{my little ham}

my lukie is a run for my money.  he is so loving and so funny (which he knows) but he also is such a pill.  he has a scream that could make you go deaf.  he falls to the ground with these outrageous tantrums.  he bugs the heck out of nolan.

but then he always loves to snuggle.  he tells me how much he loves me all the time.  he has such an excitement for life.  he loves giving nolan hugs and wrestling him to the ground.  and he is the cutest thing to walk the earth.  

i can't get enough of this kid!  he makes me laugh so hard with what he says and does.  it's hard to get mad at that face or his sweet voice.  but holy cow, he is one big ham.  we love him to pieces.  

the pictures were taken by nolan.  can you believe that?  i just love them.

{pop rocks}

jake bought some pop rocks for the boys to play with for the holiday but jake had to work the 4th so we busted it out early.  

you may notice that lukie isn't in any of these pictures.  he didn't eat his dinner and was having a hard time so we put him straight to bed.  sad day for lukie.

we still had fun making a mess. 

{quick trip to ut}

back in june we were able to fly home to visit family and some friends but mostly we went to celebrate my brother getting married.  

i was a little nervous for the flight to ut because i was doing it alone and we had just found out we were 6 weeks pregnant.  the flight left at 5pm so we were not going to be in ut until midnight.  i didn't do so well on the flight.  i threw up on each connection.  i don't know if it was the landing thing that i just couldn't stomach.  i felt so bad for the girl sitting next to me.  i knew i was going to throw up so i slowly started opening the barf bag, looked over to her and said i'm so sorry, and puked my guts out.  to make matters worse nolan kept asking, "what are you doing mom!" really loud.  so then everyone knew what i was doing.  but at least the boys slept for most of the flight.

every time i fly alone i say i'm never going to do it again. somehow i always do.  even though the flight was awful and i felt horrible it was nice to be greeted by my wonderful mother who waited patiently for our flight to come in an hour late.  we didn't get home until 2 am.  like i said, lovely lady.

while we were there the boys went to see the trains.

this is a favorite with our crazies.  thank goodness it's free!

we celebrated the "big day" up at the Logan Temple on june 9th.  my mom and dad waiting excitedly for the bride and groom to come out.  i think they were more thrilled that this was their last wedding.

the very reason for our trip home.  the happy mr. and mrs. russell.  i couldn't believe how cold ut was for the month of june.  there was a big hail storm before the ceremony and major rain during.  i don't think it was even 65 degrees.  so cold.  but eric and kimmy didn't seem to mind.  they were so happy to be married.  

my sister and her hubby dan.

the beautiful logan temple.  i've been lucky enough to attend 3 weddings here.  

the whole family is complete.

this crazy bunch are my woolley cousins.  the ones from my mom's side.  we haven't been together since my wedding almost 8 years ago!!!  i can't believe it.  things got right back to usual.  lots of loud laughter and inappropriate jokes and funny poses.

i totally miss them and wish we could get together more often but our lives are just too busy right now.  we all have little families to take care of.  

the russell kids.  somehow i keep getting shorter.

dad and eric.  such handsome men.

the bow-tie men. 

the reception was held in kimmy's backyard.  they just put the yard in for the wedding.  it was a beautiful home and such a pretty location.

nolan was in love with the music.  they had a friend play some songs and sing for the background music.  she was awesome!  notice how nolan is wearing a coat.  it was freezing.  and they had ice cream for their refreshment.  what are the odds that june would be that cold.

i was a little disappointing with how nice they fed the cake to each other.  boring!!!  the whole day was wonderful though.  i am so happy for my brother and i just love his wife kimmy.  

after all the wedding we did some other fun stuff.  we took tracks to the gateway to run through the fountains.

lukie with his papa rabe.

it was so fun to watch the boys have a good time in the water.

the whole gang.  luke, nolan, jake, ann, taryn, and blake.  don't they all look so excited?

the fun is written all over their faces.  they had such a good time.

we also went swimming in great grandma critchlow's pool.  the boys really enjoyed it this time.  lukie and nolan went off the diving board over and over again.  poor jake was so done with it at the end.  i refused to get in because i wasn't feeling well.

and last but not least we were able to see our favorite people, joel and tera.  they were so nice to stop by on our last day there.  they had been on vacation the whole time we were there so this was a quick get together.  our trip was really short so we were lucky enough to hang with them for a bit.  sorry for the blurry picture, brad took it.  i can't believe that we both have two kids.  we became friends in undergrad when i was pregnant with nolan.  they caught up to us quickly.  

our trip was short and sweet.  i wish that i felt better for the whole thing but being pregnant didn't help.  i don't even want to tell you about the flight home.  worse than coming.  but at least we were able to see family and friends.  it was a good trip!

{moving day}

i can't tell you how much i dislike packing up everything and putting it in to a moving truck.  i told jake if he doesn't find a job where they will move us i'm done.  so we bought a house and we were suppose to close the day of graduation but something got held up and we wouldn't be able to move in until monday.  but then there was another bump in the road and we couldn't close until tuesday late afternoon.  it was becoming a bit ridiculous.  we wanted to move already.  we had the truck ready to go.  

so with not closing until later we didn't actually leave milwaukee until monday, two days later than planned.  that meant that my brother, who flew out to help us move, had to drive down with his fiance to peoria to fly home on sunday.  the plans were to already be down there.  very inconvenient.  but my good brother just rolled with it.  i'm sure he didn't mind some alone time with the sweeties. 

monday morning we get up and get going.  we start bringing the boxes out one by one.  ugh, such a pain!!!  and it was hot that day.  it took us about 3 hours to load up the truck and then the cleaning came.  boo.  we didn't have any help because all our friends were gone already so it took longer than we would have liked but since we couldn't get in to the house till tuesday anyway, it didn't seem to matter when we finished.  

since there was some time before leaving the men decided to fix our light.  it had a whole in it and would collect moisture.  they did a great job!  still no water.

our truck was completely full.  it always is.  the men did a great job organizing it.

making sure the windshield wipers were all in order.  i guess it was suppose to rain on our drive down.  nice pose brad!

we finally get to peoria and are able to move in.  the drive was not bad.  just about 4 1/2 hours.  but.....our van decided to have the a/c give out and we haven't had it since.  it was one hot ride.  

when we got to the house, jake's dad, thought we could back the truck right up in to the driveway.  little did he know that the roads and driveways here are a tight squeeze.  so my mom, the kids, and i sat on the porch watching them try.  when all of the sudden brad rams the moving van in to the neighbors truck, lifts it off the ground, and slams it back down.  then still going chips our other neighbors rock wall.  you wouldn't believe the words that came out of my mouth!!!!  i'm so sorry mom that you had to hear that.  i was dying!!!  hi, we're your new neighbors, sorry about your car!  seriously.  i'm sweating just thinking about it.  i still don't look that neighbor in the eye.  anyway, brad exchanged info with the guy and he seemed ok with it.  brad told me he said if that's the worst thing that has happened to me today then i'm ok.  thank heaven he was a good guy.  thanks for the good memory brad.

while we were sweating our, you know what, off, lukie was just taking a snooze.  i can't believe he didn't wake up with all the in and out.  he was just plopped on the sofa so tired.  

there was lots of "old man" groaning going on with the move.  but they were a great help and i don't think we could have done it without them.

after everything was completely unloaded there were many more of these going on.  everyone was tired from all the hard work.  thanks mom, dad, and brad for helping us.  we are so lucky to have such supportive parents.  

we have lived in our amazing home for almost 3 months and i still am in love with it!!!  i have so many decorating ideas i want to do but i have to be patient.  i will post pictures of the place when we get stuff hung up.  i have been too sick to do anything.  so no pictures have been hung, no furniture painting has started, and no new purchases have been made.  i'm sure jake's loving that part.  oh wait, we did get a new chair with an ottoman.  pics to come.  we love out house!!!

{the big event}

after taking all the pictures from the morning we headed off to the real thing.  it was held at the Milwaukee Theatre.  parking was crazy.  it was right down town so wherever you could find something was what you got. 

this was my sad attempt at taking a picture of what the stage looked like.  it was amazing.  jake's class is huge.  i think there were 204 in his graduating class.  that is a lot of people to go through.  and with jake being an "R" we had a lot of waiting to do.

so we took some pictures of us waiting.  i can't stand how handsome he is.

we had some great seats.  jake was even able to see us from his seat.

lukie was a little exhausted.  we started the day at noon and graduation didn't end until 5:30pm.  long.

the big moment.  i think we would have been the loudest ones cheering but right before jake was a freaking tribe cheering for their son.  i think they were from africa but they brought their entire family.  they were louder.  but we still made known our love for jake.  we are so proud of him.  what an accomplishment.  i seriously can't believe how hard he worked for this.  during the whole graduation i sat back and thought about what he had to go through.  my husband is amazing.  i'm so lucky to have such a hard working man.  and it is nice that he's still sexy as ever.

it's official!

lot of emotional hugs.

i can't even explain the emotion we were going through at the end of this.  we were so happy for jake and so sad to be leaving milwaukee and all our friends.  i was so emotional all day.  one minute i was crying and the next smiling from ear to ear.  what a crazy day.

i love these girls so much.  i was so upset that this was the last time we would see each other for a long time.  we tried to act like we'll see ya soon but i was dying inside.  and for some reason, tiff had no emotion.  i don't think she realized that we were all leaving.  

the very deserving doctors.  so proud of all of them.

after graduation we headed to Rock Bottom restaurant one last time to enjoy a meal made for a doctor.  so proud of you jake and all that you've accomplished.  you have pretty much gone to school for 25 years!!  that's a long time.  and thanks family for all your help and support through the years.  you made it so much easier.