Crafting

 I love to let my kids make things and be creative but sometimes I stop and look around during a project and think, "what have I gotten myself into?!?"  Ha ha.  Sometimes it is worth it to clean up a huge mess just to let the kids have fun and get messy.  And create something in the process.  I think it is so important to let kids be creative with art projects and to learn about that kind of thing. 

On this particular day, we were decorating some hearts for Valentine's day decorations.  I got out the confetti, markers, glitter, glue, etc.  The of course had a great time.  And I discovered that if I pull the vacuum out for clean up, they love helping.  :) 

 This is sometime near the beginning.  Not too messy yet.  But Sadie and Zac spent about an hour making their hearts.  And I love them!

 Emery loves helping me with the glitter. But every time I look away for more than 2 seconds I look back and find this.  

 Or this.  And her hair was getting in her eyes and driving her crazy so I finally put it up for her.  By then she had tons of glitter in it from wiping it away from her eyes.  Ha ha.  We found glitter in the bathtub for days.

 But she was also very helpful at sprinkling the glitter onto the actual hearts.

So cute.

Zac

 Zac and I get to have a lot of one on one time these days.  While Sadie is at school and Emery is sleeping it is just me and him.  A lot of the time I will let him pick a movie to watch or play my ipad for "quiet time" but some days it is just fun to let him pick an activity and do it with him.  He is ALWAYS wanting to play board games and card games with whoever will play with him.  Currently his two favorites are UNO and Go Fish.  We play both games multiple times a day.  And it is nice because Sadie almost always wants to play with him too, so sometimes they will just play Go Fish together so I can get the kitchen clean.  :)

Anyway, one day he chose to play with these colorful magnets.  On the back of the container they have some patterns you can follow to make cool designs.  So we sat down and did about four of them.  These take quite a while to do, so by the end I was doing most of the work, but he was a good helper and told me just what to do.

 Here he is with our first pattern.

 Can you find the matching picture on the box?

 Here we are with our next pattern.  

And there is the matching picture.  I love these because they are magnetic and will stay in place! 

7th Anniversary!

 While we were in AZ, we decided to celebrate our 7th anniversary by actually doing something!  We usually don't really celebrate our anniversary, so we figured we would ask my parents to watch the kids so we could go on our "getaway".  We went to Scottsdale and spent two nights at a hotel (thanks to some awesome friends for letting us use their hotel points!!!).  It was so different to be able to get in the car and not have a plan and not have to worry about hungry kids or bathroom breaks.  ha ha.  It was nice, but the whole time we were away, we were thinking about the kids!  :)

We went to see the new Hunger Games movie and it was so good.  We couldn't stop telling each other how good it was.  I loved it.  The next day we got to have the "mystery box" experience which was probably my favorite part of our getaway.  Can't wait to do it again someday!

We also went on a shopping spree that we have been waiting and saving up for all year long.  Rob pretty much needed a whole new work wardrobe and new shoes.  So we got that done too.  It was tons of fun to spend time just the two of us, but we were really excited to see the kids when we got back!

 This was while we were out shopping.  We were so tired, but I thought these palm trees were pretty.

 Here I am with the mystery box about to start our adventure.

When we pulled up at this intersection I was pretty sure I knew where we were going...Butterfly Wonderland!  It is a place that is pretty much in the middle of nowhere so I was wondering where we would end up.

First we went in and got to watch a cool 3-D movie about butterflies.  It was very interesting and I learned a lot.  And the 3-D part was awesome.  It looked like the butterflies were flying right in front of your face!

Then we got to go out to walk around an enclosed area where the butterflies lived and flew around and landed on you.  I only had 2 butterflies land on me and none of them landed on Rob.  but there were some people that I walked past who had five or six butterflies all over them!  It was crazy!  And it was funny because I thought mostly kids would be scared of them, but I heard two moms scream when a butterfly flew past them.  ha ha ha

I really loved the bright blue butterflies, but I didn't get a good picture of them...but this one is really pretty too.

 Someone offered to take our picture...if you look closely, there is a butterfly sitting right on the edge of the bench next to me.  

 Our hotel was awesome.  When we got there we were surprised to find a full sized fridge, a sink and a dishwasher, a table to eat meals at, washer and dryer, and a cute little towel dog on our bed.  :)  We were pretty much afraid to use anything fearing it would show up on our bill at the end.  But when Rob checked out, he said the guy who worked there checked over our bill and said "Oh...wow, I guess you are good to go.  you don't have any extra charges" as if that is a very rare occurrence.  Yes, we like to be cheap.  :)

Thanks to my parent who watched our kids for two nights!  The kids were actually pretty sick while we were gone so I felt pretty bad about leaving them with my parents, but the kids had a great time.  I am so glad that I married Rob seven years ago.  I sure got lucky!

Trip to Az part five- FUN

 We did lots of fun things while we were in Arizona.  The best thing was that we didn't have to wear jackets!  It got to the 70s most days.  It was so nice.  So we went to the park a lot and we visited the zoo and we went on a hike and we visited Scott and Stephanie's house and Great Grandma's house....etc.  It was FUN!  I think my kids favorite part was going to the park.  They loved that it had sand.  Not many of our parks here in Utah have sand.  And every time I went to the park with them I couldn't stop digging in the sand myself.  It was addicting.  

 Here is grandpa walking with Calvin and Sadie to the park. 

 One day grandma pulled out a little craft for the kids to do.  I just thought this picture was cute.  

 Here they are with the finished product.  Although it was harder to figure out how to make than the package led it on to be.  ha ha.  

One day we made a trip to the Zoo.  Thanks to my mom for scoring free tickets!  It was pretty cool to see all the animals.  A lot of them were pretty close so we got a good view.  It was a good thing that my mom borrowed a wagon from a friend or else we would have been ready to go home after about 10 minutes probably.  Zac was a trooper and spent most of the day walking.  I was impressed.  The others caught a ride in the wagon or stroller.

 First we saw the elephant.  

 Then we saw the tortoise.  The lady was trying to get him to stand up, but he wasn't having it.  

 Emery and Calvin enjoying a ride from Grandpa in the wagon.

 We stopped to climb on the frog.  The kids loved the playground the best I think.  ha ha.

 Some kind of monkey...maybe a chimp.

 I love that we posed our picture right in front of the vending machines...couldn't we have at least gotten some animals or grass in the background?!!  ha ha.  At least we are all looking right>?

 Sadie spending some one on one time with this monkey.

 Zebra.

This was Emery on the way to the car.  She was mostly asleep.

 Grandpa pulled out a lot of pop up books and read them to the kids.  They all loved them.  

 Calvin and Zac building towers.  We miss Calvin...we wish you guys lived closer!

 This was FHE.  We learned about Noah and the Ark with these fun finger puppets my mom made a long time ago.

 We went on a hike.  The kids did much better this time.  We did this same hike the last time we were in AZ which was in August of 2012...and it was like 116 degrees or something.  This time was much more pleasant!  The coolest part was that you could see the new Phoenix temple from the trail.  Pretty awesome.

 The kids loved going to "Billie's house" aka great grandma's house.  She had fun toys and a fun dog to play with!  :)  It was fun for me to go catch up with her too since I haven't seen her in such a long time!  We love you Grandma!  Thanks for letting us come make a mess of your house!

Trip to AZ part four- Testing my new camera

 Rob got me a new camera for Christmas!!!!  I was so excited...except that I told him that if he got me a camera to let me open it first thing so I could use it Christmas morning.  Well I opened it very last, so I had to walk around and snap photos after the fact to get a feel for my new camera.  :)

 I told her to give me her biggest smile.  Ha ha.

 Cute Daisy.

 ????

 Isaac aka big eyes mgee.

 Getting ready for our traditional egg strata (eggseroneous) Christmas breakfast.  I used to hate this dish when I was younger, but it is sooo yummy!  

 I think everyone else liked it too!

 Zac and Calvin played with their tractors for quite a while that morning.  

 Evan taking his post Christmas frenzy nap.

Emery modeling Calvin's new hat.  ha ha.

Thanks for the new camera!  Now I don't have to apologize for blurry pictures anymore!  Well, I won't be able to blame a crummy camera anymore anyway...

Trip to AZ part three- Christmas Eve and Christmas day

On Christmas Eve, we acted out the Nativity with the kids.  That's always fun.  I remember doing it with my cousins when I was younger and I was always a sheep or the angel...In my memory anyway.  It is a fun way to really remember the true reason we are celebrating Christmas.  I really enjoyed it this year because I think that my kids and Calvin and Daisy are absolutely adorable!  Calvin was Joseph, Sadie was Mary, Evan was a donkey:

 And I loved how Calvin pulled the donkey by his ear the whole time.  :)

 Scott and Zac were 2 of the Wise men.  We only had two...next time we will have three so it doesn't confuse people.  Ha ha. And Emery liked hanging out with the wise men. She was an angel though.

 And she kept this on the whole evening.  It was pretty cute.

 Stephanie, Shanna, Daisy and Emery were all angels.

 The end.  I think Isaac and I were shepherds.  I don't quite remember what Isaac was...

Then we opened the presents on the Elf chart and called it a night for the kids.  We put them to bed and then got things ready for Christmas morning. The kids loved their gifts- thanks to everyone that got them something.  Here are a few of their favorites:

 Emery and Sadie got matching baby dolls.  Zac got a new blanket to replace his old favorite blanket.  I was worried that he wouldn't want to get rid of his other blanket but he really likes this one and he won't even sleep with the other one on his bed.  Score!

 Checking out their stockings.  They all got new jammies on Christmas eve too.

 Santa brought Sadie a jack in the box just like she wanted.  It was a big hit.  And it still is...all the kids that have come to our house since we have been home have loved it!

I don't really know what is going on in this picture.  Grandpa was the man with the scissors so he is probably helping one of them open something.  

It was a lot of fun spending Christmas morning with my whole family.  Reminds me of the good ole' days.