Boys Weekend

Oh, did I forget to mention that Blake, Max, and Jack came to Arizona too? Well, they did. But I barely knew it since Blake did such an excellent job handling the boys all by himself. Even from the beginning of the vacation. Blake and both boys sat on one row of the airplane and I sat, by myself, on the opposite side, several rows behind them. And somehow, Blake worked a mysterious magic and got both boys asleep...at the same time. Something, in all my travels alone with the boys, I've never been able to do.
Blake and Ashley (thank you, Ashley!) took the boys swimming and Max loved it. He was jumping off the diving board, rocks, rope swing like it was nothing. He was fearless. Some (his mother) would even say he was a little too fearless.

Jack was a different story. He didn't even get in the first swimming day, and the second day, it took a lot of coaxing and crying before he was happy sitting on the step with just his toes in the water. Blake did catch him off guard and pull him into the pool just long enough for a picture. But other than that, Jack was content on the step filling up and dumping out baby bottles of water.

Jack was more at home in the irrigation water. Still only gets your toes wet, but a little less intimidating.

The rest of the time was cousin time! Cousin time all the time! They watched movies, read books, played with toys, and built forts. Lots of forts. So of course the boys weren't missing their mom then. Who needs a mom when you have Caden to hang on? (Please note Max is literally hanging on to Caden in the picture of the two.)

But the real reason the boys decided to tag along to the girls' weekend was for the blessing of sweet Baby Henry. And what a fun day to have {almost} the entire family together. Definitely worth the trip.
Blake did such a good job keeping the boys entertained, it wore all three of them out. I found all of them dead asleep like this one night on the floor near Jack's crib. Of course Mickey and Minnie were there too. Thank you, thank you Blake for giving me a weekend off.
And although I know Blake COULD have done it by himself, he's lucky he didn't have to. Thank you also to Grandpa...
And a big thank you to Nanny for all of your help making it the perfect weekend. We can't wait to come back soon!
(I guess I should also thank the picture of Beth that always seems to keep an eye on whatever is going on in the living room. Look how nicely she is smiling at the camera for our picture! :))