Walking...sort of

Brigham is almost walking on his own. He is so funny about it, he'll take about 3 or 4 steps and start giggling and then sit himself down just laughing. He loves Mom or Dad to hold his hands and walk him around. Elaine didn't walk until she was about 15 1/2 months either, so guess its hereditary. This picture was taken a few weeks ago, so no he is not sleeping in full jammies when it is 95 degrees out. In fact, he isn't sleeping well lately as he was teething last week and now he's up at 5:30 or 6:00 am with the sun. I need to get some dark drapes for the room to keep this little rooster asleep longer. :)

Kid Sense. . .

This week we'll have been here in Arizona 1 year--wow that went fast! I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun. We certainly have been enjoying ourselves here. So it was fitting to use these pictures as they were taken in St. George on our way down last year.

I'm not sure where the imagery came from, but the other day I overheard Elaine ask Dallin as she was singing a little song, "Don't I sound like a pretty lady carrying baskets of flowers?" and Dallin inhis typical off the cuff style responds, "No, you sound like an old lady screaming that just got stung by a bee!" He was giggling after, so no feeling were hurt, but what random comments on both sides.

And Taft I swear is going to be in the ER someday. He's always trying to get into what he shouldn't and moving chairs and stools and climbing counters and cupboards to do so. The other day he starts bringing in his mini trampoline from outside and when I ask him what he's doing he tells me he wants to put it in front of the fridge so he can jump up and get the tootsie roll. What?!!! Where do kids come up with these ideas?

Getting Warmer. . .

We started swim lessons for the kids on Saturday and after getting home I was getting eager to swim myself, so I turned to the weather channel to quickly check the coming weeks temps. From this 7-day forecast I'm thinking Wednesday would be a good day for a dip in the pool :) Yikes!

Easter/Spring Break Fun

All dressed up for Easter Sunday! We had a good Easter with just us here in Arizona. The night before some friends invited us to do a nighttime egg hunt with them at the park. It was fun with out flashlights, I had trouble finding the eggs. Taft of course, ate all his candy in one day--monkey!

During spring break we did one fun activity a day. This was wednesday, Kirt took the day off and we hiked around the Riparian Preserve. Dallin's friend Blake joined us for the day. We fed the ducks (later read a sign stating not to feed the wildlife--oops). The kids dug in the sand for a dinosaur and. . .

We brought a picnic lunch to enjoy.

After the Preserve we went over to the Rec center and the kids climbed the rock wall. Elaine is quite strong and actually got all the way to the top on her 2nd try.

Dallin also made it quite a ways up the wall before rapelling on down.

A quick recap of the week:

Monday: We went to the library for a St. Patricks Day activity and to get some books and movies to keep busy with during the week.

Tuesday: We went to the Mcormick Stillman train park in Scottsdale with a group of friends to play and picnic. Erin has a nice picture of it on her blog, and my camera batteries died that day :(

Wednesday:Pictured above :)

Thursday: We went to Tumbleweed park with same group of friends. It's nice for the kids to have other buddies to play with and Mom to have adults to chat with.

Friday: Mom was worn out! We caught up on some chores to get ready for the Easter bunny and later the kids went to the neighborhood park for a bit. I thought it was a fun yet low key spring break!

Happy Birthday Elaine!

Elaine turned 6 today! It was fun to see her so excited for her birthday. She is such a sweetie. Right now she loves animals, the littler and cuter the better. She loves her baby brother and gives him hugs and kisses before she leaves for school and at bedtime. She looks up to Dallin and loves to teach Taft things, but he can be good at annoying her like no one else. She has a bit of tomboy spirit to her, loves to giggle and be silly, and loves ice cream. She's a great help to Mom. And suprises her teachers at what a fast learner she is. We love our Elaine!

Elaine had a birthday party with her school and church friends today. She invited about as many boys as girls, it was a fun group. The weather was great so we had it all outside. 10 minutes before the party she told me,"Mom, I just can't wait anymore, when are they coming!"

She wanted an animal theme party. So, I made this cake for her with a safari scene. I used brown sugar and sprinkles for the desert oasis effect (It has ice cream inside-yum) She was particular though and wanted a white cake with white frosting--mission accompished!

All were anxious to enjoy a treat!

We played a few animal themed games, one of which was "Pin the tail on the Monkey" It was funny to watch.

Just some shots with her family on her special day. ( My camera has trouble focusing when there is too much yellow, so the pictures of the party with Mom and Dad and brothers didn't work :( as it was outside with the yellow table cloth and yellowish lighting overhead--wierd , I know)

Elaine's brother's were happy to celebrate this special day with her. Fortunately, for Mom's sanity they all had some place to be during the party. :)

Park Day

On Friday we went to the park to meet up with some friends from church and enjoy the sunny weather. The kids had a great time at the playground and running around the field. Even Briggy didn't mind crawling through the sand and trying to keep up with Taft and Elaine. Dallin was at school so didn't get to join us this excursion. Brigham just giggles with glee while riding in the swing.

Elaine coaxed Brigs all the way up the stairs by following her little webkin puppy. They then had a fun time going down the slide together.

Taft loves to jump and bounce around. Brigham crawled over to get a closer look.


Elaine also enjoyed flying through the air on the swings.

Happy Birthday TAFT!

Taft turned 3 today! Unfortunately, he wasn't feeling his best earlier on during his party. He's had an earache off and on the last couple of days. So, he hasn't been his silly high energy self. I finally captured this smile from him right before bed this evening, he got a second wind after dinner. It was a pretty low key day, just Mom and Dad and siblings for the party. We had planned to go to the fire station, but as Taft conked out right after opening presents and eating 2 bites of cake we decided to save that excursion for another day. We love Taft and all his silliness, always keeps us smiling at his antics, and wish him a very happy 3rd Birthday!

Taft just stayed on the couch to open his presents. He got some more track for his train, a little people fire engine, a T-ball set, and a mini trampoline( Mom and Dad hope he'll use that to bounce on instead of the furniture).

It was cute to watch Taft with his new toys. He really liked them and wanted to play, but found it hard to gather up the energy.

He's been telling me for weeks he wants orange cupcakes with cars. So I created this little treat tree for him using 'Cars' stickers on toothpicks. He managed to eat the top frosted part off of his before. . .

Out like a light! Taft crashed out on the bed in the guest room with his bunny and new trains. (We'd just moved that bed downstairs that morning, I hadn't even put sheets on it yet--Taft didn't mind)

After a very long nap Taft headed outside with Elaine to try out his new T-ball set. They had fun taking turns whacking at the ball. It was great to see Taft finally enjoying himself on his birthday.

Random Facts about Me

Jennifer tagged me so I need to share 7 random facts about myself. I get embarassed sharing about myself, so I'll do this quick before I post about Taft's Birthday tomorrow and maybe it'll get looked over on the page :) Here are the rules. #1 Link to the person that tagged you. #2 Post the rules on your blog.#3 Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.#4 Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.# 5 Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged.

1. I absolutely love strawberries! Put them in a milkshake--Yum.
2. I've skiied and or snowboarded in California, Canada, and Utah, Utah was the best snow and I'd know since I spend so much time sitting/falling in it.
3. Enjoy some type of excercise daily, in fact I get cranky if I skip too many days.
4. Smashing Pumpkins is the only concert I've ever been to--crazy!
5. I hate to do dishes, much rather clean bathrooms.
6. Claustrophobic--the idea of a cruise freaks me out.
7. Hope to travel to Europe someday and see all the big sights and taste the cuisine.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just thought I'd post a picture of my sweet valentines! We aren't doing anything too big this year for Valentine's Day as Dallin, Kirt and I have been sick. That is why I am blogging at 2 am-yikes! I have a terrible sore throat(not strep, luckily) and have only eaten a smoothie and 2 bowls of soup in the past 2 days. And I can't sleep. I think I'm getting over the worst of it, though. We were going to order in Chinese food. As 10 years ago, the V-day before we got engaged, Kirt set up a nice table and ambience and picked up chinese food. We thought it'd be a fun little anniversary of that day. But, no we have to go and get sick, so it doesn't sound good right now. I was so looking forward to some shrimp, I've weaned Brigs and can eat it again--another day, I guess. Dallin and Elaine are excited to give out their little Valentine cards at school and have a party with their class. Dallin was funny on his cards, he didn' t want to write all the classroom kids names on them, so on each one he put,To: you. So, Happy Valentine's Day To You!!!

Any Valentine's Day traditions?

What are you doing to spread the love this special day?

Tennis anyone?

I haven't had a chance to blog lately. I just pulled the pictures off the camera and realized I haven't taken any since Brig's birthday. Oh where does the time go. Well, Saturday was just gorgeous and I was dying to play some tennis. Unfortunately, Kirt had scouting in the morning, Elaine got sick in the afternoon, and we were having furniture delivered early evening, there went that day-ugh. With four kids and no family around if we want to do anything we usally take them all with us as babysitting gets expensive. If Kirt and I are both home were not allowed to run an errand typically without taking at least one little monkey with us. Anyways, I digress. For my local blog reading friends I would love to get a group together to play some tennis occasionally. Either a weekday night around 6:30-7:30pm-ish(Freestone has lights) or Saturday morning around 7:00 or 8:00am-ish(Fincher Farm courts). We only have a few months before we'd have to be up at 5am to beat the heat-yuk. So let me know if you'd like to get together and when works best--no experience necessary--I'm so rusty myself :) [This picture is Dallin at tennis lessons in Utah 2 summers ago-fun!]

BookClub

Wednesday night it was my turn to host our book club group. It was a fun night, although I was really nervous to host. My sweet husband understanding how I stress getting the house ready for guests, came home a bit early to help out and got the younger kids in bed and him and Dallin hung out upstairs the rest of the night downloading music to Mp3 players. I think we had about 15 ladies come. The book we read for discussion was Tuesdays with Morrie, which was good. As usual we didn't stay on topic long and discussed things from friendships , Lord's hand in our lives, kids, autism, vaccines, who's pregnant(congrats Atalie), illnesses, shopping, and dogs to name a few. This is just such a great group to be around and am so grateful to have gotten involved when we first moved here; I've made some fun friends and learned a lot. Yeah for bookclub--looking forward to next month!

Birthday Fun and Grandpa Visit

We all loved celebrating Brigham's 1st Birthday on the 15th. It was just us and Grandpa Dye. We went to Joe's Farm Grill for dinner and then came home and enjoyed banana cupcakes(muffins-frosted)-yum!
Brigham not quite knowing what to do with such a large morsel of food finally just dived in. He got good and sticky later.

Grandpa Dye got Brigham this cute little ride-on dump truck. It did the trick as he finally started to warm up to grandpa here.

Grandpa took all the kids to Toys R Us and let them pick out a toy--fun!!! We were there about 2 hours 'deciding'. The kids nicknamed my dad the Birthday Grandpa as he's good about visiting on thier special days. Unfortunately, he missed birthdays last year as we were moving and such. Dallin picked a nerf dart gun thing, Elaine a Barbie pool, and Taft a semi truck that hauls cars. Thanks Grandpa!