Before & After

Aaron and I have been talking about repainting our living room, again, and finally broke down and did it.  We have never liked to blue and have done everything to try and tone it down.  We had Debbie from rooms rearranged to come in and help with color and arrangement.  She worked with me for a couple of weeks then sent us away for a few hours, and this is what I came home to.  It turned out awesome and I love it.  It is so nice and cozy, it really feels like home now. 

 

County Fair

 

We spent a fun filled afternoon at Maricopa County Fair this year.  We are not much into fairs, Aaron and I, that is.  But let me tell you, the kids love them.  Aaron is always skeptical of the rides and the carnies that set them up.  Any ride that travels surely isn't safe?  Well, I go over it and took the kids.  Our friends met us there, which was nice because the little one's can't do the rides so Liz or I sat with the babies and the other took the boys on the ride. 

Check out those glasses.  They could actually ride some by themselves. 

Swings, still Z's favorite.  We shared some GIANT corn dogs and ice cream cones.

 

We actually decided to go to the fair because Jacob was showing PiggySmalls.  He has spent the last year raising him hoping to make some serious cash.  He did a good job and the kids loved seeing the pig show. 

Wine Country 2010

We started off our wine country trip at a brew pub.  Go figure, most of them really like the craft beer, it seems to be the place we always begin the festivities.  For the past few years we have been going wine tasting with a group of 10, friends and family.  This was our first trip to Oregon wine country.

Here is the entire crew.  We got to meet up with family that live in Oregon from both sides of our family.  They all showed us around and took us to several yummy wineries.

Unky Kip and Aunte Cindy, of course needing a refill...again!

 

My folks are usually are the organizers.  Pops is our wonderful tour guide, we all just go along for the ride.  He always has a perfect itenerary for us.

Oregon is absolutely beautiful.  We had to take several cheesy pictures just so we could capture the background.  Maybe we should have just taken the sceenery photos?

Easter Afternoon

Easter was quite the busy day for us, our boys are such troopers.  The partied all day and made it until 8pm.  Pretty good for not having naps and being outside all day.  We spent the afternoon at Aaron's parents house with our wonderful family.  We had great food, wine, company, and an Easter Egg hunt.  The kids had a blast and got way too much candy.  We will be eating it for quite a while. 

We had such a great time, as always.

Easter Morning

We celebrated Easter at Boyce Thompson Arboretum again this year with my folks and the Edam Family. We cooked our breakfast outside and had a picnic, had an Easter egg hunt, and went hiking. The kids had so much fun playing outside all morning.

I love the little bums leaning over the water. Yes, Zackary was the first to get all wet!

We wanted a picture in front of this beautiful tree. The wild flowers were amazing this year. This is our attempt to get a family shot. Not so easy with 3 boys.

A Sleeping Mess

As you might remember, one of our favorite family things to do is go to Basha's for donuts and coffee. Anyone that is around Zackary often will know this. Every time we are playing and he is off on his bike and you ask him where he is going, he will say to the grocery store for donuts and coffee. This morning we headed out to Basha's for our weekend ritual and of course now Lane gets his own donut (we finally figured out to get him one with white frosting for better cleanup). He was happily eating his donut, squealing, laughing, and ummming about how yummy he thinks it is. I look back not 2 minutes later and find this. A complete mess of frosting, yes those are chunks on his shoulder, all over his face, all over his car seat, and he was passed out holding the rest of his donut.

Kids are awesome!

Celebrating Our 5th

Today we celebrated our 5th anniversary. I can't believe it has been 5 years. Time has completely flown by. It is amazing that we were having the most memorable party on this day 5 years ago. It surely has been exciting. Our time together has been so wonderful, we have made the sweetest family, we have created a beautiful home, and we have fallen more in love with each other. The saying 'everything gets better with age' is so true. We spent a great evening out together, first having dinner at RA for sushi, then heading over to the Desert Botanical Garden for a jazz night and finishing our night at Swirl It, the best frozen yogurt place ever. As you might know we always get each other something that is from the traditional anniversary. This year we didn't manage to get each other the exact same thing, I got him a Welsh Love Spoon and Aaron got me a really neat necklace that has a wood pendant with 'M' engraved into it.  Oh and the beautiful flowers in the background.  It is always fun to come up with something different and random.

Happy Anniversary Aaron, I Love You.

Preschool

Zackary started preschool today. What a big day! He was very excited to go since he had such a great experience with Papa in a class at Desert Botanical Garden earlier this year. We had a meet the teacher last week, they seem to be great and have been there for years. He is doing the Apples to Zebras with the City of Chandler at Snediger. I thought this would be a great place to try out the whole preschool thing. Sometimes I think it is too early but I thought that the listening and organization would be good for him.

He made this cute little Easter egg. He said it is for our Christmas Tree. I love all the little art projects he makes and can't wait for more to come. Papa met us there for the pick up, since he will be picking Zackary up every Tuesday for us. Papa and Zackary have such a great relationship, we say they are 2 peas in a pod. Every Tuesday they spend the day together playing, running errands, visiting museums, or watching planes. I love the relationship they have and the time they get to spend together.

Another World

 

I know the pictures are the best quality but they are taken from our trusty cell phone cameras.  So this is how we spent our Saturday night.  Z'Tejas for Margaritas and at Roller Derby.  Yes, there is this huge roller derby world in Phoenix that I never knew about.  I found tickets on Groupon, great deals for completely random things.  I thought it would be a fun night out with something different to do.  Laura, Glen, Mary and Steven were all troopers and decided to join us.

 

Let me just say that the scoring for Roller Derby is somewhat difficult to figure out when you have not clue what is going on.  Blockers, Pivotors, and Jammers, lots of padded gear, girls in really short skirts or just panties, ramming each other to score points. 

It was great fun! 

 

Hair Makeup

I just wanted to show everyone what happens when you leave little boys to color and stamp while you wait for wee little hats to cook!

Today I found more color in Zackary and Lane's hair. This time it was orange. I actually caught him with a little orange 'thingy' touching Lane's hair and asked Zackary, What is that?

Z's reply, "this is my hair makeup."

I tried to get it out but is must not be the best washable stamp. I just said whatever and continued our plans to run a few errands. We were at Bashas and the cashier asked is that some fun hair color you put in the boys' hair? Who puts 'fun color' in a 1 and 3 year olds hair on a random Friday?

Wee Little Leprechaun Hats

Andi and I decided that it would be a great idea to do a little art project for St. Patty's Day with the kids. We found out how to make little hats out of cups and were excited to see how they would turn out.
So we waited...

And Waited...

And Waited...

Here is the final project. Perfect wee little Leprechaun hats for us to wear. All we had to do was cook little styrofoam cups in the oven.  Don't worry there will be pictures of the hats in action!