Father's Day Gift

I am months behind on posting anything on here, but I had a few minutes and thought I would add these pics.  For Father's Day we gave Michael tickets to an Arizona Cardinals game.  He's been wanting to go to one since they built the new stadium.  He had to wait a couple months to actually enjoy his gift, but it was fun to check out the excitement at the stadium. 

 

 

 

 

 



Avery 18 months

 

Our sweet Avery turned 18months last week.  She is growing up so fast, and she is definitely not a baby anymore.  She weighs in at 23lbs and is 33 inches tall.  She has finally caught up in the teeth department and can chew food better with her new molars. 

 

She loves to watch her Elmo video, play with her babies and play with her Minnie Mouse.

She says so many words now, and just started wanting to say "no" to everything we tell her to do. 

Avery takes a lot of energy to manage but everyone in the house still swoons over her.  The boys love watching her learn new words and tricks every day.

 

She did great in nursery when she was 17 months, I was even able to leave her the second hour.  But the week she was officially 18 months she has decided she hates being left and now screams the whole time. 

The Resort

Most summers we go and stay one weekend at a resort in town. It is always highly anticipated and one of our favorite things to do. We usually stay at Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak because it has lots of fun pools and is nice but not too fancy.

 

 

The kids asleep on our way to the resort on Friday.

 



 

 

 

This year Josh was finally tall enough to go down the slide!  Hallelujah! This poor kids has had his heartbroken the last 2 years as he hasn't been tall enough and has had to just watch Ethan.  

 

 

The resort also has mini golf.  We all like to play mini golf, but Josh and Michael really love to.  We play all 18 holes as a family and then they had their own competion the next day too. 

 

 

Avery likes the water, she's just a little too brave and is always trying to get away and go out on her own. 

 

 

Here is Ethan after a long day and a half of sun and swimming.  The resort also had some activites and competions for the kids.  Ethan came in 1st on one of them and was excited to get a goody bag. 



 

 

Ahhhh we can't wait until next year for another of weekend of relaxing!

1st Day of School

Back to school is always bitter sweet. I enjoy having my kids home with me during the summer but it is also good to get them back on a routine and learning. Unfortunately I had to work early in the morning on their 1st day of school so I missed it. But Daddy took the day off of work and even got some pictures for me.
Josh is in Kindergarten and Ethan is in 2nd Grade. Josh is young, just turning 5 last week but he really wanted to go this year and his preschool teachers said there was no real reason to hold him back. He's a small guy but academically and socially he's pretty mature. Worst case scenario is that he would have to stay in Kindergarten another year but we decided to at least give it a shot this year.
 

Ethan's class was big enough to split into two classes. For Ethan all of his friends are actually in the other class, so he was a bit bummed about that. But being the over achiever he is, he was excited that his class is quiet and all the "rowdy" boys are in the other one, because then they will earn more rewards for being good.

Mario Party!

We had Josh's 5th Birthday Party on Friday. He chose Mario Bros for his theme so we had a lot of fun planning for it.

His invitations looked like a Nintendo DS, which was also his birthday present this year! He has waited a few years to be "old enough" for one. 

Our cupcakes were red mushrooms.  Joshua chose vanilla cupcakes with a cinnamon roll frosting and then we put white chocolate chips in for the white part of the mushrooms.

Michael was on wall decor and did a pretty awesome job, creating some Mario scenery for us.

We had Mario and Luigi hats as well as a few princess crowns to hand out to our guests.



Since Mario and Luigi are Italian we decided to do a pizza parlor set up for dinner.  We had mini pizzas with lots of toppings to choose from.

For games, we had two WII systems set up for people to play and then we had a matching game and a musical chairs type game with question boxes to bonk.  For all of the games you could win coins for playing and then at the end we had a special prize room where you could turn in your coins and fill up your bag with prizes.

A few Boos were watching from the corners.  Our sweet Avery was scared of them and tried to avoid walking past them all day.

You can't be Mario without a mustache, so I made some chocolate ones for kids (and parents) to eat!

Summer Fun

Even with my crazy work schedule and trips out of town, we've tried to have a few fun activities this summer. We created a poster with some ideas on it.

The first one we did was create a giant car race track with masking tape that went through out our whole down stairs. It was fun I'm sad I didn't snag a picture.

Next we created a fort inside the house. My boys had never done this before and were at first confused at what I was doing. Avery loved it too, but started ruining it so the boys spent most of the time trying to keep her out. 

Another activity on our poster was a picnic at the park.  We found a shady spot and ate our lunch on a blanket.

Movie day sounded like a great idea to me, stay in jammies and watch tons of movies on the couch.  But the boys got a little restless after the 2nd movie. 

We also bought a summer pass to the Arizona Science Center and went last week to play.  Dad even go to go with us, and we met up with the Dairmans. The science center is always so much fun, we'll have to find one more day we can make the trek downtown.

Hawaii Day 11

Our last day of vacation we have no pictures.  We got off of our cruise ship and rented a car again, since it cost the same amount as a shuttle ride.  We went out to the Aloha stadium swap meet to finish off our souvenir shopping.  We had already bought Ethan his ukulele and Josh had requested a blow gun.  Well we found a blow gun there, but it was a real weapon definitely not just a toy.  So Josh got a boomerang instead. 
Our trek back home included a plane ride, late night In n out burger, car ride back to st. george, 4 hours of sleep and a car ride with the kids back home.  Our vacation was wonderful and long and in the end it felt great to be back home with our kids.