Halloween Pics 2011

My awesome friend Ashley took these pics of the kids for Halloween this year!

All Peanut has ever wanted to be was an astronaut and my friend Mindy found this costume at a garage sale!!! I made the jet pack from an idea I found on Pinterest (LOVE PINTEREST!!!), and found the boots at the Goodwill.

J Bear wanted to be a vampire and it was a quick and easy costume for him as well. Loving it!!!

And if you need pictures taken... call ASHLEY!!! She is amazing!!!

The BLANKIE!!!

For the last 5.3 years Peanut has had this blanket. It has been a good companion and friend for him. However, last week we visited the dentist and he informed us that it was time for him to stop sucking his thumb. Peanut's eyes got all teary and with his voice quivering he said, "But I don't want to." I knew the day was going to come but I was dreading it. From the day he got sick when he was six months old and stopped taking a pacifier he has sucked his thumb. It had to be stopped. But how? I knew the answer but did not want to face it. His blanket had to be taken away. The only time he sucks his thumb is when he has his blanket in his hand. His beloved friend would have to get "lost". So on Thursday, Aug 6th, 2009 Peanut's blanket was gone. I have hidden it away so that someday when the thought of sucking his thumb is no longer present, his dear friend can return. He has not sucked his thumb for 4 days and only asks for his blanket at night when he goes to bed. It makes my heart sad to take away his source of comfort and security. Hopefully someday he will understand.

Children's Museum of Phoenix

First I just have to say that I love, love, love the Children's Museum of Phoenix. My mom and I took the kiddos a couple of weeks ago using the Culture Pass so it didn't cost us anything but even without the pass, the entry fee is only $9 per person. And for a fun fabulous day indoors where it is nice and cool, it is soooo worth the money. And here come the pictures:

These tubes have air blowing through them and so when you build them up and then put ping pong balls into them, they shoot up in the air. J Bear couldn't get enough of that.

This is a really cool segway that you have to walk with your feet by using a set of tires. Peanut was coordinated enough to get that one going but I sure wasn't.



Don't they look so intense. They were watching balls roll through clear rain gutters around the room. That was a pretty cool room. They had lots of things to build that you could put balls through. If you remember the old marble run's from when you were a kid... these were 10 times bigger and even more fun then I ever remember marble run's being.





This was yet another version of a marble run. It was a wall of sheet metal and all the pieces had magnets on the back so they could be moved around to create different pathway's. Then the kiddos could roll golf balls through the different pathway's they had created. I would love to figure out how to make one of those to put on a wall in my backyard. Wouldn't that be awesome!





This is J Bear in the large pizza kitchen they had set up. There were adjacent rooms; one was a grocery store and one was a garden, so that they could shop and then take them to the kitchen to cook. I would have loved this one the best when I was there age. I loved to play kitchen and grocery store.


This was J Bear painting a house that they had in the Art Studio. As you can tell, there were many that had come before him to paint this masterpiece.

This was the "carwash" where the kids could ride through on tricycles and pretend to be washing their cars. Is anyone else's kids obsessed with car washes like mine are? Mine have loved the car wash ever since they were babies.

This was Peanut's favorite part of the whole museum. These were large tubes that were filled with circulating air. Then there were these places where you could slip in brightly colored hankies and ping pong balls. They would zip through the tubes, pop out the top and gently rain down to the kiddos below.

We could have stayed there all day!

Free Lunch for kids...

I was talking to some friends on Sunday about this and so I wanted to post the information for everyone who would like to go. In our school district they offer a fabulous deal for anyone 18yrs and under. Your kids can eat breakfast and lunch for free at specific school cafeteria's around the district. If you are over 18 it's $1.50 for breakfast and $3.00 for lunch. Check here for locations.

Favorite Toys

I don't know about anyone else's kiddos but mine go through stages where all they do is carry around a specific toy for weeks. Every time I see them they have the same toy in their hand. So right now these are their favorites:

Right now Peanut carries around anything that is made out of Lego's. He LOVES Lego's but most especially vehicles that he can put little men in and drive around. As you can see in the top picture he is playing with a police car but normally he is playing with the BatMobile that is pictured just above.

J Bear is currently obsessed with dinosaurs. Yet another yard sale find was a huge bucket full of tiny dinosaurs. It was only $2 and J Bear begged me for them. I figured this would be yet another toy that would eventually end up at the Goodwill but I gave in. Not the case however. He has not stopped playing with them in weeks. I have to even check his pockets before church because he will try and sneak them to church to play with.

Baseball Memories

I for one LOVE baseball! I have always thought that it was the most fun sport to watch. What other activity do you know where it is okay to eat hotdogs, peanuts, popcorn, drink lots of soda and scream at the top of your lungs for hours (as you can tell, I am not a quiet fan)? Anyway... so Hunny got some AWESOME tickets to the D-Backs game from work and I was pretty excited to go, then realized that was Grandma and Grandpa's weekend to have the boys come play and I had other things going on that I just couldn't miss out on. So we gave Grandma and Grandpa the tickets and let them take the kiddos. They had a great time and got spoiled as usual. Here are the pictures that they took while they were there. (Thanks Grandma for taking the pics and sending them over!)

First Swim of the Summer

The boys have been dying to go swimming in the pool ever since the weather started to get warm. I have to admit that I also have been wanting to swim but the chilliness of the water keeps turning me away. The boys and hubby braved the pool for the first time last week. It didn't last very long but here are the pictures to prove it:

I'm Blue!

So what happens when you spend an afternoon catching up on your blog? Your youngest son does this:

Folks... this is blue food coloring. He wanted to paint so he slathered it on his hands and put handprints all over my fridge. When he realized that this stuff was not coming off, the first thing he said with tears in his eyes was, "But how am I going to go to church?" Luckily after a long soak in the tub, most of the blue soaked off his body. Just under the fingernails and a little bit on the toes remains. Serves me right for spending the afternoon on the computer.

Coloring Easter Eggs

This is the first year that the boys have been old enough to color their own eggs. They normally sit on our laps and we help them to color the eggs. This year they did their own and although I had to let them make messes a little more than I would like... they did it themselves and had a great time.

More Easter Weekend...

Saturday afternoon we got lucky enough to spend at what my kiddos call "The Farm" otherwise known as Shawn and Jean's house. We had so much fun. I never worried about the kids the whole time. They played and played until they couldn't play anymore. They were so muddy because it had rained that morning and we WERE on the farm. But they had so much fun. There were cows and chickens and a couple horses as well as a couple puppys for the kids to play with. Lots of room to run and even some hay stacks to play in. We had an Easter Egg Hunt and really good food to boot! Thanks for such a fun day!

J Bear on the hay stacks (my favorite pic of the day)

Peanut watching the big kids play ping-pong.

J Bear and Addie were such good buddies that day!

Peanut hunting for Easter Eggs

Once upon a rainy Easter...

Sorry we are so far behind in posting. It has been busy at our house the last two weeks and so now we update...

We had a great Easter weekend. It all started on Saturday morning. The kids were so excited to go to the Annual Ward Easter Egg Hunt. They could hardly go to sleep the night before. So we woke up to find it pouring rain outside. Can you believe it? So we tossed the idea around and after much debating, we got in the car and headed to the local park. It was just drizzling by then. When it was finally time for the hunt and the word "GO" was said... it started to rain hard. The poor kids got all wet not to mention the amount of sticky candy that we came home with (note to self... unwrapped jelly beans and rain do not mix). But that is all they talked about all morning was the great time they had hunting eggs at the park.

Random Events as of Late

Last week Peanut went with Grammy for the day. They went to Sardella's (a pizza place) and he got to make his very own pizza. Aparently he got to roll out his own dough, put all the toppings on and help put it in the pizza oven. That was a fun thing for him as he hardly ever gets to help out in the kitchen at home (he doesn't follow directions very well sometimes). What a great memory for him.

All of the following pictures are from our recent family trip to the park. We have been going a lot more than normal because the weather has been so AWESOME! J Bear seems to think when he lays on the swing on his tummy that he can "Fly like a Superhero". It is one more sign that he really thinks that he is a real superhero.

All the boys playing on the swings.

And we even rode our bikes to the park. That was an adventure in itself.