X had a birthday shout hooray!!

My X turned 2 yesterday! To start the day off she got her first "bike" which she loves and Riley steals.
We decided to take the kids to the zoo for her B-day. We went to the Tucson zoo (which I have to say I loved for these reasons: it is smaller than phx, the animals were so much closer here, it only cost $18 for our whole family instead of $14 per adult in phx) It was pretty cold but we bundled up and took the wagon they got from grandpa w/ us and had them covered in a blanket.
Lexi decided she wanted to walk. She was so funny she would stand in front of the fence and do a little dance! It was so cute. There were these peacocks that wandered around and at this one point they were in the giraffe spot and she couldn't get enough of them!
Every time she would see an animal she would say "hi". This is her making friends w/ the peacock.
Towards the end she decided that she wanted to pull the wagon! It was pretty funny!After the zoo we went home and had pizza and cake! It was a fun day!
Happy B-day Alexis!!

Christmas with 4 small kiddos!

Christmas Check List!

Get up at 5:30 a.m. - check
Lexi goes to wake up Lydia to give her a present - check
Have tired baby (nobody should have to wake up this early!) - check
(Can't blame excited little kiddos I used to do the same thing and would have this year but Eliott and I opened presents on christmas eve after kids went down)
Seth gets games - check
Riley goes tree diving for my stocking - check
Lexi eats way too much candy from her stocking - check
Lydia eats her present - check



Lyddie is a happy baby - check
Lyddie goes to take a nap before normal wake up time - check
Lexi eats hungry hungry hippo ball - check
(bad explanation as to how to play the game: okay after the ball goes into the middle you have to hurry and eat before anybody else does! Innocent 2 year old takes that as race your chubby little hand around the hungry hippos that your sibling are moving to get the little white ball first and throw it in your mouth in one motion! She was so proud of herself for winning until we fished it out of her candy filled mouth! Funny yet sad!)
No major fights - check (for reals! amazing I know!!)
Everybody has a fabulous day and then takes a nap - check!!!

A little Seth humor...

So my dad isn't into holidays of any kind (birthdays included) but we have come to an agreement that he will pay for a gift for the grandkids and even give it to them as long as he doesn't have to shop. So this year I picked out gifts for all the grandkids and went shopping for them. Well I still want my kids to think it is from grandpa so I hid the big giant wagon box in the garage next to the water heater. Seth came out to get in the van yesterday and he starts peeking around the box, which is behind the double stroller and squeezed next to the bike. (not exactly an easy place to get to) So he starts asking what it is and I yell to him that Kayla has a present back there so not to go back there (not a lie, kayla's present is there just next to the giant towel covered wagon box). So he asks me if I hid it so he couldn't see it so he couldn't tell her what it was. I answer yes she would be so sad if you told her what her present was. (I love that he is only 5 and thinks that his 10 month old cousin would be sad if she found out what she were getting for Christmas, it made trying to hide stuff easier) Anyway so I have other presents up on a shelf, also disguised in my genius towel camo. When we got home last night he gets out of the van and Eliott is behind him and he points up to the shelf and looks at Eliott and says "there's another present up there" and keeps walking. I guess next year I actually have to hide the presents. At least none of the ones he discovered are from santa. And the one on the shelf is Lexi's b-day present. Anyway funny kid!

A little Riley humor...

So I was in my bathroom one day doing my hair and I look down and Riley is pointing to something in the cupboards under the sink and asks what it is. So I answer her and then keep doing my hair when it clicks that those cupboards are "child proofed" so i ask her what she is doing and how she got it open and she responds:
"I just pull them open a little and then push these little things down and it opens"
Silly me, why hadn't I tried that! So much for child proof.
Then the other day I was at the kitchen table and she was using my bathroom to go potty and she was gone for quite a while so I ask her what she is doing so she replies that she wants some lotion and I told her she needed to come ask first, so she comes and asks. After I say yes she starts walking back to my bathroom and I catch a whiff of something, gosh what is that? I know that smell! For the life of me I can't put my finger on it! hmmmm.... So I call her back and start smelling her to figure out what it is, she didn't have the smell anywhere so I start smelling inside her nose. Haa there it is, now what is it?!!
Dang it! She smells like VEET (yes that's right the hair removal lotion) that she managed to get out of my "child proofed" cupboards (I have for reals lotion in a place she could get to but noooo she decides to talk the hair removal one) So I run in the bathroom and check and luckily for both of us all she did was open it and smell it. She still has all her hair intact! She is such a turkey! A clever turkey!

(I know this post would have been much more entertaining had it ended w/ loss of hair and a horrible picture to match but just for me can you contain your disappointment at my happiness in having hair on my little girl!)

Christmas Cards!

Alright I might be behind in this but if you want an awesome Jen-made card w/ an awesome family picture (i mean come on how could it not be awesome w/ my cute kiddos) send me your address. You can comment or email me. If you don't have my email there is a link on my sidebar.

Merry Christmas!!

(by the way if nobody gives me their address I might be a little bit sad about that)

Tents, Snow, Trees...

We started this thing last year where we go cut our christmas tree down. We as in my side of the family. We had so much fun last year that we decided to do it every year. This year was last weekend, it was a blast! We were cutting down in Heber so we packed everything up and left Friday. (Eliott had church responsibilities to attend to so he stayed home w/ Lexi and Lydia) So when we got to heber it was freezing cold and raining. So we had to set up camp in the cold and rain and leaky tents and the funny brothers I have, had heaters for their tents. well two of them did the tent we slept in didn't. But it really wasn't that bad. So it rained all night long, what I thought was rain, at some point it turned to SNOW! We woke up at about 6:30 to go to the bathroom, or to the tree I should say, and everything was covered in snow! it was sooooooooo much fun. So we played in the snow in the morning and had a blast. Seth and Riley were really good considering they had never been that cold. Seth even made a snow man and of course his first reaction to the snow was to throw a snow ball at his sister. So after breakfast and camp was packed up we loaded all the kids in the car and shot halloween pumpkins. It was so fun, I haven't shot a gun in probably 15 years. But it was fun. I definitely prefer my brother's rifle to all the pistols there. I couldn't hit anything w/ the pistol but w/ the rifle I rocked! (and actually I might have hit something w/ the pistol but as soon as i pull the trigger my eyes close, I know not very safe!) I even blew up a pumpkin and pieces shot in the air. So after shooting we went driving through all the snow hunting for our trees. When we would spot the one we wanted we would stop and chop it down. So when I saw mine I unloaded Seth and Riley and we went to chop it down. In fact I chopped mine down. Yes that is my hiney in the picture using the chainsaw to chop down my tree! It was pretty cool! So then we drove around getting the other trees, Zo didnt' strap them down so mine blew out of the back of the truck and James stopped to pick it up for me (thanks James!) We stopped and helped a minivan out of the snow (he was from canada on his way to mesa, and basically a moron, who would drive through this stuff in snow) The highway we came up to heber on was closed so we had to drive along the mogollon rim roads to get to another highway, no place for a minivan! anyway! we had a blast and then when we got back to mesa zo threw the tree in the back of the van! at least my van smelled good the whole way home!

(okay I know some of the pictures are sideways but it took forever to load them all so I wasn't going to spend more time trying to fix it, so turn your head sideways!)

I can't wait till next year!