Thursday, June 14, 2018

February 2018

February was a pretty great month! The first half of it was consumed by prepping for and celebrating Sharli's 4th birthday. She decided she wanted a rainbow birthday this year, and we went all out. Rainbow playdough, rainbow snacks, rainbow decorations, rainbow cake, rainbow coloring pages, and 40 pound of rainbow rice. SO much rainbow! I tried to have everything set up so that the moms could turn the kids loose to play, then sit and enjoy some mom chatter while the kids played. It mostly worked. :)
40 lbs of rainbow dyed rice? Why yes, I have lost my mind. 
But look how much fun!!!
Clearly I've lost my mind, because I also made a billion rainbow sugar cookies. Which the kids decided they didn't like. BUT I liked them, and may have eaten way too many... so still a win? 
 The kids ran around like crazy people, both inside and outside. They had a marvelous time!

 And of course the birthday cake was a great success. It was rainbow frosted and pink on the inside after all, so what could be wrong with that?

 And can we just say that whoever the psycho is who hung up all those streamers and piped all that frosting onto that cake is pretty amazing. Just saying...

Sharli's birthday isn't the only one in February. When it was my turn to go out for my birthday we did a babysitting swap with my dear friend (who also had a birthday this month) so that we could go out for dinner that night. Ethan and I found a great little Mexican food place and had a really nice evening just the two of us. Perfect birthday! 

Also in February was Chinese New Year, so we headed over to Phoenix to a big multi-day festival to celebrate that. It was fun, but might have been a bit more exciting if we'd picked a time other than first thing Sunday morning to attend. Oh well.
 The kids were pretty impressed with the lion dance and the karate demonstrations. It wasn't a complete waste of a drive.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

January 2018

Happy New Year! 
Our New Year started off on the right foot for sure! Erik got a book all about pranking from his sweet Aunt Marquette for Christmas, so he spent pretty much all of January pranking us all. He'd write "pranked" on a slip of paper and stuff it in your shoe, under the bathroom door, in a cupboard, and pretty much anywhere else he could find to stick them. His favorite though was drawing pictures of scary monsters and taping under the toilet lid so they'd scare you when you went to do your business. Made me laugh every time, but don't tell him that. :)
The other thing we did to kick off the year was to go for a hike at Skyline Park. It was a fun hike and a great chance to explore the world around us. 
Hiking with a two-year-old is always fun. You get to take lots of temper tantrum breaks. Oh well, at least she's cute, right?


Because the weather is so amazing this time of year in this valley we tried to get outside as much as we could. We spent a day down at Estrella Mountain Regional Park, and had a blast hiking around. This was definitely a place we could go back to again and again.
 Look, it was actually cool enough that we wore jackets!
 The play area at this park was really neat. There were so many great and unique play structures, including a giant tarantula the kids could climb all over. Maren was not a fan of that one.
 For me, the highlight of this month was going to visit my family in New Mexico. With Mom's health problems she couldn't come to visit us, so we went to her instead. It was so nice to spend a quiet couple of days with them! The kids just ate up all the Grandma/Grandpa time.
 It was so good to see Mom feeling well enough to get down on the floor and play for a while. The kids loved it so much!

 All the play time with the cousins (and Aunt Carolyn) was fun too. 

 And oh boy do we love our Grandpa!!!

 On our way home from Cotton City we stopped by the Coolidge Dam on our way home, and I was blown away by how beautiful it is! To have something like this tucked away in the desert is kind of mind blowing.
 All the art-deco details were really great!
 The kids though this place was super cool. It just about gave me a heart attack to have them all running around on something with such huge drop-offs on either side.

 Look at that eagle! So pretty.

 The railings were at just the wrong height for the kids to be able to see the view, but Erik figured out a work around, goofy kid.