Phoenix Children's Museum

We joined Tony, Holly, and their boys and went to the Phoenix Children's Museum. But first we finally tried Pizzeria Bianco. The pizza lived up to the claims, it was very good!

At the museum...

Rylee and Zach serving ice cream

 

Zach loved filling his shopping cart

 

The girls painting the rocket ship

The pirate hats they made...

Afterwards, I took the kids to the park to fly their kite.

Also, this happened...

 

He face planted in the mud! Haylee started screaming, which I thought she yelled that Zach was bleeding, so I ran to him in a panic. But when I got there, I couldn't help but laugh! He tried to laugh too but mostly cried.

Our Anniversary

Scott and I celebrated 8 years! We went to the Melting Pot and had a wonderful evening out!

Haylee's 1st Field Trip

Haylee went on her very first field trip to Peter Piper Pizza. Her class got to tour the kitchen, make their own pizza, then play all the games. She had a great time!

Zach got to tag along too and loved driving the truck.

Eating their pizza. Even Zach got to make his own!

A family reunion of sorts

Over labor day weekend, just about all of my family went up to the cabin. We had at least 15-20 people there at any given moment. With the addition to neighborhood kids that hung out with us too, it was a full house. It was so much fun too, always something going on! I think the kids had the most fun having cousins to play with all day long. My family is majority girls, so Zach was a lone ranger in that age group!

 

The first day we were there, my cousin Ashley, Victor, Scott and I took all of our kids (8) to the lake to catch crawdads. We actually hiked down pretty far to where the dam is and caught 2 itty bitty crawdads. All of the kids did really well, it was a fun afternoon!

 

When we got back, the kids played out front and the guys played football.

That night was very interesting. Let's just say a few guys started talking politics and religion. It was not pretty. But we all made up and had a family moment all around the bonfire. ;)

The next day, my cousin Debbie, Ben, Terry, Scott and I took our kids to another lake. This one was not in good condition. The water line was super low and the banks were pure deep mud. All we could think of to do was skip rocks and then throw the largest objects we could find into the mud to make the biggest muddy splash. I think Scott won that competition.

Zach tried.

Our picnic lunch at the lake.

When we got back, the kids stayed busy with all of the neighborhood kids.

 

Zach trying to get into the hammock. Good job buddy...

It rained off and on that day and which meant a lot of mud pies and mud holes and mud castles....

Zach and Scott were playing football together. He was so happy.

One of the neighbor kids was throwing the ball back and forth to Scott and Zach in the hammock. Zach thought it was hilarious and was laughing so hard. I love the pure joy and love from both of them in this picture!

My pretty girl

I tried to take a picture of the 3 of them, they are such cheese balls.

We ended the night with another bon fire and smores. It was so much fun, I love my family. Crazy and all. :)

Zachary's 2nd Birthday

I can't believe our baby boy is 2! He had such a great birthday! He started off his day by going to get doughnuts with Dad and was so thrilled to have is very own chocolate milk.

We let him open a few presents that morning.

He was so excited to see this shirt, it had a monkey on it. He calls them "Ha Ha's" because they say "ooh ooh ah ah" and he would wear the one monkey shirt he does have everyday if we let him!

His 2 year old picture

 He loves batman right now so we had a batman party for him. It all started when Scott bought him a batman action figure because all the toys we had were girly. It's his favorite toy and he calls him "Na Na" because we would always sing the batman song to him when he had it ("Na Na Na Na Na Na Batman!"). =) So here we are, the bat family.

  My boy and I. I love him so!

Ready to party!

Opening his presents. He is the only little boy on my side of the family, he is outnumbered by far!

He was SO thrilled when he saw the cocoa puffs, ha!

His sweet new ride, he wouldn't get off of it. Even when it was cake time! We sang to him while he was seated on his bike and he cried when we removed him to blow out his candle!

The awesome cake!

He did get of the bike long enough to devour his cake though!

Silly sister

This look of intense concentration kills me. I love his face! He's driving his new remote control car.

Dressed and ready to ride!

The full bat attire!

Some 2 year old stats:
He weighs 35lbs. Yes, he is solid. =) He is all boy. I absolutely love that it just comes so perfectly natural to him to be drawn to all things boy even in a house of girls. We call him our sour patch kid because he can be completely ornery one second and then the sweetest little guy the next. For example, he'll chuck a ball at my face and then tackle me over with kisses. It leads to him not getting in trouble often because he is so dang cute. And the kisses, he kisses a lot! Over and over. Hugs too. It is so sweet. I also love the way he says "Hi Mama", it melts me every time. [I'm trying to forget that he also loves yelling "bad mama" at me. Not sure why or where it came from but everyone (including himself) finds it hilarious...] He sings the batman song and talks in the deep batman voice. I love the way he says "bee" which he calls all bugs bees. He can get sassy too and wiggle his finger back and forth while say uuuh uh. I think he talks a lot, maybe more than the girls did. He says a lot and understands so well. He listens well too which I'm sure will change soon! His facial expressions kill us! Seriously, he does something with his eyes when he's excited and its crazy cute. He's a good helper and will help with anything he can. He loves building with blocks and he's so proud of himself if he builds a big tower. He loves trucks. Toys and real ones. He yells truck, big truck!, while driving and I must acknowledge him! He loves to wrestle. He loves his sisters and boy do they love him. He is my sweet little baby boy, and I just adore him. I feel so blessed but sad at how fast everything is going by. I try to hang on to moments but then I blink and another year has gone by! Just crazy! 

Haylee's Very First Day of Preschool

We decided to put Haylee into preschool this year, she's our first to go! We thought it would be great for her to start getting used to going to school. She was very nervous and didn't really want to go. Her teacher came over to our house to meet her and she hid from her the whole time! This made me anxious about how her first day would go! She is my shy girl and has always had Rylee or I to do the talking for her so I knew this would be a good stretch for her! I took her school shopping, just her and I, which she loved. It seemed to help her to be more excited since she had new stuff to wear and a new backpack all her own. 

Here she is rocking out on the way to the store. As soon as we get in the car she asks me to put on rock music and then she head bangs. Her dad is pretty proud.

The big day finally came! She was nervously excited that morning.

When we pulled up to the school, Scott was there waiting for us! He totally surprised us which both her and I loved! He didn't want to miss it! He held her hand up to her class and when we walked in she promptly grabbed on to my leg, buried her face into her hands and didn't want to go. The teacher encouraged her over to a table and we got out of there fast. When I picked her up she looked over at me and went back to what she was doing! The teacher said she did great and warmed up quick! She loved it. She talked a mile a minute for the next couple of hours and was so incredibly happy. She must have said "guess what..." a 1000 times. She said she was really going to miss that place and was excited to go back! The second day she was ready an hour early and walked around with her backpack on waiting to go. Preschool = Success!