JULY

Hi. It's Luke again!

First of all, here is Andrea at pretty much 9 months of pregnancy. She's huge in a very tiny way! We are so excited to have Peter in our arms. The official due date is tomorrow, but we both have a feeling that it'll be another week.

The other thing we are excited about is our move! We applied to the student housing at the U several months ago but as I corresponded with a girl that works there in the office, we were thinking that our chances of getting in right when we wanted to were slim, so we prepared a plan B and asked Mom and Dad Wright if we could live with them until we were offered an apartment at the U. They said they'd love to have us, and we were even getting kind of excited to live with them, but then the U called and offered us an apartment that we could move into on August 20 which works PERFECTLY!!! We were both so happy! We went and looked at the apartment immediately and although it is very small, we both feel like it is absolutely the perfect thing for our little family and we accepted the offer. So now we won't have to move in with parents after all and we will have much more time together as a family since I won't have to travel down to American Fork after my night classes. It was such an immense blessing and we're so overjoyed that it's going to work out!

New subject. The fourth of July was fun. We went and spent it with Mom and Dad Perkins and also Caleb and Lauren, and a hint of Andrew and his girlfriend. We just had a very nice relaxing day. We slept in, ate breakfast and talked until noon . . . Andrea napped, I washed our car for the first time in a year . . . we had a calm little barbecue and later that evening Lauren's parents invited us all to watch fireworks with them at Davis high. It was the first time we had seen a firework show to music and it was great! Here's a picture of the little Ho-Ho firecrackers that my Mom always makes, Andrea made them this year though.

The weekend after that we had a lot of birthdays to attend and a shower for Andrea with her family. It was a lot of fun too. These are pictures of Jackson and Alanna's combined party:

This is Jackson's Death Star cake that Caleb Made for him.

This is Jackson's other Skateboard cake with doughnut wheels (lucky boy!).

This is Alanna's Monkey cake.

When we were growing up my mom would make fun creative cakes for our birthdays like cookie monster cakes, baseball cakes, dragon cakes, etc. Sarah has definitely made the creative cake making a tradition for each of her kids birthdays. they're always really fun to see.

The first present that Alanna opened was . . . FINGERNAIL POLISH! I was amazed because she's just two years old, but she knew exactly what it was, exactly how to use it, and it was as if it was the only thing she ever wanted out of life! She tore into the package and I don't think anyone expected her to get very far but she picked some blue polish, unscrewed the lid and started trying to paint! People tried to persuade her to hold off until she had opened her other presents but she didn't care about them at all! she squealed and screamed and said her favorite word (No!) whenever anyone tried to take the polish from her so eventually we just gave in and patiently watched as she painted her nails. It was the cutest funniest thing ever!

And then here's one of the finished hand:

And while we're talking about Alanna, I have to mention that since she turned two she has immediately started liking me and acknowledging my presence etc. She'll hug me now, smile and laugh in my presence, let me hold her, wash her hands, and play with her. It's nice ya know? it's nice to try to give your niece a hug and not get stiff-armed in return :)

Sunday we had Ashton's birthday. I have to include this picture of Wilson and him:

We spent the afternoon helping with the quilt that Grandma Wright is making for Peter. The whole family got in on the quilting action. Here's Mom and Heidi:

It's going to be a really cool quilt with nine completely original and authentic patchwork illustrations by a really great guy called me :) I can't believe that Mom Wright is undertaking this huge task! It's going to be hard but she insisted on doing it so we all gave a big push to help her.

That evening we all told Ashton what we love about him and then we played a killer game of volleyball. I never had realized that there were enough people for a five on five game, and it was the most fun ever! Andrea and I can't stop talking about what a perfect, fun, friendly game it was.

And then we had this week which was fun as well but I'm done now so thanks for reading and goodnight.