Family Cruise Vacation (April 2015)

Since the twins were due to arrive at the end of the summer, we decided to take Zander on a special vacation!  Knowing it'd be our last opportunity with him as our only child, we decided to go big!  We planned an awesome cruise and then surprised him! I He was so excited--he kept saying that he thought he was going to cry!  We left out of Texas and traveled to Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize; and Cozumel, Mexico.  We loved every second of it and made hundreds of fun memories! 

And we're off!  Flying to Texas.  

Going to get on the ship!  

Waiting for our floor to open up.  Lots of luggage!  I was 19 weeks along with the twins.  

Cruise food is the best when you're 9 and when you're pregnant!  

Zander was in heaven!  

My favorite dessert.  

Zander's age group was called the Voyagers and he loved it!  He met some cool kids and liked spending time there!

Vroom vroom!  

Even I got in on the fun!  

Zander enjoying the cold swimming pool.  

Fancy night 

Cute tiny baby bump.  So little compared to what it would become!

One of Zander's favorite parts-the towel animals!  

Snorkel time!  Our favorite family activity. 

Pizza and soda in Roatan!  We loved it there!  

Beach Babes

Heading to Belize City.  

Cool kids! 

Swamp ride to the ruins.  There were alligators in that water!  Yikes!  

Ruins

I did a lot of sitting... 

We made it to the top!  It was so hot and humid.  

Sitting again...

Our awesome tour guide.  

The most delicious lunch.  It made me miss Ecuador.  

Z man in front of our massive ship!  It was a great place to spend 6 days!  

Cozumel, Mexico

Lance and Zander love coconut water!  Such a fun treat to drink it out of the actual coconut! 

One cool dude!  

Hottie!  

Big guns 

Second fancy night

Lobster!  

No lobster for the pregnant girl.  I didn't mind:) 

Rock climbing 

Cuties

Ice skating!  

Holy guacamole!  

Playing cards on the deck!  

Mini golf

And we're done!  We loved it and can't wait for our next cruise:)

It Can Still Be Beautiful

It can still be beautiful...

It's been said a thousand times over that children teach their parents far more than we could ever expect to teach them.  

Well, my twins are only 6 weeks old and they have already taught me an invaluable lesson that I'd like to write about, hoping that I'll remember it daily.  

It can still be beautiful.  

That's the lesson.  So simple, but so rich.  So the lesson begins before they were even conceived.  My husband and I wanted to add to our family but experienced difficulties. As time went by, we both sensed that medical help would be needed but like most happily married couples, we wanted our baby created through romance, not medical intervention.  But alas, there we were undergoing invitro-fertilization.  But guess what?!  It worked and it was still beautiful.  

Next came our birth desires.  A natural birth was the only way I'd ever attempt to birth my babies.  I wanted to experience it, all of it, pain and all.  But alas, a breech baby and a cesarean later, my babies safely arrived.  And it was still beautiful.  

Now we're in the rigors of breastfeeding.  Only breastmilk for my babies, and they must drink it straight from my breast, was my fight all throughout my pregnancy.  Well, we've needed to supplement quite a bit, and I've now moved towards exclusively pumping since they were getting so little by breastfeeding.  But they are healthy and strong and growing perfectly.  And it's still beautiful.  

Life usually does not go just how we'd like it to.  But that's okay.  It can still be beautiful.  

Belly Bump Rap

Here is our ever-famous belly bump rap!!  

http://youtu.be/NIT7k6ulgUE 

We Bleed Blue

We are a BYU family!  Go Cougs!!

Zander got to meet the players! Him and Lance were in heaven:)

Some fun pics from Lance's phone

I found some gems on Lance's phone and couldn't leave them out!  

We found the Scooby Doo van!  We were driving home on the 15, and saw this awesome van right off the freeway!  

Zander signed up for baseball only to break his arm two games into the season.  :(  We were all sad but had fun with the two games we got!  Dang broken arm!  

This is from our Cali trip at the start of the summer.  Lance's childhood friend, Mike has a snow cone shack and we paid him and his family a visit.  

Zander in a tree!  

Zander mustache you to follow his mom's blog!  

Balloon festival!  Lance and Zander had a blast!  I was far too pregnant to get up and go.  Lol!  

Landon and Zach are one month old!