Bumble Bird Blog

First Day of School

2011-08-28T13:45:00.005-07:00

August 8th was a big day for Joshua... his very first day of first grade! I think we were more nervous about it than he was.

We had met his teacher, Mrs. Dobyns, the week before and got to see his super cool classroom, so he was really excited to get started. On the big day we all went together to see him off. It was a bit more of a madhouse than what we were used to since his last school was SO much smaller, but despite the hundreds (and hundreds) of people, everything was very well organized and the chaos was at a minimum. We parked across the street and walked up to his new digs.

We found where he was supposed to line up ad before we knew it, he was off to class. He was so brave. He didn't cling, cry, whine or even hesitate to follow his class inside. He had a great first day, and first week, doing a great job on all of his school work and making a couple new friends. He just loves being a Brisas Gecko. :)

The following week, Benny started Pre-K at North Phoenix Baptist Church. His teacher from last year, who he loved, moved up to Pre-K so Benny was super excited to have another year with Ms. Debbie. I'm sure it will be a great year for both of them!

Escaping the Heat

2011-08-20T16:26:00.013-07:00

Seems like just yesterday Joshua graduated from Kindergarten, but before we knew it, he was ready to start 1st Grade. To celebrate the end of summer, we decided to get out of town for a weekend, heading toward cooler temperatures.

We jumped in the car Saturday morning and headed up north to Prescott. Since it was the first Saturday of the month, we thought it would be fun to stop at the Home Depot in Prescott Valley and do the Kids Workshop. The kids love doing them so much.

After our projects were done, we drove the rest of the way into Prescott to Lynx Lake for a nice hike. It is so pretty there!

We had an awesome time hiking around the lake, and the kids were awesome, holding up really well on the 2 mile trek. We brought notebooks for both of them to write down the things they saw that they wanted to remember.

We had a couple minor wildlife sightings, including hundreds of beautiful dragonflies in all sorts of colors, some big lizards and a really pretty crane.

After hour hike we had a picnic lunch, then got back in the car to start making our way toward Flagstaff. It was so nice to be in no hurry to get there, and have no agenda. We took the "long way" to Flagstaff from Prescott, up the 89A. That is probably my single most favorite road to drive in Arizona. You go through forest, canyons, mountains, and the cutest little towns like Jerome, and of course Sedona. By the time we got to Sedona, it was time to get out of the car for a while to stretch our legs, and get a little treat.

We continued up the 89A, through Oak Creek Canyon (Beautiful!)...

... and finally reached or hotel in Flagstaff. After getting checked in we went to dinner at the Mormon Lake Lodge south of Flagstaff. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere and has all sorts of animal heads on the wall, which the boys thought was super cool.

After dinner, it was pitch black outside, and being in the middle of nowhere, with no street lights, etc. anywhere near, we took the opportunity to show the boys some real stars. The moon was full so the stars weren't as visible as they would be without the moon being so bright, but it was definitely more than we can see in the city.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel, and had a great breakfast at "Mike & Rhonda's The Place". After breakfast we headed back home so we could make sure we had everything ready for the big first day of school the next day. What a fun way to end the summer!

Super Reader

2011-07-29T22:54:00.003-07:00

Josh started showing interest and ability in reading rather young. Right after he turned 4 years old we started learning our letters, letter sounds and then sight words. He picked it all up so fast I figured he would be independently reading in no time. But after he started kindergarten and he was learning SO much, his reading definitely slowed, if not stalled, for quite some time. It was like it just wasn't clicking with him, and that with all the other school work he was doing there just wasn't room in that 5 year old brain to fit in excelling reading.

Then we started to notice some things that started to concern us a little bit. He would be able to read certain words with no problem, but then simple words, like "we" he would stumble on and just couldn't figure them out. That with a few other red flags had me researching symptoms of dyslexia or other learning disabilities. Not that I was convinced he had any of them, but figured a little due diligence wouldn't hurt anything. My main concern was that he wouldn't be up to par with the rest of the kids in the reading department when he started 1st grade at his new school in August. I talked to his doctor about it at his well check after his 6th birthday, and she gave me some suggestions and some other things to look out for, but didn't seem too concerned about it, so that encouraged me.

Then over the summer, something has happened. It's like the little reading switch has all of a sudden been turned on. The man is a reading machine! He is reading everything in sight. He still needs help with some of the larger words, but he is now to the point where he reads by himself. It's too cute, because he doesn't yet read silently, so whenever he's reading a book, even if he's all alone, he reads it out loud to himself. I love it! I feel like any concerns I did have are totally gone and I'm confident he'll definitely be able to hold his own in 1st grade!

Joshua's First Retina Rodeo

2011-07-23T23:30:00.006-07:00

Joshua started wearing glasses when he was just 3 1/2 years old. We've known all along that neither of our kids would probably have a prayer of not needing any kind of vision correction. So I have been taking him for annual visits to the ophthalmologist ever since. This year, I took Benny as well. We weren't surprised to find that he also needed glasses. I was a little sad to put glasses on his little face, but I think they suit him well.

Joshua also got some new glasses that he thinks are super cool. He is super sensitive to sunlight and must always wear sunglasses when outside or else the poor guy can't function. So his new glasses have the Transitions lenses, which change from regular glasses to sunglasses when exposed to UV rays. They're pretty awesome and he absolutely loves them!

While we were at the ophthalmologist's office, the doctor said that Joshua's optic nerves looked large, which would mean there was a pressure issue, or it could mean nothing, so we were sent to a retina specialist to have a little more extensive check. At the retina specialists' office, they took an OCT scan of Joshua's eyes which showed some abnormalities. The doctor said these kinds of abnormalities were something normally found in a 50 year old, not a 6 year old. Joshua's sensitivity to light kind of hindered the physical eye exam. The poor guy was trying so hard to keep his eyes open, but he just couldn't. In light of the abnormalities shown in the OCT scan, the retina specialist wanted to take a good look at his eyes, and thought that putting Joshua under general anesthesia was the way to go. We scheduled the procedure at Phoenix Children's Hospital. Joshua was so super brave! We showed up at the hospital and were taken into preop, where Joshua was given a total of 12 eye drops in each eye. But he took them like a champ!

The hospital was so great. They had a child life specialist who came in and talked to him about what the operating room would look like, the mask they would use to help him go to sleep, and also offered him some movies to watch while we waited for the doctor and anesthesiologist to be ready for us.

Finally it was time to roll. Joshua got to take a ride on his bed back to the OR, which he thought was pretty cool, and he wasn't scared at all! After about an hour the anesthesiologist came out and told us Joshua was in recovery and resting comfortably. We found out that his retinas had some weak spots that the doctor had to use the laser on to strengthen them. All part of being part of the Duncan family! When Josh finally woke up, he was in a bit of pain, saying his eyes felt like fire and his brain hurt, and did throw up a couple times, but after some pain meds was a bit more comfortable. We came home and he pretty much drifted in and out of consciousness the rest of the day, but didn't complain too much more of pain or nausea. This was yesterday. He slept well all night and this morning woke up just about good as new. His eyes are still a little red and he says they still hurt a little, but otherwise he was perfectly normal!

The doctor sounded a little concerned that he had to take any kind of action at Joshua's young age, but early intervention is definitely the key to keeping Joshua's eyes healthy, and we will do whatever it takes to keep his eyes in tip top shape!

Happy 6th Birthday, Joshua!

2011-07-23T23:14:00.009-07:00

Joshua had the best birthday party this year! We celebrated the big 6 with a bowling party! It was so much fun! Lots of friends, and even his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Harren, came to celebrate with him and enjoy some bowling, pizza and of course cake.

Benny was probably the cutest bowler I've ever seen. He would push the ball down the alley and wait in a squat to see how many pins he knocked over. It was so super cute!

When I asked Joshua what he wanted for a birthday cake, his one requirement was that I also made "cake pops", so I decided to combine the two and set up a cake pop bowling alley on his cake. It turned out so cute, and suited the party perfectly!

The day ended with a few games in the arcade!

What a perfect way to celebrate a truly amazing little boy! Happy birthday, Joshua!

Joshua's Kindergarten Graduation

2011-07-23T22:34:00.014-07:00

It is unbelievable how quickly Joshua's kindergarten year passed us by. It seems like just yesterday we were watching him take his first steps into the kindergarten room and learning how to say the pledge of allegiance. Before we knew it, the school year was over and it was time for his graduation into 1st grade!

The graduation ceremony was incredible, and really showcased all the wonderful things they learned throughout the year. They showed us all the Italian they learned, like colors, counting, days of the week, months of the year, and even the "30 Days Has September" poem. They all did awesome! They also sang the "Can't Spell Hippopotamus" song and all read a story aloud to the crowd to show us the awesome reading skills they had developed throughout the year.

Then it was time for the big moment, the handing of the diploma!

Joshua had the greatest teacher for Kindergarten, and we thank her so much for a wonderful year. Joshua made Mrs. Harren a special book telling her all the things he loved about Kindergarten. It was so sweet!

All of Joshua's grandparents came and celebrated his special day with him, too!

Following the ceremony was a cake reception. I was so honored to be able to make the cake for the celebration. Since there were only 7 kids in the class, I decided to put all of their little faces on the cake, and personalize it as best I can. It was a huge hit.

The kids were so cute when they saw it. They were all so excited to see their faces on the cake. They all were saying "I see me!" So cute!

After graduation we let Joshua pick where we got to go have a special dinner, and he picked the "Cafe", known to most as the buffet. :)

It really was an amazing year and we are so happy we kept Joshua at North Phoenix Baptist Church for Kindergarten, because we were completley blessed by it! Now on to 1st grade and a brand new school!

Wilton Method Instructor!

2011-07-23T22:25:00.003-07:00

At the end of last year, I took the Wilton Method classes at Michael's, and found I was actually pretty good at it! My teacher and new friend, Hollie, had been asking me to become a teacher ever since I finished the classes. In May I finally accepted and am now teaching classes 1-2 times per week at the Ahwatukee Michael's store!

I am having a total blast teaching other people how to do something I am so passionate about myself. I have already gotten to meet so many great people, and have made some great new friends. Plus, it's a great gig. I get to make some extra money, plus get employee discounts at both Michael's and the Wilton online store, which has really come in handy with all the cakes I have been making for my business! And all for just a couple hours of work per week. Not a bad gig!

Winter/Spring Garden

2011-07-23T21:44:00.007-07:00

It's so great to live in a climate where we can grow things all year long. We had a super successful winter garden this past year. Carrots, spinach and some awesomely huge, and tasty, snow peas.

Thanks to the garden, Joshua discovered this love of spinach. Ever since he tasted the spinach from our garden, he can't get enough!

In addition to the garden, we finally planted a couple citrus trees in the backyard. We decided on an orange tree and a pink grapefruit tree. Orange Tree:

Grapefruit Tree:

We planted the trees back in March. The orange tree is doing great. Unfortunately, it looks like the grapefruit tree has succumbed to the heat, so it will probably have to be replaced once the summer is over.

We also have gotten two grape vines. They are still young, but hopefully next year we'll have some yummy homegrown grapes!

Our spring garden just wasn't super successful this year. We planted tomatoes, zucchini, and corn. Everything sprouted and grew tall, but nothing other than the tomatoes...

...was exceptionally fruitful. We got a couple good zucchini (which were delicious cooked on the grill!), but we certainly didn't have an abundance of zucchini (thanks to the bees stealing my pollen!), and our corn cobs just didn't grow kernels, which kind of made them look like "hillbilly teeth". LOL! Oh well, gardening is still fun! :)

Welcome to 2005!

2011-07-23T21:22:00.004-07:00

We aren't the "Keeping up with the Jones'" kind of people. Our technology is never the latest and greatest. We typically keep our stuff until it dies and we are forced to upgrade. The TV in our living room was originally purchased in about 1997 (no joke) and probably weighed about 150 lbs. We have be praying for something to go out on the darn thing to force us into the upgrade we so desperately wanted but couldn't justify. At the beginning of this year, we decided to say screw it, and bought a brand new HD TV. Of course with that, brought many other upgrades, HD DVR, Blue Ray, and we can now officially say we have entered 2005!

But we couldn't stop there! We have also finally given in to the world of the "Smart Phone". Our cell contract was up earlier this year, and we decided to bite the bullet and got ourselves iPhones. How we survived without them this long I'll never know! How wonderful it is to be able to find anything we need in unfamiliar areas, have driving directions available wherever we are, and I can't lie, being able to have 8 simultaneous games of Scrabble going at once is pretty cool! :)

We still have a few things around here to upgrade, i.e. the TV in our bedroom that I got as my high school graduation gift! But we're definitely moving up the technology ladder lately, and having a great time doing it!

Home Makeover

2011-07-23T21:05:00.006-07:00

When our house was damaged in that huge storm last January, we learned how horrible the windows on the south side of our house were (you know it's bad when you have to make sure your windowsills are stuffed with towels whenever the forecast called for rain!), and the door in our bedroom to the backyard we knew had definitely seen better days. In April we bit the bullet and decided to replace it all! What a difference it makes!

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

My friend, Ricky (who I have known since 1st grade) has is own window company and did the work for us. He did a fantastic job and cut us a great deal. We are so happy with this home improvement. And it is already saving us money on our energy bill! Home ownership is always a work in progress, especially when you have a 25 year old house. We've got a lot left to do on our house, but we're pleased with the progress we have made so far!

Do I Still Have a Blog???

2011-03-29T13:33:00.003-07:00

I just realized it's been 2 months... 2 MONTHS!!! since I've blogged. Ugh! I hate falling this far behind, and I have so much to share. But I really don't know where I can find the time to get caught up! We are kid-free this weekend (thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!) so I hope to be able to devote a little time to getting caught up. So for anyone out there still checking in, please check back soon. I promise I will have some new posts soon! :)

Fitness Quest 2011

2011-03-15T13:30:00.003-07:00

No, I haven't totally abandoned our blog. It just seems my time to sit down and write has been very scarce these days. But it's for good reason! For the last few months I have had a nagging thought in my subconsious that 1) I'm not getting any younger; and 2) my weight had become a little more difficult to control. So right after Christmas I decided to get serious about taking care of myself. I had noticed some of the weight that I lost a couple years ago had crept back, and I really wanted to get rid of it and get back down to where I was before. But more than that, I wanted to feel healthy. I didn't want to be sluggish and tired anymore. So I started working out, and adjusted my eating habits, and after a few weeks I had lost about 10 pounds! I'm really proud of myself for keeping it up for nearly 4 months now and have definitely noticed a change in my energy and strength levels. And to top it all off, I just bought 2 pairs of shorts in a size 6!!! I go through highs and lows of my motivation to work out, but so far, even in the totaly unmotivated times, I've been able to get myself back into it. I don't really feel like I need to lose any more weight (although I wouldn't cry if I lost 5 more pounds or so...) so now I'm just trying to focus on being healthy. I hope that now that I have found my groove, I can keep it up and continue challenging myself with more intense workouts to get a stronger, healthier me!

Belated Christmas Recap

2011-01-29T12:48:00.017-07:00

I am still so behind on blogging! Before we are officially in February I thought it might be a good idea to finally post about Christmas!

As events go, this Christmas was just about the same as last year, but the excitement level was through the roof this year!

One thing we like to do during the Christmas season is go see the light display at McCormick Ranch Railroad Park. We had talked about having a play date there sometime with Benny's little girlfriend Maddie, so we thought it would be fun to invite their family to come along with us (Maddie's dad couldn't come so her mom brought a friend along to help out). The night we went turned out to be the opening night of the light display, so the lines were unbelievably long. But the kids sufficiently entertained each other so the hour long wait just flew by. Here we are ready to go!

The kids loved the train ride and the lights, and when we got off the train, they loved to dance to the live music and ride the carousel.

When the big day finally rolled around the boys could hardly stand it! We spent Christmas Eve morning visiting my Grandma. We don't get to see her very often, and it is always a treat for her to see the little ones. Although it can sometimes be a challenge to have the boys over there, they did a great job, so afterward we rewarded them with lunch at McDonalds. After a quick nap, we were ready to keep rolling with the Christmas festivities! We went to church, and again the boys were superstars. Joshua was even clapping and singing along with the Christmas carols. After church we headed out to Grandma and Grandpa B's to celebrate with that branch of the family tree. It is always so fun to get all of the cousins together and watch them all enjoy their new toys!

We can usually count on the kids completely wearing themselves out at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but not this year! They were completely wired the whole way home, talking about the fun they had, and that Santa was on his way. But even though they were so awake, they got in bed at lightning speed when we got home. In fact, Joshua even tucked Ben in before he jumped into this bed. It was too funny. They both went to sleep without a peep. Benny woke up at about 7:00 and so we went in to get Joshua up. It was like the kid was on a springboard! He was waiting so patiently for us to come get him, but was definitely ready to go! We spent the morning opening our gifts and stockings, and just having a lot of fun together.

Grandpa and Grandma Maple and Auntie Andrea came over for breakfast. We had a nice time visiting and sharing more gifts. The rest of the day was spent hanging out, playing with new toys.

This Christmas, I decided to go on strike and declared that I would NOT be making Christmas dinner. So we went and had a wonderful family dinner at Bucca di Beppo, and was it ever good! I'm sold on going out for Christmas dinner! :) After dinner we carried on our Christmas night tradition of driving around looking at Christmas lights, and enjoyed some Christmas cookies and cocoa along our way. It was the perfect end to the perfect day.

The next day Christmas continued when we all gathered at my parents house for dinner. The kids all love getting together and pretty much entertain themselves, giving the adults some nice chatting time as well. My mom made a delicious prime rib with all the fixings and we all ate and drank and were very merry! :)

It was such a great time, and THIS time, they were sufficiently spent.

It really was the best Christmas ever!

Vigilanty Santa Photographer

2011-01-24T13:24:00.002-07:00

I don't really think of myself as "cheap", but definitely thrifty. I have this way of sort of rating the importance of the things I can spend my money on, and there are just some things I won't pay for. For instance, the Chandler Mall has a train that drives around the ground floor of the mall. For me to take my kids on this train would cost us nearly $10... To ride a train....around the mall. I would much rather take that $10 and say, buy a DVD that we could all enjoy over and over. It just seems to make more economic sense to me. My kids have come to accept this about me and have stopped asking for certain things after I've made it clear that Mommy doesn't spend money on that.

With that being said, I have always loved to get a picture of my kids with Santa. It is just one of those things that marks the holidays for me. So when the kids balked at seeing Santa when we went to the Polar Express, I asked them if they wanted to go see Santa at the mall, and they told me they did. So one Monday night we loaded everyone up and went to go see Santa at the Chandler Mall.

For the last couple of years there has been a sign that asks you to please refrain from using personal cameras, in an effort to get you to purchase their "professional" photos. However, purchasing WAY overpriced pictures of Santa does not rate very high on my importance meter, and I just simply refuse to do so. I have always asked politely if I could take my own picture and have never been refused.... until this year. The not-so-nice photographer informed me in a not-so-nice way that taking pictures of my child with Santa is prohibited and if I wanted a picture I was going to have to purchase it. So, I checked out the prices and almost fell over. It's one thing to charge $5 for a photo in a paper frame. That I would have been all for. But the prices were astronomical! I'm talking $23 for 3 small photos, and if you wanted a digital copy of the photo (which is all anyone is really interested in these days) it would cost upwards of $40!!! I just looked at her and laughed. No way, Jose! I was so mad that this company is turning the fun of Christmas in to a disgusting racket. I felt I had to make my little statement right then and there. Out came my camera and a picture I took of Josh on Santa's lap, not even coming close to trying to be sneaky about it. The girl looked so annoyed I thought she might sick a mall cop on me and have me kicked out of there! It's not a good picture and was taken more on principal than to get any kind of decent picture. I guess our days of getting pictures with Santa at the mall are over. I knew the day would come, but that somehow doesn't make me feel any better about it. Bah humbug!

Annual Cookie Party

2010-12-31T14:14:00.003-07:00

Every Christmas the boys love decorating sugar cookies (and so do I!) so we make it a little party each year. They do such a great job!

Santa sure did love them!

Christmas Fun

2010-12-31T13:58:00.005-07:00

One of the things we love to do during Christmas time is go to the McCormick Stillman Railroad Park to see their light display. This year we thought it would be fun to invite a friend to come along, so Benny's little girlfriend, Maddie, and her mom came with us. Although we went near the middle of December, it ended up being the first night of the light display, so the line was incredibly long and took over an hour. But since the kids all had each other to play with it really wasn't bad. We finally got on the train and the kids had a blast with each other!

The light display, as always, was awesome. They really do a great job putting it together.

After the train ride, we rode the carousel...

and the kids got their boogie on to the live music.

It's always a good time at the railroad park! Merry Christmas!

Great Season, Dragons!

2010-12-31T13:48:00.003-07:00

Joshua had a great first season of soccer! His final game was on December 11th. It was so fun to see his improvement over the season. He totally understood the rules of the game, and surprisingly, was a pretty darn good goalie. He had a lot of fun and got to make some new friends, so all in all, I'd say soccer was a success for him. Go Dragons!

Of course I had to make a cake to share with the team to celebrate a great season.

Great season, Dragons!

Polar Express!

2010-12-31T12:50:00.028-07:00

Over the last couple of years we have really wanted to take the boys on the Polar Express train ride in Williams, Arizona, but we had wanted to wait until they were both old enough to enjoy it... not to mention that it sells out so fast we usually have missed our chance for tickets. I was determined to go this year, and actually remembered to book our tickets far in advance. What made it so much more fun was that we went with some good friends of ours whose 2 little boys are the same age as ours. I can't even begin to say how much fun we had!

Since all tickets are done by Will Call, we were advised to get to the station early in the day to pick up the tickets to avoid long lines. So we left that morning and drove up to Williams (about 40 miles west of Flagstaff) and got to the station at about 11:00. It was great because we were pretty much the only ones there.

We got to peruse the gift shop for a while, and try on some of the fun winter hats.

After getting our tickets we checked into our hotel. We opted out of the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel package and decided to save a little money by staying down the street at the Holiday Inn. I'm glad we did. Our room was comfortable, large, and much more secluded than the GCR. There had been a snow storm moving through a few days before. And even though a lot of it had melted, there was a big patch out behind the hotel... perfect for little boys to play in! So when our friends arrived at the hotel, we all spent at least an hour playing in a 1-2 inch deep patch of snow. It doesn't take much to entertain the little ones!

After playing in the snow we all headed back to our rooms to suit up in our jammies to head down to the train station. The weather was beautiful, and the station was less than 1/2 mile away, so we decided to walk down. It was great!

The Schnabels

Inside the station they had all sorts of activities for the kids. We attempted to go see Santa and take a picture, but both of the boys chickened out right when it was our turn. Benny decided a few minutes later that he wanted to try again, and worked up a little more courage this time, although he still didn't want to sit on his lap.

Josh still was not interested in visiting Santa, especially when he learned that there was coloring in the other room.

One of the other activities available was to make an ornament to hang on the Christmas tree. Both of the boys had a lot of fun making their ornaments.

After coloring, Benny went to visit with Mrs. Claus for a minute. Josh was still not interested. Oh well!

Pretty soon the train arrived!

The train ride was so much fun. We got to eat cookies and drink hot chocolate...

And we got to hear the Polar Express story.

And having great friends to share it with made it all that much more fun!

Pretty soon, we were at the North Pole!

Santa got on the train at the North Pole and came through all the cars, and gave each child a special gift. The kids were so excited for Santa to come!

The gift, of course, was a bell. If you can hear the bell, you still believe!

After Santa came through we spent the rest of the trip back to the station singing Christmas carols. It was a lot of fun.

The next morning we all met for breakfast at a little local restaurant with really yummy food. Thankfully they had a table big enough for all 8 of us!

Before heading back home, we stopped at a new wildlife park in Williams called Bearizona.

Bearizona is a drive through park, with all sorts of animals, including wolves and black bears.

There was also a walk through area with bear cubs, fox and bobcats. We got there right at feeding time so everything was awake and active.

And of course, these little animals!

It was a blast! I'm so glad we did it!

Open for Business

2010-12-31T12:48:00.002-07:00

I have successfully completed my cake decorating courses, and I still really really enjoy making and decorating cakes. So, I have officially opened up my little side cake decorating business. Check out my cake blog at www.tasteandseecakes.blogspot.com. I've had so many fun projects already and I look forward to many more in 2011!

Copper's Overhaul

2010-11-29T13:47:00.002-07:00

Copper (our beagle) was our first "child". When it was just the three of us we doted on her and gave her tons of attention. We brushed her teeth and got her regular cleanings, made sure her vaccinations were up to date and that she always had a new squeaky toy to play with. But ever since the human children have come around, Copper has moved on down the totum pole and we just haven't taken as good of care of her has we should have.

A few weeks ago, Copper came down with a horrible cough. It was the kind of cough that came from deep in the belly and just sounded miserable for her. We decided it was bad enough to warrant a visit to the vet (where she hadn't been in close to 6 years). She must have understood us when we told her where we were goiing. She absolutely refused to put on her leash and get into and out of the car. As soon as we were in the door she was trembling uncontrolably. She refused to move her legs so I had to carry her the whole time! Poor thing was scared out of her mind, but at least that made it easier for them to examine her. She let them do whatever they wanted without so much as a peep because she was so scared. The diagnosis was possible Valley Fever (which thankfully turned out negative) or some other upper respiratory infection, as well as a raging ear infection in her left ear. When they told me she had an ear infection, it was like a little light bulb went off. So that's why she will sometimes yelp if you pet her head the wrong way, and why she doesn't seem to hear us very well anymore. We had just attributed that to the fact that she is 12 years old.

During her examination, I was scolded about the condition of her teeth. Some people might have been offended by the mild tongue lashing I received, but frankly, I knew I deserved it. They were really bad. Trust me. So we decided to purchase an annual health plan for her that included a dental cleaning and would ultimatley save us money with everything else we needed done that day. We left with many lovely prescribed parting gifts.

Thankfully the cough disappeared pretty quickly and the ear infection was gone in a couple weeks. After getting the clean bill of health, she was ready for her dental cleaning, which we did on Saturday. Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds, is it? During her cleaning they found 11 infected teeth that need to come out. If they don't the infection could spread to her internal organs and could ultimately be fatal, so we of course plan to have that done. Poor girl is going to need Doggie Dentures! They assured me she will be able to continue to eat her dry food after everything is all healed up, even with missing all those choppers, and that removing these teeth would greatly improve her quality of life. So that's next on the to do list. By the time 2011 rolls around, Copper will have had the complete overhaul! She'll be a whole new puppy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-29T13:25:00.003-07:00

The holiday season is officially in full swing, and it couldn't have been brought in any better than it was with our thanksgiving celebration. It was truly a wonderful weekend full of family and friends. We have so much to be thankful for! (Unfortunately, not one picture was taken of the festivities all weekend. I should be shunned from the blogging community!)

I have long ago conceded the Thursday of Thanksgiving to other family members. I love to make the food and have lots of people over to enjoy it, but it just doesn't work out that way with the other sections of the family. So what I have started doing is celebrating Thursday with family at someone else's house and then cooking my own meal on Friday for whoever would like to stop by. This has affectionately come to be known in our house as "Thanksgiving Friday".

This year we spent Thanksgiving day with Andrew's family in Avondale. It is always a blast getting together with the family out there. The kids love any chance they get to play with their cousins, so they were in heaven all day, and loved having their own children's table.

Funny story of the day: We had just arrived at my mother-in-law's house, and people were slowly trickling in behind us. We had been told that it would be a full house for dinner, and often times they will invite friends from church that we don't know, so it's not really a rarity that we would be sharing Thanksgiving with complete strangers. So, we were all hanging out together when the doorbell rings. Andrew answers the door and finds 4 people he doesn't recognize, all carrying side dishes and looking very confident about being there, so he lets them in because, as I said, that isn't unusual. So they all come into the kitchen and start introducing themselves to everyone, and everyone is looking around saying "who are these people". Then my father-in-law starts giving them a strange look and realizes they are in the wrong house. Maybe you had to be there, but it was so funny! We joked that if they were going to crash Thanksgiving, at least they brought their own food!

After filling up on dinner and dessert, it was time to go home and crash for the night to begin the next day's fun!

For our Thanksgiving Friday, we invited our small group from church to come and share in our meal, and they all happily accepted. The total head count was 10 adults and 10 kids. It sounds crowded, but it was so much fun! The kids had a blast playing football and other various games in the backyard, and which left the adults some time for good conversation and fellowship. The food all turned out really well and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I so wish I would have taken a picture of the turkey. it was beautiful. I've made quite a few turkeys in my day and while they have all been tasty, none have turned out LOOKING so good.

After dinner the guys took the kids to the park while the ladies hung back and cleaned up. It sounds so 1950's but it really was a good time, and I was so happy to have the help with the mound of dishes! Then of course it was time to dive into the pie! This year I made my very first fruit pie, a caramel apple pie, and it turned out so yummy! I'll definitely be making that again!

So another successful and fun filled Thanksgiviing is in the books. I am so excited for this Christmas season, and I hope we can make the most of every opportunity to create lasting memories for our family! Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Kindergarten Fun!

2010-11-08T21:41:00.015-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Joshua's kindergarten class had planned a field trip to Mother Nature's Farm in Gilbert, and I planned to go with them. Unfortunately, on the day of the field trip it was raining, so his teacher decided to postpone the trip to the next day. Since the kids all had their hearts set on a fun day, she decided to take them over to the Family Life Center on the church campus, where there is none other than a roller rink! This was Joshua's first time on roller skates. All things considered, it sounds like he did pretty well. His teacher, Mrs. Harren, was nice enough to take some photos of their little adventure.

I think there was a lot of this going on that day...

See?

Josh quickly learned that holding onto the wall prevented taking so many tumbles.

His little friend, Ava (who is completley head over heels in love with Josh) is a more experienced skater than most of the other kids. She was trying to help Joshua, and told him to let go of the wall and skate over to her, promising to catch him if he fell. Mrs. Harren caught this precious photo.

It wasn't the farm that everyone had planned, but a fun day was had by all anyway.

The next day proved to be sunnier, and so the farm was a go! It was such a cute little place, complete with hayride, pumpkin decorating and farm animals. It was a blast!

Here's our group of cute kindergarteners!

First order of business was a hayride.

The hayride dropped us off right in front of all of the animals. We found out that a litter of piglets had been born just 5 days before. Aren't they the cutest?

The rest of our day was super fun too. The photos can pretty much speak for themselves.

We had such a great time. I hope I can go on a few more of the field trips this year so I can spend more time with this great bunch of kids!

Elusive Sleep

2010-10-28T13:49:00.003-07:00

Wow, am I ever behind on blogging! I hate when I have so much to write about and no time to write it. I'm always sure I've forgotten something! I'll do my best to get caught up after my upcoming crazy weekend.

With that being said, onto today's post!

My kids have always been very good sleepers. I mean, really good sleepers. Between the two of them, I can remember only one night that we were up until all hours with a crying baby, and that was when Joshua was only a few days old and I was naughty and ate some green chilis. Other than that, there have been no sleep issues in our house. Once they hit the toddler years, they both transitioned seamlessly into their beds and we have never had the fights to get them to stay in their rooms once they have been put down for the night. The only issue we've ever had is with Ben wanting to try to go potty a few minutes after he went to bed. I'm telling you, we've had it good. So good, that we have totally been taking it for granted. And you know what happens when you take something for granted? POOF! It goes away!

It all started a couple weeks ago. We were putting the boys to bed as normal, but this night it all went wrong. Ben decided he was NOT going to go to bed. He was pulling out all the stops. Kicking, screaming, asking for drinks of water, tissues, to go potty. All while crying his little eyes out. My favorite was when he said he needed Daddy to cut his toenails. What? Now that there is a new one.

So we pretty much ignored his demands and were just waiting him out, putting him back to bed if he came out. This went on for the better part of an hour until he finally gave up. At least for a little while. When he would wake up throughout the night, he decided he was NOT going to be the only one awake and we started it all over again. Not fun! This went on for a few days.

One night he event went so far as to get himself completely dressed before he came out of his room. It was about 11:00, when we heard his bedroom door open (he's not quiet about it!) and when I went to put him back to bed I saw he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and was sitting in his doorway putting on his sandals. When he saw me he asked "Mommy, can I be awake?" I don't think so, buddy!

We were wracking our brains trying to figure out what might have triggered this, as it started so suddenly. The only change in environment we could think of was that we had recently put him back on Singular as it looked like his allergies were getting ready to kick back up. Out of desperation, we tried taking him off of it. After a few nights, things started to mellow out a bit, although he was still waking easily. The last couple of nights have been the old, peaceful Ben. So, we're thinking the Singulair was the culpret. And thankfully his allergies have settled back down so that it's not affecting him negatively to be off of it. Hopefully it will stay that way, but if not, we'll roll with it and deal with it as best we can. Ah, the joys of parenting!

Payson 2010

2010-10-17T21:17:00.013-07:00

Every summer we like to try to take a Saturday and visit Grandma and Grandpa B while they are camping up in Payson. It's a short drive away and gives us a chance to beat the heat, if only for a day, and spend some fun time with family. Because of swimming lessons and everything else we had going on this summer, we weren't able to get up there while the weather was really hot, but we wanted to make sure we got up there at before the camping season is officially over for the year.

The weather was absolutely beautiful! The boys got to ride their bikes around, and we took a fun nature walk around the campgrounds.

After a long day of exploring, Grandpa made some yummy hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, and afterward we did everyone's favorite camping pastime.... roasting marshmallows and making s'mores! The boys loved helping Grandpa build the fire.

Benny didn't want to wait for his marshmallow to be roasted!

Mmmmm... S'mores!

Here are a few more photos of our fun day.

Of course before we left we had to take our annual photo with Grandma and Grandpa in front of their trailer (watch the boys grow up right before your eyes!)

2008

2009

2010

Soccer Star!

2010-10-17T20:59:00.007-07:00

Joshua has officially started his first organized sport. We've been wanting to get him into something for a while now, but like with so many other things, it was just hard to get our act together! We thought soccer might be a good fit for him, so we went for it. How cute is he in his soccer uniform!

At the first practice, the kids decided their team name should be the Dragons. Josh was a little disappointed because he wanted to be the Tigers, but he still thinks the Dragons are pretty cool. He's doing so well! He had his first game yesterday (against the Dragon Sharks), and got a few good kicks of the ball in. It was so fun to see him out there!

At half time it was time for a quick snack!

He really had a great time, and definitely worked up a sweat!

Although no official score is kept, our count was a 2-2 tie. Game 2 is next week, and we're so excited to see him get some more time on the field. Go Dragons!

REAL Cake Decorating

2010-09-13T21:45:00.003-07:00

I've been dabbling in cake decorating for a little over a year, and I just love it. It gives me such an awesome outlet for my little creative streak, and when I'm done, I have a cake to eat! What could be better? I've just been kind of winging it, trying different techniques that I hear about online or on one of the many cake shows on TV, but I have never had any real instruction. So I finally decided to take the Wilton classes so that I can actually have some kind of idea of what I'm doing. And to make it even more fun, my dear friend Jen is taking the class with me.

Our first class was last week. It was mostly introduction, so not much decorating going on. We practiced making stars on some sugar cookies, so not horribly exciting (so I didn't take any pictures), but I still learned so much! This week we actually got to decorate a cake using a gel image transfer method. Here is my finished product. I'm happy with it!

Next week we'll be learning all sorts of techniques and decorating some cupcakes. I'm so excited to keep learning. Wilton offers 3 different classes, and I plan to take all of them, hopefully over the next couple of months. I can't wait!

Pumpkin IVF

2010-09-04T20:15:00.007-07:00

My experience in attempting to grow pumpkins has been so much different this year compared to last. Especially when it comes down to how these pumpkins are blooming. last year, I had tons of male blossoms. I would go out to water the garden in the morning, and it would be bursting with bright orange flowers, but never had any female buds come to bloom. This year, however, I've only had about 3 male flowers bloom. They've been growing, and right before they would open, they will shrivel up and dry out. I suppose the excessive heat we've been having hasn't been helping things. BUT, the other day, I got to see a sight I have not yet seen....

Finally! A girl has come to the party! What's even more amazing is that I've only had about 3 male flowers open, but there just happened to be one open on the same day as the girl!

So of course, I had to play matchmaker with these two crazy kids. What can I say.... I just don't trust the bees to get the job done, so I have to take matters into my own hands. The male needs to pollinate the female in order to make a pumpkin, so I took the male flower, stripped him of his petals...

And performed what I like to call "pumpkin IVF".

This is uncharted territory for me, so I have no idea what to expect from this point. All I know is, she might be pregnant. Only time will tell, I suppose. Here's what she looked like today.

I'm not entirely hopeful, as the male flower didn't really seem to have a whole lot of pollen, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. But even if this one doesn't pan out, I at least have new hope that maybe we'll get somewhere this year!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

2010-09-03T13:26:00.003-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Ben's birthday party was featured on gabbafriends.com. For being featured, I was entered into a drawing for a $50 gift card to the Gabba Store. They separate their features into categories (birthdays, holidays, Gabba Sightings, etc.) and select one winner from each category at random each month. I found out on Wednesday that I had been randomly selected out of the birthday category! I won! I was so excited. I never win these things! I can't wait to spend it. They have some super cute tshirts for the boys, and I also plan on getting a CD with all of our favorite Gabba songs (which I may live to regret!). Thank you, Gabba Friends!!!

Official Gabba Friend

2010-08-24T21:14:00.002-07:00

I found out today that Ben's birthday party was featured on the Gabba Friends website today! I'm so excited! In addition to the notoriety, I also get entered into a giveaway for a $50 gift card to the Gabba Store. I never actually win any of these things, so I'm sure that won't happen, but it's still fun to be featured! Check it out!

Pumpkins: Round 2

2010-08-21T15:01:00.004-07:00

I was so disappointed that my pumpkins didn't pan out last year. I wanted so badly to grow a pumpkin, and got so close! So I wanted to give it one more try. My failure last year didn't come without lessons learned. The biggest one being that pumpkin vines grow out of control. Last year I planted 12 pumpkin seeds, in addition to some butternut squash. Wow, was that way too much for our little garden! This year, I planted one single solitary seed (actually planted two to begin with, but when I saw the first one growing so quickly, I pulled out the second one, thinking that the one would be plenty!). I was hoping to be able to plant the seeds I had tried to save from my pie pumpkin last year, but those seeds had turned moldy (my fault - always store seeds in an envelope and never in a plastic bag), so I bought some seeds for casper white pumpkins. Andrew thinks they're creepy, but I think they're pretty, and can be used for baking! Here is my pumpkin vine, planted about 6 weeks ago.

(They're looking a little sad today because they didn't get watered until about noon, and it's 105 degrees outside, but they'll perk up with another drink this evening.)In another few weeks this bad boy will have filled up the whole garden!

I'm hoping that this year will be more successful than last year. I'm hopeful as I have already seen some female buds starting, although I haven't had any flowers open yet. Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll have some blooms and soon after that we'll have some fruit starting. If not... I officially give up on pumpkins!

John 14:1

2010-08-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me.

Kindergarten!!!

2010-08-16T20:42:00.018-07:00

What a big day it was! Joshua started Kindergarten today! I just can't believe it. He's officially in school. He decided to keep him at the same school where he's gone to daycare for kindergarten. They have an awesome program, and he only has 6 kids in his class! He has been so excited to start kindergarten, and had such a great day! Of course I had to get the "first day of school" pictures before we left the house (Benny also moved up to the 3 year old classroom this week, so it was a big day for him too!)

School starts at 8:30, so Andrew and I thought it would be fun to go into work a little late and skip the before care today so that we could see him get started on his first day. The class lines up outside of the pre-k room where their teacher, Mrs. Harren, takes them upstairs to their classroom.

This is where I was totally caught of guard. We have been at this school since Joshua was 10 weeks old, so I figured that moving up to Kindergarten wouldn't affect me very much and that I wouldn't get too emotional. Boy, was I wrong! As soon as he was lined up to go upstairs, here come the waterworks! I was crying, and then laughing at myself for crying! But no matter where it is, starting kindergarten is such a right of passage, and the official beginning to his educational career. It's a big deal!

When they arrived upstairs, they learned that the first thing they do before going inside the classroom is give Mrs. Harren a hug. :)

They each have their assigned seats with their supply boxes and pouches on the back of their chairs to hold their work. So school-like!

The first thing they did was learn the pledges of allegiance: to the American flag, to the Christian flag, and to the Bible.

After the pledges, it was calendar time, and our cue to leave. But of course, not before snapping one last picture.

In light of their big day, we thought it would be fun to celebrate with dinner out. Joshua picked In n Out, which is always a family favorite.

And we finished our meal with a couple of milkshakes!

Hey, Andrew! Save some for the rest of us!

It was a wonderful day of new beginnings! I can't wait to see what they learn and how they grow this year. It's so exciting, and we couldn't be prouder of both of them!

Benny's Birthday Bash - Yo Gabba Gabba Style!

2010-08-15T21:13:00.018-07:00

Yesterday we celebrated Ben's 3rd birthday with a Yo Gabba Gabba themed birthday bash! He asked for a Yo Gabba Gabba birthday months ago, so needless to say he was pretty excited. It turns out that his party fell on a weekend where most of his friends were not available to come, so it ended up being just a family party. But with all his cousins here, there were plenty of kids to play with and everyone had a great time!

After eating some pizza and other yummy food, we gathered up all the kids to play some fun little party games, Gabba themed, of course. The first was Pin the Eye on Muno. I made a DJ Lance hat, which doubled as the blindfold for the game.

What was hilarious was that pretty much everyone got it right on the money. I'm thinking the blindfold was a bit too see through!

One of the most beloved songs from Yo Gabba Gabba is "There's a Party in my Tummy" all about eating healthy foods. So our second game was Party in Brobee's Tummy. I made a Brobee out of poster board and placed a basket in front of it. Each child got 5 chances to throw a piece of food into the basket. It was a big hit.

After the games, Benny asked if we he could open his presents, and what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets! He got so many fun toys!

Next came the cake! As I have taken to doing over the last couple of years, I sort of went a little crazy on his cake. This year I made sugar cookies decorated like the Gabba Gabba characters to incorporate into the cake. I also included some of the cookies in the kids' goody bags.

The cake included as many aspects of the show that I could. The bottom tier was DJ Lance's boom box, with the character cookies on the sides. The top tier was DJ Lance's hat, with Muno standing up the back holding a birthday banner. I was so happy with how it turned out. Definitely worth staying up until 2 a.m. finishing it!

My family hung out for a while after the party was over, and played Benny's new game Scatterpillar Scramble while we all had some extra visiting time.

After everyone had gone, Ben was officially partied out. We were relaxing, watching TV and we noticed Ben's head begin to bob while he was sitting in his new chair.

So instead of continuing to watch him try to sleep with his head bobbing back and forth, I seized the opportunity to have a little cuddly nap on the couch. What a perfect end to a great day!

Happy birthday, Benny! We are so proud of the big, sweet, imaginative boy you are. We love you so much!

Back to Santa Barbara!

2010-08-14T20:44:00.041-07:00

It's family vacation time! We were so excited to head back to our old stompin' grounds for our time away this year. We stayed down in Carpinteria, a small blink-and-you-miss-it town just below Santa Barbara. Somehow, in the 3 years we lived there, we never took the time to spend any time in Carp at all, so it was cool to be able to actually see it! We left early Saturday morning for our long road trip, and the kids did AMAZING! It was a 9 hour trip, and the kids did awesome entertaining themselves.

We rolled into Carp at about 3:00 and after getting settled into our hotel went out to check out Carp. We hit the Bluffs first. At the far end of the bluffs there is a seal sanctuary. This is the seal's beach. If you look closely, you can see a little seal head in the upper right corner of the photo.

After the bluffs we headed down to get some beach time before dinner. Ben was still a little scared of the waves and spent much of the time at the beach like this:

But he did muster up enough courage to let the ocean get his feet with Daddy and Joshua at least once.

After the beach we got together for dinner with my friend, Lori, who I used to work with. Although we've kept in touch through email, I hadn't seen her in 8 years, so it was great to be able to get together.

The next morning we got up early to head about an hour north to Lompoc to visit our friends the Stults.

Andrew worked with John back when we lived in Santa Barbara. John's wife, Alisha and I have become friends through our blogs and social networking, but had never had the chance to actually meet face to face. They have 2 boys exactly our boys' ages, so we were really looking forward to our time with them. As we suspected, after some initial shyness, the boys became fast friends. We all went to church together, and afterward had a super fun afternoon at the park for a BBQ along with John and Carrie Ruckman. It was an amazingly beautiful day and the boys all had such a blast.

Alisha and I wanted so badly to get a good picture of all 4 boys. They were all playing up in the jungle gym, so we grabbed our cameras and tried to get them all together. Unfortunately, Joshua scooted a bit too far back on the stairs, and ended up falling about 5 feet from the top of the jungle gym! Thankfully, he was just fine and after some cuddles was good as new. After he'd calmed down, we got our pictures safely on the ground.

After leaving Lompoc that afternoon, we stopped at one of our favorite spots in Santa Barbara. Lake Los Carneros. It's such a pretty lake with wildlife and beautiful views. We couldn't visit Santa Barbara without stopping there.

One of our favorite hamburger spots was The Habit in downtown Goleta. Best hamburgers and onion rings around. We got our food and headed over to Goleta Beach for a little picnic in the back of the van and more beach time.

Monday was our Santa Barbara day. We were so excited to wake up and see the sun, which hasn't happened much this summer. It was the perfect day to spend outside. We had breakfast in Santa Barbara at Farmer Boy. The boys kept themselves occupied while waiting for our food.

After our tummies were full we headed downtown for more beach time and to see Stearns Wharf.

After some lunch at a little shop at Paseo Nuevo on State Street, I had the chance to go visit my old office.

There aren't a whole lot of people from when I worked there, but I was able to catch up with the few that remain. It's hard to believe it's been 8 years since I walked through those doors!

The courthouse in Santa Barbara is definitely a site to be seen. It has a tall clock tower that you can go up into to take in some beautiful views.

For dinner we met up with our friend Roxanne who we haven't seen in forever. It was so great to see her! After we left we realized we didn't take any pictures with her. :(

Tuesday was another big day. Of course it was Benny's birthday, so we had to start the day with a happy birthday song and present!

We spent our morning at the beach in Carp making sand castles and putting our feet in the ocean (Josh's favorite beach activity).

We made a stop at the Santa Barbara Mission and botanical garden...

and then stopped for lunch at our favorite sandwich shop, South Coast Deli. If you're ever in the Santa Barbara area, do yourself a favor and get yourself a South Coast Turkey sandwich. Trust me! They had added a great touch to their dining room... a chalkboard wall! It was perfect to keep the kids entertained while we waited for our food.

Sufficiently filled up with yummy sandwiches, it was time to head up the San Marcos Pass to the town of Solvang, the Danish capital of the United States. It's such a cute little town. We had planned to ride the Solvang Trolley (a horse drawn trolley car), but came to find the trolley driver had called in sick, so we settled for a ride in the Solvang Shoe!

Just outside of Solvang is Ostrich Land, so we stopped there to see the ostriches and emus and even got to feed them. I firmly believe that Ostriches are proof that God has a sense of humor!

It was just about dinner time, and so we decided to head up the road to Buelton and have dinner at the world famous Pea Soup Andersen's.

I can't say that I've ever craved a bowl of split pea soup, to say the least, but being at PSA, I had to give it a try. I'm so glad I did. Holy cow, was that some tasty good soup!

Even Benny liked it!

Wednesday we headed home, making one tourist stop along the way, the Cabazon Dinosaurs.

We were surprised to see that the gift shop was full of books and t-shirts talking about how the dinosaurs were created by God, that they are mentioned in the bible, and discrediting the theory of evolution. It was so cool!

We had another great ride in the car on the way home, without a tear shed and even no whining. Just an enjoyable day. We couldn't have asked for a better vacation. We definitely plan on making Santa Barbara a regular vacation spot. If you haven't been there, I highly suggest putting it on your list of "must visit" places. You won't be disappointed!

Benny is 3! - Round 1

2010-08-05T22:10:00.005-07:00

Well, Ben isn't officially 3 until Tuesday, but since his school is on break next week he celebrated his birthday with his friends at school today. He chose cupcakes to bring and share with his friends, and of course, all the kids loved them. Since we weren't able to be there, we left our camera with the teacher to take some pictures for us.

I think Will needs more sugar. Don't you?

The three musketeers. Maddie N., Benny and Will.

There are plenty more birthday festivities planned over the next week. Happy birthday, Benny Boo!

John 14:6

2010-08-01T17:04:00.003-07:00

Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

In Case

2010-07-26T13:25:00.002-07:00

I have been meaning to blog about this for quite a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. I'm not even sure what to say about it, or how to decribe it, so forgive me if this makes absolutely no sense. I just had to record this so that we would never forget, because it amuses us so.

Over the last couple of months, Joshua has been using the term "in case" a lot. And what's so funny about it is that he has NO IDEA what it means, so he uses it in the complete wrong context. Every time. For instance, he was opening one of his dresser drawers and pulled too hard, causing the drawer to come all the way out. Joshua's response: "In case the drawer fell out." He can also use it instead of saying something like "at least". Like this morning when he was putting on his clothes, he swung his jammy shirt around like a lasso and then threw it across the room, just being silly. I'm sure I gave him kind of a disapproving look, and he said "In case it didn't hit you."

We don't feel the need to correct him. I know one day he'll figure out what it really means and use it properly, but until then, we are going to just enjoy this one. In case I love this kid!

Matthew 19:14

2010-07-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

James 4:7

2010-07-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

What's for Dinner?

2010-07-11T22:04:00.003-07:00

The boys have always loved playing with toy kitchens. I don't know what it is about them, but they just love them. We have talked off and on about getting them one, but with the price tag of new, inability to find any quality used one and the amount of space they take up, we've just never have gotten one. Until this week, when the boys' school put 2 of their kitchens up for sale... for $10!!! Yes, $10! For that price, I don't care how much space it takes up! That was just a deal we couldn't pass up. Did I mention it was only $10? For this!

They were so excited, and have already gotten so much more than $10 worth of fun out of it. I just love finding smokin' deals!

Swimming Lessons

2010-07-11T21:46:00.006-07:00

The boys started their swimming lessons this weekend. We really should have gotten Joshua in swimming lessons a year or so ago, but sometimes it's just hard for us to get our act together and do these kinds of things. But we finally got them signed up, and since they are both beginning swimmers, we went ahead and enrolled them in the same class. They are taking the City of Chandler swimming lessons at Hamilton Aquatic Center. They are in the Tadpoles class, where they learn basic beginning swimming skills, like front and back float, kicking and entering and exiting the pool safely. They both did a good job and had a lot of fun.

Next year we hope to get through 2 more rounds of swimming lessons for them, in the hope that we can be floaty free by the end of next summer!

The pool opened to the public right after the lesson ended, so we thought we would stick around and have some swimming time before heading home. Hamilton is so cool! They have an enormous kiddie pool with a water slide, tire swing and shower sprayer. We all had a great time swimming and playing. It's nice to know we have such a fun swimming facility so close to home. I'm sure we will be frequent visitors for many summers to come!

Put a Ring on that Finger, Boy!

2010-07-09T21:33:00.003-07:00

Ms. Victoria (Benny's teacher): Is Hannah your girlfriend? Are you going to marry her?

Benny: No, I'm going to marry Maddy Nillen (his main squeeze in his class)

Maddy (coming over to give Ben a hug): Do you want me to make you some dinner, Benny?

Andrew:Put a ring on that finger, boy!

Sucker Punch

2010-07-09T21:21:00.004-07:00

My kids are huge fans of the ABC summer show Wipeout. It's just plain ol' fun watching people run through obstacle courses and fall in mud and water. I learned on Tuesday that the Sucker Punch is Ben's favorite part of Wipeout. It's a big wall that, well, punches you. Like this:

No one ever makes it past the Sucker Punch and they always end up in the mud pit below. Ben was watching, and decided he wanted to play the Sucker Punch too. Here is Ben's Sucker Punch impression:

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-08T21:24:00.009-07:00

We had such a fun 4th of July! For the last couple of years, we have gotten together with our small group for a BBQ and fireworks, and it just couldn't be more fun! The kids were so excited to go swimming and play with their friends. Joshua, of course, took to the water like a little fish. Benny has really discovered his love for the water, and was swimming around the pool with just his floaties and a pool noodle, telling us not to touch him. For only being his second time in the pool this year, and probably 5th time in his whole life, he was doing awesome! Everyone at the party got in the pool. So fun!

We all worked up quite an appetite swimming, so after prying the kids out of the pool, we threw some meat on the grill and feasted on all of the other yummy food everyone brought. One thing no one had to worry about was going hungry!

Mr. Kevin manning the grill.

If there is a car around, that's where Ben will be. Every. Time.

After we were all sufficiently stuffed on all the yummy food, we all went over to the park in our friends' neighborhood where you can see the fireworks from Tumbleweed (minus the crowds and traffic!). Ms. Melinda brought glow sticks for all the kids, which were a huge hit and kept them occupied while we waited for the show to start.

Happy birthday, America!

Bowling! It's Right Up Our Alley!

2010-07-08T20:49:00.008-07:00

The marble jar that we were using as incentive for Joshua's good behavior has kind of run its course. It has done its job - we haven't had a negative report from school in quite some time - so now it has been officially retired. But he had one last full marble jar to cash in, so as his reward, we decided to go bowling. We had such a great time! He loved the funny shoes we got to wear...

Here's Joshua's first throw of the ball...much different than pretending with the Wii remote! (Forgive me that the video is sideways. I forgot we couldn't flip a video around)

Turns out the ball was a little too heavy for him to use one hand, so we showed him another way to do it, which worked much better.

We played two games, and Joshua was a very consistent little bowler.

Game 1

Game 2

We had so much fun!

I Do Not Like Them, Sam I Am

2010-07-08T20:45:00.004-07:00

Seriously... Could he be any cuter???

2010-07-08T20:36:00.004-07:00

Introducing.... Benzy!

John 3:16

2010-07-08T20:36:00.002-07:00

For God so loved the world, He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Family Photos

2010-06-26T21:42:00.011-07:00

We haven't had a real family portrait taken since Ben was about 4 months old, so needless to say, it was a bit outdated. Over the last couple of years we haven't been super motivated to get some new pictures done, as the kids have gotten some really great pictures taken of them at school for a reasonable price, and as a bonus, we didn't have to be there to deal with it! But this year the school portraits were beyond horrendous, so it forced us to go get our own done. So we FINALLY got some new family portraits today. I'm so glad we did! They turned out so good! We went to Portrait Innovations. The photographer was so amazing, coaxing some precious genuine smiles out of the boys. Here are some of our favorites:

Wild Kingdom

2010-06-25T21:56:00.008-07:00

Our house has three new little residents these days. We have become a "safe house" for three little baby birds who have outgrown their nest but are not quite yet ready to venture out into this big ol' world.

The first one was brought over by his mommy on Monday. Andrew noticed the little guy out there after hearing very consistent "peeps" from him all evening. We weren't sure where he had come from, but could tell he was very much a young birdie.

The next day we saw that his little brother had joined him...

...and on Wednesday there was another one still.

On Wednesday our neighbor across the street called us to shed some light on these little guys' history, after seeing us checking out our new little birdie friends. Apparently their nest where they hatched was on his porch. Over the first part of the week, he had watched the mommy bird bring her babies over to our house one by one because they had gotten too big for their nest.

We have been watching them all week. It's more entertaining than television! It's so cool to see Mommy show up with a little tidbit for the babies to eat. As soon as they see her, their mouths pop open. Poor mom. All she's good for is a meal.

It's been so cool to watch them become more confident in their flying, and to see mom try to get them to be proactive about getting their food. At first she would bring the food right to them. But then she stopped doing that. She would instead make sure they knew she was there, but then would make them come to her to get it. She's also been trying to get them to venture a little further and higher from the porch. Yesterday they were able to make it up to the roof, which looked like quite the feat for them.

These little guys are so funny. They seem to be almost as interested in us as we are in them. When we're looking at them, they stare right back at us as if they are really trying to figure out who these strange people are that keep bothering them. One in particular seems especially interested in us. He'll perch himself on the sill of the window above our door and stare inside at us. And they are SO loud. Not in a disruptive annoying way, but we can hear their peeps plain as day in the house.

It's been so interesting watching our "birdie friends" (as Ben calls them). We'll be sad when they're big enough to go about their way, but we've sure enjoyed the time we've had with them.... it will be nice to clean up all the poop though. Who would have thought that something so small and cute could make such a mess!

Cake Wrecks Book Signing

2010-06-22T13:20:00.007-07:00

I have been a long time reader of the blog Cake Wrecks. It is this hilarious site with photos of professional cakes gone "horribly and hilariously wrong." The pictures themselves could make the blog work, but the commentary that goes along with it is absolutely side-splittingly funny. So my sense of humor. The history of this blog is amazing. It started out as something the writer, Jen Yates, did for fun and only told a couple friends about it, but over the last 2 years it has taken the internet by storm. If you haven't checked it out, go there. Now.

Around Christmas time, a lot of her posts and some never-before seen photos were compiled into a book, and her and her husband John have been touring the country promoting their book. Last night they stopped at Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, and my dear friend Jen and I decided to go check it out. What a great time! We met up for dinner at Wildflower Bread Company and then headed over to the show. We were super early and got amazing seats. Because we got there so early, it gave us plenty of time to talk and catch up. We just don't get to see each other often enough, and chatting on FB just isn't the same. I think we could have been there all night! So fun!

Before the show started, I went into the restroom and ran into Mrs. Cake Wreck herself and was able to chat with her for a few minutes. It was so nice to see what a truly, genuinly nice person she is. We bonded a bit over our mutual love for Disney.

The show was great. Started off with a slideshow of all of their favorite wrecks, all of which we had seen before, but it was fun to hear the backstory of some of the most popular posts (naked mohawk baby carrot jockies, anyone?).

At every book signing they do a Wreckplica contest, where you bring in a cupcake sized replica of your favorite wreck. I had totally planned on entering the contest, but then plain ran out of time over the weekend. Bummer! But I couldn't have competed with some of those entries anyhow!

When it was our turn for the signing, Jen Y (who has voted for my cupcakes in the contest!!!) wrote "Vote for Brenda!" in my book, showing her support. :)

Jen and John were so nice and personable. While Jen was signing books, John went around mingling with the crowd. Here he is eating a cupcake with a fork, which I just found funny. I wonder if he eats a snicker's bar with a knife and fork?

And of course I had to get my photo taken with them both!

The only disappointment of the evening was that I didn't get any photos of my friend Jen and I together. I always forget that kind of stuff! I guess that just means we'll have to get together again very soon, right?

Memory Verse: Jeremiah 29:11

2010-06-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future."

Memory Verses

2010-06-18T13:34:00.004-07:00

A few weeks ago, our church did a sermon series called "D6". It covered the scriptures contained in Deuteronomy chapter 6, which instructs us as parents in how to bring up our children knowing the Lord. Each week we had a homework assignment - to memorize a verse of scripture. Joshua has the best memory out of anyone I know, so we figured that this would be a good time to start teaching him some memory verses. Our first verse was Deuteronomy 6:4:

Hear O Isreal, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your strength."

We worked on it for just a few minutes every day and by Tuesday he had it down perfectly. Ben didn't really seem interested, but we kept including him in the recitation, where he would proceed to just stare at us. One evening that week when putting him to bed, Andrew asked Ben what his bible verse was. Ben blurted the verse out verbatem. We were shocked! Turns out he had been paying very close attention and just wanted to wait until he could do it all by himself. Silly boy!

We have decided to keep this going every week. Here are the other verses we have learned so far:

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord Collosians 3:20

Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things, there is no law.Galatians 5:22

They have been doing such a great job memorizing their scriptures, and can keep them all sorted out in their heads. What has been so great about this is that not only are the kids benefitting from this, but we are too! We have learned these verses right along with the kids. And it challenges us to find new scriptures to memorize, which encourages us to spend a little more time in our bibles.

I hope to post our memory verses here every week. I figure it's a good place to keep our list of what we've learned and when we learned it. I'd love if anyone out there would like to learn them along with us.

Cupcake Contest - Vote for Me!

2010-06-16T13:50:00.002-07:00

My sweet friend Nancy suggested to me that I enter Joshua's birthday cake into a cupcake contest. I so appreciate the vote of confidence from her! I'm not sure if my little cupcakes would be worthy of winning anything, other than the approval of a 5 year old, but I figured I had nothing to lose in giving it a try. So consider this a shameless plug to ask you to vote for me. Just click here to vote. You can vote daily through June 27th. The winner gets a $100 Visa Gift Card and 24 cupcake toppers. Please also ask all of your friends to vote. I would realy appreciate it!

Joshua's 5th Birthday

2010-06-13T20:58:00.017-07:00

I can't believe Josh is now officially 5 years old! In some ways it seems like only yesterday that we brought home this little 8 lb 11 oz bundle with his little squeaky cry, and in other ways it seems as though he's always been here. I can't imagine life without him, nor do I want to!

The big celebration started on Friday afternoon at school. Josh decided a couple weeks ago that he wanted to bring Icees for his friends at school for his birthday. After all, "everyone brings cupcakes, and Icees will be nice and refreshing on a hot day." (His words, not mine.)

Always the planner, Joshua informed us BEFORE his 4th birthday that his 5th birthday party would be at Peter Piper Pizza, and of course reminded us of this frequently throughout the year. So how could we do anything else! It was so great! All we had to supply was the cake (see below) and everything else was taken care of. Josh even got to make his very own pizza.

Josh had so much fun playing games with his friends and cousins. Everyone seemed to have a great time!

I don't think Trevor left this spot all day. The boy loves shooting things!

Ben just loved the pizza. Can you tell?

A while back, Joshua asked for a Super Why cake for his birthday. Super Why is a great reading themed show on PBS and both of the boys just love it. I came up with an idea to incorporate all of the show's main characters and logo. Here is a picture of the characters from the show:

And here is the cake I made:

I was SO happy with how it turned out! I've never done anything like that before, so I was happy to be able to pull it off. Joshua absolutely loved it! I also made a bunch of cupcakes (which are so much easier to serve!) and had them spell out the Super Story Answer. Can you guess what it is?

Make a wish!

After the party, the grandparents and my sister's family came back to our house to watch Josh open his presents. We somehow were even able to get the four kids together for a group photo.

Joshua said he had the greatest birthday party ever, so I guess he had a good time!

Today was his actual birthday. We made cornbread for breakfast per Joshua's specific request. Then after breakfast he opened his presents from Mommy and Daddy (that was his choice to wait until today. The kid as tremendous restraint for a 5 year old!) He was so surprised to find we had gotten him a brand new big boy bike.

After church, Josh and Daddy went to Target to spend his gift card he got from Uncle Paul and Auntie Melissa and we spent the rest of the day playing with his new toys. Then we met up with Grandpa Maple for a buffet dinner. We had a great time!

Happy birthday, Joshua! I can't believe what a big boy you've turned into. We're so proud of the person you are and can't wait to see the things you will do and learn this year. We love you more than we can ever say!

Give Me Your Ear

2010-06-13T20:48:00.004-07:00

We finally got to harvest some of our corn last week. The kernels were sort of small (Andrew said he felt like giant eating it), but they were really tasty. Check it out!

Josh cracks me up in this one. "I pledge allegiance to the corn..."

The End of an Era

2010-05-29T23:00:00.006-07:00

We have been so blessed to have found such a wonderful preschool/daycare for our boys. Josh has been at North Phoenix Baptist Church Preschool since he was 10 weeks old and has never known anything else. The teachers and administration have been so wonderful over the last 5 years (and very gracious when my kids have puked all over them!).

On Friday, Joshua had his official preschool graduation. It was a fun time to celebrate all the kids' accomplishments over the last 5 years. Some of the kids we have known since the baby room, and others have joined the party somewhere in between. They started out the celebration by calling each child to the the front and giving them a diploma and a gift.

Somehow they were even able to gather all the kids together for a class picture.

Joshua has made some great friends at NPBC. His main squeeze over the last 2 years has been a little cutie, Kerrigan. These two have been quite the couple. Maybe we should call them Joshigan?

His other best little friend is Trevor. These two love to get into trouble together!

After the ceremony, the kids got to stay for a "pajama party" where they ate pizza and played games. What fun!

Josh has had a great time in pre-school. I can't wait to see what Kidergarten brings next year!

Uncle Tony 1944-2010

2010-05-28T14:25:00.003-07:00

From left to right - Catherine Sentif (Grandma), Robert Sentif (Grandpa), Uncle Tony, Aunt Ann, and Bobbie (Mom). Sending Tony off to Vietnam in early 1960.

Tony passed away last night. RIP Uncle Tony.

Breathing Easy

2010-05-28T13:57:00.003-07:00

This last year has just been incredible, compared to the one before. Between January and April of 2009, Ben began having respiratory flareups where he couldn't take a deep breath, or really any kind of breath, without breaking into a horrible coughing fit. He was getting breathing treatments every 4 hours, had three shots of Predisone, a powerful steriod, in that short 4 month period, and nearly ended up in the hospital on at least one occassion. It was miserable for all involved. But then we got together with Kelvin Panasar, M.D., a wonderful pediatric pulmonologist. He prescribed Ben a preventative steriod that we hoped would keep his airways open so that, even if he came down with a cold or allergies (which is usually what did it for him) his airways would stay open. He also put him on Singulair to try to control the allergies to prevent flareups in the first place. I am so happy to say that in the last 12 months, Ben has only needed 3 doses of Albuterol to treat respiratory flareups, and the flareups he did have were super mild compared to those last year. I can't even remember the last time he's even had a cold! (And I'm really hoping I am not jinxing myself in saying that!)

Yesterday we went to see Dr. Panasar for his post-cold-and-flu-season checkup. What I love about Dr. Panasar is that he doesn't expect me to just shut up and listen and do what he says. He values "Dr. Mom" and wants to know what I think since I'm the one that sees it all. Since Benny's been doing so good, we together decided to take Ben all the way off of his medications and see how he does on his own. If the flareups return, we'll try putting him back on one of them, and will also allergy test him to see what he might be reacting to (not that you can really do to much about environmental allergies other than medicate).

I'm so happy that he is now set free from nightly breathing treatments, although he never seemed to mind them. He's always been so good about them, thankfully! Hopefully his little airways have grown enough to be able to handle any mild inflamation should any happen to come on. I'm just praying we can continue down this healthy road we've been traveling the last year. I like it here!

The Curse of the Grover Underpants

2010-05-25T20:33:00.003-07:00

I don't know what it is about these little underpants. They're cute enough. I mean, who doesn't love Grover? But I tell you, these underpants are cursed. Ben could go for days, weeks, or even months without having an accident. But as soon as he dons the Grovers, it all comes to an end. We refuse to put these particular undies on him anymore. But we don't want to get rid of them, lest they transfer their powers to a different pair. Who'd have thought that cute little Grover could cause so much trouble!

Healing Arts for Children's Hearts

2010-05-24T22:03:00.002-07:00

This last weekend I participated in a fundraiser for the Child Advocacy Healing Arts for Children's Hearts Program which sponsor's programs for children who have suffered abuse, trauma or loss. The program is based out of William T. Machan Elementary School, which is one of the schools in the district I grew up in. My friend from Jr. High was organizing the event and asked me to participate. My good friend, Jen, was kind enough to lend her voice as well.

We sang 3 songs together: I've Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter), The Dance (Garth Brooks), and They Can't Take That Away From Me (Gershwin). Jen and I kicked the night off and had a blast singing together. Here's the videos of our songs. We were happy with how it all went.

I've Got You Under My Skin

The Dance

They Can't Take That Away From Me

There were so many other talented acts that night, it was a great event, and ended up raising $1300 for a great cause.

Say Ah!

2010-05-24T21:56:00.002-07:00

I FINALLY took Joshua to the dentist for his very first cleaning this morning. I've been meaning to do it for the longest time and never got around to it. Thankfully, Joshua can pretty much handle anything as long as he knows what to expect, so we spent some time in the days leading up to his appointment talking about what they were going to do, so there weren't really any surprises for him. They took some x-rays (couldn't get them all because the poor guy was gagging on some of them... but he tried so hard!) and we got to see his adult teeth in there. They said he'll probably start loosing the baby teeth around his 6th birthday - he can't wait for that. Every day he asks me to check his teeth to see if they're loose yet. They also mentioned that his bottom teeth are a little crowded and probably won't allow enough room for his adult teeth. Hopefully we'll be able to bypass braces for him! But he handled the cleaning like a champ, and became the proud (read: VERY proud) owner of a little dental floss thingamajig. So thankfully the first trip to the dentist was a positive experience for him.

Ben's Claim to Fame

2010-05-24T21:54:00.003-07:00

That's right, boys and girls. That's his tongue going up INTO his nose. I'm so proud.

Corn, Zucchini and Peas, Oh My!

2010-05-24T21:29:00.008-07:00

I know I just posted about our garden a week or so ago, but I was so excited to see what's developed in the last week. First off, we NOW actually have some corn starting (I was mistaken last time). About mid-week last week we saw the first of the silks.

Early last week we also got our first male AND female zucchini blossoms open, and so, not trusting the bees, decided to hand pollinate it. Here is the male flower:

and here is a female:

Notice the difference in the shape of the pollen. Apparently my hand pollinating was successful, because yesterday we were able to pick this!

We also sampled one of our snap peas this weekend.

Those are some tasty peas. The boys LOVE them!

R.I.P. Soosy

2010-05-14T16:56:00.005-07:00

It's a sad day in the Maple house. Our little red beta fish, Soosy, passed away some time last night. Soosy was Joshua's "very own pet" that he got for his 4th birthday. Betas have a life span of only about a year, and seeing how Soosy was already fully grown when we got him, and Joshua's birthday is in a few weeks, I'd say Soosy lived a long life, and that fish was loved. Although Joshua didn't always remember to feed him, he was pretty responsible about it as 4 year olds go, and he thanked God for Soosy in his bedtime prayers every night.

We had known for a little while that Soosy was probably living on borrowed time and that the end was probably near, so every time I would pass his bowl I would check to make sure he was still alive. A lot of times he would be resting in the bottom of the bowl wrapped up in his little plant.

This morning Joshua looked in Soosy's bowl and said "I think Soosy is resting." Uh-oh. But when I looked over at the bowl, I thought I saw Soosy in his plant, so I said that he likes to rest in his plant. But then Joshua said "He's not in his plant. He's at the top." Double uh-oh. Sure enough, Soosy was gone. So here we go explaining death to a 4 year old. But Joshua wasn't too broken up about it. When I told his Soosy had gone to heaven, he said "that's okay, we can just go get another fish at Pest-Mart." How soon we move on! We spent much of the rest of the morning talking about Soosy, and what we'll miss about him. R.I.P Soosy. You were a great fish!

Spring Garden 2010

2010-05-14T11:56:00.009-07:00

At the end of March we planted our spring garden. This year we decided to go with more seeds than pre-sprouted plants. We chose corn, snap peas and zucchini, and also got a tomato and strawberry plant. Here it was then:

and here it is now:

We've already been able to enjoy a couple of the tomatoes...

And today we got our first zucchini blossom.

This flower is a male (zucchini are like other squash and have male and female flowers) but unlike my failed pumpkins last year we have plenty of healthy female blossoms that are growing and will probably open soon, so I'm confident the zucchini will fare better than the poor pumpkins did.

The peas are getting going too.

The corn has been going crazy! They are starting to grow their pollen...

and yesterday we saw some silks starting, which will hopefully turn into an ear of corn.

Can't wait to see how these home grown goodies will taste!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

2010-05-14T11:43:00.004-07:00

Every year the organization that Andrew works for reserves a couple sections at a Diamondbacks Game for Donate Life day. We took Joshua again this year. Ben was sad that he couldn't go, but we feel like he's still a little too young to try to sit through a baseball game... he can't even make it through a whole movie! Next year, buddy! But he still got to have fun with Grandma and Granddad while we were at the game. Just like last year, we rode the train to the ballpark, which is always a special treat. Joshua seemed to be a lot more into it this year than last year. It's amazing what a difference a year can make! He was clapping along with the music and sang every word to Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the top of his lungs, when last year he wouldn't participate at all. Here are some photos from our fun day.

Joshua "getting some energy" for the game.

Our free gift - an Augie Ojeda bobble head.

Finally Finished!

2010-04-22T21:05:00.010-07:00

Three months after the big storm, and after 3 nights in a hotel, our house is FINALLY done! I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Although it doesn't really show up in the pictures, one of the other things we did was get rid of the outdated popcorn ceiling and instead have it textured and painted. It all looks so good, and we're SO happy to finally have our house back!

8 Years

2010-04-22T20:25:00.003-07:00

On April 6th Andrew and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary (the 7th was the 11th anniversary of our first date!). We had a big weekend, sans kids, planned. Of course, when you've got little guys, things don't always go as planned. We had it all arranged that the boys would go to Grandma and Grandpa B's on Friday night to be picked up Sunday, giving us a glorious, and much needed, break for the entire weekend. Unfortunately, Joshua's tummy had other plans. Friday morning he started saying that his tummy hurt. We chalked it up to excitement about going to Grandma and Grandpas and sent him off to school. Turns out it was more than excitement. He ended up throwing up twice that day. Darn it! So we decided to keep the boys home Friday night and see where we were Saturday morning. I was pretty bummed to not get the break I so longed for, but what can you do? Thankfully, Saturday morning Joshua was totally back to normal, so we kicked them out and shipped them off, very thankful that things turned around to give us some kid-free time.

We spent the day Saturday getting caught up on some housework that is so hard to do with the kiddos around. Andrew worked on replacing the wood trim on the chimney, and I worked at doing some much needed cleaning on the inside. It may not sound like much of a party, but it just feels good to actually get something accomplished!

The real fun began later. One of our favorite musicians, Derek Webb, was playing at a church in Gilbert, so after a yummy early dinner at Chino Bandito, we went to enjoy the show. And what an amazing show it was! It was open seating and we ended up in the second row! The concert was so different than any other show I've seen. It was all acoustic, and was only his voice and his guitar, which he can do some amazing things with. He's just outstanding. Because it was an intimate setting, he pretty much just had his song book and was letting people call out requests! It was so cool and he played most of our favorite songs. It was a great night!

Although it didn't start out exactly as planned, we ended up having a great time, and a wonderful anniversary. Hard to believe it's been 8 years!

Easter 2010

2010-04-21T21:14:00.008-07:00

It's easy to get caught up in all the fun of Easter, with the eggs, and chocolate bunnies. But this year, I felt the impact of the true meaning of Easter more than ever before. Maybe it was the incredibly joyful and powerful songs we sang at church Easter weekend (I was able to participate in 4 of the 6 services, and each time the songs touched my heart so deeply, I couldn't help but smile so big my cheeks were sore!), or the fact that we spent Good Friday watching The Passion of the Christ with our small group, really bringing to life the incredible suffering endured out of pure love, and the awesome power of the Resurrection. Whatever it was, this year I could definitely feel the Holy Spirit moving within me in pure celebration than ever before, and it was awesome!

But of course we did have lots of the traditional Easter fun as well! Our Easter festivities lasted the whole weekend long. On Saturday we colored our eggs...

... and made our annual Easter sugar cookies. The boys have gotten quite good at cookie decorating! Too bad I didn't get any pictures of them!

On Sunday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa B came over for dinner. The kids got their Easter baskets, did their Easter egg hunt and we grilled out some yummy steaks.

And of course Joshua had to round out the evening playing the Wii with Grandma! What a fun weekend! Happy Easter!

Super Reader

2010-03-28T22:02:00.005-07:00

The City of Chandler has a reading program going on right now where if you read 5 books, you get a certificate for a free In-N-Out cheeseburger. How's that for motivation to keep on reading! As soon as we heard about it, we got Joshua signed up and he's been working hard for that cheeseburger! This afternoon he finished his 5th book since signing up for the program. He was so proud of himself!

Of course we had to reap the benefits of the reward right away! We ran to the library and Joshua proudly handed the librarian his card, and got his special certificate, with his name on it and everything!

Joshua was so happy to have the cheeseburger he worked so hard to earn, he ate every last morsel!

Joshua has worked so hard with his reading, and we are so proud of him. I can't wait to see him continue to grow and learn, and most importantly develop a love for the written word and just learning in general. Keep up the good work, buddy!

The Work Goes On

2010-03-28T21:25:00.006-07:00

Our house is still a work in progress after The Big Storm back in January, but we're getting there! With all of the rain we've had this year, it seems like every time it's rained, we're finding a new place where our house isn't water tight. One issue we've found in the last couple of times it's rained is that there is a small amount of water coming in on the outside wall of the chimney. We've known the trim on the chimney could have used to be replaced, as the wood was really warped and separating from the house. So before we close up the wall, we wanted to get the trim replaced and make sure that solves the problem and seals everything up tight. Andrew worked so hard, and did a great job replacing the wood. Check it out!

Here's the before:

And here's the progress that was made this weekend. Quite a difference!

One of the other things we had noticed was that the cap at the top of our chimney wasn't really fitting properly. So we had someone come out to look at it, and come to find out the whole thing needed replacing. So now, we have a brand new chimney cap!

We're supposed to get another storm passing through this week, so after that we'll hopefully be able to confirm that the rain will all stay outside, and we can get going on the fun part... having our living room drywalled and painted! I'm so excited to have this all done, and to see our new living room! Here's hoping it gets done sooner rather than later!

An Egg-celent Time

2010-03-28T21:01:00.011-07:00

This Saturday was our church's first (and we hope it's the first of many) Easter egg hunt. What a great time we had! There were a total of 40,000 eggs up for grabs, each one filled with a yummy treat.

It was so fun to have a morning of free fun with some of our closest friends! They split the kids into 3 different age groups. Josh and Ben were in two different groups which made it possible to enjoy watching each of them fill up their baskets.

After getting all their eggs, and of course sampling some of the contents...

...the boys had fun running around with their friends Braeden and Drew for a bit before heading home.

The boys had so much fun at the park, they weren't quite done with egg hunting when we got home. So we took turns hiding and finding them in our backyard for the rest of the morning. Such a fun morning and a great way to kick off Easter week!

Marbulous!

2010-03-21T21:19:00.011-07:00

Recently Joshua started going through a rough patch at school behavior wise. He wasn't doing anything bad, just typical reports of not listening and making bad choices. The kind of things you would expect out of a 4 year old from time to time. He's reaching the age of being influenced by other kids, and just growing into his own person. But he has set a pretty high bar for himself as all we've ever gotten from him are glowing reports, so this change, however mild it was, was a bit alarming to us so we thought it was time to take some action before it got worse. At first we took the "punishment" approach. If he got a bad report from school, he would get a punishment when we got home. After a while we realized this didn't really seem to be working, mostly because he was being punished for something that happened hours earlier so the punishment had lost its significance.

So we came up with a great idea for positive reinforcement, to give him something to work for instead of to fear. This was the birth of the marble jar. We split the day into 4 sections, each worth 1 marble. He also gets a marble if he does his reading, for a total of 5 possible marbles each day. Once the jar is full, we will get to do something special. For his first full marble jar, we decided we would go to Peter Piper Pizza.

The marbles have worked like a charm! Josh has lost very few marbles since we started, and this weekend the marble jar was finally full!

Tonight he cashed them in and off we went to Peter Piper for dinner and games. What a fun time we had! They each ate a slice of pizza, and had a blast running around playing all the games.

One of Joshua's favorite games was a snow mobile video game.

He was laughing hysterically the entire time. It was awesome! Just look at this face!

Of course we were on the prowl for as many tickets as we could get. One of the games was kind of like a slot machine. You pull a lever and then smack a button and whichever number was lit up when the button is pressed, that's how many tickets you get. The highest number you could get was 250. Of course Lucky Andrew hit the jackpot!

We had so much fun, Ben REALLY didn't want to leave. Can you tell?

He cried the whole way home and almost all through his bath that he wanted to go back.

We're so proud of Joshua for the good choices he has learned to make, and we hope he keeps it up. Good job, Dude!!!

Harvest Time!

2010-03-21T21:03:00.008-07:00

Now that the weather is warming up, it's time to get going on our spring garden. Of course this means it was time to harvest the veggies we've been watching grow for the last couple of months. All in all we got 19 carrots and 1 good sized head of cauliflower.

We also learned why we were supposed to thin out the carrots once they sprouted (which we apparently didn't do good enough...)

Seeing how we have actually kept up with and taken to this gardening thing over the last year, we wanted to have a little more space to work with this year. So we built a bigger and better garden box.

Once the box was finished, with the help of Andrew's new toy (his new miter saw)

We got to planting! This season we're trying corn, sugar snap peas and zucchini, all from seeds, as well as a strawberry plant and tomato plant. Here is our finished project.

I hope all of our seeds sprout and turn into yummy food. Stay tuned!

Veggie Growing

2010-03-14T21:35:00.005-07:00

Our winter vegetable garden is just about coming to its end to make room for our spring fare. Since we've really gotten the hang of this gardening thing over the last year we've decided to make our garden box a little bigger this year. We're giving our veggies a little more time to grow while Andrew constructs the new box. We've got a really good head of cauliflower growing right now. It's been pretty cool watching this thing grow. The leaves are absolutely huge.

All this from one tiny seed. Pretty amazing. At first we thought that the plant had forgotten to actually grow the meat of the vegetable. But then all of a sudden there was a tiny floret inside, which has continued to grow at an astonishing rate. Hopefully it will be pretty close to ready to pick by next weekend when we plan on planting the spring garden.

We also have some carrots that are getting pretty big. We picked one tonight to see how they were coming along, and they were a pretty decent size.

We all shared this little sucker tonight, and he was so tasty! Very sweet and flavorful. Nothing like home grown veggies!

Viva Las Vegas

2010-03-14T20:40:00.008-07:00

Somehow it was time for cousin Adria's first birthday. We don't get to see Auntie Kerri, Uncle Jonathon and Adria often enough, so we took the opportunity to take a little weekend road trip to Las Vegas for her birthday party.

This was our first road trip after having Benny completely potty trained. I knew that 6 hours through the desert was a lot to ask of him, as we don't typically get a whole lot of warning to get him to a potty once he starts "dancing." I had thought that maybe we should have him wear a Pull-Up for the car ride, just in case, but of course completely forgot about it when it was time to go. So, we just went for it. He went potty in Wickenburg, but every other time he had to go, it was immediately AFTER leaving any civilization where there was no place to stop or even pull over to let him go, then when we would stop, he wouldn't go. He had 3 accidents by the time we got to the hotel. To say it was frustrating was an understatement.

But other than that, the boys were absolutely perfect on the long drive. There was no crying and no complaining. Josh, who is now in a booster seat instead of his 5 point harness, was a big help as he could now reach things on the floor for him and Benny. It appears that these boys have gotten acclimated to these long car rides. They find ways to amuse themselves without vegging out in front of a DVD player. Joshua got a big kick out of seeing the Joshua Tree Forest along the way. Benny didn't quite understand why there weren't any Benny Trees, so Joshua told him the bushes were Benny Bushes. There were also Mommy Mountains and the Daddy Desert.

When we rolled into town, we saw that down the street there was a park with a nice little playground. How perfect for two little boys who had been cooped up in a car all day!

The next day we took the boys down to the Las Vegas Strip to see some of the sights. As we were driving up Las Vegas Boulevard, Joshua saw the Excalibur, which looks like a castle, and said "There's something wrong with that castle! Castles are supposed to have flags, but that castle doesn't have any flags." Alert the authorities! :) The best part of the strip as far as the boys were concerned was the M&M World store, a 4 story gift shop of nothing but M&M merchandise. They even had a big M&M greeting the patrons outside. Ben thought he was pretty cool, but Josh, as usual, wanted nothing to do with him.

We did a little walking up the strip, then stopped at the lion habitat in the MGM Grand. Whenever we see the lions at the zoo they're always so far away, but these lions were so close! Couldn't really get any decent pictures, but it was pretty neat to see them so up close and personal.

After the strip we headed out to the Jones' for Adria's birthday party. It was a great party and so fun to spend time with that part of our family, and of course Grandma and Grandpa B. Adria was the prettiest little birthday girl!

Saturday night we were able to meet up with an old friend of mine from high school who I haven't seen in almost 12 years. Jennifer and her husband, Dennis, live about an hour outside of Vegas and they were nice enough to drive into Vegas to join us for dinner. I was a little worried about how the boys were going to behave, having had such a long day, but they were awesome. They sat and ate some of their dinner, pretty much without making a peep, and then promptly conked out, buying us some time to have some good adult conversation and catch up on the last 12 years! When we got back to the hotel I realized I didn't get any photos of us together. :( I guess that just means we'll need to do it again sometime! It was really great to see her after all these years.

Our trip home was so much less stressful, as far as Benny's plumbing goes. We bought a package of Pull-Ups and had him wear one on the way home. It seemed like taking the pressure off of him made it so much easier for him. He did all his business like a big boy all the way home with no trouble. It was another very pleasant 6 hour drive.

We had so much fun this weekend. It's so nice to have these little opportunities to get away. I hope these trips will make for some fond memories for the boys. I know they will be for us.

Roof Update

2010-03-02T22:03:00.007-07:00

Almost 6 weeks after the bout of Storm vs. Roof, we finally have a new roof! Here's what it looked like before (you might want to click on the photos to enlarge to really see the difference):

And here is our brand new roof!

The difference might not translate well in the photos, but to us it really looks like a brand new house. While our roof was being torn up, anyway, we thought it would be a good time to take the opportunity to add some ventilation to our attic, which was something we were wanting to do this year anyway.

Here's the really cool part. We were able to pay for the whole roof without having to go into debt and without depleting our savings. We are completely overwhelmed and humbled by God's loving provision for us in all of this. It just so happened this came at the one time of year when we get 3 large extra checks, which all turned out to be almost to the penny the amount we needed for the roof. God is good!!!

We were hoping that once the roof was done all of our interior water problems would be solved, but no such luck. With this last rain, which actually hit just before the roof was done, our roof proved to be water tight, which was great! But then we started to see water seeping in on the chimney walls, and also in the windows, neither of which had EVER been a problem before. Arg! Now we need to make sure those problems get solved before we can finally close up the wall. Are we ever ready for all of this to be over!

Knock Knock

2010-02-24T22:27:00.003-07:00

Joshua told me the greatest knock, knock joke the other day. Like to hear it? Here it goes:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana!
Banana Who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Banana!
Banana who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Orange!
Orange who?
I'm glad I didn't say Banana!

Ummm.... I don't think that's quite right, but it sure was funny. He was so pleased with the response he got to his joke (not realizing the real reason it was so funny to us) that he decided to hit us with another one that was even better!

Knock knock
Who's there?
Plate!
Plate who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Plate!
Plate who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Spoon!
Spoon who?
I'm glad I didn't say...... the thing I said before!

Maybe you had to be here, but trust me. It was Hi-larious!

Gotta Eat Your Vegetables!

2010-02-21T21:34:00.005-07:00

It's so great living in Arizona. Our mild winters mean that we can grow various things throughout the year. Since our pumpkins and squash didn't pan out this past fall, we thought we would try our hand at growing some vegetables over the winter. We planted radishes, cauliflower and carrots a few months ago, and it has been fun learning how vegetables grow as opposed to fruits. Here were our little sprouts on January 15th:

The radishes are on the left, carrots on the right and cauliflower along the back row. The radishes have been super happy, and we've had quite a harvest of them.

Apparently our bag of seeds had some white radish seeds mixed in. The red ones have had such a strong zesty flavor, while the white ones are a bit more mild, but all of them have been super tasty. Much more so than any you would find in the store.

This weekend I decided to pull a few of the carrot spouts up to thin them out, and also to see how they were coming along. To my surprise (and delight!) I found that our carrots, although small, have actually turned into food!

We each got to have a teeny tiny carrot with our dinner last night. I was probably more excited about this than I should have been, but I just think it's so cool to have grown something edible from a tiny seed.

Our cauliflower has been growing like crazy... the leaves anyway. We were beginning to think that it had forgotten to grow the meat, but when I was poking around yesterday, I found a tiny little cauliflower floret in the center, so it looks like we will get something after all.

In the next couple weeks we plan on making a larger garden box and planting our spring garden, trying our hand at some new tasty treats. I just love gardening!

Bennyisms

2010-02-21T20:42:00.002-07:00

Benny has been such a silly little monkey lately, and has been cracking us up with the funny things he says. Here are some of our favorites:

"Can I be awake?" Every morning when Ben wakes up, he storms into our room and asks us this question, and it's just so cute in his little cartoon-like voice. If we tell him it's okay to be awake, he will say "I ca-yan?" (one of our other favorite things is that he turns one syllable words into two syllable words by adding a "y" in the middle. So cute!)

"Merry Christmas" Benny is such a sweet little guy. He has started telling us, out of the blue, that he loves us. It goes something like this. "I love you, Mommy" and I repeat it back to him; "Merry Christmas" [repeat]; "Happy New Year" [repeat]; "Happy Valentines Day" [repeat]; "Happy President's Day" [repeat]. We usually go through this routine about 4 or 5 times a day. It's so sweet, it just melts my heart.

"Calling all Super Readers!" Both of the boys LOVE the show Super Why on PBS. Since we got our DVR a few weeks ago we have been recording it every day and letting the boys watch it when we get home in the afternoon. Ben has decided that he is "Alphabet Pig" and loves to sing the Alpha Pig ABC's. Whenever he finds one of his toy phones, it instantly turns into a "super duper computer" and calls out "Calling all Super Readers! To the Book Club!"

And what is probably my favorite... A couple weeks ago we asked Benny what the bible was about. Without skipping a beat, he said this:

In case you had any trouble catching that, it was "Jesus Christ the Son of God has come." Couldn't have said it better myself!

Storm Watch 2010

2010-01-25T13:37:00.007-07:00

We had been hearing about it for about a week. January 21st was supposed to be the worst storm the Phoenix area had seen in recent memory, bringing more rainfall than all of last year combined and nearly hurricaine force winds. When the fateful day came, we found out that they weren't kidding! The rain kind of piddled all day until later in the afternoon but then really got going. We had heard on the radio on the way home that the winds in Chandler had gusted at 60 mph. Our first thought was "Oh no. Our poor roof!" And we were correct. When we got home, we found this:

In the house we could hear sections of loose shingles beating against the roof. The sound was sickening because we knew what was going on up there! But all we could do was ride it out and hope for minimal damage to the roof and pray that we didn't get any leaks. We did have one spot that started leaking, but overall we felt like we weathered the storm pretty well.

After some deliberation, we decided to go ahead and make a claim on our homeowner's insurance for the roof damage. After calling the insurance company to schedule the adjuster, Andrew, with the help of our neighbor, climbed up on the roof to attempt to tarp over the damage to prevent any more water getting into the house, since more rain was expected that night.

Since he had stayed home for the day to deal with all of these joys of home ownership, he took some time to really survey the house, and noticed that there was about a 15 foot stretch of carpet along the south wall of our living room that was wet. Because this wall borders our covered patio which didn't get wet in the storm, we figured the water was getting in through the walls, but didn't really think a lot about it.

When the insurance adjuster came out yesterday afternoon, he told us that they would replace the entire back of our roof, and he asked if there was any damage inside, so we showed him where the carpet was wet (it was STILL wet on Sunday afternoon). The adjuster (who is so super nice!) called out a company called Service Master to come and inspect our drywall and carpet to make sure it all dried properly. They had a little machine to measure the moisture in the drywall, and whenever they touched it to the wall, the thing would light up and go crazy, meaning the wall was plenty wet inside. What happened next, we never would have expected... I'll just show you.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. About 50% of our drywall is missing from our living room wall! They also ripped up our carpet, took out the pad, removed our baseboard and all of our wall insulation and set up some high power fans and a dehumidifier to dry out the wall. Holy crap! Fortunately (although that word doesn't seem to adequately express how we feel) our homeowner's insurance is paying for EVERYTHING to put our house back together, minus our deductible. If we wouldn't have torn out the drywall and mold would have grown, that would not have been covered which is a whole other nightmare, so we're happy to be inconvenienced for a time now, at no significant cost to us! In addition to what is shown in the picture, they will also have to remove a 15 foot section of our ceiling along the wall, which means they will actually end up scraping our entire ceiling (the "lovely" 80's popcorn) and redoing the whole thing, as well as painting our entire living room. While all this work is being done, we will be put up in a hotel room for a few days, but it sounds like they will put us in an extended stay apartment type hotel, like a Residence Inn or something so we should be okay.

So our adventure over the next couple of days is to live in our house without using the living room, as it is pretty much uninhabitable right now with the fans blasting (quiet it ain't!) and furniture moved about to make room for all the equipment. Hopefully everything will be dry by tomorrow and so we can at least have our house back (for now) and so we can try to get our roof replaced before we get too much more rain. In the meantime our roof will be professionally tarped, but that doesn't really give us the peace of mind that an actual roof would! I'll continue to update on the progress. I still can't believe that this is happening! But thank God for insurance, and just for His overall protection over our family. This may seem like a big deal, but at the end of the day, we're all safe and that's what really matters. Everything else is just stuff!

OINK!!!

2010-01-15T20:40:00.002-07:00

It all started with a 4:30 a.m. wake up call this morning... "My cheek hurts" Joshua cries to us. Andrew got up to see what was the matter and put him back to bed, but when he was then told that his forehead hurt, Andrew took Josh's temperature to find a 101.7. Well, I guess we're staying home today! So I stayed home with him. We watched TV, played board games and spent a little low key time in the backyard. The fever came back once the Motrin wore off, but we had it pretty well under control. Then, after his nap he woke up crying. I took his temperature and found it to be 105! Instantly I'm thinking flu. I called the doctor, at Andrew's urging, and they wanted to see us right away. The doctor believes that he has the H1N1 flu, although they don't test for it because the test isn't accurate enough to be reliable. We left the doctor's office with two prescriptions for Tamiflu (one for Josh and one for Ben as a preventative measure). He's a pretty darn sick little boy right now. Poor guy. But despite his obvious misery right now, he's still just as sweet as can be. We are praying that this passes through him quickly and that somehow the rest of us, especially Ben, can be spared. Until then, we'll just wait for Joshua's piggy noes and curly tail to grow in!

They're Really Growing Up...

2010-01-10T21:46:00.003-07:00

It has been nagging at me that we haven't been working with Ben on using a big boy (i.e., non-sippy) cup. Joshua had pretty much mastered it by this age, and I know that when Ben turns three the doctor is going to remind me that he should be off of the sippy cup (not that I feel I need to adhere to the doctor's timing on things, but on this issue I totally agree). I had tried a few times with him, but he didn't seem to understand the concept of tipping the cup and tipping his head at the same time, and I'll be the first to admit that I didn't try too hard... at all. But today I took it a little more seriously, and he totally got it. I gave him a "special" cup to use, and let him put the water in it, then to my surprise, he took a big drink from it, like he's been doing it forever! Something just seemed to click with him, and now he's a pro! At dinner he had his milk in his "special" cup and drank the whole thing nearly perfectly! I was so excited. Just another check mark on the big boy list!

Joshua also surprised the heck out of me at dinner tonight, cutting his meat with a (butter) knife and fork. It just made him look so old, and now here's one more way we've become obsolete to him.

Joshua also finished reading his very first book today. At his recent trip to the library, Andrew got him a "Dick and Jane" book to read. Most of the words in the book are ones he can read by sight, but there were plenty of new ones. These books are timeless - and awesome - for beginning readers. He has done amazing and was so proud of himself when we finished the last page of the book today. We can't wait to read our next book "Cat Can Cook" by Dr. Seuss.

I'm such a proud mama of these two beautiful little boys. Sometimes I look at them and think "How have you grown up so fast?!?" One day I know I'm going to wake up and they're going to be all grown up and on their own! It reminds me to really take the time to enjoy them, play with them and soak up as many cuddles as I can!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

2010-01-10T21:32:00.004-07:00

Andrew turned 33 years old this past Wednesday, and has been celebrating ever since! On Wednesday night we went for a family dinner at the Olive Garden. We had such a nice time! Everyone was extremely well behaved, and ate really well. I think Ben could have eaten his weight in macaroni and cheese! When we got home, Andrew opened his presents and cards...

then we cut into the turtle cheesecake that I had made for the occasion. I think I may have overdone the toppings a little, but was it ever good!

On Saturday we were able to send the kids off to Grandma and Grandpa's for the night and took the opportunity to enjoy a far too seldom date night. We had dinner at Abuelos, a Mexican food restaurant which I think will now be a new family favorite, and went to go see the movie The Blind Side which was absolutely outstanding. We really enjoyed ourselves and plan to try to make more of an effort to have more dates this year!

Then to top it all off, the Cardinals gave him a nailbiting playoff victory today!

Happy birthday, Andrew. You are a true blessing to all of us and we love you so much!

Happy New Year: A Look Back

2010-01-01T13:50:00.002-07:00

My friend Lea recently posted a "Decade in Review" on her blog, and I thought that was a great idea so I thought I'd steal it... Hope you don't mind, Lea! As we enter this new decade, here is a look back at our lives for 2000 through 2009:

2000: Andrew and I were engaged on Easter Sunday and 2 months later I took the giant leap of moving from my parents house to Santa Barbara, California to be with Andrew. I began working at Hollister & Brace, which is one of the best law firms I have ever been a part of.

2001: Andrew lost his Grandfather to lung cancer in January. That July Andrew, his mom, her husband and I took a road trip to Peoria, Illinois for his memorial service and the Weaver family reunion. In May our first nephew was born, an event that I was able to be in the delivery room for, which was such a special experience for me!

2002: Andrew and I got married on April 6th! Our wedding day was beautiful and perfect, despite the less than perfect weather that day. In June by dad's retina detached, which ultimately left him legally blind (not that it has slowed him down at all!). This made me want to be closer to my family, which prompted our move back to Arizona that August.

2003: We bought our first house, a new build in Chandler! It was so much fun to choose everything we wanted in the house, and really make it our own. We also found our church home, where we have been ever since.

2004: Andrew was laid off from his job, and in August began working with the Donor Network of Arizona, where he still works today. In September we found out that we were going to be parents!

2005: Joshua was born on June 13th and changed our lives... for the better... forever. 6 weeks later we took our first family mini-vacation to San Diego for another Weaver family reunion.

2006: With having a little one, we learned that having a 2 story home is SO overrated, so we decided to sell our house and move to a one story. Despite the declining real estate market, we were able to sell our house in 40 days and purchase the house we always wanted. It all happened with perfect timing. 5 months after moving into our new house we found out that baby #2 was on his way!

2007: Of course the best part of this year was our little Benny coming into our lives on August 10th. We also spent the better part of the first half of this year working on our backyard. I participated in a great deal of the landscaping, including ripping out a tree stump and roots, despite my growing belly. Another highlight of the year was getting Joshua out of diapers!

2008: With our new mouth to feed, we could no longer afford my part time work schedule that I had enjoyed since Joshua was born. So I decided to leave the firm I had been working at for the last 5 years, and started working full time for a sole practitioner. This job has provided me with so much experience and I really enjoy it. We also joined the ranks of the soccer moms and purchased our first minivan!

2009: What a way to round out the decade! We had a great year. Andrew and I renewed our wedding vows in February, Joshua started to learn how to read and Benny was potty trained. Hooray! The best part of our year was our first big family vacation to Illinois and Wisconsin to visit family, including the boys' first ride on an airplane. In the fall we got to take a couple small family trips to San Diego to see the beach and go to Sea World. We had so much fun!

Now we're into a new year and a new decade. We're excited to see what this next 10 years will bring. Happy New Year to everyone out there. We pray your 2010 and beyond is filled with abundant blessings!

Christmas Wrap-Up

2009-12-27T20:42:00.021-07:00

The Christmas season has drawn to a close. What a great time it was! We got to spend time with family and friends and really celebrate the birth of our Savior! Although we haven't gotten to do everything we wanted to do, we've had a lot of fun.

We decorated the house for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. Although I could really use some help in the decorating department, I love having the Christmas decor out. The favorite decoration by far is our singing Christmas tree. The boys just adore this thing!

The first weekend in December North Phoenix Baptist Church hosts the judging of the floats for the APS light parade. They turn it into a party and we always try to go. It's great because we get to see all of the parade floats, but don't have to try to keep the kids still since the floats are stationary and we just walk around to see them all.

Another family favorite of the holiday season is my dad's train set that he sets up every year. Both of the boys are train fanatics, so they just can't get enough of Granddad's train. He seems to have new bells and whistles (pun intended) for it every year. This year it included a helicopter launcher and a complete set of Thomas trains, which Benny just loved!

The weekend before Christmas we got together with my best friend, Gabrielle and her kids to decorate Christmas cookies. With 6 kids between us, 5 of which are under 5 years old, it was complete mayhem! Activities such as these always seem to go better in our heads than their actual execution, but despite the chaos, we had a great time making a big mess. The boys have so much fun together, no matter what they're doing.

That same night was Andrew's office Christmas party at the Arizona Science Center. As usual, the food was good and the people at his office are really nice. The venue was an interesting choice, but it was kind of cool to have something else to do at the party since we are definitely NOT dancers, even after a glass of wine or two. So we spent a little while checking out the exhibits at the Science Center. I even got to lay on a bed of nails, which was odd to say the least!

When the big day finally came, we definitely filled the time with many Christmas festivities! Andrew had to work on Christmas Eve morning, but I had the whole day off, so I took the boys to visit with my grandma, who they haven't seen since last Christmas (for no good reason other than we haven't gotten out there). They enjoyed playing with the toy motorcycles great-grandma gave them, and also playing with great-grandma's dog Pepper. Later that day we got all gussied up and went to church.

We had a beautiful service with lots of Christmas music and a wonderful sermon. Although I can't really say they thoroughly enjoyed it, the boys tolerated attending "big church" very well, which was a great Christmas present for us!

After church we went out to Avondale to celebrate Christmas with Andrew's mom's family. We all had a great time. It was great to watch the boys playing with their cousins. These are the years that we all talked about looking forward too when the kids were younger. Now they are all great friends and run around in a big gang. It's awesome and exactly what we always wanted for our boys. Cousins to grow up with and be friends with. That's something Andrew and I both kind of missed out on since his cousins lived half way across the country and mine were all so much older than me.

The boys got to bed late, which meant they actually slept until 7:00 a.m. on Christmas morning! Since Joshua was really understanding Christmas and Santa Claus this year, we thought we might get the 4 am wake up call, but thankfully the night at Grandma's sufficiently wore them out! We woke up that morning to find out that Santa had left a train table for the boys, which was exactly what they wanted!

After opening the rest of our presents, Grandpa Maple, Mabel and Andrea came over for breakfast. I tried out a new recipe this year... baked french toast. It was SO good!

Because they had had such a late night the night before, the boys seemed to be a little cranky for part of Christmas morning. But after getting our Christmas Meltdown out of the way, we had nothing but good attitudes and sweet little boys the rest of the day. After Grandpa Maple's clan's visit, we got to just hang out and relax the rest of the day, and of course try out our new toys and games. Joshua gave me a good old fashioned whoopin' in Sorry...

and Ben officially partied himself out.

That night we grilled up some steaks, roasted some red potatoes and after dinner went out to see some Christmas lights as we do every year. I love our traditions that we have built as a family!

On Saturday we got together with my family at my parent's house.

We even got to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and cousin and his family. We don't get to see them often, so that was an extra special treat! Joshua just adores his cousin, Jacob, so he had the best time playing with him. Ben and Gracie are only 3 months apart and are now to the age where they will start to play together, so it was a lot of fun.

My mom made a delicious dinner of prime rib, homemade au gratin potatoes, baked beans, veggies and garlic bread, and some awesome homemade pies for dessert. She really outdid herself! After leaving my parents house, we stopped off at a house not too far from their house that has always decorated to the nines, including the inside of the house which you can walk through. I remember going there every year as a kid, so it was fun to be able to share that with my boys.

So now we look forward to what 2010 will bring. We hope it is filled with much joy and blessing for you! Happy New Year!

Our Buddy Santa Claus!

2009-12-10T21:41:00.008-07:00

Tonight we took the boys to go see Santa Claus. Josh has been looking forward to this all week, and had been rehearsing what he was going to tell Santa he wanted for Christmas. We know better than to try to go see Santa on the weekends. A 4 year old, a 2 year old and long lines just do not make for a fun trip to the mall! Since we don't have the option of going on a weekday afternoon anymore, we thought we would try a weekday evening. We knew that Joshua would do great with Santa, and were pretty sure he would even talk to him this year. Ben on the other hand, was a wild card at best, but our money was on him not wanting anything to do with the idea of sitting on Santa's lap. But despite our doubts, we went for it. Thankfully, there was absolutely NO line for Santa. Whoo hoo! We walked right up to Santa and got as much time with him as we wanted. Although Josh was a little apprehensive about going up to Santa by himself, he mustered up his courage and walked right up to him and showed him the 2 headed dragon he had brought with him. =) Much to our surprise, Ben was right behind Josh. He walked right up to Santa and asked him to pick him up. Santa pulled both boys up on his lap and Mommy got her coveted Santa picture! I think it's the best one we've ever gotten! Just for fun, here are our Santa pictures through the last five Christmases.

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Merry Christmas and Ho Ho Ho!

Big Boy!!!

2009-12-01T21:18:00.004-07:00

I can pretty much say that Ben is totally potty trained!!! Whoo hoo!!!

Because he did so well over the long weekend, I really wanted him to get a shot in underpants at school for at least part of the day. So yesterday morning I called and talked to his teacher, Ms. Victoria, and told her my plan. I told her how great he did over the weekend, and suggested that maybe he go diaperless in the afternoon. Although she sounded skeptical that he was ready for that, she agreed. Knowing the dilemma they have about little boys with skinny butts sitting on the potty (i.e., issues with aiming), I suggested that they sit him on the potty backwards, since they are unable to assist him with his aim. That seemed to do the trick. That afternoon after nap he used the potty twice, and didn't have any accidents. He even wore his underpants home.

This morning we simply didn't put a diaper on him after he woke up. His teachers followed our lead, and at the end of the day he came home in the same pants and underpants he went to school in! His teachers even "acted on faith" and didn't even put him in a diaper for his nap. So he wore his underpants for 13 hours today with no accidents!

We're pretty sure that we could even do away with his overnight diapers, since he has woken up dry everyday for over a week, and even woke up last night at about 11:00 because he needed to go. It's so exciting to know that very soon we'll be able to officially hang up the Huggies!

We're Getting There

2009-11-29T22:01:00.002-07:00

Because we had a long 4 day weekend, we saw it as an opportunity take Ben's potty training up a notch. Even though we were going to be very busy, and wouldn't even be home all day on Thursday, we wanted to keep him in underpants as much as possible over the weekend. We hauled his little potty over to Grandma and Grandpa B's on Thursday, and he wore his underpants all day long, minus the 45 minute rides in the car to and from their house. He had one accident (about 30 seconds before I was going to take him to the bathroom), but he wore his little underpants all day and did such a great job. Friday was another banner day for him. He again had one accident, but when you think that he was wearing underpants from about 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., that's pretty darn good! He's still a little weird about going poop, but he's getting there. He HATES to poop in his diaper. We knew most of the afternoon that he needed to poop because he kept saying he needed to go potty and then wouldn't do anything when he sat down. When I took my parents home, I took both of the boys with me, and was feeling brave, so I let Ben go in his underpants. He did great, but about 4 miles from home started crying that he needed to go potty. I got home as fast as I could, and found that he had been successful in holding it until we got home. Yay!!! (on SO many levels!). When he was all ready for bed with his diaper on, he just couldn't hold it any longer and pooped in his diaper. Oh my was he upset. As much as I tried to tell him it's okay to poop in his diaper and praise him that he didn't go in his underpants, he was just devastated, poor little guy. Continued throughout the rest of the weekend, except for part of Sunday, where he decided to turn into a stubborn little turkey. He didn't want to wear a diaper, but would balk at the idea of sitting on the potty. He had 2 accidents, and wore a diaper for church, but he didn't wet his diaper.... he actually didn't wet a diaper all weekend long! So we're definitely getting somewhere. If only we could get him going on any other potty than his little potty, I think we'd be in business. We hope to get him out of diapers for at least part of his school day, maybe starting this week, so we'll see how he does. Right now we are ecstatic with the progress he's made. We'll take whatever we can get!

Thanksgiving Weekend Fun!

2009-11-29T21:22:00.011-07:00

What a wonderful start to the Holiday season we had this weekend! I love Thanksgiving. It's such a fun time to get together with family and eat lots of yummy food. It just doesn't get better than that. This year we spent Thanksgiving day at Andrew's mom's house. Auntie Kerri, Uncle Jonathon and baby Adria got to come down from Vegas to spend the holiday with us, which was such an extra special treat! Baby Adria is such a doll, and just couldn't be any cuter!

Josh and Ben had a blast playing with their cousin, Stevin, and painting Christmas ornaments with Grandma B.

The kids all played hard all day long, and by the end of the night, everyone was so tired! Baby Adria even fell asleep on me... I could just eat her up!

Because we were elsewhere on Thanksgiving day, I decided to make my own Thanksgiving meal on Friday. I'm not much for Black Friday shopping, and I love having tons of leftovers, so I just couldn't resist the opportunity! I was up at 5:00 a.m. making pie and preparing the stuffing for the turkey. I made all of my Thanksgiving staples, including an herb roasted turkey, homemade apple sausage stuffing (with homemade croutons), fruited sweet potatoes with a streusel topping, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce and cheddar corn bread muffins.

For dessert I made a pecan pie (actually made 2 because I burned the first one... the lesson learned was don't try to bake with a massive headache!), and a completely from scratch pumpkin pie. I had never roasted a pumpkin before, but after having done it this year, I don't think I'll ever buy a can of pumpkin again! The pie was so light and just plain tasty.

We were so blessed to be able to spend the day, and the meal, not only with my parents, but with my best friend, Gabrielle, and her family. Gabrielle just had her 4th child on November 3rd. Baby Jameson is so cute, and so sweet. I just loved holding him.

Josh and Aaron, Gabrielle's oldest son, are best friends themselves. They play together so well, and are always sad to go home. It is pure joy to watch them playing together. Kayleigh is Gabrielle's oldest, and she is just a gem. Ben and Jack are also just about the same age and, although they are a little young to really play together, we hope that they will bond as Josh and Aaron have. Here are some photos of the kiddos having a great time together:

What a fun day it was!

On Saturday we started to get the house ready for Christmas. Although we didn't get as far as we would have liked (thanks to my beginning to come down with a cold), we did get the Christmas tree up and decorated.

What a great Thanksgiving weekend. I can't wait for the rest of the holiday fun we have planned over the next month!

30th Birthday Bash!

2009-11-23T13:33:00.021-07:00

Last Wednesday was my 30th birthday. I've never been one of these people that frets over age (I know I'm just thirty, but I know people who have freaked over 25!) so I wasn't scared of it, or dreading it or anything like that. It just sounds a bit strange to not be a "20-something" anymore. Over the last few years my birthday has kind of fallen into the background, behind the plethora of November birthdays in our family. It seems as though we're going to this or that birthday party every single weekend in November, leaving virtually no time to really celebrate my birthday. As I've gotten older, I have begun to care about my birthday less and less, so it's never really bothered me too much. But because of the milestone I reached this year, we decided to do my birthday up in style!

First, was my extra-special gift from Andrew and my parents... a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer! This thing is incredible! It weighs probably 20 lbs and is so fun to use! I can't wait to break it out for the thanksgiving feast later this week! =)The boys also got me a Snuggie (the blanket with sleeves!). Joshua was so excited to give it to me, I'm still amazed that he was able to keep the lip zipped until I opened my presents!

The real celebration was this past weekend. Because we weren't able to go to Sea World when we were in San Diego last month, we planned to go back to San Diego for my birthday. All week leading up to the trip, Andrew and I were living in this constant state of mild paranoia over one of the boys getting sick and putting the kibosh on our trip. We were pumping them full of vitamins and orange juice, and thankfully everyone had a clean bill of health for our fun weekend! We headed out early on Friday morning, and had another enjoyable time in the car, rolling into San Diego about 1:00.

Ben didn't make it too far into his book!

Our first stop was Imperial Beach, south of San Diego, about 3 miles from Mexico, as we had heard it was a good place to find sand dollars and starfish. We walked along the beach for a bit... well, everyone but Ben, who had apparently gotten his fill of the beach on our last trip. He refused to walk and turned into the biggest cuddle bug and just wanted to "hide in Mommy's hair."

Josh had a blast finding more seashells, which were much bigger on this beach. The best find of the day went to Daddy... a giant sand dollar! When we stopped for lunch at a little local cafe, even a local was impressed with our find!

After lunch we went back up to San Diego and walked around Seaport Village, and over to the USS Midway. We didn't take the tour of the Midway, as the boys are still a little young for that, but they did like seeing the big ship with airplanes and helicopters on it.

That evening we went to check into our hotel, which was the same hotel we stayed at last month. When Andrew went inside to check in, he learned that we were the "Guest of the Day" which means we got a free upgrade to a 2 bedroom/2 bath suite! There was even a sign being displayed in the lobby with my name on it (which Andrew snagged for me). It was so cool!

Joshua was super excited to have his very own bedroom instead of sleeping on the fold out couch like he normally does. It was a $200 per night room that we got for $129 per night. Happy birthday to me!

The following morning was Sea World Day! Unfortunately, because of the time change (CA is 1 hour behind us right now) and the fact that the boys aren't used to sharing a room, Ben decided to wake Joshua up at about 5:00 a.m. Thanks a lot! Because of the awakening he wasn't quite ready for, he was a little, shall we say, grumpy in the morning. But we finally got him to snap out of it and had a fantastic day at Sea World! We got there just as the park opened, and were probably about the 3rd family through the gate. We got to see dolphins up close, feed some sea lions, and watch the Shamu show, the Pets Rule show and the Clyde and Seymour show. We even got to see Elmo, Burt, Ernie, Zoe and Cookie Monster sing and dance for us, which I think Ben could have watched all day!

Riding the flying Elmo fish ride in the Sesame Street Bay of Play

We had informed Joshua ahead of time that the Sesame Street characters would be there and that he could meet them. As soon as he learned this, he informed me that he was going to bring Cookie Monster some cookies that we had made (with my mixer, of course!). The night before we left he had painstakingly, and completley on his own, selected two cookies for Cookie Monster and put them in a Ziploc sandwich bag. I was told to make sure we remembered to put them in a safe place, and he even made sure we had them before we left the house Friday morning! Anyway, when his chance finally came to give Cookie Monster his cookies, he mustered up all of his courage and gave Cookie Monster his baggie of cookies. Cookie Monster was SO happy to have cookies! He started blowing Joshua kisses and then grabbed him and gave him a huge hug.

Joshua is in there somewhere!

Joshua was so beside himself excited that he could make Cookie Monster so happy. What a sweet little spirit he has! I think this was my favorite part of our day!

We stayed at Sea World for pretty much the whole time the park was open. We did it without naps (except that Ben pooped out right before Clyde and Seymour started)...

and without a stroller, which proved to be the best thing to do (and I think that if we can Sea World without a stroller, it is definitely time for the strollers to go and give us back our closet space!).

In all the excitement, we were concerned that our trip would send Ben on a detour away from his potty training. How wrong we were! He actually did SO good while we were gone. We brought his potty chair with us, and were unashamed to lug it into the stalls in public restrooms, or even park him on the passenger seat of the car along our way.

At one point he actually asked us to take off his diaper so he could poop in the potty! Hooray! But because he no longer wants to USE his diaper, the trip home got a little interesting. When we stopped in Yuma (our first stop after leaving San Diego) I checked Ben's diaper and he was dry, which I saw as a huge victory! We took his potty chair into the bathroom and he went potty no problem. Then after having lunch and getting back on the road, he started crying that he needed to go potty. We were in the middle of absolutely no where, without even a random exit to pull off into. We tried to tell him to just use his diaper (how's that for sending mixed messages!) but he really didn't want to do that. We ended up stopping three times between Yuma and home to try to get him to use the potty (the last time being off of some random off ramp next to the train tracks. I didn't have my camera, so I'll have to paint you a mental picture... Ben sitting on his little potty chair in the gravel in the middle of nowhere, with a train zooming by about 100 feet away from us. Would have made a great photo for a punk album cover or something!). One of our stops was in Dateland, which gave Andrew a chance to try a "world famous" Date Shake.

Although the drive home was a little hectic and frustrating at times, we made it in one piece and were so happy to be home!

So my 30th birthday was pretty awesome! Thank you, Andrew, Josh and Ben for making it a special time for me, and thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes! Now, off to 31!

Reading Machine: The Movie

2009-11-15T21:53:00.005-07:00

Josh continues to do so well with his reading. We are working on sight words right now and he has about 14 that he can read. Not bad for not even 4 1/2!

Show That No. 2 Who's Boss

2009-11-15T21:35:00.003-07:00

This post is probably going to be entirely TMI, so be forewarned. But it was such a groundbreaking and exciting day in potty training, I just can't help myself! What was probably entirely on accident, Ben pooped on the potty today! I was at the grocery store, so I didn't get to be here for it, but I guess he kept saying he needed to go potty and went in to try but wasn't doing anything. After about the 5th time of this song and dance, Andrew told him to just go in and do what he needed to do since he can pull down his own underpants and get himself situated on his little potty. When he was done he told Andrew he went pee pee, but when Andrew went into check, it wasn't just pee pee in the potty. I guess Ben wasn't has excited about having pooped in the potty as Josh and Daddy were, but he did think it was pretty cool to get to flush it down. Isn't it funny how excited parents get over the things their kids do? We were so proud of his little poop today, that Andrew even joked about taking a picture of not only the evidence, but of Ben's very first skid mark in his underpants. LOL! Don't worry.... we didn't, and even if we did, we'd spare you!

Second Yard Sale

2009-11-15T21:26:00.004-07:00

We had our second yard sale this weekend to once and for all purge our baby stuff. Every year my parents' neighborhood has a community wide yard sale which usually sees a lot of traffic and in years past as been very successful. The weather was chilly and looked like it was trying to start raining all morning, and actually did sprinkle on us a couple times. Instead of getting the kids up as early as I wanted to be down to my parents house to set up, we decided for Andrew to stay home with them and bring them down a little later in the morning. The boys were more than happy to go to Grandma and Granddad's, especially since Granddad has his famous tran set up, complete with a full Thomas train, which is a big hit in our house. I didn't have my camera, but I'm sure we'll get some pictures before he takes it dow early next year.

Probably because of the weather, the traffic through the neighborhood was extremely light in the morning. After about 2 hours and only making roughly $10, I was thinking this day was going to be sort of a waste of time. But as the day wore on and the sun began to poke through the clouds, traffic picked up and we actually ended up being pretty successful, making about another $100 and getting rid of everything we had really wanted to go. We packed up everything that didn't sell, which ended up being not too much, and my mom carted it off to Goodwill for me. The only thing we kept were the leftover clothes. What is so exciting is that all we have left of baby clothes is one plastic tub full. That may sound like a lot, but when you think that before we started giving it away and selling it, we had about 3 tubs and 4 trash bags stuffed full. Yay for more closet space! I love getting rid of things no longer used. It makes the house feel so much more organized, and even a little bit bigger. Now we're ready for whatever Santa may bring! =)

Moving Right Along

2009-11-10T20:48:00.003-07:00

Benny is totally rocking the house on his potty training. Over last weekend we had him in underpants whenever we were home and he was awake. All in all he wore under pants for probably 75% of the weekend, used the potty 6 times, and only had one accident, right before we were about to sit on the potty. Wow!

The school the kids go to is awesome and totally work right along side us in potty training. We have told his teachers that he is starting to use the potty, so they have begun offering him the potty at various points throughout the day. He just about always wants to try, but hadn't actually gone at school... until today! And he did it standing up to boot! He was so proud of himself, and I of course made sure he knew loud and clear how proud I was of him.

But that wasn't the only potty training development of the day. At dinner time, Benny looked up at me and clearly said "Mommy, I need to go potty." We got right into the bathroom and he did just that. Just about every other time he has used the potty it has been initiated by either me or Andrew, so we were so excited to see that he is learning to notice, in advance, that he needs to go potty.

He's doing such a great job! Now, if we could get him to do the rest of his, um, business on the potty, we'd really be rolling! We know that will come with time. There's just one thing to say... Go Benny!

Baby Shower Cake

2009-11-08T21:53:00.004-07:00

I was asked to make the cake for the baby shower for a girl in my office. I took on the task, and oh man, was it a lot of work! It took me all week, but in the end I was happy with the results, and everyone else seemed to be too. I was even asked to start making the cakes for the monthly office birthdays! Not sure if I will do that or not, but it was nice to be asked! Here are some photos of the cake. Unfortunately, the cake got a couple finger pokes in it during assembly, but you get the idea. The booties are made out of gum paste and turned out really well.

Maybe there is something to this cake thing. I hope to take a couple decorating classes next year and I want to start trying out some cake recipes, so we'll see where it goes from there!

Another Round of Gardening

2009-11-08T21:47:00.002-07:00

Since our pumpkins turned out to be a great big bust, we have taken a small break from our garden while we decided what we wanted to do next. One of the greatest things about living in Arizona is that you can grow all year round. Vegetables do great here in the winter, so we decided to plant a vegetable garden today. Andrew and Joshua picked up some carrot, radish and cauliflower seeds at Home Depot yesterday, so we got to planting this afternoon. The radishes should be ready to harvest in 30 days, while the carrots and cauliflower take about 2 months. Hopefully we'll get some good produce and can learn a little about how vegetables grow. Wish us luck!

Keeping it Up!

2009-11-01T22:03:00.002-07:00

I know I just posted yesterday an update on Ben's potty training adventures, but I just had to give one more little update because today was a pretty exciting day in potty training. For starters, Ben pee peed on the potty 3 times today! What was so exciting was that one of the times he started to go in his underpants, but pinched it off and got to the potty to finish. So, while I suppose that officially counts as an accident since we had to change his underpants, it also shows tremendous progress, in that he is noticing when he needs to go or starts to go and is exercising control in getting himself to the potty to finish. He had one other accident today, but then a little bit later went in the bathroom, said "I'm gonna go pee pee." and then did just that. We're hoping he will keep up the good work. We're so proud of him!

We Might Just Be Getting Somewhere

2009-10-31T21:51:00.002-07:00

This last week Ben has really started to show interest in the potty, and has actually started using it somewhat regularly. This development seems to have come out of nowhere, and we are so excited to see it! Ben has used the potty 4 times this last week, and has kept his underpants dry every time he's had them on, two to three hours at a time. He even used the potty twice today! We are so proud of him and hope he keeps up this latest trend!