Week by Week 9

(August 23-29).This week we mostly did a few fun things with the cousins. We went to the Hogle Zoo and rode on the carousel. James and his aunt Nettie.We also rode the train at the zoo. Here is James with "Edpa" (my dad), Lexi and Nickolas, whom I call "snicker-doodle-dude." James was so excited to ride the train. It took us some convincing to get him and Nickolas to leave the train behind.
And James also enjoyed playing in the water at the zoo as well. He generally enjoys playing in the water wherever he can find it.
John-Luke turned 2 months old this week. Here he is with his nifty little monkey. Isn't he filling out nicely? You should see his thighs now! Not to mention his double chin.
Lexi really wanted to hold the baby and so I indulged her. John-Luke was more trusting of her than of James.
James also enjoyed playing with the hose at my parents house. This day he commandeered the hose from me while I was watering my sister's lovely garden. He quickly got himself soaked (and me) and so I pulled his clothes off and let him run naked for a little while. My parent's yard is very private and it is always good to get some Vitamin D as well. Can you even resist those cute dimples above his luscious bum cheeks? I can't!
James also enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and throwing water ballons with his cousins. John-Luke was busy sleeping and growing and smiling and cooing. Overall, it was a mellow week with lots of shopping and making sure I was getting everything ready to take back to Geneva with me.

Week by Week 8

On our way back to Utah from our second family reunion we took a detour to my Grandparents house. My grandma Green is the most AMAZING cook ever! Brian salivates just thinking about going to her house. She did not disappoint this time. We had an amazing lunch and hung out with them for a few hours. And most importantly, John-Luke got to meet his great-grandparents for the very first time (it was James' second time). Unfortunately we don't make it out to Burley, Idaho nearly often enough. Here we all are together.On Monday, August 17 Brian blessed John-Luke at my parents home. He looks so handsome in his suit. He was very good and Brian gave him an awesome blessing (and name).
Here is J-L with his daddy. (This week I did a lot better in the picture taking).
All the men at the blessing.
Me and Brian with "littlest" as I sometimes call him.
And our whole little family. James was so not interested in taking a pic and Cap'n was only interested in getting his hand into his mouth.
Brian's family members that were able to attend the blessing. His mom and the twins (Trevor and MaryJean). We were so happy that they were able to be there for J-L's big day.
After the blessing we stayed at Brian's mom's house for the rest of the week. We did a lot of relaxing. We played "Reach." Reach is a game where James stands back and attempts to give us something while we reach forward saying "reach" in funny voices.
He really loves it.
Especially when it is daddy playing.
John-Luke being an angel.
We continued our quest to see some more of Utah. We took a little trip to the Hill Air Museum in Ogden. They were doing a lot of flights from the base close by and both Brian and James were fascinated by the planes. (The flying ones).
And the non-flying ones.
An attempt at a good self pic of me and Brian.
More overhead flights.
James was very interested in the rocks. He loves rocks.
Me and my boys. Yes, Littlest is sleeping.
But he woke up right when we were leaving. He wasn't happy to be put into a carseat instead of being fed. People often comment on how "chill" John-Luke is. He generally is but here is proof that occasionally even he gets irritated. It is only when he is hungry or tired. I try not to let those things happen too often.
We also played outside in Grandma Shelley's backyard. James liked playing with the hose. We don't have one here in Geneva and James loves the water. Here he is all wet after playing for a bit in the water with daddy.
Grandma and the baby.
John-Luke. Have I mentioned that the weather was great? It was.
Another thing that James loved was stealing Grandma's i-touch to watch "Elmo's Song." He has never seen Sesame Street and he already loves Elmo. Go figure. He still asks for Elmo all the time.
Just a cute picture of a cute boy. He is eating a carrot.
I love this picture of the boys. James is so excited to hold his baby and John-Luke is looking at him with an unsure look. James was very soft with the baby. He really loves his baby a lot.
He also loves yogurt. He now refuses to be fed and only wants to feed himself. One of his favorite phrases is "Bubba do it."
Brian decided we should try out the new family fun center by his mom's house. It was fun. We bowled. Here is James getting some help from daddy. Roll.
Watch.
Celebrate!
They also had some little electronic cars that James just had to ride. We are suckers for the kid. He got to ride a few times.
Oh, and J-L slept through the whole outing.
Brian had to fly out again that Saturday. We were so sad for him to go and we missed him so much till we got home. James was constantly asking about, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!"
Stay tuned for more updates to come soon.

Week by Week 7

John-Luke's seventh week was also a busy one. Daddy flew into town from Geneva/Texas finally and we played for a few days before our second family reunion. This time it was the Gillespie bi-annual family reunion. John-Luke got to meet almost all of his Gillespie relatives.
When Brian first arrived we went to a few places in SLC to check them out. We started at Thanksgiving Point with my family. It was hot. It was also $2 Tuesday and so it was way crowded. Just for future reference. Don't go when there is a sale. Just pay more and enjoy less crowds. James did enjoy the animals and the Dinosaur museum. Here he is with Brian and his two cousins Alex and Max (feeding the goat).He also found a place to practice his dancing skills. James really can NOT hear music and not start dancing. It is pretty much impossible. He loves music.John-Luke slept in his Sleepy Wrap. Story of his life.
Bubba and his daddy in the dinosaur museum. This is the easiest way to keep the kid from running all over the place. He has a lot of energy. It is usually a good thing but this place was way too crowded.
For the Gillespie reunion we headed up to Driggs, ID (about an hour away from our other family reunion). We mostly chilled at the place we rented and played lots of games. Brian did a bit of fishing and we ventured out to Jackson to the alpine slide which James loved. Him and Brian went down 3 times.
I went once.
James also got to ride a horse all by himself. It was a freezing morning but at Targhee so he was only interested for about 10 minutes but he still liked it.
Daddy held his hand the whole time.
John-Luke slept a lot but he was also awake on occasion. He loved his aunts and they seemed to all have the magic touch to get him to sleep. It was so awesome to see the Gillespie side all together since that only happens every other year. This was James' and John-Luke's first reunion with them all.
I know there seems to be a lack of pictures from this week. I have a ton of blurry pictures (I need a new camera desperately) and I just can't post them. It is so sad that I had so few to really choose from. We had so much fun with everyone and we can't wait to see where we go next time. Unlike my family who ALWAYS goes to Alpine, Brian's family chooses a new place every 2 years (the host family gets to choose). We don't get to host for another 6 years as Brian is the youngest of the 6 kids. All in all, it was a good week. And we had fun. Brian even got to go fishing a couple of times.

Week by Week 6

I have decided to post about Utah at the same time as I am catching up on John-Luke's weekly posts. I will post about the corresponding week that we were in Utah when John-Luke was 6 weeks and so forth. Phew. With all that technical mumbo-jumbo out of the way, lets get to the point!
We spent the first few days recovering from our flight out to Utah and then we headed up to Alpine, Wyoming for our annual family reunion. It was quite fun except for when I tried to take the kids anywhere in the car longer than about 20 minutes. Here we go.
This is the way that John-Luke looked for most of the trip. Asleep. I just can't get over how easy he is. Even as I'm typing this post he has been asleep for 6 hours (since 3:30 pm) (yes, I do check to see if he is alive regularly). Doesn't he look sweet? This is how James looked much of the time. He would sit up to the counter and eat whenever anyone else was eating (which with 15 people in a house is pretty much all the time). It got to the point where no one would sit too close to him as he would secretly (or not so secretly) try to steal their food off their plates even as he had his own plate of the exact same thing right in front of him. This is James with his cousins Lexi (at the counter) and Ashlyn. James and Lexi were practically inseparable during our whole trip to Utah. They played awesome together.
We did lots of fun stuff while there even though I was stuck close to home with a 6 week old John-Luke. We went and threw rocks in the river.
And we played with sticks and mud and rocks in the water.
We built a fire.
And Lexi tried to burn herself. It could have been bad but ended up being very funny. My dad thought she burned her "privates" and the only water he could find was in Bubba's sippy cup so he was trying to dump it down her pants and it just wasn't giving up any water. He finally got the top ripped off and dumped it down her pants. Of course, Lexi was fine except she didn't understand why Edpa was dumping water down her pants. And my dad was really irritated at me for laughing when he thought she was hurt. It was classic. Perhaps you had to be there to really appreciate how my dad reacts to one of his family members getting hurt. Or when he thinks they are hurt.
Then we did a bit of hiking/exploring and found all sorts of fun stuff like rocks, sticks, leaves and even some flowers and berries.
Oh, and James discovered ashes. He liked them a lot. I didn't notice till it was too late and so I just let him finish the job. Of course, I always say that it wasn't a good day unless we are dirty from head to toe. This was a GOOD day!
We have a ritual of singing songs before bed at our house and we recruited everyone else in on the fun. Lexi especially enjoyed this ritual and her and James frolicked on the bed and around the room while we all sang fun songs every night.
John-Luke slept a lot. True to form.
Meanwhile, James was a blur we could hardly catch on camera. There was so much to explore he could hardly stand it. Of course, he had lots of fun playing with his cousins and his aunts who couldn't help but squeeze his cheeks regularly.
We ventured out to a little lake up the Gray's River Road. It was a great little outing. Here is John-Luke sleeping while his cousin Ryan smiled for us all. Ryan is quite the smiley baby. All you really have to do is look in his direction and he is ready with a smile. He is also quite a stiff little baby. His legs rarely bend so this is a gem of a photo with one leg bent. And (at least at this time) John-Luke was pretty much the opposite.
Here is James enjoying the mud on the lakeshore. He especially liked throwing the sand.
Here he is with all his Fila side cousins (except the babies). I think it is the only picture taken at the cabin with them all in it. They were getting ready to take the boat out onto the lake. It is a perfect lake for kids. Super small and shallow for quite a ways out.
Meanwhile, John-Luke was sleeping on his Aunt Karen. She loves babies and I took full advantage of her.
My sister, Pink, deserves a medal for taking all the kids out on the boat (including Bubba). She said it was all she could do to keep him from jumping into the water. I bet. At least he was well protected with all the gear they put on him.
That life jacket was just a bit too big eh?
And it wouldn't be a complete day unless we sampled some of the local mud.
More dancing and singing in the evening. Here James and Lexi are dancing while I sing Bingo. Ignore the singing please.

A rare occasion indeed. John-Luke is actually awake. Another pic of John-Luke with his older cousin. Ryan also wiggles constantly whereas John-Luke was constantly being mistaken for asleep even when his eyes were open. He just wasn't a very wiggly baby. I called him my Zen baby. Aren't they cute together?
James also got to ride a horse for the first time. He loved, loved, loved it.
My dad just rode around the coral area with him and he thought he had died and gone to heaven.
I just love how James is laughing with sheer joy in this clip. It is kinda long. Deal with it.
Meanwhile, John-Luke slept some more.
We (me and my sister, Wu) made the mistake of being talked into going to Teton National Park with the kids. We drove together with all 3 kids in the back. It was horrible. At least it was a pretty day. James and the babies pretty much cried the whole way unless we were singing.
Then we got there and couldn't find the rest of the family cuz we miscommunicated about where we were going to be. I let Bubba play in String Lake for a while till I discovered that John-Luke had crapped huge in his pink carseat. (I had to wash that thing about 9 times in 6 weeks. Talk about ridiculous). Me and James in front of String Lake (I was pretty livid by this time and done with the whole experience. Can you tell)?
So we went back home (after being there for about 30 minutes) and we all went to sleep.Overall it was a great trip. We played games. We (the adults) ate crap food (much to my dad's chagrin). We stayed up late talking and did all those things that you would think we would do at an annual Fila family reunion. It was great! We did discover that the cabin we stay in is just too small anymore. Too many kids and not enough rooms/beds. Next year we will have to see what happens. We have been going to the same place for 15 years. Unfortunately, Brian was still in Geneva working and didn't join us till the next week (just in time for the Gillespie family reunion). We missed him lots. I know this is a long post but I did take over 900 pictures and 77 videos while I was there. So this really is only a sampling of what I could have shared. Enjoy!