October 18, 2010

Farewell to Staysha!!

We wanted to do it up right so we all went in to the airport and took Staysha all the way to the security enterance.

We had this shirt painted for her at the mall to remember her trip by.

Group photo with Staysha

Ahhhhhh, so cute!!

Oliver refused to look at the camera and smile. So we got a picture of him giving her hug.

Luke has no idea what we are doing and why we are making such a bid deal about it.

Till next time Staysheee!!!

We had so much fun. But now we have to go. Until next time!! Always a good time with Staysha around.

"How to Train your Dragon"

October 15, 2010

Party with Staysha

Part 2

"How to Train your Dragon"

We are finally going to watch this movie. I wanted Andrew to read the book first. Then he could experience how movies are different then books.

It took forever to get through the book with the move and everything so we missed it in the theater.

The movie came out on video this weekend. I reserved it as soon as I could and we picked it up so we could watch it with Staysha.

The day has finally come. So we got in our comfy clothes after The Play Factory and got ready to snuggle.

Here is a cute picture of Staysha and Marissa pretending to be asleep in a full snuggle. We wish she could stay forever.

Here is Luke looking cute.

The best part about this experience is the movie was completely different then the book. Not a lot different but completely different. The only thing was the same is the characters name. SOOOooooo this was not a good example. It was still great and a lot of fun.

It was also a great movie.

That night we passed out!! Luke a little earlier then the rest of us. I was a puddle of mush. It was a great workout and tons of fun. Also an unfriendly reminder that I need to get in shape.

October 15, 2010 Part 1

Play Factory

We have been waiting to

go to the Play Factory with

Staysha. It was worth the wait.

The kids immediately got busy

playing.

This has to be my favorite one.

Even I got into the fun. Literally,

I climbed in with the kids.

I squeezed through, climbed, crawled, and slide along

with the kids.

Pour Luke spent most of

the time in his carseat.

Marissa squeezed through

just in time for a photo.

Check out Marissa and

Staysha. They are almost through the maze.

Oliver was impossible

to keep track of.

He couldn't be stopped.

Marissa is starting

to look flushed.

Luke finally got his turn.

It took him a little

bit to get into it.

He wasn't really sure

if he trusted Staysha.

He kept his eye on her.

It's time to go. Exhausted now, we are all a little tired. Marissa didn't agree.

The best part is that this day is only half over.

There is more to come.

We all ran ourselves to exhaustion. I cracked my back, twisted my ankle, jammed my knee and had TONS of fun doing it. I was so exhausted at the end I physically could not climb through it one more time. I don't even know how Oliver kept going. He was in a near constant run for two and a half hours straight.

OCTOBER 14, 2010

FAMILY HOME EVENING

PAINT A PUMPKIN ACTIVITY

Or paint yourself and everything around.

They were supposed to paint scary faces.

Oliver loved the whole project and he just painted it to death.

It ended up as the painted pumpkin blob.

It was cute how proud he was of it.

Andrew did a great job.

Marissa is super excited because ........

Staysha is in town!!! We are all so excited. We have saved up most of our fall break plans to do them with Staysha. Let the fun begin.

October 4, 2010

I don't know if you can tell but this is showing the dust blowing into Chandler. It was followed by a monsoon later that day.

Oliver wasn't sure if he liked playing in the rain. He finally warmed up to it, but it took a while.

It's so hot outside that it is the equivalent of taking a warms shower with your clothes on.

I would have gone out in it but Luke was not a fan of pouring rain. So I stayed on the patio while the other kids ran around.

Have you noticed as your progress through the pictures they are slowly getting soaked through.

Getting wet in the rain was a success. Except for Oliver. Who is barely wet. After I took this picture the camera died. We went out front and Oliver really got into the post-rain puddles. What a cute group. Just love them!

I Learned this week that if a lizard loses his tail it still wriggles and casually whips around. I am not helping Andrew catch lizards any more. He is on his own. It was creepy.

We really enjoyed September.

Look at all the fun we had.

It's good times all the time.

September 8, 2010: We have had 84+ days over 100 degrees. The yearly average is 109 days. Even better, we have had 21 days of 110 degrees or hotter. Average is 18. You should also know that it's only warm until it's over 108 then it's HOT!! Now I can only complain if we go over 109 days of 100s or 18 days of boiling lava hot (110+). --I swear you can actually feel your skin cooking in the sun.

Riding backwards in the baby swing. Give a shout out.

Smearing food all over face, chair, counter top, and everything in between. This is a proud successful toddler.

September 10, 2010: Decided we can't wait any longer. We have to potty train Oliver. You could say he is a little resistent to the idea. I put his big boy undies on and he desperately kept saying "find a diaper" "FIND a diaper" (with pleeding eyes). After such an encouraging start I think we will just spend the day in the kitchen, just in case.

September 11, 2010: Potty Training day 2: After his morning partail accident, he walked his clean new pair of cars underwear over to the garbage can and threw them in. Good sign! On a GREAT note, the window guys are coming to day to fix our broken front window and the impossible to open sliding door in the kitchen. YEAHHHHHH!!!

Family Picture!!

Look at this charming family. I said smile and this is what I got.

Luke is always willing to flash a smile. It is charming that is for sure.

Best Friends!! Nothing beats having a big brother/little sister. These two are so good to each other.

...........And my favorite photo of the month. We have Oliver. Sporting his sisters sunglasses and necklace. A small "I get cooler everyday" top, and snow boots. Showing off the curls and the dimple. The only way to make this picture any better is...........

to go outside in public and ride a pink and purple big wheel wearing your sunglasses upside down.

- Had successful parent teacher conferences. The kids are doing great in school.

- Andrew received his first badge in scouting this month. They painted his face. I forgot to warn him that they were going to do that. He handled it really well.

- Andrew is grounded. He decided to teach Oliver how to pretend sword fight with kitchen knives. Oliver got a butter knife and Andrew scrounged up the sharpest scariest blade in the kitchen. Easily the sharpest knife we own. Boys, Boys, Boys!! Can you imagine my reaction as I came around the corner to that.

- Fall break starts this week. Marissa is not excited. She thinks two weeks is to long to be out of school.

P.S. I HATE potty training.

Then we took a drive through the Tucson Mountain Park and looked at all the saguaro cactus. We looked mostly for the odd shaped ones like this one. There were hundreds of them. It is illegal to cut down a saguaro. The tall ones in this photo are at least 60 years old.

Now they call it Tuscon Mountain. What they call mountains we would call hills. We will go ahead and let Tuscon call them mountains but we ex-utahans know the difference.

We wanted to see the Tuscon Mountains but we also wanted to see Old Tucson. We drove all the way out to no mans land to find it. Once we got there are read up on all it had we decided we didn't have enough time to see the whole thing. We would need a good half day or more to do everything that Old Tucson has to offer. So we took a photo out front and briefly visited the gift shop and left vowing to return again someday to get the full experience. We had made plans for lunch that couldn't be cancelled.

KON TIKI

Serves polynesian style food. If you love Tiki's this is the place for you.

If you like giant malnourished lizards

this is also the place for you. They have a komodo dragon that was looking very out of sorts when we visited. I was sure he was going to die right in front of the kids. They had him for a very long time so I have no idea what the problem was. He appeared to be molting, which I am aware isn't generally a lizard thing. Unfortunately for this lizard that seemed to be the case. His scales were missing in large amounts. He also moved painfully slow and for the last half of our visit didn't move at all. It reminded me of the sickly Phoenix in one of the Harry Potter movies. Unfortunately their would be no ash resurrection for this poor guy.

As far as I know he still lives to this day. He was having a rough week when we visited.

Oliver escaped from our corner for a bit. Paul was taking pictures of some of his favorite Tiki's.

Marissa picked this one as her favorite. I'm not sure how one goes about picking a favorite tiki. I don't have a favorite. Couldn't decide which scowling grrrr face I like the most.

I had this delicious teriyaki chicken sandwich. Paul insisted on taking a picture of my dribbling mess. I'm just lucky he didn't catch the drooling terriyaki face I had at one point. It was worth it, it was really good.

Have you noticed that Marissa never misses a chance to take a perfect picture. She is always ready. I can't seem to get into a rhythm with it.

Here are a couple of fan favorite Tiki's and then we are off. Back to home. It's a same day trip. So a quick stop at the gas station to pick up a redbox and we headed home. We had lots of fun escaping together for the day.