He's the big 3-5!

Yep, that's right, Andy is now only five years from the big 4-0! We had fun celebrating Andy's birthday today, Brynley even let me do her hair semi cute in anticipation of Daddy's Party! Andy took the day off work and went golfing with some friends, afterwards he spent a few hours playing some shoot em up game on the Wii. The kids helped make cupcakes for dad and even frosted them, they looked great!

Yum, licking the beaters...

... And her frosting knife, yuck!

The look of a guilty little girl!

Hayden was frosted by Brynley a few times in the process!
We went to dinner at Charleston's for some tasty prime rib and then off to Krispy Kreme for Andy's free birthday doughnuts!
Three Handsome Men!
Checking out the doughnut factory
We got home and sang happy birthday and Andy opened his present- Iron Man on DVD... His big present was the Nintendo Wii he got a few months ago.
Happy Birthday Honey! You're a great husband and I don't know how I was so lucky to snag you up. I'm so proud of you and for all that you do. I love you!

Arizona in the Fall

This is how we spend the fall days in Arizona...

This cute little water park just opened last month, we have been so excited because it is the only pool around that is open past the middle of August. Wouldn't you think in the hottest state that pools would stay open longer? Luckily, this one will stay open through the end of November and then open again in April... It's great, there is a lazy river, two large slides, a splash pad area for toddlers, a swirling vortex and a large playground area in less than two feet of water with two slides, water guns, cannons, and a huge bucket that dumps water every few minutes. We will be frequent visitors until it closes, the kids have had a blast the last few weekends. Hayden loves hanging out on the small lazy river and going up the stairs and down the slides about a hundred times. It costs our family a total of $4.00 for a day of swimming fun, you can't beat that, and it's only 7 minutes from our house!
This is the large bucket dumping, I asked Andy to get some pictures of Hayden and this is what he got. Can anyone see Hayden in there? I know he's there somewhere!

Playtime

There is nothing better than looking outside and seeing this:

Hayden and Brynley both love to swing, we were excited when we moved to this rental because it had a swing set already! I told Andy there is no way getting around it, we will need to get a swing set as soon as we move into the new house. They have so much fun together (they also yell and scream and hurt each other at times...) but for the most part they love playing together outside and it makes me proud to see Hayden helping his little sister like this!

Hair, Hair, Hair!

I'm getting better guys... Brynley is actually getting different hairdo's quite often as I practice my mad hair skills! What I can't figure out is why literally within 1 hour of her hair being done, it is a total wreck again, I don't get it. She doesn't even touch it with her hands most often, I can't figure out what she does. It's just a Brynley thing I guess, she is also really messy, if she eats anything it is all over her before it makes it in to her mouth so I guess it comes with the territory!

I'm not sure why but every time I try to take a picture of Bryn's hair, she gets super shy and acts weird for the camera.
This was for a Princess Birthday party and she wasn't interested in wearing a crown so we made our own fancy hair instead!

Canning Class!

Funny, we started attending our new ward just two weeks ago, the second Sunday we were at church, someone notified the Relief Society Presidency that I can food. I was asked that day to teach a midweek enrichment class on canning basics. I was a little reluctant simply because in our rental house I have a very minimal amount of "stuff", kitchen utensils, dishes, etc... But I was able to find my canner amongst our boxes and broke it out this week so that I would have some samples of things to show the class. Together, Meredith and I canned pinto beans on Monday and Tomatoes on Tuesday this week. I also canned some black beans, kidney beans, and ground beef, all of which are super easy! I felt pretty well prepared by Thursday night when I taught the class, I figured 8 people might show up and I was surprised to have 17 people attend. I shared my knowledge and basically told everyone that if I can do it, anyone can, if you know me, that couldn't be more true!
In addition to the beans, tomatoes, and ground beef I canned this week, I also taught about canning peaches, apple sauce, and chicken.

House Progress

There's not much to report on the progress of our house. I am mostly posting these for Shelly and Joe and Grandma to see as our houses are being built. Shelly's house is just a week or two behind ours in the building process.

The first picture is of our foundation, which when walking on it seems really small, it's hard to believe there will be a 3200 sq. ft. house on that foundation!

The second picture is my Aunt Shelly's house right next to ours, the trenches have just been filled and it should be ready for the cables to be installed for the foundation.

Our little mama is at it again!

Brynley, Brynley, Brynley...
She explained to me that her baby needed his booboos milk. I was pretty impressed, she burped "him" (all of her babies are hims) after one side and then switched sides. What a good mommy! You may notice however, that the baby's head is somewhat closer to Bryn's waist than her boob!

Please excuse her disheveled appearance, I am watching one of her friends all day and Meredith and I were in the middle of canning... Thus she has the same hairdo she has had since Saturday!

Real Food!

Yes, that's right, Zac had his first bit of delicious Rice Cereal! Yum... I vowed to wait until he was 6 months old to start solids, I really hate feeding kids at this age, they suddenly become less portable and easy when you add solid food into the mix! With Hayden I started at 4 months because I was so excited for him to try new things. With Brynley I started just before 5 months and I couldn't hold Zac off any longer, unfortunately, I struggle in the milk making department and my poor little guy is feeling the ill effects... Not sleeping well, losing weight, not being satisfied after nursing, it is really a sad thing. Thus the reason for starting the cereal. He loved it the first night we tried and the second night he hated it and screamed through the whole experience. I could see in his eyes that he just wanted himself some of mama's boobs! We'll keep trying in hopes that he will start sleeping a little bit better at night!

Brynley and Hayden were so excited for the first few minutes... they quickly got bored and went back to playing!

I am seriously dying here...

Two things...
1. All weekend Hayden was carrying around his metal spider man lunchbox which he started using last week to take his snack to school everyday, inside of the box was a baggy with some change in it. He told us a million times all weekend that it was his lunch money. So he takes the box to school today with the "lunch money" in it, when he got home I was cleaning out his backpack and I opened the box to see that the money was gone. Here was our conversation:

Me: "Hayden what happened to your money?"
Hayden: "It's at school"
Me: "Where did you leave it, in your cubby?"
Hayden: "No I gave it to Ms. Tapia"
Me: "Why?"
Hayden: "Because you're supposed to give Ms. Tapia your lunch money and then she puts it in a special envelope and takes it to the office for lunch!"

2. As Hayden got in the car from school I noticed that he smelled overwhelmingly good, like a plug in air freshener. I figured the teacher must have just put plug ins in the classroom, I taught school, I remember how stinky the classroom gets! Then I realize as Hayden is in the back of the van that it really smelled strong so I asked him what the smell was and he just said I don't know. Weird. So we get home and I notice that his hair looked a little greasy or something so I touched it and it felt greasy, I smelled my hand and it was that smell! So I asked him again what it was and he said it was soap from washing his hair this morning. I said no it is too smelly to be soap, did you put something in your hair? This was his answer, and I quote, "No, we just had some flowers in class that we were making and I just smelled it really hard and the smell went all the way into my brain, and that is why my head smells like a flower!"

I emailed Ms. Tapia about both incidents and indeed he gave her his lunch money and she didn't think anything of it and put his name on it and sent it to the office. Seriously??? I am slightly mortified that she thinks I would send his lunch money in pennies, dimes, and nickels! (We put money on his account at the beginning of the year so he has never had to bring lunch money) And about the smell, no he did not dump a plug in on his head as I had suspected. They learned about the sense of smell today and she said their aid had a spray that she sprayed on cotton bolls to put in the middle of the flowers they were making and a few kids got a hold of the spray, Hayden must have been a victim of the spray thieves!

Happy Birthday Zac!

He's 5 months old today, Andy doesn't think it's a real birthday but I say every month of the first year is a real birthday, geesh! Zac is getting more vocal and animated by the minutes, I love is sweet little voice, there is nothing cuter! He is just getting over a horrible cold and double ear infection, boy am I glad that's over! Zac has been rolling from his tummy to back for quite some time and just recently he's been obsessed with his feet and grabbing and cooing at them!

He loves standing up!

Catching a quick smile with his big sister (I know she is way too old for a pacifier)
Grabbing at his feet after a diaper change

Hayden spent Zac's B-day teaching him how to play Mario Kart on the Wii!

Just for kicks I had to post these pictures because I keep thinking he and Hayden look exactly alike. The top picture is of Hayden on his 5 month birthday and the bottom picture is Zac on his 5 month birthday. Pretty close but Hayden was a little more chunky! (Hayden had a bigger head too)

Happy Birthday Little Man, we love you!

I need to add that I thought the capturing of the spit up was priceless in that last picture.

You're gonna miss this...

I love this song.... On days when I am struggling with my mommy duties or having a hard time with one of the kids, if I hear this song my eyes start to tear up. For those of you who don't love country, listen to it anyway...it may touch you the way it touches me. The chorus says it all, I think I really will miss this someday, as I try to think of the many things I will miss, here's a short list...

* The beautiful coos of my sweet little baby

* The pure excitement that Hayden gets out of the smallest of things

* Brynley's little (biggish) bum hanging out of her underwear

* Brynley doing her "booty pose" (still trying to get that on camera)

* Being able to push my kids on the swing

* The excitement of going to school everyday

* Being able to teach my children things they haven't yet learned

* Having my kids want to cuddle with me

* Seeing the joy the kids get from being together as a family

* Family movie night

* Dinners together, around the table without kids running every which way

* Being the only source of comfort when one of them gets hurt

* Changing diapers... that special time together

* Feeling needed

* Playing peek a boo, ring around the rosies, tag, hide and go seek

* Going on walks together

Someday my kids won't want to do these things with me anymore, I need to try to cherish every day because they will grow up so fast.

Nothing more precious than a sleeping child...

I love my children and I especially love them when all three of them are sleeping...

While Mommy is Sick...

I woke up yesterday feeling really sick, and it just got worse as the day went on. Andy worked from home so that he could help me with the kids because I couldn't even lift Zac up because I was too week. While Zac was napping Andy went to physical therapy a I lay on the couch moaning and crying that I thought I was gong to die... I'm still sick by the way but not as bad as yesterday! Here's what Brynley found to keep herself busy:


I think there were a total of 8 pop tarts with a bite taken out of each one! After the whole pop tart ordeal, she apparently got out two bags of chips and a bowl and poured ships into the bowl as well as dropping them all over the floor. Andy came home to that surprise, she had also gotten a wire whisk out and had it in one of the bags, not sure why.... Andy was too annoyed to take any pictures!