The Serafines: 2013

12.01.2013

Mason's surgery

Our sweet Bobby Mason had to have surgery in November. He had an inguinal hernia that wasn't going to resolve itself, so he needed to have it fixed. It was a simple day surgery, but kind of sad, nonetheless.

We can hardly believe that our little Graham turned 3 years old! He had such a great birthday. He was so excited for days and was continually asking if it was time to open his presents. He loved every minute of his day, and it was fun to see him so excited for his birthday. Graham is such a sweet little boy. He is so easy going aware of everyone's feelings. He often asks, "what's wrong?" or "what's going on here?" It's too funny. We sure love this little boy and are glad we got to celebrate his big birthday with him.

This year for Halloween the boys were Jake and Cubby from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Graham loved his Jake outfit. After the ward party, he refused to take his costume off and insisted on sleeping in it. Mason made a perfect Cubby, and did pretty well in his outfit. He liked to point out that he was wearing a hat. They were pretty funny.

front yard forest

We have somewhat of a forest in front of our house and they boys love to play in it.

punkin jacks

Graham could hardly stand the fact that there were pumpkins at the grocery store. So for FHE we went and got some pumpkins and carved them up. (On a side note, we carved them way to early, because the pumpkins are now a mushy mess of moldy gourd on our front step.) But the boys loved carving their 'punkin jacks' as Graham calls them.

play time

These boys love to play. Oftentimes, I'll snap one picture of something they're doing. So we present to you.....playing.

little backpacks

Mason and Graham got the cutest little backpacks for Mason's birthday. They love to wear them around, especially Graham.

Graham goes to the dentist...

...and he was sad. He did alright while the dentist was checking out his teeth, but when it was all over, the tears came. I think it was a little traumatizing. Sorry, Graham. The good news is that he doesn't have any cavities and his teeth look great. In the end, though, he was doing just fine because he got to put a token in the dentists cool toy machine and got a bouncy ball. Awesome.

Mason's big boy chair

As most babies do, Mason outgrew his infant seat. I'm glad he did, too, because his weight plus the seat weight was a back-breaking load. He's one heavy kid. But we got a bigger seat for Mason, and he loves it. He and Graham have the same seat, and they are too cute riding in the car in their thrones.

san diego childrens' discovery museum

A few weeks ago the Dahlquists invited us to join them at the childrens' museum in Escondido. It was really cute, and the boys had a lot of fun. It's a smaller museum, but it's great because it's one big room that kids can't get lost in. And they can't run away. : ) Double bonus. There was so much for the kids to do they kept quite busy and were sad to leave.

other daily activities

Oftentimes I get a collection of single pictures on my phone and camera that don't really end up in a post by themselves, so enjoy this conglomerate of little photos. : )

I love that these little boys love books.

other birthday-weekend activities

My family was here for a few days, and we tried to fit in as many San Diego sights as we could. One afternoon we drove over to the temple and to see the seals in La Jolla. Both sights were just beautiful. : )

Happy Birthday, Mason!

August, August, August. How did you get here so fast? Somebody told my little baby that he could grow up and turn a whole year old. That somebody wasn't me. I can't believe how fast this last year has gone. We've been pretty busy, but Mason has grown up way too fast. But he has turned one year old, and we say, Happy birthday, sweet little Mason. We sure love you a whole bunch. At one year old, Mason is the sweetest little guy you've ever met. He's so happy and funny. He loves walking around and following Graham wherever he goes. Mason is very curious, and very brave. And strong too. He loves to eat. And he'll eat anything. His favorite food is anything with spaghetti sauce. Pasta and tomato-based soups are his favorite. He loves playing with cars and trains, and would rather be outside than inside, mostly, I think, to eat rocks. : ) Mason likes to play with balls, and has learned to kick soccer and footballs. It's too cute. He definitely lets us know when he's upset, but he also has the greatest laugh and the cutest dimples. Happy Birthday, Mason. We love you so much, and are so grateful that you are in our family. We can't imagine our lives without you.

Mason's birth August 2012

Mason had quite a big day on his little birthday. We think he had a good time; we sure enjoyed our day with him! We did our birthday festivities a little backwards because of the plans for the evening. We let him see his big present right when he woke up, and he loves it. We filled his little truck with presents, and made a balloon path to his toys.

summer activities

There were a few extra summer activities we did that were part of our ward summer calendar. We picked strawberries in Escondido, and made jam with what the boys didn't eat. I hear it was yummy. : ) We also went to Lake Miramar to feed the ducks. When we go to Idaho Falls, we usually take the boys to feed the ducks, so when I told Graham we were going to go feed the ducks, he kept insisting that Papa was going to be there. I think he was a little disappointed when we didn't feed the ducks with Papa.

zoo days

Not only does San Diego have one really cool, humongous zoo, it has a second equally cool, rather vast Safari park. We've been lucky enough to make lots of trips to both zoos so far. We sprung for a zoo pass, which has been great. We first ventured to the San Diego Zoo with our friends Emilee, Wes, and Olive from Arizona! We were so glad to see them. It's good to have great friends to visit with, and was something we especially needed, since we've been mostly just introducing ourselves over and over again instead of having any real conversations. : ) But we also went to the zoo with Jake and Kelli when they were here, which was just as awesome. I ventured to the Safari park with the boys one day while Matt was sleeping after a night shift, and anther afternoon he was able to come with us to the Safari Park. The good thing about having a pass to the zoo is we don't have to see the whole thing each time, which is perfect for little tiny kids who tire easily.

family visitors

One of the perks of living in such a nice vacation destination is we are getting people who come visit! Lucky for us, we got to see Jake and Kelli last week, and they brought their newest little cutie, Hadley. My, is she cute. We tried to get a picture of all the kids, and this is what we got. : ) At least it's documented that the cousins were actually together.

cookie dough

Graham is always asking me to make cookie dough. Whenever I use the mixer, he assumes I'm making cookie dough...and has been disappointed when it turns out we're making bread or pizza crust. (For the above picture, I couldn't get Graham to turn around. He was insisting I take his picture 'backwards.')

the antics of boys

These pictures are in no particular order, but these boys sure are busy. They're cute, but busy. : )

One of the days we were unpacking and getting everything moved in Graham fell asleep watching a movie. He never does this. Poor little Graham was so tired.

A few weeks ago we went on a picnic with Matt to the Train Park.

silly sleeper

Graham has been falling asleep in some silly positions lately, like under Mason's bed or sitting up and leaning against the wall. This particular nap time Graham fell asleep reading Dr. Ted, one of our favorites. Silly boy.

happy 4th

This year for the 4th of July we celebrated with some pretty fun activities. There wasn't ever any really good events happening in Arizona, mostly because it's just too hot. Matt had to work during the day so the boys and I started the day at our stake pancake breakfast and bike parade. The night before the 4th Matt and Graham decorated his trike. At the actual parade Graham was more concerned with watching the other kids ride their bikes than actually riding his own. He had to be pushed around the church building and did very little pedaling.

Some friends of ours in AZ were in town, and had extra Sea World tickets they weren't going use, and they were so kind to gift them to us. We had to end Matt's vacation with a bang, since it was his last day as an unemployed/student/vacationer. The day before he had to be at orientation we spent at Sea World, and it was fun. The boys love the animals, especially the whales.

Our very first family visitors came to see us a few weeks ago. Brad, Mandy, and the girls were visiting the Johnsons a little ways north, and they took an afternoon to spend with us! Graham and Mason love having other kids around. And those girls are just too stinkin' cute.

{This picture is from back in November. They've grown up just a teeny bit. : ) }

7.06.2013

san diego house

We spent months looking at rentals in San Diego. It was quite the chore. We think we found a pretty good one, though. Housing is sooo expensive in San Diego, many of the houses we looked at were a little pricey and weren't super great inside. For as much as they charge for rent here, you'd think each place came with a butler, or something. : ) Anyway, we found a good one, in the perfect area. We went with a townhome, because 1. it was a little less expensive 2. there's a pool and 3. it's well priced for the area we wanted to live in. We're pretty happy with it, although we had to scrub it down before we could really unpack, which was lame. This particular unit was empty for a few months, which was unusual for any of the other rentals we were keeping our eyes on. Everything else for this price in this area was going fast. We didn't actually come look at it, but Matt's cousin, Chris, was kind enough to come check it out for us. He gave us the okay, and we went forward with it. The only reason we can think of why it was empty for so long is because it needed cleaned. It wasn't horrible, but it was sparkling either. After a few good days of cleaning, it was good as new. The only bad part about the dirty floors, walls, and appliances was we'd just spent forever cleaning our own house. When we left our Arizona home it was spotless. Literally spotless. There wasn't a speck of dirt anywhere. Anyway, we're over it now, and are enjoying our time here so far. We are realizing that we live in a place most people come to vacation, and it's great. We still have quite a long list of things we'd like to do and see. But enough about that...here's a tour of our house.

moving

Moving was and is hard. We were super sad to leave Arizona. We loved it there, and we loved all our friends and our ward. While we were heartbroken to go, we were also tired of all our stuff in boxes. At least I was. Graham was too, because he would always talk about what was missing, especially the abc's that were on his wall. We rented a huge truck. The biggest one you can get. 26 feet. Yikes.

We took advantage of any pool day we could get before we moved. Aren't these boys cute? Thanks Bushmans for these awesome shirts. We love them. And they're super funny.

Our last Saturday was supposed to be a nice, relaxing day where we could just enjoy our last free day in AZ. But we spent it in a rather different way. We unhooked our washer and dryer early Saturday morning, only to find that the hot water valve wouldn't close, therefore spraying water in our house. We turned off the water and started working on it. And when I say we I mean Matt. Long story short, the project ended up taking the whole day, and my dad came to the rescue and used his soldering skills to fix the pipe. My heart sank when we had to cut the drywall. The whole thing was quite disappointing, mostly because we had spent almost two months fixing things, painting, cleaning, and we were exhausted. But, in reality, it was very good that it happened on Saturday, because 1: my parents were still in town and my dad could help, and 2: we had a whole day to do it and it wasn't Tuesday morning when we were trying to leave. When we had it cleaned up and fixed, we went to Home Depot (again) and found a plastic panel to slap over the top of the whole. So sorry, renters, for the eyesore of an "access panel" as we called it, because we weren't in the mood to fix the drywall. : /

Graham and his 'Papa'

and a birthday

The day after graduation was Matt's birthday, and since we did a fair amount of celebrating the day before we just did a little celebrating for the birthday. Happy 2-9 Matt! We love you very much and are soooo lucky to have you as our husband/father. You really are the best.

We spent the entire month of May getting ready for this one day, but when it finally arrived, it was quite surreal. Our time in Arizona, and more specifically at Midwestern flew by. (At least from my perspective. I think for Matt there were some slower times, but looking back it went by too quickly.)

cute cousins

Jane was one of our visitors for Matt's graduation, and she and Graham sat in the reading chair and read for a long time. Jane's such a good reader, and Graham loves having stories read to him, so it was a double treat. And they were super cute doing it.

6.25.2013

flying to and from florida

I'm not super crazy about flying. There's just something about being locked in a giant metal tube with a bunch of strangers, going super fast, that makes me a little squeamish. And I feel like everyone in an airplane has adopted an "every-man-for-himself" attitude. And those seats are so small...and kids are soooo wiggly.... I could go on... but I won't. The boys did great, though on our flight. We took plenty to keep them entertained, and it was a success. We sprung for the non-stop flight, and it was worth it.

all I wanted was a mouse ears picture

...and this is what I got.

Our very last day in Florida we went to the Animal Kingdom for half a day. I went to Disneyworld with my family when I was 12 or so, and Animal Kingdom was being built at the time, so we never saw it. But this time around, it was really cool to see something entirely new. We really liked the Animal Kingdom, it was like a really awesome zoo. They had so many animals, and a really neat safari jeep ride. The boys especially loved the animals.

By Saturday, all of our family had gone back to the real world, but we still had a few days left on our vacation. We headed to Disney World again, but went to Hollywood Studios this day. We had been excited to take Graham because he was going to be able to meet Lightening McQueen, his all-time-favorite.

None of us had ever seen the gulf coast, so we took a (much longer than we originally thought) drive out there, and it was beautiful. The sand was white and the water was blue and warm. Much different than the California coast.

The sand reminded me of brown sugar. It was super soft and full of seashells.

Florida: Universal Studios Thursday

On Thursday of our trip we all got back together and went to Universal Studios. This was a really fun park that had lots of fun things to see and some really scary rides.

We didn't waste any time and went straight to the back of the park to see Hogwarts.

And I got a butter beer. It was sooo good.

Graham stopped off in Dr. Suess land to pay a visit to the Lorax.

Matt had looked forward to riding the Jurassic Park ride for months. When we got there, we realized that it was closed for maintenance. Super bummer. Neither of us thought of looking up any closures online before we went, and we were sorely disappointed.