Desert Flowers & Sweetwater Park

My kids love Sweetwater Park. It's right on the way to Jace's school so we usually stop there on the way back home. Especially if I have taken the jogger and walked there. It's a fun park. The kids love the big rock to climb on, and the dinosaur. The thing that I don't like about sweetwater is that they have sand instead of wood chips so the kids always get dirty. Today we had a picnic at the park and I took some pictures of some of the spring flowers and blossoms popping up all around us. The desert is so beautiful. It is getting hot here though. We've already hit 100 degrees... and it's only going to get worse. I guess we'll be playing in the water a lot from now on. I did just sign the kids up for swimming lessons so that should be fun.  All of these pictures were taken between our home and Jace's school - which is about 3/4th of a mile away.  We live in a beautiful place.  We love Arizona!

My sweet little 'Strawberry Girl'.  We had a picnic today! :)



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Fighting over who gets to sit in the front.  Jace won so Brooke is giving me her mad face.

Happy Spring Everyone!!

Goose Egg

Jace got a HUGE goose egg on his head. Ouch! It happened during conference. He climbed up on top of the stove and tried to get something out the really high cupboards... but he fell. I didn't even realize he had a bump on his head until about 10min later when he was sitting on my lap and I was brushing his hair back to give him a kiss on his head. His hair covers it so you can't even see it. He's feeling better now. I hope he learned his lesson and doesn't climb on the appliances anymore.  He sure is a tough kids though.

Eggs

Last night I had a movie night with the kids. We watched Despicable Me.  Half way through it Brooke disappeared to the bathroom.  I didn't think much of it until she said that she made a mess but cleaned it up.  Hmmm .... what mess.  I went to check the bathroom and found that she had sneakily cracked 20+ eggs on the floor (keep in mind that I had just deep cleaned that bathroom earlier in the day).  When I asked her WHY?? she did it she said "I was pretty sure there was goin' to be a bird in one."  I had to turn my back so she couldn't see me smile and laugh - my anger faded away. I don't want her to think that what she did was acceptable behavior but it was really funny.  Kids will be kids.  Plus she did TRY to clean it up.  She applied a stack of freshly laundered towels to the top of it.  If I had a super power, I would use it to see what in the world goes on in my kid's heads.  They are such funny little bugs.  Anyways,  there is Brooke's latest and greatest memorable moment.

Palm Fronds

Between all the entertaining we have been working on getting our yard cleaned up too.  I even trimmed my first palm tree.  The kids thought it was really cool.  They played with the palm fronds for a long time afterwards.  Our palm tree now looks like a giant pineapple again. :)

The Hostess...

Tiffany and I on St. Patty's day rockin' our green outfits.

Well, the last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy!  We have been having fun being the host .. or in my case the hostess.. after Craig's dad left we filled up that next week with 3 play dates, a date night, a potluck, a St. Patty's day party, and 2 NCAA tournament parties to watch BYU dominate themselves into the Sweet 16.  WOW!!  It was Jace's spring break from school so I wanted to keep busy ... mission accomplished!  Trampoline jumping @ April's on Monday.  Airport drop off for friend Tracie on Tues. Later on Tues. April came over and taught me how to make her yummy enchiladas.  She even makes the enchilada sauce from scratch - she is an amazing cook and this recipe is to die for. Maybe I'll post it on here later. We took the enchiladas to the Latin Fiesta Night at Craig's school.  Tea Party with Lucy on Wed. as well as the ThunderKids St. Patty's day party.  Super cute!  The kids made 3 leaf clover necklaces and had green everything snacks then they went on a treasure hunt for gold all over the campus.  A Leprechaun had a left a map and they finally found the pot of gold over the rainbow at the playground.  It was full of gold chocolate coins.  The kids had a blast!  In my haste of play date planning I scheduled one the next day - St. Patrick's day...without even realizing it.  It was lots of fun.  Tiffany had all of her kids all decked out in green everything.  It was awesome. She is the Queen of cute outfits and matching accessories.  I think I should take a class from her.  It was nice to visit with her.  Those tricky leprechauns turned our milk green again this year.  We couldn't figure out how they did it?? ;)wink wink.  I was going to make our traditional Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage but we decided to have all the BYU fans over that night for the NCAA college basketball tournament so I just went and picked up a bunch of Papa Murphy's Pizzas.  We had 6 adults and 8 kiddos running around.  It's a good thing we have a fun playroom!  On Friday we had a Couples Night date through the IWFC (women's club @ Thunderbird).  We got a babysitter and had pizza at Old Chicago.  I'm not a huge pizza lover but man that place was good.  I would highly recommend it.  Thai pizza is awesome.  On Saturday we hosted another NCAA tournament party.  This time we had 14 people in total.  BYU had such a good game.  We were all in a great mood.  Right after that we went to a regional night at Craig's school.  They have them every few months.  This time it was Americas night so they had free traditional food from the USA, Central and South America as well as traditional dancers.  We saw a Native American hoop dancer, Chilean dancers & singers, and Samba dancers.  It was super fun.  The kids were so exhausted by the end of it that they fell asleep in our arms.  

Erik, Charlie, Ellie, Brooke and Jace in their Green gettup.

NCAA tournament party #2.  The kids were in the play room.

On Sunday we had the Wariners come and stay with us for 5 days for their family vacation. Nate is one of Craig's really good friends from high school. He and his wife Emily have 4 kids: Kierra (6), Arianna(4), Payson(2), and Daxton(3 months). They wanted to get out of the Utah cold for their family vacation. Unfortunately, they brought it with them. Instead of being in the high 80's like it was the week previous... it ended up being in the high 60's with rain that first day. It brightened up some later on and ended up being in the 70's for a good portion of their trip. Craig was super busy with a big paper he had due so we hardly even saw him the first 3 days. I was a good hostess though and we showed them some fun parks, the zoo, the chocolate factory, and we had fun movie nights and tea parties for the girls. Brooke was in heaven. She LOVED having girls around to play with. I loved having a baby here to snuggle too. It was great to see them and be able to spend some time with them. They took us out to The Cheesecake Factory as a thank you for letting them stay with us. It was delicious and lots of fun.

Kierra, Arianna, Nate, Daxton, Emily, Brooke, Me, Jace & Craig at the Cheesecake Factory.  Good Times!!

The kids loved looking at all the cheesecakes and other desserts.  YUM!

Kierra, Brooke, and Arianna at dinner one night.  They loved sharing each others clothes.

Kierra & Arianna at the Tea Party.



Brooke & Payson at the Tea Party.



They all had a grand ol' time at the Fairy tea party they had.

Jace had his field day at school on Friday morning so we all got to go watch him compete in different races.  He's definitely not the fastest runner in his class but he did the best at the bean bag toss and the obstacle course. He's such a cutie.  When we got back from that we took all the kids to McDonalds and let them play together one last time .. then they headed back home.  Brooke was heartbroken.  She loved having friends around 24/7.  Later that night I had a Ladies Night Out with the club and Craig took the kids over to the Thomas's house to have some male bonding time.  The girls did Fondue and games ... the boys did pizza and The Karate Kid. lol.  Yesterday we planned dinner out with Tracie and Mark...we went out to dinner at Abuelos and stayed up late chatting.  Hanging out with them is always fun.  Tracie adores Brooke and vice versa. 

 Me, Ashley, Shirley, Mariale, Xao, Emily, Jessi, Carlina, April, Ximena, Jen, Tiffany, and Sangmi was the photographer.

Ladies Night Out!  This time we did Fondue and Games.  It was SO much fun.  We played Apples to Apples which is always a great game for a big group and then we played PIT.  PIT is a ton of fun.  April made the chocolate fondue and the cheese fondue from scratch.  We had fruit and bread to dip.  So Fun!  I love girls night! :)  This time we had representors from Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Korea, and the USA.

 Today is the first day in 3 weeks that we spent the day just together as a family with nothing else going on .. besides church.  I think it's nap time... I'm exhausted!!

Tea Party

 Brooke hosted a lovely tea party today and she invited her new friend.  Her name is Lucy.  We sat behind Lucy's family at church last week and the girls ended up playing quietly together so we invited her over for a play date.  It was lots of fun.  When Lucy and her mom arrived we let them pick out an outfit out of the dress up bin to wear.  That's one of the most fun things about tea parties.  You get to get all gussied up!  Brooke picked the Aurora dress and Lucy picked Cinderella.  Then they had fun picking out shoes and accessories.  They dined on mini powdered doughnuts and grapes and had peach mango juice to drink (for the tea).  Brooke let Jace join in the fun too.  They talked about how they both love to go to the park.  It was adorable.  After that the kids all played together in the toy room and then outside.  It's been a beautiful day today... somewhere in the 80's.  I know - in March!  One of our neighbors must have some jasmine growing in their yard because it drifts over and makes our whole back yard smell good. I'm loving living in Arizona... at least for this part of the year.  I'm sure I'll be hating it come July when it's 117 degrees outside.  Anyways, I had a great time getting to know Lindsey (Lucy's mom).  We'll have to invite them over again.  Tea parties are so much fun! Especially when shared with new friends. 

Would you like a spot o' tea?

Spring Training Games

It's a wonderful time to be in Glendale & Peoria if you are a baseball fan.  Spring training is here.  Craig was really excited to be able to take his dad to two different games last week.  I ventured out to the one at Camelback Ranch in Glendale.  The Dodger and Mariners played.  We all got a Dodger dog and shared some nachos.  We were on the outfield lawn area so the kids could move around.  Brooke was happy as could be at first but lost interest after the first few innings and it got really hot so we left after the 7th inning stretch.  The boys went again to the A's vs. Mariners at the Peoria Sports Complex and they said it was much more enjoyable that time.  I'm glad Craig got to go to see some games with his dad.  I know that it's something special that they share.  They will both be Dodger fans for life.  When Jace gets a little older we would like to put him in t-ball.  He's got a pretty good little arm for a 5 yr old.  I think he would enjoy it too.  We had a great week having Robert here.  He even watched the kids while we went on a date.  We watched the BYU vs. San Diego State game which ended up being a complete downer. BYU played horribly.  However they did end up getting a 3 seed in the brackets.  I just filled out my March Madness brackets and have them going to the elite 8.  We'll see.  Jimmer Fredette is an amazing athlete.  The game before last he scored 52 pts on his own with only 1 of those being a free throw shot.  WOW!  Earlier in the year Craig joked that if we got pregnant this year we would be naming our child Jimmer if it was a boy and Fredette if it was a girl.  Thank goodness I didn't get pregnant.... j/k I really want another baby but I refuse to name it either Jimmer or Fredette no matter how good he is.  Anyways, back to the date - then we went to the movie The Adjustment Bureau which we both liked a lot.  It was fun to get out... just the two of us. 

Just enjoying the game.