Happy Weekend

Tyler has been carrying this brush around all day.  He doesn't chew on it, which is amazing, he just likes to carry it.  And when anyone takes it away he starts crying a really whiny high-pitched cry.  It's kind of funny.

 

 It's a big weekend coming up with lots of fun plans.  One of which we just found out about this morning.  One of my sisters and her family are making a spontaneous trip down here to the desert and we get to have them stay with us!  I'm so excited.  Luckily I just cleaned all the bathrooms and have done some major organizing recently.  So I've been doing some other deep cleaning that needed to get done today in preparation for the weekend and for guests.  I've been working my tail off!  I was feeling drained this afternoon and went to the fridge to find a quick bite to eat.  I ended up with a leftover pancake, topped with leftover chocolate pudding from family night, and leftover whipped cream from Grant's class party.  Ha!  Then I hid in the kitchen and downed that thing before the kids came and saw it. ;)

Happy long weekend!

Keith's Birthday in April

Back in the middle of April, Keith and I took a whole day before his actual birthday to celebrate his birthday.  Our mom's were so nice to split up the day of babysitting the kids.  

We packed up the van with our bikes, rollerblades, swimsuits, changes of clothes, snacks, and water bottles and hit the road toward Fountain Hills.  

We started out at the McDowell Mountain Range bike trails.  That was so much fun!    Everything was going great until we were going up a hill and Keith's front tire fell off!  Ha!  It was hilarious.  We're glad it didn't happen while he was going down one of the fast hills we had just been on.  We noticed that his quick release axle had popped off at some point.  I remembered having seen something shiny on the trail a little ways before.  So I rode back while Keith walked his bike and sure enough there were a few pieces of his bike sitting on the trail.  We couldn't believe he'd made it as far as he did without them!  We were laughing so hard.  We weren't able to find the nut to put the axle back on correctly, but luckily we hadn't gone too far out on the trail and we were able to make it back to the van, limping his bike along.

Then onto frisbee golf around the lake at Fountain Hills.  That was so fun!  We didn't take any pictures of that, but got a lot of video.  

Incidentally, back 12 years ago (when we'd only been dating for a month and half) we went on a day date for Keith's birthday.  We ended up in Fountain Hills that day too!  It's sort of become our spot since then.

I have to add one more.  This is celebrating that birthday all those years ago with his family at his parents house.  I just showed our kids this and asked them if we look super young here.  They all said that I look the same, but dad looks older now!  Ha!!!  I don't know if that's true, but I'll take it! ;)

Back to 2017!

After frisbee we picked up some Mexican food and took it to the pool in our neighborhood and swam for a while.  And since it was Keith's birthday we threw the frisbee back and forth across the pool for about 45 minutes!  No joke.  We got pretty good!

We cleaned ourselves up and got dressed and did a little shopping then went rollerblading at Tempe Town Lake.  After we'd worked up an appetite we went to eat dinner at The Spaghetti Factory.  Then we headed home.  It was a fun filled day and it was so great to be able to spend it together.

Keith's actual birthday was a busy day for him, including coaching a baseball game that night.  So after the game we gathered at our house for cake and presents along with his parents.  That's on video too, but here's the table all decorated for him.  :)

 Happy Birthday Keith!  

You are a great husband and dad and make our lives wonderful.  Thank you!

Last Day of School

Yesterday Brett graduated from his wonderful little preschool.  His teacher is so great and Camille is excited to get to go there a couple times a week starting this fall.

Yesterday I helped throw Grant's class an ice-cream sundae party.  He really lucked out in the teacher department for 2nd grade.  This teacher makes me wish I could go back to school just to be in her class...almost.  ;)

Today after school a group of Grant's friends came over for pizza, smoothies, watermelon, and the giant slip-n-slide.  They all had a blast and we're lucky nobody got hurt too bad!  And we're lucky that Keith was home to get out there with these kids and keep them going mostly in the same direction.  The cute thing is that most of these boys have had Keith coach them in baseball so they all listened to him really well.  

 The moms (with a bunch of photo bombers!)

This school year went by really fast! And Grant ran really fast in these shoes all year and wore them right out!  

 Now onto summer.  I feel a bit lost without a daily schedule, but I'm sure after a week or so I'll adjust and we'll get into a new routine.  High on my priority list is getting out of this desert heat as much as we can this summer.  Also, Grant will be doing swim team for the first time and I really look forward to that.

Happy last day of school!

A Happy Mother's Day 2017

I got to watch and listen to these cute kids (well the oldest three) sing a couple Mother's Day songs at church on Mother's Day.  We got to church a little late and ended up sitting right up front.  I had the best view of my singing kids that I'll probably ever get!  Grant knew the words and Brett and Camille kind of smiled and looked cute.  It made my heart happy to see them up there, knowing they were proud to be up there singing for me.  How I love them!

 The kids walked home from church with Grandma Jackson and we took some Mother's Day pictures with her.  She's a great example of a loving, fun, and hardworking mom.  We're lucky to live close by and to have our kids know her and Grandpa Jackson so well as they grow up.

 Cute mother/son pic!

That night we had my parents and grandparents over for a Mother's Day dinner.  Keith helped, but to be honest I really made the dinner!  Ha!  I prepared a lot of the food the day before so our work load would be light.  Luckily Keith did the dishes.  That's huge for me!  I don't mind cooking any day if someone else does the cleaning!  For dinner we enjoyed pork enchiladas, chips and salsa, beans, watermelon, strawberry salad, and Keith picked up a couple desserts from Costco for us. 

Here's the whole bunch of us:

(Don't mind Camille.  She has a hard time ever being normal in a picture lately!)

 The three moms:

 My mom and me.  She's another great example of a fun, loving, and hardworking mom.  Keith and I really lucked out with being sent to great parents!

My parent's live close by too, and it's so fun to be able to have them in my kids life also.   

I have to get a couple of these gems in here too!  I had pulled out old pictures of my mom with her kids and took pictures of them and printed them out, put them on sticks, and stuck them in a pot of Mother's Day flowers for her.  Here are a couple of them.

Here we are (I must have been about 7) at my mom's parent's condo in Sun City West.  How I loved that place!  I have some of the best memories of that place!  Lots of memories have to do with the food, down to the dishes and the unique glasses that we all wanted to drink from (like that eagle mug my brother has on the table!).  I can't eat a grapefruit without feeling like I'm back at my grandparents home.  Anyway, here we are, the four of us kids with my cute mom.  I'm the girl in the middle at the counter.

 In this pictures, my mom is younger than I am right now, but she's at about the same point with her kids that I am, with the oldest just eight and a toddler on her lap.  This was from my brother's baptism day.  I'm the one up front in the middle with the awesome blue sock with sandals!  I had the best fashion sense back then!  Ha!

Here's our little family at Grant's baptism.  No blue socks with my sandals this time! ;)

I'm so very grateful to have great mom's in my life and to be able to be a mom myself.  It's what I always dreamed of doing when I grew up.  On those hard days when I feel overwhelmed and just want to run away for a while I remind myself that this is exactly what I hoped for and I have so much to be grateful for.  I'm so lucky to have a great husband who supports me 100% in every way.  Because of his hard work for our family I get to be exactly where I want to be every day, with these kids at home.  And Keith is glad that I'm happy to be here.  Like I mentioned above, Keith and I really were blessed with great parents.  Of course they weren't perfect, no-one is, but they gave it their all.  My mom always put her family first and I know Keith's mom did too.  They took their responsibility to their family serious and their families were blessed because of it.  I sure try my hardest and I hope my kids will feel like I did my best someday when they grow up and look back on how I mothered them.  

Here's some of my favorite things I do as a mom:

Reading chapter books to my boys at night before bed.

(We are currently reading Indian in The Cupboard and they are captivated!)

Play one on one with them when I have a chance.

(Like today when I played with Tyler in his room with a stuffed tiger and a ball.  Somehow he was thoroughly entertained!)

Prepare food for them and watch them eat it and like it.

(The liking part doesn't always happen, but we're getting there.)

Playing outside at dusk.

Watching them try new things.

Getting them to laugh or smile and watch their faces shine up at me.

I check on them every night and give them a big kiss on their forehead before I go to my own bed.

Play Pat-A-Cake with Camille.  We always give each other a big hug at the end.

Sit with my babies and a bottle before bed, just the two of us with the blinds cracked a little so I can see their sweet faces in the soft light.

Puff up my cheeks and squish them back down with my babies feet.  They laugh so hard!

Work with them.  Brett especially benefits from doing housework together.

Be silly for my kids.  Wether it's making funny faces or silly voices or doing a funny dance, they love it and I think it helps them see that I can lighten up sometimes.

When I tuck the older boys into bed I pretend to put glue on my lips and then give them a big kiss on the cheek.  Then I say, "Uh-oh, my lips are glued to your cheek and I can't get them off!"  And then I start making funny sounds like I'm going to drool on them (but I don't!) and they laugh so hard.

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but at least some are now documented here.   

And now it's time to go check on those kids and kiss their foreheads. :)

Tyler's 1st Birthday!

This happy boy had a very happy first birthday back in March.

The weather was perfect that day for dinner outside.

Then the grandparents came over and we celebrated with cake, ice-cream, and presents.

 We played on the grass for a while with the fun balls Tyler got from Keith's parents.

 Tyler got a couple big bouncy balls that morning from us.

 And we gave him this cute new ride too.  The kids all checked it out thoroughly before they handed it over to him. ;)

 He loved it!  And oh, how we love him!

The past year with this little guy has gone by so fast and yet it seems like forever ago that he was this little.

Here's some of our favorite things about our Tyler:

He has the awesomest deep voice.  He really sounds like a fog horn!

He's almost always happy.

He loves being with his mom, but he loves his dad even more.

He plays the shy card a lot when someone he doesn't know well gives him attention.  He'll put his head down and burrow into me.

He's the calmest kid we have, and I'm so thankful!

He loves the red light that shines down on the floor from our dishwasher.

He gets excited watching the big kids, but is happy to be a baby.

He's learning how to walk, wave, and give high fives, and gets so excited for himself!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Grant turns 8 and gets baptized

Back in February, our boy Grant turned 8 years old.  He'd been looking forward to this birthday so he could become a Cub Scout, but mostly to being able to be baptized.   We celebrated his birthday as a family the Saturday before his actual birthday because Keith was going to be out of town.  He chose donuts for his birthday cake.   I'd say he looks pretty happy about that.

That morning he opened his presents...

...roller blades!

He had a basketball game that day, and then that night we all went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, where he got to sit on the saddle and get sung to.  He thought that was pretty cool.  :)

Grant's actual birthday fell on President's Day this year and he didn't have school.  What luck!  

He got to bring a friend with us for a day at the zoo.

Camille made sure we had our kettle-corn for the occasion.  Geesh, do you think it's big enough?  It's almost taller than her!  Ha!  But seriously, this popcorn is amazing stuff!  I highly recommend it!

We enjoyed our lunch by "Monkey Island".  The monkeys were putting on a good show for us that day.  Brett was thrilled to sit next to Grant's friend.

With Keith out of town, his parents came along and were a great help with getting those cute kids through the zoo.

Tyler had fun playing with Grandpa's hair! ;)

This was the cutest thing ever!  These boys had a journal with them and they were drawing pictures and writing descriptions of the animals.  Their school teacher would be so proud!

Grant's baptism day came in March.  He sure was excited for his big day!

His baptism and confirmation were so sweet.  As soon as he walked into the baptismal font with Keith, he was ready to get dunked under the water.  He kind of stood there nervously like he was expecting to go under at any second even though the baptism prayer hand't even been said yet.  It was really cute.  
He had quite the crowd there to support him that day.  Afterwards we all gathered in our backyard for BBQ pork sandwiches.  It was great to spend that time together with so many family and friends that beautiful afternoon in March.

I'm so proud of this kid and the great boy that he is.  I can't believe that just seven years ago he looked like this.

We've both come a long way.  Him growing up and learning so much and developing his talents, and me learning so much about being a mom.  

He said the cutest thing the other day after Keith and I had been away for the day.  We got home late that night and Grant came up to me and said, "I cried a little today because I got home from school and I wanted to tell you about my day and you weren't here."  Melt my heart!  He has such a tender heart.  I was sad that he missed me so much, but also so glad that our little chats about his day after school mean so much to him.  As Keith's grandpa would say, "He's a keeper!"

Happy Birthday Grant!