!) I was watching the boys. Needing to maintain my favorite aunt status, I took them to get shakes. I'm in the horrible habit of putting whatever happens to be in my hands at the moment on top of the car while I buckle Owen in his car seat. It works on my short sedan, but since I can't the top of Mel's minivan I inevitably left my wallet ON TOP OF THE CAR. I realized it was missing when we pulled into the parking lot. So these disappointed kids had to pile back in the car while I prayed and retraced our drive hoping beyond hope that I would find it. And let me tell you that prayers are answered because we found it! About halfway back it was lying in the middle of the road, just waiting to get run over. We all let out a loud cheer and headed back for shakes. Hoorah!!

Moments after this picture was taken Owen's straw bent so nothing was coming out
of it. Which prompted a full-on meltdown. We're talking lying on the floor and banging
feet and fists. I laughed at him for about 20 seconds and then fixed the problem.
Let's just say he slept real good that night! :)

Looking at the horses.

 

Marcus was too cool to come swim one night, but here's the rest of Owen's cousins.
I told them to flex. They're hilarious.

Playing hard all day = sleeping hard at night.

You know you're living the dream when you get to eat Mel's homemade chocolate
cheesecake for breakfast. It was good prep for all the eating on the cruise.

Playing in the hot tub.

Owen still isn't much of a talker. But he jabbers JUST
like an ewok. Seriously. So we had to get this picture
with Ethan's ewok.

Reunited with Dad and it feels so good! The coolness of the boat wore off after
a couple of days. But he was definitely enthralled!

Grandma Ditto even joined us on this trip - it was seriously THE BEST!

I must talk on the phone too much, because Owen pretends that
just about everything is a phone. (I have too many sisters - can
you really blame me?)

Happy in the child life vest.

The happiness wore off after about 10 seconds.

If it's possible for a boat to run out of water because of too much flushing, it
may have been Owen's fault. Oops.

And I'm out of time. More pics to come later!

Camping and a BABY!

Because I know you're all dying to hear about our camping trip, I'll start there. If I have time at the end I'll give a few details about our new little surprise! 😉

Kidding! Baby stuff first, of course! Here are the facts:

• YES WE ARE SO STINKING EXCITED!
• YES I'm crazy high-risk with a team of docs keeping tabs on me
• YES my doctor is monitoring me like crazy (I have ultrasounds every 2 weeks)
• NO I will not make it to full-term. Owen was born at 32 weeks and we're *hoping* we can make it a week or 2 beyond that. Which means baby will be born in December. Hello tax break! 😉
• YES we know what we're having. Soooo excited to welcome another little GIRL to our family!
• YES, I get to spend at least a few weeks on hospital bed rest. Since that sounds super depressing, I try not to think about it.
• YES I have felt sick, but thankfully I'm now feeling much better!
• YES, I still take a nap at least 5 times a week. Thank goodness Owen is a good napper!
• NO, we do not have any names picked out. (But if we did we still wouldn't tell!) Girl names are the hardest! Any suggestions?

Hopefully that answered all your questions! Now onto Owen's first tent-camping adventure! I love that beautiful mountains are so close in Utah! We drove 25 minutes to camp with my family - the first time all of us have been together since Dan and I were married - almost FIVE years ago!

2 layers of jammies and a bib.

My sister scored tickets to the local aquarium. We stank like campfire
but we loved it!

With "Gampa"

I wish I could include a sound clip of his, "Oooohhhh!"

He walked through this "door" about 20 times.

"Hiking" with Dad. It took about 6 minutes to walk to the destination, so
I'm not sure it really counts as a hike. But he loved it!

Trying to climb around the rocks like his big cousins.

Tired boy! Mom got some rare snuggles in, so I couldn't complain. 

Summer

Summer is the best! I uploaded these photos to get a post going exactly one month ago. (How embarrassing that it's taken me a month to get around to finishing it!) In my defense, I was hoping to get some of the pictures off Dan's phone, but I kept forgetting about it whenever he was around. So here are a bunch of old pictures, in no particular order of the summer through July 8th. Maybe in October I'll catch you up through August! (Kidding. Hopefully.)

Jumping on the bed with cousin "Ammy" at the Davis reunion last MAY
(see, I told you I'm behind). These 2  LOVE each other and the giggling never
stops when they're together.

But those lips!

I think he loves plugs more than animal crackers (and that's saying something!)

I finally got to hike Angel's Landing! It was gorgeous and totally worth the 5am
wake-up call.

Growing up is the worst. He LOVED his bottle. It was a sad day when we finally
had to say goodbye!

Where were free splash pads when I was a kid? He stands over the spout things
and waits for the water to shoot up and hit him in the face. It's hilarious and he
screams like a little girl with delight. But this preemie still has no fat on his body
so he gets cold real fast!

Spending lots of time at grandparent's houses and loving it!

I get a comment about his awesome smile at least once a week. His huge
teeth and wide grin are just the best. And thankfully he gives the smiles often!

Drooling at the ducks.

My boys.

Hangin out in his cousin's pink bumbo.

Owen is OBSESSED with watching/helping me in the kitchen. Most nights
I'm cooking dinner with him strapped to my back in our ghetto hiking backpack.
Most of his time is spent playing with anything in the kitchen that I will let him
get his hands on (and often things that he shouldn't get his hands on!) So I finally
broke down and bought him an Owen-sized kitchen. He LOVES it (which means
I love it too!) Please bless he becomes an awesome chef and still likes to cook when
he's old enough to actually help. ;)

My little yoga man has his downward dog perfected!

On a hike at the Ditto cabin.

Riding a horse is no excuse to not have a drink of milk.

Everyone watching a hilarious slo-mo video of Owen in the pool. (I was going
to post the video, but it's on Dan's phone. Boo.)

Nap hair. And he is the most obsessed with MY favorite spatula. Why can't he
play with the one that I rarely use? 

4th of July parade. I've been missing those sunglasses since that day, so a plate
of cookies to the person who can tell me where I left them!

Owen's cute smile scored him this free ice cream cone from one of the floats.

That was a GOOD nap!

A rare moment of happiness on the changing table (he HATES having his diaper
changed).

No I'm not potty training him. But he does go wee wee on it a couple of times
a day. Hopefully that means we're close-ish.

This is how he watches Baby Einstein when he's sick. (Giant "boo" to hand foot
& mouth disease!)