Arizona Sunshine

2010 Christmas Letter!

2010-12-25T12:27:00.009-07:00

Our Christmas Card – Better Lazy Than Never

As you can see, we’re taking the easy way out on sending Christmas cards this year, but we thought this would be a mild improvement over doing nothing. For those really gung-ho readers, we’ve included several hypertext links for extra enjoyment, which actually makes this better than a real Christmas card—well, not really, but it is cool.

Sadie is now 8 and runs as fast as a cheetah. She does exceptionally well running the mile, though Dad can still keep up with her for now. She continues to play soccer and she enjoys her myriads of stuffed animals. Our highlight for Sadie this year was her red flamingo Halloween costume—one of the coolest costumes ever!

Ashley is almost 11. This summer Ashley attended a week of Girl Scout camp in the mountains, where she learned archery and lots of camp songs, which she still sings. She also got to participate in a music camp with the Chandler Children’s Choir. Ashley loves watching the Amazing Race, so she had her own amazing race birthday party this year—her team got second. Ashley’s interests and activities include soccer, dancing, baking cookies, sewing, playing with little kids, and posing for photographs.

Girl Scouts has kept both Sadie and Ashley busy. In the Spring, they competed in the Powderpuff Derby – the girl version of the Pinewood Derby – with great success (Ashley; Sadie). Last month, they marched in the Tempe Veterans’ Day parade. And earlier this month, they sang Christmas songs to help raise money for the Salvation Army. Their fundraising efforts got them on TV.

Patrick is 14 and a freshman in high school. He loves to scooter, make scooter videos, edit scooter videos, surf scooter websites and talk about scootering. When he’s not doing those things, he enjoys watching scooter videos. Patrick saved his money and recently bought his own video camera so that he doesn’t have to borrow ours anymore to film himself scootering. Patrick runs the mile in track in the springtime and is soon to start training again. We are also very happy that Patrick completed his Boy Scout Eagle project in October and hopefully will be receiving his Eagle Scout award in the coming months. One special note for Patrick: in the Spring he received an award for 1^st in Arizona and 7^th in the nation for his age group for his essay in a stock market game contest.

Cindy continues to sew for our kids and the Chandler Children’s Choir. This past winter, she also sewed the dresses for the middle school Show Choir. Her business, Cindy’s Custom Creations, keeps her busy when she’s not volunteering at the girls’ elementary school, leading two Girl Scout troops or taking care of the rest of us. Right now Cindy is in charge of the school’s spring carnival. Cindy also gets the credit for updating our family blog.

Casey has now worked for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office with specific responsibility for the Arizona Department of Agriculture for over four years. So now you may be wondering what’s the largest crop in Arizona—that would be lettuce. In fact, if you have lettuce in your house right now, there’s a very good chance it came from Yuma, Arizona, the winter lettuce capitol of the world. Casey enjoyed coaching Sadie’s soccer team this Fall and currently assists with the 16-18 year old boys in his ward’s Priest Quorum.

Our Orthodontist had a great year too. Ashley got her braces off just in time for Patrick to get his braces on. We had about a two-week window in between, which we used to get our family picture taken. (We have copies to mail out to anyone who would like one.) A few days ago, Sadie started the process for some braces too. Thank goodness for flexible spending accounts.

Finally, our family had a memorable summer vacation driving to Cascade, Idaho and back for a family reunion. Along the way, we enjoyed the Hoover Dam, the Las Vegas Strip, the Circus Circus midway (to win more stuffed animals for Sadie), Stadium of Fire starring Carrie Underwood, a midnight run to Krispy Kreme, BYU, and Uncle Matt and Aunt Sarah’s farm. In Cascade, we enjoyed family, the lake, and river rafting.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas, with special thoughts on the birth of Him we celebrate.

Casey, Cindy, Patrick, Ashley & Sadie

Looks like summer

2010-06-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

Lots going on here now that it's summer:

Photographing all the animals:

Participating in the Chandler Children's Choir summer day camp. (She learned songs from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat)

Game Days:

Getting Braces:
Making Fruit and cheese kabobs:

Playing lots of games:

Getting in lots of scooter time:

Playing in the tent indoors because it's too dang hot to play outside.

Going to swim lessons (and Sadie finally learning how to swim with her face in the water)

Designing and embroidering new scooter tshirts:

And finally, going on an airplane to Idaho to visit family. (Insert photo of Patrick getting on Southwest airplane. The photo I forgot to take.)

One more week until we'll get a respite from the heat too!

My Crafty Blog

2010-06-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

Every time I finish a project, I wish I had a place to show other people what I've done. I love reading similar blogs from my other crafty friends. So I finally got my own sewing blog up and running. I hope to update it regularly, so if it iinterests you I hope you'll check it out!

Cindy's Custom Creations

Wildlife World Zoo

2010-06-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

I know, one of those Zoo posts. Full of animal photos, right? But I just had to post about this because the Wildlife World Zoo is different than most other zoos I've been to. It's way out in the far west valley so we'd never been. However, Sadie's girl scout troop voted to spend their cookie money to go there and I'm glad they did.

One of the first things we did was go on a train ride:

The train went right through the African animals habitat, so we got to see Ostriches, and big game animals up close.

Then it was off to feed the giraffes. What slobbery fun!

Sadie got a hold of my camera and took lots of photos like this one:
(see the little meerkat on the rock?)

This is an adult white tiger. There were two young white tigers in another area of the zoo that were so playful and cute.

Speaking of baby animals, a stop in the nursery, was very exciting. Have you ever wondered what a baby porcupine looks like?

Or a baby warthog?

They were much cuter in person!

This zoo also has an aquarium where you can pet stingrays and two baby sharks that according to the worker manning the tank, have no teeth. No photos of that, but Ashley did get this beauty with her camera:

No trip to the zoo is complete without stopping by the petting zoo. These were by far the most aggressive little animals that I've ever seen in a petting zoo. One of them had a parent's shirts halfway in it's mouth, ready to have dessert I guess. As you can imagine, this terrified some of the girls, so our stay there was short.

After the petting zoo, we tried another animal encounter. This time we fed some Lorakeets. If we held out a piece of apple, they would land on our hands or arms and enjoy the treat.

One of the last animals we saw at the zoo was this:

Which may not mean anything to anyone else, but to Troop 121, this is practically our mascot. Why? Because at the beginning of this year, I taught them the Kookabura song and they ask to sing it every. single. meeting. They especially like this verse:

Kookaburra sits on an electric wire,
jumpin' up and down with his pants on fire.
Ouch, kookaburra, Ouch, kookaburra,
how hot your pants must be.

We MUST get a picture in front of the Kookaburra!

Such a FUN day!

Powder Puff Derby

2010-05-24T19:35:00.002-07:00

Several weeks ago, Ashley and Sadie got to participate in the Girl Scout version of the Pinewood Derby. They had so much fun painting their cars and watching them race.

Casey worked very hard to help them put them together and breathed a huge sigh of relief when they went down the first time without falling apart. In fact, they lasted the entire time and Sadie's came in first place in her group, and Ashley's came in 3rd place for all of the Juniors. Very exciting!

Sadie's "Minnie Mouse" car. It did have little Minnie ears and a bow on top, but we removed them because they were thought by Dad, to cause too much wind resistance.

Some of Ashley's troop after the races ended.

Here are some of the other creative cars.

(The "Girl in the pool" car did amazingly well!)

Very proud mama tonight

2010-05-13T21:38:00.006-07:00

I'm so very proud of Patrick! Tonight culminated several award ceremonies.

Last week was the ceremony for NJHS, where Patrick completed his 2nd year in this organization, which meant he had to keep a 3.5 or higher GPA and complete 40 hours of service.

Then two nights ago, Patrick was invited to a special awards ceremony for people that had won first place in a contest of a Stock Market game. Specifically, an essay Patrick had written about diversifying stock investments had won FIRST place in Arizona for his age division. His essay also place an amazing 7th place in the nation! We couldn't be more proud!

This is what his teacher wrote about him:

Here he is with the program director and his Social Studies teacher (on the right)

Tonight was the 8th grade Awards night and Patrick was honored in front of all of his peers for his essay accomplishment. In addition to thunderous applause, he received a $25 gift card. Casey and I were just beaming when we heard the announcer say he wanted Patrick's parents to come down. We were definitely not expecting that as we were sitting at the top of very crowded bleachers! Patrick got several other awards, like Bulldog Honor Roll and Presidential Education Award so yea, I'm a very proud mama tonight!

Great job Patrick! We sure love you!!

Last few weeks

2010-05-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Busy as usual!

Here's what we've been up to:

Soccer Olympics for the girls

Taking "before" photos for Patrick's Eagle Scout project. He wants to paint the rusted and scratched gates:

Trying not to scratch my eyes out when I see forts like these:

And "activity centers" like this:

Attending Patrick's District finals where he ran in impressive 5:40 mile:

Celebrating my 37th birthday:

Making lots of strawberry jam:

Taking way too many photos of my flowers, but people, I can't stop.... I have never had a garden this beautiful!

Even the pig is happy about all the spring flowers! (Thanks Sarah!)

Volunteering at Sadie's school "Field Day":

Helping Patrick "grow up" his room by removing a hammock with over 50 stuffed animals in it. His room looks so much bigger now!

And much more.

But that will have to wait for another post so I can get this one up.

A trip to Benson

2010-04-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

As we were driving home the other day, we passed Boston street and Sadie said "That's where we went to visit our cousins right?"

No honey, we went to Benson.

Thought you'd like that Ben and Kendra! :-)

We really enjoyed seeing so much family on the weekend trip. Ashley and Sadie of course liked playing with the toddler and baby. (Thanks Dan and Gretchen for providing them with entertainment!)

Patrick enjoyed the local skate park. He, of course likes ANY skate park, so visiting this one was a nice bonus considering the size of Benson.

First, Sadie and Ashley showed him how to ride the rail:

Then they showed him how to ride the ramp:

(Did I mention we were the only ones there that day?)

Then they cheered him on while he went back and forth doing tricks:

Nice tricks Patrick! Serious air!

On Monday (President's Day) we all went for a visit to Kartchner Caverns. This well preserved cavern is considered a 'living' cave because stalagmites and stalagtites are still being formed. It was extremely humid inside the cavern and the security was tight. No touching anything besides the handrails. No cameras were allowed inside, so I had to get these photos from the website as a teaser, if you are considering going:

After our tour, we had lunch at a nearby pavillion.

We gabbed for quite a while and planned on heading back to Chandler right after that. However, once we were in the van, the kids told us they really wanted to go down to Bisbee (even farther south) and go on a mine tour. We knew that would put us in pretty late at night, but decided to go for it.

First they suited us all up to go in the 40 degree mine:

Then we hopped on the mining train that miners used to ride into work on every day:

There's where we are going:

When we were deep inside the mine, the driver needed help navigating us out of there, so he let Sadie and Ashley take turns driving. Sadie is showing us how it was done once we got out into the sunlight:

Fun trip, great memories. And of course, seeing family was best of all!

Making me smile today

2010-04-12T19:51:00.005-07:00

The flowers in the garden.

Especially these ones. They almost didn't survive.

See how they look like weeds here? Now they open up to those delicate blue flowers ever morning!

Lots of trampoline time.

Static hair.

Beautiful weather.

Great friends.

The kids still playing with the cars and blocks.

It's been a good day.

A new niece- another oldie

2010-04-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

My little sister Maria had her third baby back in October and somehow this didn't get posted. Even though her baby is 5 months old now, I still just love these pictures, so I'm going to post it anyway!

Congratulations Tuan and Maria!

Big sister Emma and big brother Daniel

An oldie I just found

2010-04-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

These are photos of Uncle John's (Casey's cousin) visit last October.
The kids absolutely LOVE him!!

We survived Disneyland

2010-04-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

Seriously, the crowds were awful during our recent Spring Break. So bad in fact, that our best day there was the day we arrived at 7:30 p.m. and took the monorail in. We watched the fireworks and then were able to get right on five rides because the worst of the crowds left right after that.

Casey's parents met up with us for two of the days:

Our first day, Ashley and Sadie wore the matching shirts they got during our last visit:

Ashley took these photos in the "It's a Small World" ride using her camera:

Sometime during this ride, our family camera fell out of the backpack and into the boat. We didn't realize our camera was gone until we were about to leave the park and at that time we had no idea where we had lost it. So we filed a report with their Lost and Found office with little hope of it being recovered. However, the next day, they called to tell us they had found it! The last photo on the camera was black and blurry, and based on the time stamp, we concluded it was taken somewhere inside the "It's a Small World" ride. Wow we were relieved (and surprised) to get that back!

Besides Disneyland, we did some other fun stuff.

The girls played a lot with the dogs:

We played outside in the beautiful weather:

(Looking for a four leaf clover)

Patrick got a new hat and tshirt at the Vans store:

Cathy and I drove to an nearby city that had a fabulous fabric store that was so fun for me to visit! Loved it! When Patrick found out we were going, he quickly got on the web and discovered that there was a skate park literally right around the corner from the store. Very lucky!

A very fun Spring Break trip!

Surprise visitors!

2010-04-05T08:42:00.001-07:00

In February, my sister Sarah called to see if she could come visit with her kids. The long Idaho winter was making them stir crazy and we had plenty of sunshine to share with them. And besides, why was she asking?! We were DELIGHTED to have them visit!

To make it more fun, I kept it secret from my girls so they would be surprised when they answered the door and saw their cousins there. (We told Patrick because his bedroom doubles as our guest room, so he would be displaced for a week. Not that he cared- he knew that was the deal when he moved to the downstairs room.)

Anyway, look at these cute kids we had here for a week!

Oh yea, we had fun with them!

Sarah and I went to a local Farmer's Market and picked up a grapefruit and Ainsley got to try it for the first time. She loved it!

Sarah showed us how to make balloon shapes and made Sadie a penguin! Awesome!

We went to a handful of garage sales and among the treasures found was this costume:

Then we went to several soccer games. It was very windy that day!

A lot of time was spent on the trampoline:

And just generally.... outside

We celebrated Sarah's birthday with an ice cream pie:

I measured the girls and made them a few things including this swimsuit for Hannah:

We sure wish they lived closer!

Cracking me up!

2010-04-03T21:58:00.000-07:00

Half the fun of decorating eggs is writing secret messages with a white crayon on a dry egg and then letting the message show up. In the past, most of the messages have been self congratulatory ("Ashley rocks") or full of love ("I 'heart' Dad").

So with great amusement, we read some of the many secret messages showing up on our kids' eggs tonight:

I'm shell shocked

Eat More Cow

Let me Outta Here!

No Boys! Chicks only!

Try Me Sam I Am! (That's the green one on the right)

I taste like chicken

I came First

Love their sense of humor!

Spring in Arizona

2010-04-01T09:52:00.003-07:00

Flowers in the garden

Orange blossoms making the air smell divine

And Spring Training Games

Wish it would never end!

An Amazing Birthday Party

2010-03-27T08:25:00.002-07:00

For Ashley's 10th birthday, she requested an Amazing Race party. Luckily, Casey had a business trip scheduled so he could plan the entire trip during the four hour round trip car ride. Excellent! You see, I had no time to be planning the party. I was up to my eyeballs in glitter turquoise fabric at that time, remember? (Her birthday is January 27th)

He came up with some fabulous ideas of tasks for them to do. My job would be to convince some junior high girls to be 'chaperones' for each team, and to figure out how to divide them into teams. Ashley helped me put together a web made out of yarn. Each girl would have to grab the end of one piece of yarn and follow it to the end where there would be a piece of paper with the name of a color on it.

They would then get a shirt to match the color on their paper:

This is what the shirt looked like on the front.

Yes people, I embroidered all of those shirts. Don't ask me what I was thinking, because clearly I wasn't. But they were a big hit!

So after they were divided into teams, the race was on!

First they had to put together a 25 piece dollar store puzzle. Once the first team finished, they got their first clue. For clues, we used the priority mail cardboard envelopes from the post office and just glued a yellow paper with the Amazing Race logo on the front. Those envelopes rip open just like the ones in the show.

Their next task was to play a game of croquet. Patrick and a friend were in charge of that.

Then they had to run over to a nearby field and kick a soccer ball around a set of cones. But with a catch. They had to do it with 'three legs': two of their legs tied together.

After that, it was off to play a game of Jenga. Their goal: make the Jenga tower be at least 6 levels higher.

(The red team had 3 girls... all the other teams had 2 girls)

The next task was to find Patrick and his friend again and choose one of 4 songs to lip sync. After they chose the song, they were given a printout of the lyrics and Patrick played it on his ipod dock. They even had fake microphones to make it even more fun! The song most chosen was "Dancing Queen".

After that, they had to go find Casey and do 2 tasks: 1. put up a little pup tent and 2. climb in a sleeping bag and put on the clothes inside it then run around a cone and come back and take it all off. Hilarious! This was one of their favorite tasks!

Their next stop was a mandatory 10 minute break at the Pit Stop. That was the shade structure where I had oranges, apples, and other snacks, along with lots of water. As you can see, by this time, they were glad to have a break. Even though it was January and only 70 outside, they were RUNNING and wanted to win the race!

After the pit stop time was up, they got their next clue, which was to put a bracelet together in the exact order as a sample one. The hardest part for this was getting them tied off because they were all in such a hurry!

Off to the next task, a game where they had to throw three different types of balls past some cones Casey had set up about 10 yards away.

Then they had to answer some trivia questions, followed by a task where one of Patrick's friends threw baseballs and they had to get at least 1 hit.

One of our fabulouse chaperones!

Their final task was to use a nerf gun to shoot plastic Easter Eggs off of a table. They really liked that task too.

We tried to set up a game where they got a letter in each clue and at the end they had to put them in order to decode a secret message, but that kind of backfired because most teams lost a handful of the letters. In any case, they were able to guess the message (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY... I know, original!) and they were off to the final Pit Stop.

Here is our first team in!

Oops, too much sun in that one!

Here's team #2:

Team #3

and Team #4!

After getting some food and water, they lined up for a group photo:

Whew! I'm tired just remembering this party! I'm not joking when I say it would never have happened if Casey hadn't done 90% of the planning and execution. I also know we couldn't have done it without the help of our fabulous teen chaperones. I only wish I'd had the good sense to get photos of all four of them!

Prizes for the first and second place teams were bottles of lotion from Bath and Body Works. Third and fourth place teams got to have first pick of the hair clips. We had enough of these for our chaperones too which was a nice bonus.

In retrospect, I still can't believe we pulled this off. We planned for the party to last three hours and the first team barely made it in within that time. If you plan on doing a similar party, my suggestion would be to keep the number of tasks equal to or less than the age of the child. I think we had 12 tasks total, and Ashley was turning 10. Two less tasks would have probably been perfect. Live and learn, right?

Happy Birthday Ashley! (Sorry it's taken me exactly two months to get this on the blog!)

Blogligence

2010-03-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

The name for Blog negligence: blogligence. I didn't make it up, but it sure fits!

So this is my photo documentary of what we've been doing since Christmas Eve. First, we had the "Best Christmas Ever". This was written by Ashley on her new whiteboard easel:

We surprised the kids by getting them a trampoline and then we surprised them more when we made them put it together.

The trampoline continues to be a big hit! See that playground in the photo above? Here's a better view of the wretched thing:

It was in such bad shape that it bordered on dangerous. And that's not even counting the splinters factor! So one day Patrick and I took a socket wrench and some large screwdrivers to that thing and turned it into a pile of splintery wood. I was able to find someone on Freecycle to take the slide (it was a perfect fit for their playground!) and now that we've had a bulk pickup, it is ALL gone! Yea!

Let's see.... what else?

Sadie's troop had a field trip to a local pizza place and got to tour the kitchen where they make the dough. They even got to go in the walk-in refrigerator.

But really, who cares about dough, ovens, and pizza toppings when you are at Peter Piper Pizza? Let's check out the PRIZES! Oh yea... this was by far one of their favorite places to be!

Patrick scootered:

Lots of fort building.

Here are some photos taken inside the forts.

We had Bronco Spirit in our house when BSU played in the Tostitos bowl in Glendale. We LOVED having so much family with us!!

Sadie had a school music performance:

Then Sadie made New Year's Eve treats:

Ashley had a birthday:

(A big pkg from Grandpa S... what's inside?)

Another unusual and totally cool gift! "Where does he find these things?" the kids always ask.

(I embroidered the ballerina on this bag.)

We did an Amazing Race party for her birthday and I'll write about that in a separate post.

Patrick scootered some more. And started Track season with practice every day after school.

We had a surprise lunch visit with some friends from our college days. It was so fun to see Dave and Laurel! We figured out we hadn't seen them for over 12 years.

Ashley got braces on her top four teeth. More metal to add to the expander that she still has from November. We can see some amazing changes already!

Another field trip for Sadie's troop! Being a Girl Scout leader has it perks!

Sadie took lots of pictures of her animals and left them on my camera:

Somewhere in the middle of all of that..... I sewed 28 Show Choir dresses for the local middle school and four more dresses for the Chandler Children's Choir. Don't ask me when or how I did that. All I know is I don't remember January. I've already blocked it from my memory!

Once February came, we had a wonderful surprise visit along with a road trip to see family in southern AZ. I'll catch all that up in the next post.

Christmas Eve Day

2009-12-24T13:04:00.005-07:00

Here's a peek into our house on Christmas Eve day!

Crafts from Ashley's class party

Crafts from Sadie's class party:

The stockings have been handled and re-handled with care. The blue stocking is the coveted one this year so the girls have taped paper name tags next to each stocking. The name that is closest to the blue stocking keeps changing daily. I think we'll have to draw names tonight.

I should have taken a picture of this before I cleaned it up. Picture cardboard tubes, wrapping paper scraps and scissors strewn around the floor.

We love this little music box. Every hour, the doors open and little musicians come out and play a Christmas song.

One day to go!

Making sugar cookies so we can use all of those Christmas cookie cutters. Ironically, a seal cookie cutter got into that pile and it was the first one Sadie chose!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

As close as you'll get to a Christmas letter

2009-12-11T21:00:00.005-07:00

We really don't enjoy writing Christmas letters around here. But we do love reading everyone else's, so I figured I'd use this blog post to link you to some interesting events of the year. Probably the biggest news of the year is that we got a pet. A cute little kitty named Jasper. I can tell you are all in shock, so I'll let you in on a little secret. It's actually our next door neighbor's cat.

That cute little thing can play for HOURS with the girls and not get tired. And the best part of all is that it goes back home to someone else's house every night.

Sadie has recently decided bike riding isn't nearly as scary as it was that one time when she went off a curb and nursed scraped knees for a week. After refusing to get back on the bike for several months, she suddenly has decided it is her very favorite thing to do outside. (After she is tired of playing with the kitten).

Sadie also really enjoys her Brownie troop activities, especially this recent one to the Stuffington Bear Factory where they got to see how stuffed animals are cut, sewn, and stuffed. They each got to make a bear which we are donating to a local fire station when we go for our tour next week!

Ashley has had a busy month with her performances in the Nutcracker. She'll do her 5th and 6th performances this weekend. Her role is "Gingerette", which means she comes out of Mother Ginger's enormous skirt. Here she is in her costume ready to go on stage. (She is second from the right)

Grandma and Grandpa C. came from California to see her perform.

Here we all are before the show:

To see more dance pictures of Ashley, you can go HERE

Ashley is also active in her Junior Girl Scout troop and recently went to an Encampment up in Prescott where she got her Archery badge.

Patrick continues his obsession with scooter riding and has mastered some cool tricks:

When he isn't riding his scooter, he's taking it apart and painting it.

He recently won an online contest when he made a commercial for one of the scooter companies. You can see that HERE. To see more of his scooter riding, complete with videos go HERE. In his spare time, when he is not scootering, he goes to school (8th grade) and especially enjoys being on the PUE TV team that puts together weekly video announcements. Video editing is definitely one of his other favorite things to do.

He continues his love of soccer and chose that sport over running Cross Country this fall. We're not sure yet whether he'll return to running in the Spring, but we hope he does and continues to lower his mile time. His personal best is 5:49.

I haven't been good about updating this recently, mostly because I've been doing several large sewing jobs on the side that take up a lot of time. That and leading two girl scout troops, playing card games with the kids ('Speed' is the new favorite), and making sure homework gets done, rounds out my days.

Casey continues working for the AZ Attorney General's Office and helps out with the Webelos den once a week. For the first time in several years he did not coach any of our kid's soccer teams this fall and enjoyed being a spectator at all the games.

If this is your first time to visit our blog and you'd like to look through the archives over on the side bar, you can catch up with some of the many other things we did throughout this past year.

Turkey Trot

2009-11-30T10:12:00.003-07:00

Ashley and Sadie participated in their school's annual tradition: the Turkey Trot. This nearly one mile course around the park next to the school was loads of fun for them.

First they gathered by grade level for a 'warm up' Chicken Dance. This year the school mascot showed up too! Sadie wanted to look like a turkey so she wore a brown shirt and black shorts.

After the chicken dance, the P.E. teacher and one of her friends, both dressed in turkey costumes had to make sure they escaped the principal who was armed with a PAN and and SPOON! (In previous years, the principal had used a plastic fake knife to chase the turkeys, but felt that may be sending the wrong message.)

After the Chicken dance, the turkey chase, and stretching, they began the Turkey Trot!

At the end they got a High Five from a dove and a few turkeys:

Here are the girls' wonderful teachers:

Snapshot September

2009-10-04T21:18:00.002-07:00

I have been keeping so busy that I have neglected my sad blog. When I came back today, instead of the usual background behind the photos, it told me that I had exceeded my bandwith on Photobucket. It told me like a 100 times... so I really knew! Okay internet, I'll update my blog!

So here I am, with a fresh new background to match the glorious fall weather that is FINALLY here. Yes! We can open our windows in the morning and evening and bask in luxurious 70 degree temperatures. Ahhhh!

What have we been up to here in this household of ours? Well, follow along with the photos below:

Going back to school

Updating styles

Discovering Axe (I had no idea this stuff existed until now!)

Enjoying a Visit from Dan and Gretchen and their two super cute kids, Kytalin and London :

Going to Junior Girl Scout meetings:

Auditioning for the Middle School Soccer team.

Making the Middle School Soccer team.

Going to lots of practices and lots of Middle School Soccer Games.

Baking

Going to first Brownie meeting. (Sorry Sadie, no picture)

Going to the "Patriotic" ice cream social on September 11th

Attending a Diamondbacks baseball game where the Girl Scouts got to walk on the field before the game began.

Sleeping with tons of animals

Making matching t-shirts with a friend for Spirit Week at school

Auditioning for the Nutcracker

Being Cast in the Ballet Etudes Nutcracker as a Gingerette

Wearing "Peace" pajamas to school for an earned Pajama Day

Making forts, libraries, and stores

Making Swaps for the Girl Scout Swap-A-Rama-
These are mini 'fly swatters' that the girls brought to trade

Going to skate parks

Running the Swap-A-Rama for 100 girls and their leaders- Sadie's troop was in charge.

Making Swaps:

Trading Swaps:

In between all of that, I have been spearheading the No cost fundraising at the school (Box Tops anyone?), trying to get the winter flowers in- yes, we plant flowers here in autumn, and working my side job as a seamstress. This meant measuring over 25 girls and boys in the Chandler Children's choir , and getting their performance outfits ready for the first fitting. I am happy to say that they are ready for the fitting! Woo hoo!

Also, Ashley really really wanted to make something for her 3 year old cousin's birthday, so she picked out the fabric and the pattern and helped with the cutting and sewing. This is what she sent Ainsley for her birthday!

As if all of THAT wasn't enough, all three kids started rec. league soccer teams in the middle of the month. Luckily Patrick's games are on Friday evening and the girls games are on Saturday mornings. Casey is not coaching any teams this season and is really enjoying being a spectator at the games. I only have photos of Sadie's games fo far:

(No I didn't make the banner- for the first time, another mom put this together! Love it!)

So now you know what we've been up to. Off to conquer October!

Snapshot Sunday 08-09-09

2009-08-09T16:50:00.001-07:00

Bags of Games and VHS movie in bags ready to Freecycle
The woman who received this stuff deserves it I think! Here is what she wrote in response to my email about items we are done with:

We would totally use any of these items that are still available. My 2
year old broke her femur and is in a full body cast (chest to ankles). We
are living off of movies and everyone is soooooo bored! My 5 year old
LOVES puzzles and we are looking for items to keep them both (and me!)
from going stir crazy until the cast is removed (3 more weeks!).

I love Freecycle!

Scooter Graveyard.

Guess what tomorrow is?

Over 6 inches of hair- cut off in 3 inch increments.
Ashley usually hollers when I trim off even 1/2 inch, so to hear her ask me to chop off this much really surprised me.
It took me four tries to get it to the length that she wanted because I was so scared of making it too short.

(When we started it was below the edge of the light pink shirt)

She's still smiling! (Whew!)
She actually loves it and I like that it will be so much easier to take care of!

Road Trip: Days 5-8

2009-08-04T08:30:00.001-07:00

Mesa Verde National Park.

From the website:

Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. Descendants of Mesa Verde Ancestral Puebloans include the Hopi in Arizona, and the 19 Rio Grande pueblos of New Mexico: Taos, Picuris, Sandia, Isleta, San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nambe, TeItalicsuque, Jemez, Cochiti, Pojoaque, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Zia, Laguna, Acoma, and Zuni.

We really enjoyed visiting all of the sites there, and learning about the fascinating history of the people who lived in the cliff dwellings for less than 100 years. (They lived and farmed on the mesas above for hundreds of years before moving down to the cliffs.)

As we were waiting for one of our tours to begin, we had about a 30 minute wait so we pulled out some lunch supplies from our cooler. As I took a perfectly ripe, delicious looking peach out of a plastic bag, it slipped from my hand and rolled about 4 feet beyond a retaining fence, next to a log. There it sat, bright orange, tempting me to climb over the fence to grab it. Resigned that I would have to find something else to eat, I asked the kids how long it would stay there before an animal would find it. Not 20 seconds later, a squirrel came bounding out from under a nearby tree, grabbed that peach in it's teeth and took off down the hill.

Because the peach was half the size of the squirrel, it quickly fell out of it's mouth and started rolling quickly down the hill. It was like watching a cartoon, as the squirrel sped down the hill trying to outrun the peach and successfully catching it again in it's mouth. Yes, that perfectly ripe peach would have been a delicious lunch, but at least we got some amusement out of the tragedy.

After we wore ourselves out with 2 days of hiking through the ruins, we moved to a campground outside the park and the next day drove to a Mountain Resort near Durango, Colorado. There, we went on the Alpine slide and the kids got to go on the Bungee Trampoline and the rock climbing wall:

(If you enlarge Patrick's picture above, you can see that someone drew a picture of Wonder Bread on it. )

Patrick even found a totally cool "mountain scooter" and we saw several people riding the lift with these.

Unfortunately our day in Durango ended earlier than expected as a big thunderstorm blew in and closed down all the attractions. We drove back to our campground, which luckily had a little "clubhouse" that we were able to stay in for the worst of the storm.

After our eventful Durango day, we drove to Flagstaff, with many stops along the way to look at the handcrafted items offered for sale by Navajo Indians in booths along the road. Casey and I were on the lookout for pottery, while Ashley was looking for miniature turtle fetishes (see HERE for more information on Indian animal fetishes). Patrick wanted a tomahawk, and Sadie... well, she just wanted to buy something, anything. After about 4 stops, we all found what were were looking for, and then some.

Ashley's turtles:

Patrick's tomahawk and arrow. That's petrified wood at the end of his tomahawk.

Sadie's keychain and hair clips.

My earrings:

Our Navajo Indian pottery which we really love. Those pictures are carved in, not painted. It was worth the wait to find these gems:

As we drove a bit further, we saw a sign in the distance that said "Dinosaur tracks ahead". So we followed the sign off the highway and about 500 feet ahead was a man in the road waving us over. We saw tents with jewelry vendors not far behind him, so we slowed down. He motioned for us to pull into a parking spot next to another minivan and to "lock our cars because a lot of Highway patrolmen chase people down this road." All righty then.

After, we locked our car, he proceeded to follow us down toward the dinosaur tracks, jabbering nonstop about all sorts of things, like how it snowed the previous night. At this point, I told him that we were going to go ahead and look at the flag on the hill in the distance, though he clearly wanted to guide us a different way. Once we got out of earshot, I told Casey that I think we had our first inebriated tour guide. We got a few photos before our guide caught up:

He then took us to see some dinosaur fossils and some even bigger footprints.

See the 3 footprints in a row by his right foot?

Looking at the fossils

By this time, I had figured out the gig. We had been given a ramshackle tour and he would expect a tip at the end. Which put us in an awkward situation, knowing this man was drunk and knowing right where the money would go. In fact, as we were looking through the craft tables after our tour (while our guide hovered inches from us), one of the women walked up to Casey and told him not to feel pressured to pay him, because it would just encourage his bad habits of begging for alcohol money. In the end, we did give him a few bucks because he did show us a few things (like the fossils) that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. As soon as he had the money, he disappeared over a nearby hill and joined about 5 other men waiting for the next vehicle to drive up.

Though our guide was in bad shape, the vendors won us over with their lovely items. This is where Ashley purchased her turtle necklace and Sadie got her hair clips. Though Patrick had already purchased a tomahawk, he was still interested in the ones this boy had helped his mom make.

After all of our stops, we pulled into Flagstaff around 5 p.m. After 6 nights of camping, we were very glad to see our hotel room. Though we mildly considered driving the next 3 hours on home, we are glad that we took a break to enjoy some well-needed down time. The kids enjoyed the pool, I enjoyed the shower, and we were refreshed to drive the last leg home.

Road Trip- Days 1-4

2009-08-02T21:30:00.001-07:00

This was our first summer in many years that we didn't fly up to Idaho for 3 weeks. Instead, we took an 8 day road trip and saw some parts of Arizona and several other states that we hadn't visited before. First, we stopped at Payson, AZ which is only about 2 1/2 hours north of us and a place where we had all been numerous times. About 10 minutes after we arrived, a spectacular storm blew over with lots of lightning, thunder and a heavy downpour. Luckily the worst of it only lasted about 30 minutes, so we were able to get our tents up. However, it was still quite wet and the trees were dripping a lot of rain on us while we were trying to make dinner:

Luckily, the next morning we were drying out. For this part of the trip, we actually had 3 dome tents set up. One for Casey and me, one for the girls to share, and one for Patrick. The girls especially enjoyed having their own tent:

After staying there for a few nights, we packed up and headed east. We spent that night in Gallup, New Mexico and got to see this great sight at the local Taco Bell:

The next day we drove on, and stopped at Petrified Forest National Park.

The kids got packets to become Junior Rangers and as we looked at some of the sights, they filled out their worksheets:

At one stop, we saw this amazingly awesome RV. Besides the full size satellite dish on top near the back, we could see in the door when it was parked that it had green shag carpeting. Sweet!

At the end, the kids earned their Junior Ranger badges, and were also given a really cool patch. They also each chose a small petrified wood rock.

We then drove on to Four Corners and took turns standing in four states all at the same time!

Next stop: Mesa Verde National Park.

Teenager in the house!

2009-07-15T08:00:00.001-07:00

It's happened! Patrick has turned 13! And he hasn't colored his hair purple... yet.

Seriously, though, we had a great day with him on Sunday. Here are some of the highlights:

The birthday fruit pizza. So yummy! Much better than cake... especially in this heat!

Wearing the birthday hat at dinner. (Don't worry, he's fake crying. Because it's funny to do that.)

Piles of gifts on the mantel.

Opening cards and gifts from family.

Because I've done a recent post about Patrick's love of scootering, I'll concentrate this post about everything else "Patrick."

First of all, he brings *ton* of energy into our home. I forgot how much energy until he was gone for a week. When he returned home after scout camp, our house practically pulsated with excitement and energy as he and his sisters got reaquainted and re-mastered the art of making me crazy with their constant annoying noises, tackling, and sending various things flying through the air.

This next statement is for all the new readers of my blog. Patrick loves sports. No, Patrick LIVES for sports. He is an amazing athlete, excelling especially in soccer and cross-country /track. And... for the first time this year, he earned the Presidential Physical Fitness Award. Which means folks:

Here he is in May, wearing his newest favorite shirt, and holding all of his award ceremony certificates. Undoubtedly his favorite one is the one with President Obama's signature stamped on it.

Yes, he was absolutely STOKED to earn this award!

To sum up the rest of Patrick's personality, enjoy the following slide show. I just took some random photos of his bedroom and the surrounding area. I think you'll agree: Patrick is a very interesting and lovable kid. We are sure glad he's in our family!

(You can click on any of the slideshow photos to enlarge them)

Happy Birthday Buddy!

The Recital

2009-07-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

Ashley had a fun and successful recital. This year she took Jazz and Ballet so she was in two dances. Here is her ballet tutu which she absolutely LOVED:

She participated in the big ballet which performed 'Cinderella'. Her group was the "mini fairies".

Patrick helped me edit the dress rehearsal videos we took.

For Jazz class, they performed "Rockstar" and this was their costume. (Love the poof ponytail?)

This clip shows her performing Rockstar and also shows them practicing the finale to "Footloose".

At the end of the recital, the director brought all the girls onto the stage and gave out awards. Ashley was pleasantly surprised to find out she got one of 3 "Outstanding Students" awards. I later spoke with the ballet teacher who said it was an easy choice: she was always at class, always participating, and it was obvious that she had practiced a lot at home. Indeed she had. Much to Patrick's chagrin!

Here she is with her award:

And this is her with her participation medal:

Way to go Ashley!!

Making my first swimsuit

2009-07-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

I finally attempted my first swimsuit. The first try turned out too small, so I put it in the mail to my niece who is 2 years younger than Sadie. Reports are that it fits her perfectly!

This is Sadie wearing my second attempt:

Isn't the fabric fun? Sadie picked it out when we ordered from my favorite online source for lycra: spandexworld.com. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but this is a tankini: one of the best inventions ever for little girls in my opinion.

One thing I love about making your own suit, is you get to fix all those irritating problems with store bought suit. Not enough bum coverage? Waist too low? Tankini top too short? Alter the pattern to fix it. This pattern was based on Jalie 2317 (You can look at it at jalie.com). I love Jalie patterns because you can achieve a custom fit by tracing off the pattern based on your exact measurements, instead of being lumped into one size. And even better? All Jalie patterns come in sizes child size 2 all the way up to Adult size 22 so you can reuse the pattern for everyone.

Because she has such fair skin, and we are at swimming lessons every morning, I also drafted a pattern for a rash guard from one of her existing swim shirts:

One of my favorite things about this suit is I can pick her out of the entire class from across the pool.

Freestyle Scootering

2009-07-03T08:39:00.003-07:00

I can't post anything else without mentioning Patrick's total and complete love of "Scootering". How much does he love it?

When it is too hot to ride outside, he builds cardboard ramps to "finger board" indoors with tech deck skateboards:

When one of his friends Tyler, who also scooters, comes over, they build "ghetto ramps" like this one:

Is this dangerous? Are the helmets *really* necessary? (Asks Patrick for the umpteenth time) Well, let's just say that the ghetto ramp sent a board flying at one point, and the helmet prevented a certain concussion. Patrick is now a believer!

(Here's his decorated helmet with logos he designed)

One day, after observing, photographing and even filming a bit of the ghetto ramp, I gave in to one of Patrick's requests: to help him make a "box". We started with a pallet, measured all the sides, then went to Lowes and purchased a piece of plywood. They cut it down to our measurements for us and we came home and covered all the sides:

An extra piece of plywood made a nice ramp onto the box.

Test run:

This photo shows the "rail" we installed on the one end using PVC pipe and 2 inch screws that went through the pipe and into the wood.

I got lots of hugs for helping him complete that project!

Another thing Patrick loves to do is film the scooter tricks and then spend hours editing them into mini movies. I wouldn't expect anyone to make it past about the 20 second mark, but here are his favorite ones so far:

At the skate park (Casey went and filmed him one Saturday morning)

And finally, he made a movie showing how he totally tricked out his scooter using spray paint and brand new grip tape. (After he made this movie, he added gold stripes to the top 6 inches of his scooter- I'll get a photo of that later)

Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony

2009-07-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over a month since this fun event. Both girls bridged to new levels in Girl Scouts. Ashley went from Brownies to Juniors, and Sadie bridged from Daisies to Brownies.

Because I am a co-leader for both troops, I arranged a potluck dinner and ceremony on the same day.

Here are both troops before they bridged:

Ashley's troop voted to have the sashes instead of the vests:

Congratulations girls!

Blast to the recent past

2009-07-01T08:24:00.001-07:00

Summer has kept us very busy. So busy in fact, that I just realized I have some photos that I intended to share about 2 months ago, but they never got posted. Over the next few days, I'll try to get the rest of my other photos uploaded before I get too busy again.

The first group of photos are several of the kids' final school projects.

First up, Sadie.

Guidelines: Make something useful out of recycable items. She came up with this:

At school, she wrote this piece about why her item was useful:

On to Ashley.
Guidelines: Build a boat no larger than 12 inches by 12 inches out of common household items. Bring it to school and see which boat will float the longest after weights are put into it. Her styrofoam masterpiece came in 3rd place. (If you click on the photo to maximize it, you can see the pirate commandeering the ship.)

And finally, Patrick!
Guidelines: Make a mask.

Homer in the house!

Snapshot Sunday

2009-06-28T22:15:00.001-07:00

It's been an entire month since I've posted and what do you get? One of my Snapshot Sundays. A peek into my life. Which is full of half finished projects. Wanna see?

Fruit ready to be frozen, then put in freezer bags for smoothies or to go on ice cream.
I love it that fresh fruit is so inexpensive right now!

Curtains for my sewing room windows. This is literally what the machine looks like right now. Halfway through a seam when I was interrupted. Probably for a game of "Pokemon Sorry". (Which I most likely lost to Sadie)

More curtains waiting to be hemmed.

Fabric waiting to be sorted and counted for my swatch book.
Yes, I'm making an active effort to be ORGANIZED!

Rules for Snapshot Sunday:

"....walk through my life at the moment - wherever I am, whatever I'm doing and take five snapshots. No people, no arranging, no cleaning up. Sometimes captions, sometimes not. "This is my life. Right now."

My sister began this, and you can see the most recent list of participants here. Jump in and play!

Happy 7th Birthday Sadie!

2009-05-27T07:52:00.002-07:00

The excitement has been building for oh, about 6 months now, and the day is finally here! Sadie's birthday! She is so excited to be a year older and will be having a "Jungle" birthday party with her friends this Saturday! Here's a little about Sadie right now.

She loves to draw and especially color. We call her "Sherbet girl" because she favors bright colors and eccentric designs. Every picture she colors is a masterpiece- she colors all the way to the edges.

She loves her stuffed animals and takes them on all sorts of amazing adventures around the house. They go on roller coasters, under the sea, and on all sorts of 'field trips.'

Within the past two months, she has become an exceptional reader and is now on book 12 in the Magic Tree House chapter book series. This pleases me beyond words. Especially considering that when she started this school year, she was still stringing three letter words together.

She loves the movie Kung Fu Panda and is excited to start a Kung Fu (karate) class next week. She tried on the outfit from when Ashley did the class and was busting some pretty cool moves:

If she had her choice, she would choose the following combinations for her bedroom walls: zebra stripes on the bottom and pink with purplish polka dots on the top. She's informed us of her wishes several times.

All school year, no matter where her best buddies were sitting, she always chose this spot at the end of the table to eat lunch. Why? Because Ashley's class walked by about 5 minutes before Sadie was done and she wanted to give Ashley a 'high five' every day. Makes me smile.

Here's a trip down memory lane. Seven years sure goes fast!

Happy Birthday Sadie!

I think he's a Clone now....

2009-05-26T08:16:00.003-07:00

Patrick and his clone lip sync to Weird Al's "I think I'm a Clone Now".

He did all the editing himself with Vegas Movie Studio.

Enjoy!

Spirit Week- Hippie and Twin days

2009-05-25T08:33:00.001-07:00

We finished out Spirit Week with Hippie day and Twin Day. These are now a couple of weeks old, but new to most of you so here you go.

The closest we could get to Hippie, and that appealed to Sadie was this t-shirt. (See the peace sign in the middle?)

Ashley had no desire to dress like a Hippie. However, she and her friend Audrey spent hours planning their twin day:

Sadie was actually a "triplet" for twin day and their planning was equally intense to make sure the shirts, the shorts, and the hairstyle matched as closely as possible. A cute side story is one of the girls she was a triplet with is actually a twin in real life and for twin day, all those twins wanted to do was NOT be a twin with their sister.

Here are some other twins I spotted:

Emerging from the dungeon for Snapshot Sunday

2009-05-24T14:25:00.006-07:00

On Thursday, the brand new air conditioner was installed, and boy do we love it! It took a few days to get the house back in order after existing in the same 600 square feet for eating, sleeping, and playing.

Here are are a few random, spontaneous photos from our house today. There are a few more than 5 this week:

Movie Theater

Chalks for decorating Sadie's birthday invitations

Did I mention the last day of school was on Thursday? A good day all around!

Mopping day = Musical Chairs Game

Sadie's Rock Collection

Snapshot Sunday

2009-05-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

This week's Snapshot Sunday is to share with you our delightful news:

The air conditioner is broken.

Dead.

It's only 109 degrees outside right now.

I'm surprised the laptop hasn't melted.

We would be in pure misery right now if it weren't for a good friend who had a window air conditioner sitting in their shed. Here is that beautiful beautiful machine:

Because the coolest room is naturally downstairs, we installed the window unit there, and we all moved down for a fun night of indoor camping:

Even the indoor plants couldn't take the heat and had to be moved downstairs:

Yea, it's pretty bad. And what makes it so frustrating is that we have been researching getting a new air conditioner for nearly a month. Knowing we had a unit that was probably on it's last summer, we thought we were so clever, so forward thinking, to get the air conditioner installed now, in May so we wouldn't have to go through EXACTLY what we are going through now. Ugh! So guess when the new air conditioner is due to be installed? This Thursday. Four days from now.

Oh well. Looking on the bright side, we made the decision on which company and which air conditioner unit to go with back when we weren't melting and desperate. Now that I've put a call into the installation company, hopefully they can bump up our installation date, so we can exist in more than one room in our house.

In other news, I found this great shelf/bench thingy at a garage sale yesterday. Four bucks. Yes, it needs fresh paint and a cushion on the top, but it is the perfect piece to sit at the end of my sewing room, next to the large bay window.

Also, when I was organizing my fabric stash, I discovered that I had accumulated all of this tulle. I knew I had a bunch of flannel, cotton, and dressy materials, but for some reason, this really surprised me. Now I have to figure out how to store it without making an even bigger mess.

So there you have it. A snapshot into our lives today.

Wacky Hair Day

2009-05-12T21:18:00.006-07:00

It's Spirit Week around here, and after yesterday's Pajama Day, the kids were pumped for a new theme: Wacky Hair Day.

Here is Sadie in full Wacky splendor:

What? That's not "Wacky" you say? Those are beautiful curls that make her look about 3 years older? Indeed. However, if you know Sadie and how she likes her hair straight, and in a simple headband every single day, you'd realize how to her, this look is WACKY.

Ashley may look the same from the front, but turn her around:

And there are 9 separate ponytails sticking out the back, sides, and top of her head.

Coming up: Stuffed Animal Day, Hippie Day, and Twin Day. Should be fun!

Snapshot Sunday

2009-05-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Here are my entries for today's "Snapshot Sunday"

Because apparently, the opening to the laundry hamper just isn't big enough.

This is a hilarious game. The goal is to jump your character around the perimeter of the game board. You draw cards that tell you how many spaces to jump. If you pick up a card that says "Croc time", you have to push the button on top of the battery-powered crocodile and it starts sporadically moving around the game board. If the croc bumps the bottom piece that your character is attached to, the character goes flying through the air. The girls LOVE to play this game and always cracks us up when one of the players is sent flying.

Here are the rules for Snapshot Sunday:

"....walk through my life at the moment - wherever I am, whatever I'm doing and take five snapshots. No people, no arranging, no cleaning up. Sometimes captions, sometimes not. "This is my life. Right now."

Would you like to join in the fun? It's quite fun! (Leave me a comment so I can go look!)

Want a snow cone?

2009-05-09T10:08:00.001-07:00

Ashley was serving them at a FCA event last night:

That's syrup all over her arms and legs and all over her (thankfully black) t-shirt.

It was bound to happen...

2009-05-08T22:44:00.006-07:00

A friend of mine sent me this news story today.

It must be because I never ever raise my voice.

*snort*

5.49

2009-04-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

Patrick got his personal best mile time on Saturday. Five minutes and 49 seconds.

Way to go buddy!

Snapshot Sunday- Sadie edition

2009-04-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Sadie's turn to submit photos to "Snapshot Sunday"

How did it all start?

See here

Easter Baskets - Girl Scouts style

2009-04-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Every year, our Girl Scout neighborhood does a service project where the girls make Easter baskets that are donated to a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix. Both Ashley and Sadie's troops made a ton of baskets. All we ask is for girls to bring donations to the meeting, and we use whatever supplies we have. This is always one of the favorite meetings of our year. Here are some of the creations from Sadie's Daisy meeting:

The Stash of Stuff

As you can see, at Sadie's age, the goal is quantity of items in the baskets, not necessarily beauty of the basket. (We had to retake this photo 3 times because everyone kept losing stuff from their baskets.)

Ashley's Brownie troop, however is much more interested in beautifying the baskets:

Whoa Bessie Wednesday

2009-04-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

Patrick is very silly. Surprised?

He and his friends act like typical middle school kids and have recently decided that it is funny to say "Whoa Bessy" all the time. Patrick asked me if I could make him a shirt that had a cow and this phrase on it. Of course I gave him the absurd look that said without uttering a sound, "why would you want to wear a shirt with that on it?" Casey gave the idea a big thumbs down.

Undeterred, Patrick got on my embroidery software program, worked out the design and asked me again if I would put it on his red tshirt.

How could I say no to that?

So here is the final design:

After I got one done, he wore it to school the next day and whatdoyaknow, his two best friends wanted the same shirt. I'm way too nice. I made them shirts too. That was a few weeks ago. Patrick informed me that today is "Whoa Bessie Wednesday" and they are all going to wear their shirts on the same day.

I see a fashion trend starting. Perhaps.

Two wheels

2009-04-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sadie recently got a brand new bike and after riding it for less than a week was ready to try it without the training wheels. Yesterday, she was very excited to master riding on two wheels!

Little Designers

2009-04-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

If nothing else shows the difference between our girls, this will. About a week ago, I let Ashley and Sadie dig through my stash of fabric to decide what they would like to use to make an Easter dress. While Ashley was drawn to the deep dark colors, Sadie found some tie dye type fabric that had been gathering dust in my fabric closet for about two years. I had found this on the clearance rack at Joann's and there were two matching fabrics: a shiny satin type fabric, and a sheer tulle type fabric. She looked through my patterns and found this one:

The fabric and pattern combination had Casey muttering things like "atrocious" under his breath. I wasn't so sure it would work out either, but as long as the fabric didn't have any other use, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Well, our little designer Sadie has an eye for these things. Look how cute it turned out:

Ashley on the other hand, found this pattern:

And combined it with some dark blue satin material. She also found some matching sheer tulle with shimmery dots all over that we added to the skirt for a top layer:

Not your traditional Easter dresses, but I guarantee there is not another one just like it out there. And the best part: both girls designed their dresses all by themselves!

Snapshot Sunday- Ashley edition

2009-04-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

Ashley wanted to take photos of her room, so I figured we'd submit it to this week's "Snapshot Sunday"

(Yes, those Bratz dolls are in the trashcan after they sat unplayed with on her shelf for over a year. She put them in there and I didn't bother taking them out. Not even for the donation box.)

An Easter message from Sadie

2009-04-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

Written last night before bed:

Soccer Saturday

2009-04-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

The spring soccer season is over, I have to show you quick what our Saturdays looked like with 3 kids on 3 different teams. Oy.

First, we have to cart all our crap to each game. Luckily we invested in a handy fold up rolling cart so we don't have to carry it all:

Then we watch Sadie play:

She gets oranges at half time:

Coach Casey giving them pointers between quarters:

Then it's off to an entirely different field to see Ashley play. Yes, that means reloading all our stuff to the car, reloading, then unloading it about 5 miles away. It's worth it to watch her play:

She has the same awesome coach as Sadie, and he is giving the girls a much needed pep talk.

Finally, we repeat what we already did earlier and head about 5 miles away to yet another field to watch Patrick play. His games are especially fun to watch since the kids really know their positions and many of them have mastered them. Patrick is definitely a forward and can really put the moves on the other team out there. He had many assists and also quite a few goals this season. Don't play him at defense though. The one time is coach put him back, it was a big mistake. Nuff said.

He's 3rd from the left:

Speedster:

After coaching two teams for two seasons, it's safe to say Casey is ready for a break. It's here.

Ashley's Cafe

2009-04-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this yet. Ashley's birthday party this year was a "cooking" party and was held way back at the end of January. (Where has the time gone... sheesh!) It was way too fun not to share some of the details.

First, the girls arrived and got to choose an apron. These were aprons I made a few years ago for a boutique, but didn't sell, and really... didn't they just look mahvelous on those girls? Here's the first group of girls to arrive:

These two friends arrived later, and I think it's pretty obvious what they both love!

First we played a game where they had to try to unwrap a gift while wearing oven mitts. It was a riot and was much harder than they thought it would be. To make it fair, we had the girls each take turns rolling a dice. If they got a "6", then they would have 30 seconds to have a go at it.

As you can see, from the different wrapping paper, each box had another box inside it that they had to unwrap.

Will this ever end? What is inside that box?!

They finally got the box opened, and inside were chef hats and recipe books for all the girls! Recipes for what we would be making that night.

I divided the girls into two groups. The first one began putting toppings on their english muffins for mini pizzas. The other group made smoothies.

There was a big variety of items for them to try, and seeing what color their smoothie ended up was probably one of the highlights of the party.

This is where I must interject my party description for a public service announcement. Everyone should really own one of these:
It's called a "Magic Bullet" and my neighbor let me borrow hers for the party. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but there is one silver base, and four cups. You screw the black lid with a chopper blade onto the cup, turn it upside down, push it onto the base, and about 15 seconds later, the smoothie is completely done! After each girl finished, all I had to do was rinse the blade unit under the sink and we were ready for the next girl. Because we had so many girls, some had to pour theirs out of the mug and into a tall glass so we could rinse and reuse the mugs.

I can't even express how much easier this is than the traditional blender. The best part is how fast cleanup is! I returned this to my neighbor and the next time I got a 20% coupon to Bed Bath and Beyond, I picked up this awesome kitchen tool. We use it every. single. day. Love it.

Now, where were we?

That's right... smoothies finished!

After their pizzas finished cooking, they ate their yummy meal.

All the chefs, posing for a group shot:

Fun times!

Choir dresses

2009-04-02T21:09:00.001-07:00

I've fallen behind in updating my blog, but I've got a good excuse. Honest! I was busy turning this:

Into this:

Yep, that is 15 choir dresses and 4 vests for a local children's choir. (You can see photos of choir members wearing the performance outfits here) I didn't make all of those dresses that you see on that website. I was hired on after a local company made most of the ones in the photos, but made them skin tight instead of any kind of ease in them. Parents were not happy. So I made the ones for all the incoming December members. I had to draft the pattern from an existing dress which was a brand new project for me. The sleeves were like none I had ever seen, but are really a pretty addition to the dress

As you can see from the photo, they ranged in size from 6 year old to 13 year old. (One vest was for a 6 year old, the other for a 10 year old.) Also, each dress came with a red and purple headband as well as a red and purple sash. It was a huge project and luckily all but one fit perfectly the first time. (Some side seam alterations fixed the one problem dress.) To say I was relieved was an understatement!

The interesting thing about this project, is it boosted my confidence in sewing outfits for others based solely on measurements. Also, because those dresses and vests are made out of spandex, I really got a crash course in sewing stretch knit. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I had anticipated, and in fact, I'm going to attempt to make some swimsuits for my girls now. Trying to find something to fit my tall skinny girls with long torsos is nearly impossible. Ashley's 9 year old waist fits a size 6X, but there is no way the suit of that size is comfortable in any other way. I'll keep you posted if I am successful in that!

I did, however, already make the dress below. Ashley had been absolutely drooling over this pattern for about 6 months now, so I gave it a try. It is made out of gold Mystique spandex. It turned out very cute and she wears it nearly every day.

I have lots more posts to come soon.

Happy St. PATRICK's Day!

2009-03-17T08:15:00.001-07:00

Catastrophe Averted

2009-02-20T20:57:00.004-07:00

What started out as jubiliation quickly went down the drain. Literally.

Sadie, whose front two teeth are finally growing in after being gone for over 6 months, finally lost another tooth. It was a painless tooth-coming-out episode and she was laughing as she brought it to me. It was not, however, without a mild mess, so she handed me her bloody tooth, rinsed her mouth, and washed her face. I was rinsing off the tooth when suddenly the tiny thing slid out of my hand and went.... down. the. drain. Shoot!

I knew I was in trouble and had to think fast so this 6 year old, who fervently believes in the tooth fairy, wouldn't have a meltdown. I mean, how is she supposed to get money, if there is no tooth to exchange? Aha! An idea! We'll write a letter to the tooth fairy!

On the front:

On the back:

And just so the tooth fairy knows Sadie is not cheating, she insisted we take a picture of her mouth with the missing tooth and put it next to her tooth fairy pillow on the door. I mean, if there wasn't evidence, she reasoned, she could just write a letter every single night and cash in!

Nine Already?

2009-01-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

I remember when Patrick turned 9, I wondered how I could possibly be old enough to have a child that age. And now my second child is 9 years old. How could it be? In any case, I can't imagine life without her.

Ashley is our koala girl. She loves these animals so much that we made a special trip to the San Diego zoo last year so we could see some of them.

She also loves to dance. This year she is taking jazz and ballet, but ballet is her true love. She loves everything about performing: the audience, the costumes, the fancy hair, and the stage makeup.

She loves Girl Scouts and her friends.

And boy, does Ashley love babies!

Like her siblings, Ashley is very competitive on the soccer field.

Ashley is a major High School Musical fan. She dressed up as Sharpay for Halloween (though she is actually more of a Gabrielle groupy) and her birthday party last year was HSM themed. Remember?

Well, this year, as a big surprise, Casey took her to see HSM on ice. But he kept it a secret by first taking her to the brand new Lightrail in Tempe for a ride to downtown Phoenix.

When they got off the train, they were almost to the door of the USWest Arena before she realized they would be watching the HSM show. She was so excited and absolutely LOVED every minute of it!

We'll be hosting Ashley's party for her friends this Saturday evening. She chose to do a 'cooking' party so this should be fun... and messy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY!

Here's a quick trip down memory lane:

Age 1

Age 2

Age 3

Age 4

Age 5

Age 6

Age 7

Age 8

Snapshot Sunday

2009-01-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

I know... I'm posting this on Tuesday. But I took the photos on Sunday.

My sister challenged me to do this. The idea is to take a handful of random shots of things around your house once a week. So here we go:

The new haircut.

Moon Shoes

2009-01-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen these for ages. But Grandpa S. found them and sent them to Ashley for Christmas.

Awesome!

The Cow Merit Badge

2009-01-11T07:44:00.001-07:00

Patrick is very lucky to have and aunt and uncle who live on a farm. Visiting them is the highlight of our summer vacation:
He loves all of the animals: goats, horses, pigs, chickens, cats, and dogs.

This past summer, he spent hours with both Matt and Sarah answering very detailed questions about farm animals. He also toured a dairy farm and all the inner workings of the machinery. Consequently, he earned the "Animal Science" merit badge, affectionately called "The Cow" merit badge around here.

Thank you Matt!

Thank you Sarah!

He also, with the help of Grandpa S, solidly earned the Fishing merit badge while hiking up in Idaho lakes last summer. Thanks for making sure he adequately passed off all the requirements Grandpa!

Snow Day!

2009-01-08T08:10:00.001-07:00

At Patrick's request, we took a Snow Day. We drove up toward Flagstaff and played in all of the recent snow they have had.

We stopped for a break on the way up and had fun playing in the field next to the gas station:

(Yes, our kids are mesmerized by the snow that we have to drive to)

We found one ski resort near Williams that has a place set up for really fun tubing. You had to pull your tube to the top where there was a ramp and some workers who helped give you a big shove and a spin off the top. In the words of Sadie, "IT WAS AWESOME! Can we go again?" From Ashley, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" (She would scream the entire way down, every single time)

After the tubing place closed for the day, the kids wanted to play in more snow, so even though it was getting dark, we found a park and they attempted to make a snowman.

Brrrrr! The snow was fun, but we are glad to be back in our 50 degree weather.

Masterpiece

2009-01-07T07:23:00.001-07:00

Sadie got a new chalk set from Grandpa S.

She and Ashley spent about an hour to produce this masterpiece:

Unfortunately we got a rare Arizona rain the night after she finished so most of it is gone. Luckily, there is still tons of chalk left to make a NEW masterpiece!

The best part about the Holidays

2009-01-05T08:12:00.001-07:00

Getting cards, photos, and letters from friends and family is one of my favorite things about this time of year. Several of my friends now have blogs so we have reconnected that way as well.

Here are some of the favorite cards we received. (I'm sure you can guess who voted on the last one!)

The funny thing about the following card, is the friend who sent it actually OWNS the lamp in the picture... or somehow she sent a picture of her kids right next to this lamp. If you read this Rene, I'm dying to know... is the lamp in your living room?

Christmas Revisted

2009-01-03T13:00:00.002-07:00

Well, now that it's been over a week since Christmas, it is fun to look at the photos and revisit some of the favorite gifts.

First, the kids got their annual matching pajama pants on Christmas Eve:

They slept until 6:45 and anxiously waited until 7:00 when we had told them was the very first moment they could knock on our door.

For Sadie, this year all she pined for was Webkinz. Those fuzzy little animals that come with a code so you can play games with them online. Precisely the kind of pet that I allow in our home because they don't need special food, trips to the veterinarian, or make extra messes. Yes, even though they are yet ANOTHER stuffed animal, I can deal with them. Here she is with her two newest pets: a parrot and a gorilla.

She also got a new scooter that she really enjoys riding around the cul-de-sac.

But the gift that she received that has gotten the most use (or so it seems to me) is this game she received from her Grandparents in California:

I think we have played this game at least 150 times already. Really. Luckily it is a fun game that has some educational aspects to it.

Ashley's Christmas was all about High School Musical. She is most interested in dancing to the music and the performing aspect of the movie. So when Santa brought her a headset and a DVD that gives instructions on how to learn to do all the dances in the movie, let's just say the headset did not come off for several hours. It has a switch on it that turns it into a microphone.... something that just about drives Patrick batty. Ah, well.

Another High School Musical gift that came from her grandparents, combined quite nicely with what Santa brought: a performing stage complete with flashing lights and a device to plug in your ipod or mp3 player so you can dance to your favorite songs. Needless to say, we have heard lots and lots of songs on this and she has performed for us multiple times.

Patrick had a great Christmas when he woke up and realized Santa had brought him exactly what he wanted: a ramp to ride his scooter and bike on!

Santa also brought him the Homer Simpson tie he really wanted, as well as a Disney tie with Goofy, Pluto, and Mickey on it:

He also got another pig to add to his voluminous collection.

And last, but definitely not least, he received a computer program that he REALLY REALLY wanted. One that he had used in his computer class at school this year, and that is a very useful program:

He has already spent hours on the computer adding all sorts of effects to our home movies and compiling several movie clips into one.

The kids didn't have all the fun. Casey surprised me with not only a fun gift, but a fun way to find it. I opened a small package to find a compass and a small card telling me I'd have to find my gift the old fashioned way. Starting at the Christmas tree, I had to follow 4 steps with the compass. My path ended in the garage next to the van where a present was sitting on the passenger seat. When I opened it, this was inside:

We love this GPS device and have already truly utilized it twice: once when we went to look at more lights the day after Christmas, and once when we went up to Flagstaff for a snow day and used it to find several local shops. It is such a cool and useful gadget!

Casey's was most surprised this year to get 2 new University of Texas shirts, especially the one in burnt orange. Just in time to cheer on the Longhorns in the Fiesta bowl around the corner from us in Glendale!

Santa... is it too late to be good?

2008-12-24T18:41:00.003-07:00

That was what was on Sadie's shirt today.

She was very good today. She and Ashley helped me bake lots of goodies to take to friends and neighbors. Here we are in our aprons hard at work!

And here are the finished products: Pumpkin raisin cookies, Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, Fudge, and Caramel/Pretzel brittle. Yum!

Ashley and Patrick are ready for delivery:

And just for fun, here are some random photos from our home today:

Merry Christmas!

Ice Cream, Jello, and Icee's

2008-12-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

These are all things that Sadie has enjoyed since having her tonsils removed last Thursday. The laptop kept her company (She played Webkinz) when she was initially recovering, but now she is up and about and doing great.

The only indication that she has had surgery now is that her voice is a bit different, a bit more nasal, as her throat continues to heal.

When her 1st grade teacher found out that she would be missing the last day of school before the Christmas break, she had all the students write a note to Sadie and then gave them to Ashley to deliver home at the end of the day. I thought they were so sweet and cute, that I had to share a few of them with the internet.

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In this computer-age world, where one of Patrick's items on his school supply list is a flash drive, it shouldn't surprise me that I can communicate so quickly with my student's teachers via email. But last Thursday, I got an email from Ashley's teacher telling me that Ashley was curious how Sadie's surgery had gone that day. I emailed back that she was resting and had no complaints of pain and literally within minutes, the teacher had allowed Ashley to write me back to tell me thank you for letting her know. Have I mentioned how much I love e-mail?

And finally, I have to share an amazing trick that is better than a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down: a sticker chart. Anytime my kids are given a 7 or 10 day regimen of antibiotics, I make a chart with a square for each dose and after they take their medicine, they put a sticker in the box. A really great side-effect? I can look at the chart that is taped to my kitchen wall and see instantly if I've missed giving a dose.

One Enchanted Christmas

2008-12-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Ashley just finished her official participation in the performance of "One Enchanted Christmas" based on this book by Colleen Charleston:

Here is the brief synopsis of the story:
In their bustling workshop, two dressmakers sew a many-pocketed red velvet coat just for a little girl. As she fills the pockets with treasures, the enchanted coat grows...and grows! One magical night, Father Christmas arrives, seeking something warm for his ride, and the coat is a perfect fit. Before offering her gift, the child tucks one last surprise into a pocket-a very special message of Christmas joy.

We couldn't be more proud of her and how hard she practiced and performed her parts. She was on stage 3 times: once for "The Christmas Scene", then for "Toy Soldiers", and finally for the "Finale".

Here she is in her "Townsperson" costume for the first scene and for the Finale:

With one of the other dancers:

And here she is in the "Toy Solider" costume:

Two of her BFF's came to see her perform and she was SO EXCITED to see them after the 2 p.m. performance ended:

In a funny side note, I wanted to share how after 3 tries, I finally got Ashley's hair to look like this:

I tried a curling iron and hot rollers, but neither held the curl for more than an hour nor gave the spiral ringlets that the dance teachers wanted. A fellow mom suggested these foam non-heat curlers:

So I picked a set up at Target, rolled Ashley's damp hair in them, then had her wear them for about 4 hours. When I unrolled them, I sprayed each ringlet with a "freeze hold" hairspray and then when all the curls were done, gave the whole head another good spray. Not only did she get lots of compliments on the pretty curls, but they finally stayed in for the entire day and through two performances today.

Here is a small video of Ashley doing her Toy Soldier dance at dress rehearsal. She starts out in the middle of the back row. Then they switch sides where she is still in the back row. At the end of the dance she spins back to back with the boy soldier.

Here is Ashley in the Finale. She comes in at about 25 seconds and is wearing a dark purple top and a lavender skirt.

Way to go Ashley!

Letter to the Editor

2008-12-10T12:53:00.002-07:00

This was in my local paper yesterday. I think you will enjoy it too.

Thanks to a kind stranger

I would like to say thank you to the man who helped my 93-year-old grandfather at the airport on Dec. 1

When I checked him in at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, the airline didn’t know his flight would be delayed for four hours.

The airport attendants checked his walker in and then wheeled him out to his gate in an airport wheelchair. He is diabetic, nearly deaf, and pretty much immobile without his walker. So you can imagine that I panicked when I first found out about the delay later on that night, wondering how Grandpa survived the day in the airport alone.

But I cried when he told me this story. When his plane was delayed you must have noticed him sitting there and realized he needed help. You took him to the rest room, bought him food and then refused his money.

I don’t know if you are a Christian, but your service shows me the true spirit of Christmas; “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” God bless you.

American Girl Clothes on Ebay

2008-12-09T08:47:00.004-07:00

For those who don't live near me, you can view my American Girl clothes and supplies here. The auctions end this Sunday evening (December 14th)

In other news, we finally got our lights up on our house. Of course, it didn't happen until the kids just did it themselves:

Happiness is...

2008-12-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Playing with the toys that only come out once a year.

What is Patrick thankful for?

2008-12-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

I found this today when I was cleaning off the desk.

T urkey
H ats
A nimals
N ewton's Law
K nowledge
F riends
U nited States of America
L unch
N oses
E lectronics
S paghetti
S ports

Soccer in Review

2008-12-03T08:31:00.002-07:00

Soccer is over for the fall season. We'll start up another season in January but we are enjoying having some of our evenings more open.

Ashley and Sadie had the best coach in the league:

A reason to bring out the fancy dishes

2008-11-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

Casey's parents came to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had a great time with them and hope they'll visit our noisy house again!

Casey was in charge of setting the table, and when he finished, this is what we all saw:

This is the first time we have used the fancy china that Casey's grandma gave us when we were married. (We took them out of the boxes only a few years ago when we finally got a china cabinet)

After dinner, we went to see Madagascar 2 and laughed and laughed. Great show!

Other highlights of their trip:

Joining Ashley's class on their field trip to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum.

Playing Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii:

Playing card and board games

Enjoying each other's company

Thanksgiving Crafts

2008-11-20T08:56:00.005-07:00

Sadie's homework assignment: to decorate this turkey for the hallway display. Ashley begged me to make her a copy of the turkey.

Operation Quiet Comfort- on Ebay

2008-11-07T14:08:00.002-07:00

If you would like to donate to a good cause, or just find out more about this organization, check out this auction on Ebay. A Four Freedoms Gratitude Quilt made just for a Veteran. Somewhere on there is a denim block signed by our family.

Now, would you like to join this awesome organization? Click here and you can scroll to the bottom to find out how to join their Yahoo group that actively works to provide comfort to our troops overseas. It is an absolutely non-political group and there are so many ways you can use your talents to help.

Extra scrapbooking supplies? They need Thank you/get well/thinking of you cards.
Extra fabric? They need small lap quilts and in the summer, cool neck ties.

Just want to support them with a few extra dollars? They can always use it for postage or to buy items in bulk.

Now, go look at the auction. You'll be glad you did!

Wanna go shopping?

2008-11-06T08:22:00.001-07:00

A local church is having their annual "Unique Boutique" this weekend. (November 7th- 9th) Everything for sale there must be homemade and there are some really great items. I will have American Girl doll clothes as well as "Match my doll" pajamas and doll totes for sale. More information and directions are here . Here are some of the items I will have for sale:

If you are an American Girl fan and would like a "Springfield doll" (a less expensive version but the same size as the American Girl), I have many of those here that I cannot sell at the Boutique because they are not homemade. I also have quite a few doll shoes, socks, and other accessories that I can sell to you for much less than from the store or catalog. Let me know if you are interested.

Did you vote?

2008-11-04T08:10:00.002-07:00

Last week, the girls were able to vote at their school. A website called kidsvoteaz allowed them to log in with a special "Voter ID" (randomized numbers) and then pick who they wanted for President. I've been told that we will get the results from our school after the election.

Here is Sadie taking her civic duty very seriously:

What was her method for who to choose for President?

In her words: "I chose the one that looks like Grandpa C."

She is an informed voter, that girl.

Halloween Costumes

2008-11-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

I know I'm late getting these up, but here are the kids in their Halloween costumes.

The Fairy, Sharpay, and the Afro Football player:

And here is Patrick with his 3 friends who went Trick-or-Treating with him. I won't attempt to identify their costumes, except for the one to his left: that is Neo from The Matrix. And don't worry, those beards are painted on.

5 Girls and a Drive-In Movie

2008-11-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, five girls. At a Drive-In. We had a blast! The girls LOVED the new movie!

Pumpkin Gone Wild

2008-10-31T16:09:00.004-07:00

Great. First a nose ring.

What is that pumpkin going to do next?