Wild Wild West

My sister and her family (and my mom!) came for another Spring Break visit this last week and as usual, we had a BLAST! Their visit is always a mix between fun at home-running through sprinklers, board games, movie night, timed division sheets (okay, that is only normal/fun for our 1st borns Julia and Braden)- and fun in the Valley of the Sun (obvious from our slight sunburns!). We saw a Spring Training game, went to the zoo, rode bikes in South Mountain park on Silent Sunday, and went to Rawhide. Amazing Bobo (my mom) even watched all 6 kids again so the adults could go out for dinner! Yes, we packed in the fun!

South Mountain Park

Boys and their toys...
Pat and Chet racing on the scooters.

The Good Ol' Days at Rawhide

Love this picture of sweet Elise!

panning for gold!

The 3 amigos on their burro ride

We ended the long and fun day with a relaxing boat trip down the makeshift "Verde River".

Even though the house was full/loud/messy all the time (inevitable with 11 people in a small house), it's just too empty without them.... :(
Suzanne and I at our dinner out. Too bad we didn't get a picture of all 4 of us..
Bobo and her 6 blessings

Camille and Will (our babies) are such cute friends! They are a wild and funny pair.

Camille likes to kiss Will...

and he likes to "kiss" back!

Our 2 sweet, free spirits- Bella and Elise!
Our 2 first borns- Julia and Braden- still connected at the hip to this day.
While rough housing in the car, Braden accidentally knocked out her remaining loose front tooth! Knowing Julia, I am pretty sure that she will never let him forget that one. :) Love you guys- come back soon!

Wild Child

Our little baby is now 2- wow! Even though she is into everything (!) and a little mischevious, she is actually a very happy and easy going child. She has really changed the last few weeks and is now a little girl- no longer a baby. She is so adorable and so fun to be with- my heart bursts with love for her. Had enough of my sappy love fest yet? :)

We celebrated her birthday with a party at the park. Camille LOVES animals so we had a Wild Child party with live animals. All the kids seemed to enjoy the entertainment- especially my little monkey. She wanted to touch and pet every animal. Her way of being "gentle" with the critters was by touching them with her 2 fingers and then pressing down. :)

So excited!

Camille loves foxes!

The guinea pig pen!Camille with the South American Cavy
Bella walking the porcupine!
Camille LOVES Elmo and loved the Elmo card as much as the gifts!
Happy birthday Camille- we LOVE you!!!

The great escape

We have been stuck at home for over a week since Bella got her tonsils out. It was kind of nice staying home and getting things done but I was ready to hit the road for an adventure.

I have been wanting to go to the Sonora Desert Museum (close to Tucson) for a long time. We finally made it there yesterday! I heard it was a wonderful place and a cross between museum, zoo, and botanical garden. It was amazing and even better than expected. Didn't hurt that the weather was perfect- (sunny and in the 70's)!!

This place had everything...

a HUGE simulated underground cave for the kids (and Chet!) to explore

wild animal exhibits

This was inside their hummingbird habitat. If you look really close, you can see the hummingbird sitting on her nest! gorgeous native desert plants

At the end of the day (while we were having our snack), we even saw a cardinal which is funny because I just had a conversation the day before with my co-workers about the rarity of seeing a cardinal despite having our professional football team named after them. Even as a native, I have only seen one once or twice.

One of my favorite "marsupials" who still loves being carried in her pouch! :)

we took this picture to prove that Camille really does smile for pictures....
Even though this is what we got seconds after!

For the end of a perfect Arizona day, this was the view on the way home...

Green thumbs

Our garden is done!

Chet and the girls spent all Saturday morning building the garden bed (while I was at work receiving text updates from the excited worker bees). Everyone helped fill the bed and carefully pick out our plants. Each child got to pick out their own vegetable- Julia picked snap peas (she loves these in her lunch) and Bella picked out corn. Camille helped Chet and I pick the rest- tomatoes, spinach (for my smoothies!), bell peppers, cilantro, onions and broccoli.

With all of that complete, the girls rushed through their dinner tonight so they could head outside to start planting! They are so proud of the finished garden! They really feel a sense of pride and ownership. Julia already offered to water the garden every morning as part of her morning chores. :)

Such proud girls!! Love the dirt on Camille's face!
(I promise- Camille is a very happy girl and does smile- just very rarely for pictures. Ugh!)

Can't wait to eat our first home grown salad!

All hands in

What we miss most from our old house was our backyard- we could spend hours outside together as a family, including helping with our garden that was just starting to flourish. Our new house has perks but not much to do in the backyard. We have such great weather 9 months out of the year and spending time in the backyard is essential!

With Bella homebound for the next week (tonsillectomy), we think it's a great weekend to start our new garden. As you can tell by the chairs positioned by the first phase of the garden, all 3 girls are super excited to watch and help! (Chet and I wish they were only big enough to help carry the 500+ lbs of soil that we had to unload from the truck! ;)

More pics to come!

The place to be today!

Finally- no school and perfect weather! What better place to go than the zoo?? We arrived early and just in time- the rest of the valley had the same idea and joined us at the zoo!
\
We did our animal sightseeing and then met up with some friends from our old neighborhood. Since moving over a year ago, I have come to realization that our old neighborhood and friends were the best and we haven't yet found anything similar. We were sad to leave all our friends behind- especially Julia- but I assumed that she would find another good friend at her new school. Julia has a lot of friends at the new school but no one like Ashlynn- her BFF since kindergarten. They connected on the first day of school many years ago (as did Ashlynn's mom and I) and are very similar. Despite going many months without seeing each other, they reconnect so quickly and have so much fun together!

Life and love

Somehow I haven't blogged since December (!!) but life keeps happening. I think this happened last January/February- the holidays are over, nothing too fun to blog about. Hopefully we are back to fun, blogworthy times.

This past weekend I travelled to Boise, Idaho to cheer on my sister Suzanne in the Mrs. Idaho pageant! She is the kind of person who throws herself into whatever she tries and is always trying something new. She put her heart and soul into this pageant. No matter the outcome, I saw that she came away with life changing experiences and new friends.

Swimsuit competition!
Yes, she has 3 kids ages 6 and younger...
And yes, we have the same biological parents...
I just didn't inherit the same genes or self control. :)

The crown
Suzanne (in the middle) with the top 5 contestants. It was the year of the brunettes apparently!
She did AMAZING and was crowned 2nd runner up.
(Honestly, I was shocked that she didn't win.)

It was a fun weekend! I loved seeing my niece and nephews and Pat (brother in law) and the rest of Suzanne's family and friends. We also got to celebrate Will's 3rd birthday! I rarely get to go to my niece/nephew's birthdays in Idaho so that was a treat for me! I didn't have a camera so I had to borrow these few pictures.

As much as I enjoyed a quick weekend away (traveling by myself was quite a treat!), I was excited to come home to see my 4 Valentine's!
The girls and I LOVE celebrating holidays! I think I enjoy Valentine's Day even more with kids. The girls and I always get flowers from our favorite guy (Daddy). We had our Valentine's dinner at home on Sunday night and chocolate fondue for dessert on Valentine's night.
It was a big hit- can you tell??
Lots of LOVE from our girls
(The girls were still dressed in their leotards after ballet class.)