Sweatin' and Clickin'

Blue, pink, and green

2012-03-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

Return Flight
Monday, February 13, 2012
Day 260

Flying back to Arizona today and this view from the airport window was the only time my entire trip that the sun came out.

I enjoyed spending time with family and am so glad I made the trip to Utah but I am also so happy to be back home where the sun shines with much more frequency. If only there was a way to have the best of both worlds.....

Pink
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Day 261

Valentines day is typically pretty low key at our house. I usually help the kids send Valentines to Grandmas and Grandpas but last week was so hectic that that just didn't happen this year. Maybe we'll send Happy Spring cards?

The kids did prepare Valentines for their class.

And we had pink waffles for dinner.

I have a great blender pancake/waffle recipe that we love that uses whole wheat and oatmeal and flax and pretty much any other whole grain you want to throw in. I often also add a scoop of vanilla protein powder and to make them pink I simply added a handful of strawberries. All natural, super yummy!

Classy
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Day 262

I am not shy about admitting that Walmart is so not my favorite place to shop and I avoid the place as much as possible. But because they are such a HUGE conglomerate and have incredible buying power sometimes they carry random items that I can't find at Target or Kroger. So today, despite my best efforts, I found myself at Walmart.

I was amused by the art hanging in the little alcove as you go into the Women's restroom.

Now I am no interior designer but don't you usually hang the art above the chair rail? I mean you only needed to move the nail up a mere inch and a half.

Wilting
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Day 263

Part of me feels like I should appologize for all the pictures of my flowers these days....but it's kind of become my newest hobby and what I worry about a lot so it just seems fitting to share my success and failures. Today I am sad because my poinsettias seem to be struggling.

Anybody know if a poinsettia goes dormant then blooms again? Or have I killed it completely?

X
Friday, February 17, 2012
Day 264

Today at the breakfast table, for no reason at all, Harrison stood up and declared "I am an X."

Spring Fever
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Day 265

When I was at Costco earlier this week I saw that they had a handful of bikes left from Christmastime and that they were marked down $20. So I picked up a couple and Mike finally got a chance to assemble them today.

The kids, as you can tell, were thrilled!

I had originally planned on saving them for Easter but the weather has been so perfect and is going to start heating up quickly after Easter....so they got them early.

Decisions, Decisions
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Day 266

I need to lengthen the curtain that hangs on my slider. The curtain itself is blue but I was going to add a green strip on the bottom to match the curtains on the facing walls. I thought it would be nice to sew a strip of ribbon to tie the two colors together then use the same ribbon to make tie backs for the other curtains in the room. So far these are the only choices I have found.

Which do you like best?

UPDATE
I found a ribbon store the other day. A RIBBON STORE. I mean an ENTIRE store that sold nothing but ribbon. Seriously. So I found a couple new options. Now which do you like best?

Homeward bound

2012-02-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

My Little Sweet Heart
Monday, February 6, 2012
Day 253

The day that Harrison got his kindergarten shots the Dr. told me that she also heard a heart murmur. She asked if any of our doctors in the past had mentioned that to me because murmur's are quite common and if I was already aware of it then he was likely born with it and it is simply an innocent murmur. But I told her nobody had mentioned it to me before so she said that may indicate that it is a newly developed heart murmur and that we should have him looked at by a Pediatric Cardiologist just to confirm it is an innocent murmur. So today was our day to visit the cardiologist and Harrison, at the age of just 4, got his very first EKG.

Cardiologist said his EKG came back unusual but not abnormal. (Whatever that means.) He said it sounds to him like an innocent murmur but to come back in a year for another EKG just to be certain.

Bread of Life
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Day 254

Spring colors are starting to show up in the stores and I found this awesome breadbox at Target and just HAD to have it.

Never had a breadbox before because I never had enough counter space to put one. Until now. And I love it!

Junior Achievement
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Day 255

I am the Junior Achievement volunteer in both Adam's and Zoey's classrooms and today was our first lesson.

Moose
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Day 256

Not to go into too much detail but my sister and her husband suffered a loss recently so I flew to Utah today to spend some time with her. We made a stop at Costco and they had this HUGE stuffed Moose.

I honestly don't even know what you would do with a moose that big!

I need a fix
Friday, February 10, 2012
Day 257

As many of you may already know I have a little diet soda habit. Well I'm staying with my parents this weekend and they don't stock my caffeine in their house nor did I rent my own car. So while we were out today on our way to the memorial service I begged my dad to go through the drive-through so I could get my daily fix.

Aw, now I feel much better!

A Princess and her balloon
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Day 258

My niece with a princess balloon. Tough to say which is cuter!

No Snow Man
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Day 259

This being our first winter in AZ it's also been my first winter without snow. So I came to Utah for a whole weekend thinking I'd see some snow. But in my 4 days in town this is the closest thing I saw to snow.

We caught the Germs

2012-02-28T15:27:00.004-08:00

Flu
Monday, January 30, 2012
Day 246

The nasty flu but that has been going around hit our house. I suppose it was inevitable. Schools are one big giant petri dish.

Zoey stayed home from school today.

Run Adam, Run!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Day 247

Today was the first Running Club multi-school race. Zoey has been sick so she was not able to participate. But Adam did! The race was a mile and a half long and he ran the whole time!

Here he is approaching the finish line.

And this is him enjoying a popsicle afterwards while holding his number. He finished 149. And this was with 4 schools there and racing along side all the other grade levels. I don't know for sure how many runners there were total but we were super proud of his 149!

Plants galore
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Day 248

Finally been getting around to potting all the plants we bought on Saturday. I really love the way live plants makes my house feel!

Hibiscus
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Day 249

I know I've been showing a lot of plant pictures but after getting my hibiscus potted yesterday several blooms appeared overnight and I was just so excited I had to take a picture!

I stink at getting actual food to grow but am having a very good time trying to figure out how to get flowers to grow.

Playground blues
Friday, February 3, 2012
Day 250

The playground at the school has wood chips for padding. And kid shoes are the perfect receptilce of transporting wood chips. Which means I always have wood chips in my house.

The worst part is the way they hide in the carpet just waiting for you to walk across it barefoot. Ouch!

Fountain Hills
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Day 251

Have had sick kids in the house all week! Zoey was home sick Monday-Wednesday and Adam was home sick Wednesday-Friday and so we needed to get them OUT of the house. Took a drive to Fountain Hills.

Here is our family picture watching the fountain.

And just so you can really appreciate how high this fountain goes, here is one of the kids in front of it.

And my kids rarely ask me to take their picture-I think because I do it so often. But they saw this tree today and actually asked if they could take a picture by it. So of course I had to oblige.

Technical Difficulties
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Day 252

Had a special multi-ward meeting for church today because they were realigning some ward boundaries. So they had projectors set up for those of us sitting in the back. But I just can't understand why the people running audio visual at these kind of meetings never seem to know what they are doing.

I snapped this quick pic to show how the display settings were turned on the entire time for all of us to see. What you don't see in this picture is that the red battery warning was blinking right in the middle of the picture the ENTIRE meeting. (my pic just happened to take right as it blinked off.)

Also at one point the camera started cycling through the demo mode showing a simulation of all the camera settings. Very distracting I must say. Next time find somebody who actually knows how to use the camera.

Blooming

2012-02-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Purple
Monday, January 23, 2012
Day 239

Yesterday was Zoey's teacher's birthday so today when I was at the store and saw these I thought she needed a little birthday surprise.

Oh, and I bought one for myself, too.

Gumballs
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Day 240

Today was Art Masterpiece in Zoey's class again. Seems like we just finish one lesson when it's time for the next already!

I always swear that this time I'll remember to take pictures as the kids are actually doing the project but let's face it, when you are in charge of helping 27 kindergarten students it's all I can do to keep the room in one piece. So, once again, I had to settle for a few pictures of some of the completed projects.

Believe
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Day 241

Got an unexpected and much appreciated package in the mail today.

It's a simple reminder to believe in magic. If you want know what an elephant has to do with magic you'll have to read The Magician's Elephant.

But here's a little taste:

"Magic is always impossible," said the magician. "It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic."

Shot
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Day 242

I took Harrison to get his kindergarten shots today. I always hate taking them for shots. They are so sad the rest of the day.

But this brought at least a momentary smile to his face.

Fever
Friday, January 27, 2012
Day 243

Since my baby got his shots yesterday I of course wasn't surprised that he had a fever today.

Mazda Greenhouse
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Day 244

I decided that I NEEDED plants. Outdoor plants, indoor plants, flowers, trees.....I needed plants! So we made a trip to the Nursery (okay, really it was Lowes....I'd love to support a local nursery in the future but I had a 10% off my entire purchase coupon that expired.....don't judge.)

Felt like an atrium on wheels driving home!

Simple Pleasures
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Day 245

Sunday afternoon walk with the family. Just a quick pic to remind me why I love my community. (Because it's easy to forget when the construction vehicles are rumbling down my street at 5:30 in the morning.)

Birthdays and doughnuts and ice-Oh My!

2012-02-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Oh grandma
Monday, January 16, 2012
Day 232

So is it just me or do grandmas love to give the gifts that moms hate? (To all the grandmas reading this, I mean that in good humor.)

My grandma gave the kids quacking duck whistles for Christmas. She gets the satisfaction of giving the kids something that they REALLY like but is nearly 1000 miles away, and thus misses out on the loud, constant quacking.

Mike's mom gave them these melty beads for Christmas. A gift that results in lots of tiny little bits of plastic in my carpet. As well as burned fingers for me as I tried to iron them.

Tiny fingers trying to work with tiny plastic melty beads.

YES! Please!!!!!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Day 233

Somebody PLEASE give me some ideas as to what to do with these because I LOVE them!!!!! I mean REALLY LOVE them.

Wind chimes? Bird feeders? What do you think?

Someday
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Day 234

Tomorrow is Zoey's birthday, so of course I spent tonight wrapping. Someday I won't be doing everything the night before.

The Big 0-6!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Day 235

The birthday girl!

And the bed canopy I made. Yes, me. I made it! Be impressed! Because I am not crafty.

Doughnuts with Dads
Friday, January 20, 2012
Day 236

This morning was the PTO Doughnuts with Dads. And the cars were lined up clear up and down the street.

This is the view from my laundry room window.

Here is the view standing in my driveway. You can see the cars were even up around the corner, too.

I'm just sayn' that's a lot of doughnuts.

Disney on Ice
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Day 237

We don't do birthday parties at our house. Instead we do a big family activity. So for Zoey's birthday we went to Disney on Ice. It was Toy Story 3 and despite the pained look on Harrison's face they all did have a great time!

And yes, we were the only people sitting in our section. It was a Saturday matinee. Once the show started we actually moved up several rows. Free seat upgrade!

Washer won't go
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Day 238

My washing machine started having problems yesterday, so Mike set to work today tearing it apart to see what the problem was.

Thankfully in the end it was only a $35 part. But it did take 4 days to ship. So I was without my washer for a little over a week.

Full Speed Ahead

2012-02-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

Settling for less
Monday, January 9, 2012
Day 225

I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. And a chronic cleaner. My house never feels clean enough. But frankly trying to keep up appearances is getting exhausting. So these days I'm trying to clean a little less and play a little more. And here is the proof.

See this popcorn on my carpet. It's been here since Saturday! Yes, we ate popcorn on SATURDAY and I haven't vacuumed it up yet. What you may see as regression I call progress. I'm learning to lean into imperfection.

Kindergarten
Tuesday, Januray 10, 2012
Day 226

After a lovely winter break the kids are back in school this week. Which means back to my normal Tuesday volunteer hours. Today while I was in Zoey's class she read her story to the class. Of course her whole story was only 3 sentences......

And these are the self-portraits I did with them before Christmas but I forgot to take pictures. So when I saw them hanging up on the bulletin board today I snapped a quick pic.

It's great being 4
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Day 227

I love that when the characters on PBS say to get up and move with them that Harrison still gets up and moves with them.

I also love that he still wants to do this EVERY time I am doing laundry.

Color is in season
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Day 228

I am so in love with all the fun colorful things creeping into the stores. The only problem now is trying to figure out where I'd put them all so I can justify buying them!

Friday Night Lights
Friday, January 13, 2012
Day 229

This is a typical Friday night for us.

What's for Dinner?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Day 230

When I don't want to cook, we have popcorn for dinner. Don't judge.

I'm Quacking up
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Day 231

My grandma sent the kids these duck whistles for Christmas and they LOVE them.

They are cute, but man do they make a LOT of noise!

A little bit of that....

2012-02-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

Nesting
Monday, January 2, 2012
Day 218

So I've been really dying to start making my new house really feel like home. So I've been on the look out for things I like so I can start putting together a plan.

I saw this today at Lowes and I LOVE it.

Think it will match my mustard yellow door?

Sorry Santa
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Day 219

Before Christmas my kids were all worried about making cookies for Santa. And I was all stressed about finalizing gift buying/wrapping as well as preparing for guests so while I was at Costco getting food for Christmas dinner I grabbed a tub of cookie dough so we could bake cookies for Santa.

But once the cousins showed up my kids forgot about making cookies.

So, today we finally made Santa's cookies. Hope he doesn't mind that we ate them all, too.

What Winter
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Day 220

We went swimming today. And it was LOVELY!

Legos!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Day 221

Kids love being out of school!!!! They spent the entire day building things with Legos.

Brown Thumb
Friday, January 6, 2012
Day 222

I LOVE house plants. But I tend to kill them. I bought two of these super cute little trees just before Christmas.

And now they both look like this.

They are brittle and dry and no amount of watering seems to make a difference. I may need to hire a plant service so I can stop killing all my plants!

Can't get over how much I am loving "winter"
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Day 223

Today we went hiking. Yes, hiking. In January. And didn't even wear sweaters.

Book Worm
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Day 224

Zoey and I spent most the day reading together. She is in LOVE with these Pixie Hollow books. We are learning all sorts of things about Tinker Bell and all her fairy friends.

A little bit of this....

2011-12-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

Lost in Translation
Monday, December 26, 2011
Day 211

Adam got a remote control helicopter for Christmas and the warning printed on the blades gives us hours of entertainment.

In case you can't read it:
"Warning! If blade damage. don't be fly. otherwise it will create the human body or blade damage."

Coasting through life
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Day 212

Have I mentioned enough times that I could totally get used to winter being warm? Because I could.

We took the scooters and coaster cars out around the neighborhood today and the kids found this little hill that they went down over and over and over and over and over again.

Full of Hot Air
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Day 213

Look closely and you will see two hot air balloons in this picture. Do you see them?

We see hot air balloons from our back deck at least once a week. And that is not an exaggeration. I have seen more hot air balloons in the 3 months we have lived in this house then in my entire life beforehand. Crazy, eh?

Jingle Trains
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Day 214

We headed out tonight to our favorite train park to experience their Christmas lights.

I was under the crazy impression that it would be less busy after Christmas, and that if we went on a Thursday instead of a Friday or Saturday it wouldn't be crowded.

I was wrong. It was an hour and a half wait to ride the train. (a 5 minute train ride.) When we went to Disneyland for Christmas last year we didn't wait that long for anything! Seriously.

But we left Mike in line and I ran around with the kids and took them in the model train building so it wasn't so bad. Well, for me. Ask Mike how much he liked standing in line.

Here we finally made it on the train. Going through the tunnel reminded me of the crazy psychedelic tunnel on Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Creating order from Chaos
Friday, December 30, 2011
Day 215

In my old house I had a pot rack for my pans and lids. So I've had to figure out a different want to store my pans in this new house, and so far nothing was working. So a few weeks ago I bought a few of these and spent an hour today doing this.

There is still a LOT more organizing to do. But it's a start.

Ring in the New Year in style
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Day 216

We are such party animals at our house. I spent my New Year's Eve folding laundry.

And we went to bed before midnight. See, I told you we were party animals!

Reflective
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Day 217

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you'll know that this post is WAY past due. I'm very behind. So when I sat down to try and catch up I was going through the pictures on my phone and this was the only picture I took on January 1st.

And I'm sure it had a story, something witty or thoughtful I was going to write about to go with it....but I honestly don't remember. Guess I shouldn't get so far behind again, eh?

Christmas comes this time each year

2011-12-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

Now THAT was smart!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Day 204

Today at running club I was running across the blacktop to record the kids' totals for the day. Somebody's water bottle had been knocked over and I stepped right on it and rolled forward and fell down on the blacktop. I tried to just jump up and shake it off but my ankle hurt so bad I couldn't walk on it. So I crawled back over to where the kids were starting to gather.

I sat there thinking I was going to have to call Mike to come pick me up because I wasn't sure I'd be able to even walk home. Luckily after sitting for a few minutes I could get up on it again-but I had to sort of limp home.

I iced it and stayed off it the rest of the night hoping it wasn't anything serious. I had TOO much to do and no time for a sprained ankle!

(Since I am writing this weeks later I can tell you that I hobble around for about 2 more days but I did manage to get around. Not really sure what I did to it since even today if I turn it too far one way or if I try to sit cross legged on it it still hurts, but not so much that I can't walk on it. So I'm still mostly just choosing to ignore it and hope it will just heal completely on it's own.)

Winter Fun Run
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Day 205

Today was the Family Winter Fun Run at school. Since I was still hobbling around from my mishap yesterday I chose to be a spectator only.

Here is Adam nearing the finish line. He's the one with the blue shirt on and the yellow sweater tied around his waist.

And here's Zoey rounding the bend-blue shirt, black pants, and daddy carrying her pink sweater for her. What a good daddy.

All I want for Christmas is....
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Day 206

Zoey lost her second tooth day! Tooth fairy is going broke and hope she doesn't loose any more for a while now!

The two front teeth on the bottom are the two she lost this month, but as you can see the permanent ones are already mostly grown in. So no gap-toothed smiles here.

Too Grown Up!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Day 207

I helped Harrison wrap gifts for his siblings and dad today and he filled out the gift tags all by himself.

When did he get so big?????

Reserved Seating
Friday, December 23, 2011
Day 208

Our Christmas guests arrived today and I still didn't have enough seating for everybody. I've been eyeing some of these saddle stools for awhile now but didn't buy any because, we were moving and it was just more stuff to move.

But now that we are settled in (mostly) and have guests coming to actually use them I talked Mike into some.

What do you do on Christmas Eve?
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Day 209

We went swimming.

Since the community is still fairly small we had the pool to ourselves. They have a nice sound system at the pool so we cranked the Christmas tunes and enjoyed the sun.

Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Day 210

Santa found us! The kids were worried he may not know where we moved, but looks like he has good change of address elves working for him.

Silly Santa didn't put names on any of our gifts. Instead he taped puzzle pieces to each gift. Each kid had the picture of what his or her puzzle looked like when put together and had to figure out which pieces went to their puzzle in order to figure out which gifts were theirs.

And, it wouldn't be Christmas without our traditional dinner of Costco Lasagna and Pesto.

I decided years ago I didn't like spending all day in the kitchen so this meal is a festive red and green and is SUPER easy!!!!! And delicious. What more could you ask for?

You better not pout....

2011-12-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

Oh How Times Have Changed
Monday, December 12, 2011
Day 197

The note the kids pulled from the advent stocking tonight was that they could stay up 10 minutes extra to play Santa Coaster on their iPod. This shot of my boys just completely entranced in their games was just classic.

It's moments like this that I can't really tell if I'm a really good mom or a really bad mom......

Quack!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Day 198

It has been raining cats and dogs for the past several days. The rain finally abated and we discovered why the big empty field behind us is called the flood control zone.

We typically see and hear cows behind the house. This morning we woke up to the sound of ducks. They apparently really like our new river.

Orange
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Day 199

Dropped the Mazda off today to have some items installed that were pre-negotiated when we bought they car but that they didn't have in stock in their parts department.

This was the loaner car I drove off the lot with.

Bonus points for anybody who can tell me where I am parked in this picture.

I should be Cinderella....
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Day 200

Zoey was playing dress up today and was dressed up like Sleeping Beauty when I asked her to hang up some of her laundry. She sighed and said, "I should be wearing my Cinderella dress because you make me work ALL the time."

She has such a tough life!

Run, run as fast as you can....
Friday, December 16, 2011
Day 201

Today was Zoey's holiday party at school. All the kindergarten classes have been reading different versions of the Gingerbread Man story this week and talking about character and setting and such. So they finished off the unit by making gingerbread houses.

I promise there is a gingerbread house somewhere beneath all that candy.

Arizona Snow
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Day 202

Tonight's activity from our Advent stockings was to make paper snowflakes, since they are likely the ONLY snowflakes they will see this year for Christmas.

After doing a few out of regular typing paper we discovered that tissue paper makes really nice BIG snowflakes and the thinner paper is WAY easier for little hands to cut.

Silly x3
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Day 203

Tonight on our count down to Christmas our activity was to take a picture in our Santa hats, which the kids interpreted as an invitation to be downright silly.

Ho Ho Ho, isn't Christmas Jolly?

2011-12-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

Maiden Voyage
Monday, December 5, 2011
Day 190

Since our old car was dying a slow death and we knew that buying a new car was inevitable we debated for a long time about what to get. We liked a lot of things about the Mazda5 but were worried that it didn't have enough cargo space for a Costco trip.

So today I ventured to Costco for the first time in the new car. And I'm happy to say everything fit!

Of course 2 of the kids were at school and so I was able to leave their car seats home and fold down the seats, which is the ONLY way it all fit. But it DID fit!

Santa Baby
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Day 191

We ventured to Bass Pro Shop tonight to pay a little visit to Santa. We have actually never done the whole sit on Santa's lap thing but it was one of the activities I put inside our advent stockings so we gave it a try. This year.

Although nobody actually sat on Santa's lap. Guess they are already too big for that.

Baby, it's cold outside
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Day 192

The weather has been getting progressively colder these past weeks and since it has actually been below freezing the last few mornings I finally went to the garage and dug out the box that had coats in it. But hey we made it clear into December before needing coats!

Happy Birthday!!!!!!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Day 193

Today was Mike's birthday, and I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't plan anything special for him at all. Things have just been so chaotic that it snuck up on me. He kept telling me it was no big deal and he was happy to just have a low key day hanging with his family. But I felt guilty all day and kept trying to come up with something fun for us to all do.

In the end he won and we really did just have a quiet, low key day as a family. We did at least go out for dinner.

I couldn't find any of my birthday candles, though. Nor did we even have a cake to put candles in.

So I got 3 of my little tea light candles and we lit them for him to blow out.

Make a wish!

Santa and the tooth fairy in the same month!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Day 194

Zoey lost her first tooth today, and it was about time. It's been wiggly forever. In fact the permanent tooth had already grown in behind the baby tooth long before it fell out.

The tooth fairy didn't have any small bills in her wallet. Only $20's. So the tooth fairy raided Zoey's piggy bank after she was asleep and pulled out a couple of $1's, leaving behind some loose change.

Somebody PLEASE assure me that this isn't the first time the tooth fairy has had to resort to such measures.

Success
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Day 195

Rain is in the forecast for the next several days so we decided to spend today trying to clear out the garage so we could actually park the new car in it. I'd say we were successful!

Just don't ask me to show you pictures of what the other garage now looks like.....

Oh, Holy Night
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Day 196

We ventured out to the Mesa Temple tonight for their annual Christmas Light Display.

The best part was that it was 68 degrees and the kids wore only sweaters. When we used to visit the lights at Temple Square we really had to bundle up.

Yes, I think I am going to like winter Christmas in the desert.

Half Way to the Goal

2011-12-04T17:57:00.001-08:00

As I sat down to write this post I started counting back and realized that this week marked the exact half way point of my little picture project. I set out to take a picture a day for one year. Since we are coming up on a leap year that means 366 days. Which makes day 183 the exact middle.

It's hard to believe we have been in Arizona for 6 months already!

Mike said to me the other day "I was looking back at some of your past posts and you do a good job of making our life seem pretty exciting. I mean I was there for all of it, but you make it look even better."

Here's to 6 more adventurous months!

Moo
Monday, November 28, 2011
Day 183

I tweeted a few weeks ago that cows were mooing outside my window. My friend Melissa asked if we had become farmers. The answer to that question is no, but there is a dairy farm behind our house situated on the opposite side of the flood control canal, and so frequently cows will graze just behind our home. The weather is so nice lately that we often sleep with the windows open, hence I often awake to the sound of mooing cows.

Why is it so hard to take a self portrait?
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Day 184

I recently decided I wanted to become the kind of person who wears scarfs. So I bought a couple. And today I wore one for the first time. But since I don't frequently wear scarfs (yet) I wasn't sure if I was pulling it off. So I decided to take a self portrait and ask you, my faithful readers, if I was in fact pulling off the scarf look. But taking a self portrait is hard!

Christmas comes early
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Day 185

We aren't huge tv watchers at our house, but I am a huge movie buff. I LOVE watching movies.

So, we have had the same TV for 8 years. I'm not complaining. It works fine. We have enjoyed many movie on it's small screen. But it's just that. It's small, and yet at the same time bulky. It's not HD, it's not anything fancy in fact. But it works so we keep using it.

But Mike gets Amazon gift cards at work sometimes. When you do something exceptional or just help out a co-worker you can nominate each other for these gift cards. So we've been saving them up for 2 years now and finally had enough to indulge in a new TV.

It's not super fancy, according to today's standards. It's plasma instead of LED/LED backlit, it's not 3D, no apps (i.e. Netflix and youtube and such are not built in) but it's big and it's flat and after what we've been using for years to me it's beautiful!

But that wasn't the only beautiful new item for the day. (It was a BIG day)

Our old Audi has been on it's last leg for a while. If you have been reading our Arizona adventures from the beginning you'll remember that it was having serious problems this summer. We finally broke down and got the issues fixed. (Repairs that cost more then my new tv. Seriously.) And then shortly thereafter the check engine light came on. And then the front air suspension sprung a leak. We are a one car family and so having one that I didn't feel confident in was starting to worry me. It felt like a ticking time bomb sitting in my driveway.

So we listed it for sale, being very upfront about all known problems, just to see if an Audi enthusiast wanted to take on our issues. We had a few calls but everybody wanted to know what code the computer was reading that was causing the check engine light. So we finally took it to Auto Zone just to have the computer read. The outlook was bleak-it was transmission problems.

We were hoping to hold out until Feb or March to get a new car but after discovering we also had transmission problems we decided to pull the plug.

This is Harrison waiting at the dealer. Mike had pre-neogotiated the whole deal online prior to walking into the dealership so it was SUPPOSED to be a quick, smooth process. We were still there 2 1/2 hours. (A LONG story for another time.) Why does it take so long to buy a car????? I can close on a new house in less time that it takes to buy a car!

But at the end of the day we drove home in this.

Our very own Mazda5. Base model, no bells or whistles. But the transmission works, the AC works, and anything that breaks is still under warranty!

The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Day 186

I realized yesterday that it was almost the first day of December. We have never really done any kind of count down to Christmas at our house, but moving feels like a time of change and especially now that we are away from family I thought we needed to have a few more family traditions of our own. So I decided we'd do a countdown to Christmas.

I had a bunch of tiny stockings from years of my SIL giving the kids $2 bills for Christmas. So I strung them all up and numbered them. (I was a few short, but Dollar Tree filled in the gap!) Each night the kids will pull something out of the stocking. Some nights it's a small treat like a candy cane or a pair of Christmas socks. Some nights it is an activity like put up the Nativity or enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.

And, if 1 countdown to Christmas is good then 2 is better, right? So I found the box in the garage that had all our Christmas books in it and started wrapping. The idea being we'd read one Christmas story each night before bed. I was worried I wouldn't have enough. Turns out that I had more then enough! Clearly we have a book buying problem at our house.

Where are all my girlfriends when I need one?
Friday, December 2, 2011
Day 187

My Realtor is a member of a charitable organization that puts on a fundraising event each year called The Christmas Idea House. She called me earlier this week and said she could get me a ticket. So after I picked the kids up from school today I slipped out to check it out. It is basically a BIG Christmas boutique set up in somebody's big custom home. Totally the kind of thing you are supposed to go to with your girlfriend or mom or sister. I was there alone.

But it wasn't a total waste because I found this and had to have it because it was quirky.

Let there be lights
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Day 188

The note in our Christmas Advent stocking today said to put some lights up in the yard. So we did just that.

Jack Frost
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Day 189

The temperatures actually dipped below freezing last night and left some small patches on the deck this morning. (Of course it was all melted by 10 am, but still.)

We even turned the furnace on for the first time today. And I'm happy to report it works just fine.

Give Thanks

2011-11-29T14:29:00.001-08:00

Eating my words, and fresh produce
Monday, November 21, 2011
Day 176

You will recall that just before closing on our home we looked at the possibility of getting a new fridge. At the time we were looking at an LG model that was the end all of fridges. 31 cubic feet of storage. LED lighting at the top and the sides. It had all sorts of bells and whistles. And it was expensive. Which is why, in th end, we decided to wait a little longer.

Last Friday we were walking through Lowes and a Samsung fridge caught our eye. We were looking for a connector so we could hook up the BBQ grill and as we walked past appliances we stopped by for a look because of the price tag hanging above this particular model.

It has 95% of the features the LG one had but was $800 cheaper!!!!

We were in a hurry Friday night as we had kids at home waiting for pizza and doughnuts. But we slept on it and Saturday morning we decided we could "settle" for the Samsung because there was such a significant difference in price.

So-we went back and ordered one, and today it was delivered! Just in time to go shopping for Thanksgiving!

Multitasking
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Day 177

The fact that my husband works for a tech company does, on occasion, have perks. Like the fact that when he gets a new work laptop we get to hang on to the old one. (As long as he remains employed, of course.)

He also occasionally visits the tech "graveyard" for items that have been retired by the company but may still have a little life in them.

And so, Mike's old laptop + 2 old monitors he rescued from the graveyard = Harrison's delight.

He has PBSkids.org playing on on monitor and is watching Dinosaur Train on Netflix on the other.

Try not to be too jealous. The computer runs slow and the monitors are old and the whole set-up is in dire need of some external speakers. But since he's only 4 he thinks it is super-fantastic!

Let the party begin!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Day 178

It was, of course, party day at school. I made a visited each kids' class to see how they were celebrating on this eve of Thanksgiving.

Day of Thanks!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Day 179

We opted to stay home for Thanksgiving this year. A couple months ago we had discussed making the drive back to Utah for the Holiday but our car is really on it's last leg and so in the end we decided to have our own feast here in AZ.

We kept it small. We cooked just a Turkey breast in the crock pot. I made stuffing from a box and served up Rhodes rolls. None of us like yams so we skipped those altogether. Zoey helped me make a pumpkin pie and a chocolate cream pie and that was it. Small and simple.

We watched the Macy's parade on TV before dinner and put up the Christmas tree after. I even got to take a nap! All in all, not a bad way to spend Thanksgiving.

Black Friday
Friday, November 25, 2011
Day 180

I am NOT a Black Friday shopper. I have zero desire to wake up before the crack of dawn and fight crowds and stand in line just to supposedly save a few bucks. So, instead, we slept in, hung out in our pajamas until after noon and then, since it was 75 degrees, went to the park after lunch.

As we walked to the park Adam and I were making crazy shadows together. This is our super-tall 4-armed monster.

As it started to get dark we ducked into the clubhouse (being a Holiday weekend everybody else was out of town.) At the clubhouse there is an Xbox kinect so we found a fun game the whole family could play together for an hour or so and then headed home and had pie for dinner. I could get used to days like this!

Everybody Loves a Parade
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Day 181

We ventured out to Tempe today for their Festival of Lights parade. We had no idea how crowded it would be or how difficult it would be to find parking so we headed out a little early. Turns out we got there with PLENTY of time to spare. So we enjoyed homemade ice cream at a little local Ice Cream parlor and then the kids colored and played on the ipod while we waited for the parade to begin.

Growing up too fast
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Day 182

Zoey is currently obsessed with the idea of being a teenager. (Don't get me started on how much this frightens me!)

Tonight we went out in the early evening for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood. Little did I know that Zoey had brought along her phone.

She was walking a few feet behind me and I heard her chatting away about nothing in particular. I turned to see what she was carrying on about and this is what I saw.

I guess I can't judge her since I obviously had my phone with me as well, proven by the fact that I was able to take this picture of her during our walk.

Life is a Highway

2011-11-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

Sick Day
Monday, November 14, 2011

Thus far Zoey has had perfect attendance in kindergarten. Today all that changed. Still congested and lethargic and sniffily I opted to keep her home from school today. This is how she spent most of the day.

SMASH
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

As Harrison and I walked home from dropping the kids off at school this morning this large beetle crossed our path. I pointed it out to Harrison thinking we would have this great moment of observing nature together and talking about insects and how they have 6 legs, etc. etc.

So he leans down to look at it and I'm feeling like a great mom when all of a sudden he swiftly lifts his foot and stomps on it with all the 4 year old might he can muster.

As I stand there a little shocked he looks up at me and says "It was crawling towards the road and I didn't want it to get run over by a car."

Sweet Serendipity Strikes Again!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A few weeks before we were to move into our new house I found some quilts online that I thought would be perfect for the boys' rooms. They were lightweight and matched all the curtains I bought on clearance at Target and they were on clearance for $12.

But I kept forgetting to order them and when I finally remembered I could no longer find them online. I looked in store for them a couple of times but never saw any so I figured they had clearanced them all out to make room for new merchandise and I was just out of luck. I was super bummed out because they really were perfect, but I got over it. (Mostly)

So imagine my surprise and delight today when I was shopping for something else entirely and I cut down the bedding aisle just to get to the other side of the store and there on the bottom shelf was not 1 but 2 of my longed for quilts.

And the best part? They were now marked down to $7!!!!

And they look fantastic in the boys' rooms!

Pretty in Pink
Thursday, November 17, 2011

Yesterday I got the boys' rooms looking good so today I spent some time in Zoey's room. I hadn't put her new bedspread on yet (despite having bought it several weeks before we even moved) and I also wanted to move her bed and dresser to different walls. She was super happy with the finished product when she came home from school today!

My cousin had sent me this link awhile ago and I LOVED the idea, but didn't know when I would have time to take on that kind of project right now. But I still wanted to dress up Zoey's dresser a little, make it a little more girly. So I found these vinyl stickers at Dollar Tree a few weeks ago and I thought why not? If we hate how they look we can peel them right back off.

Bribery
Friday, November 18, 2011

Today was the PTO Fall Festival. Sometimes the very thought of attending large crowded gatherings gives me a minor anxiety attack. Seriously. And for whatever reason today I just COULD NOT bring myself to going to a loud, crowded event. I just did not have it in me.

But of course they've been really talking it up at school and the kids were all excited about going. So I had to come up with something REALLY great to do instead. But I was out of good ideas.

So I offered to get pizza, doughnuts, and a movie for tonight, and to come up with a great idea for the next day.

Family Fall Festival
Saturday, November 19, 2011

So time was up, I had talked the kids into giving me a few extra hours to come up with something fun to do in lieu of the Fall Festival at school. So we had our own little Family Festival at home today.

I dug our jumper house out of the garage. (I found this on clearance one year at Walmart. It was an amazing find at 90%, seriously! It's nowhere as big as the ones they had rented for the event at the school, but my kids didn't seem to mind. And I didn't have to buy them a wrist band just to jump for 5 minutes!)

Then we did the doughnut on the string game.

And since one of the main selling points of the school's festival was that a few select teachers were going to get to throw pies in the Principal's face I talked Mike into letting the kids throw pies in his face. (Yes, he was a SUPER good sport!!!!)

Bobsy Twins
Sunday, November 20, 2011

Today, in anticipation of Thanksgiving, I got dressed in some nice fall colors: orange and brown.

I walked out of the closet only to find that Mike had had the same idea. He, too, was dressed in orange and brown.

He offered to change so we wouldn't walk into church looking like twiners but I told him that wouldn't be necessary.

Don't we look good together?!?!?!

Insert Clever Post Title Here

2011-11-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Run, Run as Fast as You Can
Monday, November 7, 2011

The kids joined the school's running club, and today was the first day of practice. They basically just meet after school and run around the school yard for 35 minutes. It's non-competitive. They aren't racing each other. They do keep track of their laps from practice to practice and by the end of the year they will have a log of how far they have run.

I love it because it's a free club, and they come home all worn out.

All Dressed Up

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

I go volunteer in the kids' classes on Tuesday, which means it's the one day of the week that I have an excuse to get dressed up nicely. So today I was dressed up extra nice (because I didn't have any clean jeans) so I convinced Mike that since I was all dressed up with no place to go......that he should take me some place. I also told him I was dressed up too nicely to cook dinner.

So he took us all out to dinner.

Sweet potato fries and Mango Lemonade. YUM!

Life Sabers
Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The kids got a little package in the mail today from grandma. She included some Life Savers.

The kids were ECSTATIC over a handful of breath mints. And they kept calling them Life Sabers.

My Happy Corner
Thursday, November 10, 2011

I finally got most of the boxes out of the family room today.

Both garages are still full of boxes waiting to be unpacked.....but if I just look at this little corner I can pretend that we are all settled in.

Happy Veterans Day!
Friday, November 11, 2011

Today was Veteran's Day, AND it was 11-11-11. So I was feeling like I really wanted to do something to commemorate the day.

The kids had today off of school and all week they had been talking about how they were going to be out of school for Veteran's Day, and kept reminding me about our Veteran's Day last year. So then I felt obligated.

There was a big parade in Mesa that I was thinking of taking them to, but I since we are still new here I don't really know my way around yet. And honestly I was feeling anxiety at the idea of trying to find an unknown address and finding a place to park and fighting the crowds with 3 kids by myself in unknown territory.

Then the kids got up and two were coughing and Zoey was acting extremely lethargic even though she had just gotten up and I decided to just bag it all and stay home.

Which we did. All day.

Will Somebody Please Take the Garbage Out!
Saturday, November 12, 2011

I think it's obvious that nobody likes to take the garbage out at our house.

I know the Scriptures are True
Sunday, November 13, 2011

Today was the primary program at church. The kids were super excited to be a part of it.

Another month, come and gone

2011-11-11T19:39:00.000-08:00

All Hallows Eve
Monday, October 31, 2011

Today it was Adam's turn to do Pumpkin Math at school.

Adam was a little bit more willing then Zoey to touch the gooey pumpkin insides.

He hesitated when I told him to reach down inside the pumpkin but willingly touched and counted seeds once they were outside the pumpkin, even the ones with a little bit of stringy goo still on them.

Halloween was super low key this year. I convinced the kids to wear costumes that we already had kicking around in the dress up box.

We ended up with a Lowes handy man, a Tinkerbell, and a Happy Red James.

We had attended the church "Trunk-or-Treat" on Friday night we skipped trick-or-treating altogether. We had seen an advertisement earlier in the week that kids ate for free at Applebee's on Halloween so we let the kids dress up and we took them to dinner in their costumes. Then we came home and watched Scared Shrekless on Netflix.

Kids were still showered and in bed by 8:00. I could do Halloween this way every year!

Finishing Touches
Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The ironworker was behind schedule and the decorative grate wasn't installed on our window before we closed. So today guess who showed up!

Sky on Fire
Wednesday, November 2, 2011

We seriously had the MOST BEAUTIFUL sunset tonight. And it was so fun to sit and watch it from our back balcony.

Back to Work
Thursday, November 3, 2011

The kids' teachers don't seem to care that we *just* moved and that we are still mostly living out of boxes so they think it's okay to keep sending home homework. (I know, the nerve, right!?!?!?!)

So after days of putting off Zoey's "Disguise a Turkey" project she told me in no uncertain terms that it was due tomorrow and so we HAD to do it.

Which means I spent an hour trying to unearth art supplies for her. We finally found a few and she disguised her turkey as a Princess so that it wouldn't get eaten as Thanksgiving dinner.

The little "skirt" around the feathers there....made out of bubble wrap-because we have a TON of that hanging around. I know, ingenious.

Not Hot or Ready
Friday, November 4, 2011

I don't like to admit that we all too often revert to Little Caesar's pizza for dinner for the kids. It's easy, it's cheap, and it's the one thing I can serve the kids and NOBODY whines about what's for dinner.

But since we moved to Arizona we have yet to walk in and have our pizza "Hot-H-Ready". We ALWAYS have to wait!

So tonight, as usual, we were waiting for our pizza when I spotted this sign in the corner.

Inasmuch as we waited 10 minutes for our order (1 cheese pizza and 2 orders of crazy bread) I think they weren't really hitting their mark.

Happy Colors!
Saturday, November 5, 2011

I bought a new quilt for my bed months ago at Target. I found it on super clearance ($12 for a Queen-size quilt!) and I fell in LOVE with the colors!

It helped that I also found the coordinating curtains on clearance as well. I love how happy these colors make my room feel!

Our bedroom in our Utah house was decorated in much darker colors, which I loved a lot, too. But I was also ready to change things up a bit!

I had originally planned to hang 3 individual valances on those 3 small windows above the bed, but the idea for one long curtain rod across the 3 just came to me one night and I went to Target the very next day to try and find a super long curtain rod. As you can see, I was successful in finding one and I am super happy with the way it turned out.

The blue curtain to the right is covering a slider that leads out onto the balcony, an option we paid dearly for, but I am SO loving!

Here comes the dust!
Sunday, November 6, 2011

We had some high winds blow in today, which means a dust storm.

There was some left-over squares of carpet that the carpet layers left out on the back patio just off the slider. After the dust storm rolled through this is what those carpet squares looked like.

Since the carpet is also brown I don't know if you can get the full effect from this picture, but trust me that they are FULL of dirt. Which pretty much makes them totally ineffective as door mats.

Settling In

2011-11-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Let the "nesting" begin
Monday, October 24, 2011

It's funny how you can spend a significant amount of money on a brand new house and then the first thing you do is start making holes in the walls!

After a few days of living in the fishbowl (a house with zero window coverings) I got tired of feeling so exposed all the time and insisted that Mike start hanging the curtains.

So, here they are, the first two holes in my brand new walls.

All Tuckered Out
Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The curtain hanging continued today and Mike was working in Harrison's room right before bedtime.

Harrison was so tired he said he couldn't wait for daddy to be done and he climbed up into bed and fell fast asleep, with Mike drilling right about his head!

Let there be light
Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Now that the curtains are up in the bedrooms I decided it was time to break from curtain hanging and get some lights up. So here it is, the first ceiling fan. In my bedroom, of course.

Only 7 more to go.....

Little Helper
Thursday, October 27, 2011

Harrison really REALLY wanted to water the plants today.

He was so cute that I opted to not tell him that there are drip lines running to all the plants and they are already getting watered each morning.

Pumpkin Math
Friday, October 28, 2011

I want to Zoey's kindergarten class today to help with a fun math project. The kids estimated the weight and circumference of their pumpkins as well as the number of lines on the outside and the number of seeds on the inside.

Then we weighed, measured, and counted seeds to see how close their guesses where. Estimation is a learned skill and kindergartners just don't quite get it yet. Most my group thought our 15 lb. pumpkin was going to weigh 100 lbs. I kept asking them if any had baby brothers or sisters at home and if they could lift their younger sibling. I told them their younger sibling probably weighed 10-20 lbs so they should compare that to how much the pumpkin weighed. But most of them still guessed 100 lbs.

This is how Zoey felt about the gooey insides of the pumpkin.

She was the only one in my group that utterly refused to reach in and pull out some seeds.

Raising Readers
Saturday, October 29, 2011

I finally assembled the bookshelves in the kids' rooms today so I hauled up the boxes of kids books and asked them to work on putting the books on theirs shelves. This one small request took them ALL day because they kept stopping to read the books!

Zoey also had a little pumpkin party today at the home of one of her classmates. She insisted on wearing this dress because "it is pumpkin colored."

She also picked the smallest pumpkin to paint and decorate.

Improvising
Sunday, October 30, 2011

Our TV (and all the other related electronics) are currently still sitting out in the garage. But the kids really REALLY wanted to watch a movie tonight.

So we improvised. After searching around a bit I was able to find the little DVD players that we use in the car for long drives.

Who says you need a big screen TV to enjoy a good movie?

Home Run

2011-11-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

Counting the hours
Monday, October 17, 2011

Today was our final walk through. We are now quite literally counting the hours until we close. I'm ecstatic and stressed all at the same time!

This is the little closing gift our Realtor brought to our final walk through today. She has been amazing!!!!

And that little orange flower on the doormat is going to really bring out our mustard yellow door.

Halloween Nachos
Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Since we have been packing things like crazy I don't have much left in the way of cookware. I also haven't done much grocery shopping because I didn't want to have to move a bunch of food. So tonight for dinner we improvised. I had a bag of black and orange corn chips and a jar of pumpkin salsa which were just the right ingredients for Halloween Nachos!

Looks like we made it!!!!
Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Closing day!!!! We had a signing appointment set up for just after we dropped the older two kids off at school.

But the littlest one had to come with us. Luckily our title agent was prepared with a large tub of toys in the corner of her office.

And, no grass grows under our feet. So shortly after our signing appointment we picked up our U-Haul and got right to work loading it.

The kids were actually quite helpful.

Unfortunately though the final appraisal hadn't actually taken place yet. So they couldn't record so we couldn't get our keys. The appraiser showed up around 3:00 and the builder's agent called us around 6:00 and said we could pick up our keys first thing in the morning.

Welcome Home
Thursday, October 20, 2011

I was able to pick up our keys this morning after dropping the kids off at school, which means the house is now officially ours!!!! (Well, technically the bank's I guess. But as long as we continue to make our payments every month for the next 30 years, THEN it will be ours!!!)

So, the first order of business was, of course, the welcome mat.

Placing the welcome mat was followed by a brief moment of euphoria and giddiness which was quickly replaced by angst because the moving truck was still back at the rental only marginally packed. So I dragged myself back to the rental to help Mike load the truck.

Mike is the master loader and was constantly trying to keep an accurate picture his head of what large items still needed to fit on the truck so he could plan accordingly. So I made him this list and hung it just inside the truck so he would stop asking me what was still left inside.

In our idealized version of this story we were going to sleep at the new house tonight. But if you take a close look at the list above the beds still were not packed by day's end. So, looks like we will be sleeping at least one more night at the rental.

It's not too late!
Friday, October 21, 2011

Today marks day 3 of packing the truck. Okay, to be fair Wednesday wasn't a full day inasmuch as we picked the truck up around 4:00. But still I was already beginning to feel weary. When it's just two of you single-handedly loading all of your belongings onto a truck you quickly begin to realize just how much stuff you actually have! Which is why I kept trying to draw my husband's attention to this friendly sign inside the U-haul.

I repeatedly pointed out the line that says "IT'S NOT TO LATE.....Same Day Service Available"

But he just kept saying that we were tough and we could handle it. So.....I just kept bringing out more boxes, hoping he would eventually come to his senses.

He didn't, by the way. We loaded and unloaded the entire truck alone. Just the two of us. I even helped carry the washing machine up the stairs. And I have now decided that I am never going to move again. Ever.

Old Friends
Saturday, October 22, 2011

I should mention that my Mother-in-law flew down for a few days to help out with the kids while we moved. I do not know what we would've done without her! She was such a huge help!!!!

Today she got the kids started on unpacking some of their toys. My youngest was THRILLED to tear into the box of stuffed animals and find all his long lost friends. (There were a LOT of boxes we never unpacked while at the rental so he hadn't seen these stuffed animals since April.)

He was so excited that he couldn't decide which to sleep with.

My mother-in-law felt bad that she wasn't much help carrying all the boxes so she appointed herself the task of unpacking all the kitchen boxes.

She stayed up WAY too late, long after Mike and I had gone to bed exhausted.

Picture Perfect.....almost
Sunday, October 23, 2011

Today was the first day that we were able to actually slow down a bit and I realized that we hadn't yet taken a picture of us all in front of our new home!

So I went across the street and got the shot all set up so I could just hand the camera to my mother-in-law to take the picture. All she had to do was aim and shoot.

Here is how I set up the shot for her.

This is the picture we ended up with.

Eye on the prize

2011-11-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

We are finally in the home stretch! Final walk through and closing on our house are next week! Some moments I am blissfully giddy at the idea of finally FINALLY really settling into our new life in Arizona. Other days I'm completely overwhelmed at all the work that lies ahead. But I just keep trying to keep my eye on the prize.

A girl can dream
Monday, October 10 2011

Today we got a call from the title company letting us know the final amount that we need to bring to closing next week. It was quite a bit less then we had been planning on and so I tried to convince Mike that this was a sign that we should go buy a new fridge. We have the same fridge we bought when we first got married. It still works. But it's small and I never have enough room for anything. Plus it's white and all our new appliances are stainless steel. Plus I would really REALLY love the water/ice dispenser in the door.

Mike wasn't convinced but agreed to at least go look.

I took a few pics at the Sears Outlet so I could remember prices for comparison sake....and forgot to take any other pictures all day.

(Side note, since I am writing this several weeks later I can tell you that we didn't, in fact, buy a new fridge. Maybe Santa will bring me one.)

Girl's day out
Tuesday, October 11 2011

Zoey went with me to run some errands today and she asked in her oh so sweet way if we could go to lunch together, too.

And how can you say no to this sweet face?

amAZing
Wednesday, October 12 2011

We took the kids to visit the Arizona State Capitol where we learned that 2012 is Arizona's centennial. Which means we got here just in time for the party. Yea! (Those are my kids in the archways. I know they are tiny, by they are there.)

We also found smashed pennies! When we went to Disneyland last Christmas we started collecting smashed pennies. This has been the greatest thing EVER. For $1.53 I can buy all three kids a souvenirs that they are completely thrilled with, and you can find them nearly everywhere!

Going Green
Thursday, October 13 2011

The landscapers dropped off our front yard plants today.

Someburros
Friday, October 14 2011

We took the kids to dinner tonight. We were looking for someplace that wasn't fast food but didn't want anything too "fancy". We stumbled upon a place called Someburros and little did we know it was such a happnin' place. It was so busy and honestly the food was just okay. Certainly not good enough to warrant how ridiculously busy it was.

Luckily they had coloring sheets for the kids, which kept them entertained for a very long time. Which is always so confusing to me because we have coloring books and crayons galore at home but they always find coloring so much more enjoyable when done on the back of menu.

Kids at Work
Saturday, October 15 2011

With the move just around the corner now we decided to go ahead and take the desk apart today in preparation. The kids were a big help. Zoey counted and bagged up the hardware.

While Adam loosened screws.

Gieco gecko?
Sunday, October 16 2011

Saw this lizard on the window today. Just hanging out, clearly he had no important to be.

Boxed in

2011-10-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in 3 weeks.

And I know you are all just on the edge of your seats wondering how things are going.

As I'm sure you can surmise from my lack of witty banter here the last few weeks have been insane! Good (mostly) but insane. We've been working our tails off and sleep has eluded us. Add to that the fact that my computer has been packed for the last 14 days and maybe you can understand why I haven't gotten around to posting pictures in a while.

The good news in I've still been taking daily pictures-so I WILL eventually get them posted. I just have to dig myself out first.

The Magic Continues

2011-10-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Let the Games Begin
Monday, October 3 2011

Today was the first day of fall break. The kids are out of school for the next 2 1/2 weeks. On the one hand it means I have to now figure out what to do with the kids for the next 2 1/2 weeks. But it also means I don't have to make that awful school run twice a day for 2 1/2 weeks. And we move into the new house the day after they go back. Which means I really only have to make the school run maybe 3 more times. Because then we'll be in walking distance to the school Hooray!!!!

So what did the kids do with their first day of freedom? They entertained themselves by playing train.

Wait for me!
Tuesday, October 4 2011

Temperatures have remained in the 100's this week so I thought we should take advantage of this fact to go swimming one last time before we move. (There is a community pool in our new neighborhood so it's not like we'll never go swimming again.)

I loved this shot of Harrison running to catch up to his older siblings.

I also love going swimming first thing in the morning because that is when all the retired folks are at the pool. The retired crew all come nearly every morning and they are a riot! The last couple of times we went swimming before school started many of them had already gone to visit kids and grandkids for the summer (most of them are snowbirds that leave during the summer months) so it was fun to see so many of them back. It's like going swimming with 10 grandmas and grandpas. They are all so nice to the kids. Plus they are just a crack up to listen to them talk to each other.I love that these wonderful seniors have finally reached the stage of life that they so don't care anymore about what anybody else thinks of them. They are finally free to just be themselves! I keep trying to take that lesson from them-and to not wait until I get older to finally stop caring what other people think of me. I have so missed our morning swims!

Fascinating
Wednesday, October 5 2011

I took Adam with me today to run some errands. It was fun to spend some one-on-one time with him.

We ended up at Ikea (which wasn't on the original agenda). If you've ever been to Ikea (and who hasn't, really?) you know that throughout the store they have displays showing how all their products undergo rigorous quality testing. This display was showing a nighstand with a 12 lb weight in being opened and closed over and over and over and over and over. Adam found these displays highly interesting and stood and stared at each one for a LONG time. He would probably STILL be standing there if I hadn't insisted it was time to leave.

And, I know I've been posting more then 1 picture a day a lot lately, but during our travels we also happened upon this house decorated to the hilt for Halloween and I wanted to post it, too. My blog-I make up the rules.

Let them read books
Thursday, October 6 2011

Today we ventured out to the county library to get our first Arizona library card!

A-maize-ing
Friday, October 7 2011

Feeling adventurous I took the kids to a corn maze, by myself. I'm not sure why I thought this would be a good idea since I have no sense of direction and get lost in my own backyard.

This was at the beginning of the maze. See how happy everybody is.

Just before we found the exit I had two *almost* in tears.

And yet when we returned home they all told their father that they had a fantastic time!

Clearance
Saturday, October 8 2011

I am a sucker for a good clearance sale. I think it's a genetic thing. (If you know my mom, you'll understand.)

So these storage baskets were on the clearance aisle for $2 at Lowes. Each set came with 3 baskets. And the color matches my new curtains perfectly!!!! How could I NOT buy them?

Lost
Sunday, October 9 2011

Adam lost another tooth today. That makes #4 for him.

And trust me when I say this was the best picture I was able to get. He kept giving me super goofy smiles. So finally we settled for this. Can you see the gap?

This also seems like an appropriate time for a little confession. The tooth fairy didn't have any small bills in her wallet. Neither did daddy tooth fairy. So the tooth fairy borrowed a $1 from Adam's piggy bank to slip under his pillow. Whatever it takes to keep the magic alive, right? Right?????

Color my world

2011-10-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

Artists at work
Monday, September 26 2011

Today I got to help do art in Adam's class. In our school district parent volunteers come in and teach from a program called Art Masterpiece. It is actually really cool.

Today they talked about Vincent van Gogh and his Starry Night painting. They talked about how it showed depth by showing the things far away smaller and the things closer bigger. Then the assignment was to do an Arizona Starry Night drawing.

Artist at work.....again
Tuesday, September 27 2011

Today I want to Zoey's class for Art. Today I was in charge and got to teach the lesson. We learned about Helen Frankenthaler and how she dripped and drizzled paint instead of applying it with a brush.

Since I was trying to keep 54 little hands from making a big mess I didn't get any pictures during the actual project. I snapped this quick pic at the end of the day as the teacher was reading Junie B. Jones

And then I coerced Zoey to stand by some of the pictures after class. It was a fun project buy boy it was a messy one to try and do with 27 kindergarten students!

Chino Bandido
Wednesday, September 28 2011

Today was Parent-Teacher conference. Our appointments were just before lunch, so afterwards we told the kids we would treat them to lunch for getting such good reviews from their teachers.

The kids picked Chino Bandido.Every time we eat here they feel it neccessary to climb on the Panda Bear.

We were first introduced to Chino Bandido by Mike's oldest sister when she used to live in AZ and we were visiting them for Thanksgiving. We went there for dinner after she had taken us to Ikea, my very first visit to any Ikea ever, I might add.

One of her kids peed her pants while at Ikea, so we had to stop at Target on our way to dinner to buy her some new pants.

And then a second child peed her pants in the bathroom at Chino Bandido.

Aw, memories.

Mustard
Thursday, September 29 2011

We showed up today to check out progress on the house and the door was yellow. Mustard Yellow. I'll admit, I had NO clue it was going to be that color.

Steamies Vs. Diesels
Friday, September 30, 2011

We decided to take the kids out to the park tonight and ended up at a park we'd never been to before. And so it was much to our surprise to find out the park had a train track running through the park. Which meant, of course, that the kids felt the need to follow it to see where it went.

While making the trek around the track the train came around the corner. As it approached Adam yelled out "It's a steam engine!!!" Mike says, "I'm pretty sure it runs on Diesel." Adam got very serious at this point, looked at his father and said matter of factly, "I am certain it is a steam engine. Just you wait and see. I'm serious." Somebody has clearly watched too much Thomas the Tank Engine.

Sunset Tow
Saturday, October 1 2011

Today we made a run to Target. We just needed a few things and the kids so DIDN'T want to go. So we decided that if they promised to just watch a movie that maybe they were getting old enough to stay home alone for short periods of time.

So of course our quick trick to Target turned into an unforeseen ordeal.

When we came out the car wouldn't start. AT. ALL. There was a guy sitting in his car next to us so we asked him to give us a jump. The car started and we thought all was well.

We drove a little way down the street and at the first stop light the car quit again.

The guy in the car behind us helped Mike push it around the corner out of the intersection and up the curb out of the way. But now what? We only have 1 car. We don't even know any of our neighbors so we don't have anybody to call to come retrieve us. And our kids are home alone! I call Enterprise rental because they are the ones who advertise they'll come pick you up....but they are already closed for the day.

We ended up calling our insurance's roadside assistance number for a tow truck, which we then had to wait a little over an hour for.

Once the tow truck arrived the insurance company authorized the tow truck to take us to Walmart because it was just around the corner and the only place still open after 6:00 on a Saturday.

Of course, unless it was the battery we'd have to have it towed somewhere else on Monday since Walmart is not a full service automotive shop.

Turns out it was the battery. Which was less then a year old. And we bought from Walmart in the first place. Which means it was under warranty. So they replaced it for free and we were able to drive home.

And the kids? They didn't even notice we had been gone that long because they were so engrossed in whatever they were watching on TV.

Conference Sunday
Sunday, October 2, 2011

Today was the semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Which, when you live in Utah, means you get to stay home and watch church on TV in your pj's. But now that we are in AZ I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to watch it at home since we don't have satellite or cable.

But we do have a Roku. And one of the available Roku channels is BYU TV. I can watch live programming via our Roku, and they were broadcasting conference. So we got to stay home in our pj's after all. Yea!

Another week, another post

2011-10-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

I can quit anytime I want
Monday, September 19 2011

I keep giving up caffeine. There have been a few times I have even made it months before "needing" it again. So lately I have sort of given up on giving it up.

Until I relized that I polished off this entire bottle today-all by myself.

Maybe it's time to try giving it up, again.

Check Anger
Tuesday, September 20 2011

We currently drive a 10 year old car that has told us in no uncertain terms that it does not like the Arizona heat. It's a German car and apparently they are much happier in colder climates.

But as we are closing on a house soon our loan officer has asked us to please wait until after we close to buy a new car so she can assure we close on time.

So we've been babying it and trying to get it through just a few more weeks-so of course the check engine light came on today.

I'm trying very hard not to hate this car.

Here we go again
Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Closing day is now only a month away-so I started re-packing up some of the house today, starting with some of the kids' toys. While I am trilled at the idea of finally being in our new home I must admit I am not looking forward to moving again.

Grand Opening
Thursday, September 22, 2011

The development that we are building our home in is still so new that the community club house and pool have also still been under construction.

But this week marked the completion of the community pool and as soon to be residents we were invited to the grand opening/orientation.

As exciting as it was to see the new pool the best part of the evening came as they were showing us how the sound system worked and the gal doing the orientation flipped on the TV to show us how the TV audio can be played through the speakers. She just happened to flip on the TV to a rerun of How I Met Your Mother. So this is where I admit that I really like this show, and that I particularly enjoy Barney, the character played by Neil Patrick Harris. So the fact that she flipped on the TV to a shot of Neil Patrick Harris standing there with no shirt, holding up a sword just positively made my night.

My Kids are out of this World
Friday, September 23 2011

Today marked the kick-off of the Read-a-Thon fund raiser at the kids' school as well as the book fair. Both have an outer space theme so the kids were given the opportunity to dress up as an astronaut, alien, or robot for school today.

I just happened to have bought the astronaut costume last year for 90% off after Halloween so Adam wore that. Finding something for Zoey to wear was a little more tricky. So much of our stuff is still packed so I couldn't even find pipe cleaners to make antennae. I finally located some sticky sculpting sticks and we twisted some together and attached them to a headband to make one single antennae on top. I tried to convince her to stick a few wiggly eye balls to her forehead, too but she was not having that. But she agreed to let me stick an eyeball to a ribbon and then tie it around her wrist.

But my favorite part of this picture is the little one who jumped in the back to smell the flowers.

I had already taken my picture for the day this morning but this afternoon when we were visiting the house I was throughly amused by this scene in the garage.

The tilers apparently didn't want PB&J for lunch today, because they had brought their own microwave which was plugged into their generator and sitting amongst the tile saw and boxes of tile. It made me smile.

Wonderful Lazy Weekend
Saturday, September 24 2011

This morning we went swimming for the first time since school started. We arrived around 8:00 am and since most the neighborhood was across the street at the park watching little kids chase a soccer ball we had the pool completely to ourselves for nearly 3 hours.

When we finally did go home I spent the rest of the day doing laundry-so this picture was a perfect representation of everything we did today. It was a good day.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop
Sunday, September 25 2011

I am always curious about stray shoes out in the wild. I mean how exactly does a shoe end up in the middle of the road? How could you not notice that you were missing a shoe? I would think it would be obvious. I am always trying to imagine the story behind these missing shoes.

So today when there was a flip flop in the parking lot at church I decided That not only should I take a picture of it, but I should start taking pictures of all the stray shoes I see. Maybe I could write a book where I make up the back story of all the random shoes I see.

Or maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself.

Welcome!

2011-09-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

This week marked our first visitors. But I'm getting ahead of myself....first things first.

Because it was THAT day
Monday, September 12 2011

I'll be honest....I'm behind on blogging and so it's now been two weeks since I took this picture and I can't remember the exact story behind it.

I do remember it was a rough day and so about an hour before bedtime I declared I had had ENOUGH at which point I told Mike he was in charge of putting the kids to bed and I retreated to a bubble bath with a book. Hence the picture. What I don't remember is why it was such a bad day.

Guess it just goes to prove the saying "this too shall pass." Because apparently it did.

Follow Your Heart
Tuesday, September 13 2011

Today I got to go with Adam on his first 2nd grade field trip. They have been learning about all the different body systems so to end their unit they went to the Halle Heart Children's Museum.

It was actually very cool. Except that at one of the stops on our tour we learned about how healthy eating helps our hearts. Our tour guide talked about how much fat you should (or shouldn't) eat each day and taught about reading nutrition labels and paying close attention to serving sizes. So now Adam has become our nutrition label police. Which means I now have to eat ice cream after he goes to bed so he won't give me a lecture about how much fat is in each serving.

Color me Green
Wednesday, September 14 2011

They finally started putting the exterior color on the house. So-for those of you who asked, this is what color it is going to be.

When my mother-in-law saw it she called it puke green. I prefer "Desert Green".

And speaking of my mother-in-law.....

Visitors!
Thursday, September 15 2011

Today our first visitors arrived! Grandma and grandpa must really love the kids because they drove 11 hours to sleep on an air mattress and go out in the 110 degree heat! (Back in May before we even left, when they were planning this trip none of us had any idea it would still be so hot in September!)

Here we go again
Friday, September 16 2011

A couple of weeks ago we went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park.

When I asked the kids where they wanted to take grandma and grandpa when they arrived they unanimously replied they wanted to go back to the railroad park.

So, back to the railroad park we went!

Big House
Saturday, September 17 2011

Today, still trying to entertain our visitors, we headed southward to Coolidge to the Casa Grande National Monument.

You can see from how tiny my kids look next to it that it really is a BIG house!

Parting is such sweet sorrow
Sunday, September 18 2011

Today we bid farewell to our first visitors. I had intended on taking a picture of then hugging the kids goodbye, or of them pulling out of the driveway. But forgot. So instead you get a picture of the empty driveway taken hours after they had left.

100

2011-09-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

We reached 100 days in Arizona this week. Of course I didn't realize it at the time so the day slipped away without any fanfare. Just as well I guess. It was a busy week and if I had known it was 100 days I would've felt obligated to do something and then been stressed about having one more thing to do.

Trader Joe's or bust!
Monday, September 5, 2011

We have been living in Arizona now for 3 months now and it took us this long to FINALLY make our first trip to Trader Joe's. (We didn't have them in Utah.) I was excited about the yummy assortment of things to eat inside, the kids were only excited about the bus cut out outside.

Oops!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Confession-I didn't actually take this picture on Tuesday....I took it Wednesday morning. Because Tuesday I had 2 boys up at 3:30 in the morning with stomach cramps and yet more diarrhea. (They went nearly all day Monday with no incident so I really thought we were finally done!) I'll spare you the gorey details but this morning's events prompted me to finally take them to the Dr. for it. So I spent the day trying to find a new pediatrician that was covered by my insurance and then dragging kids to the Dr. all while hoping nobody would have to go at just the wrong time.....and suffice it to say it's the first day since we arrived that I honestly just plain forgot to take a picture. I guess it was bound to happen at some point.

But I took this lovely picture of the house the next morning during the school drop off. It's coming right along, don't you think?

At your service
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Today was my first day volunteering at the school. I love spending time in my kids' classrooms. (Ug, I have always hated, however, making the possessive plural of words....I always question if I am doing it right.)

Anyway-today I was in Adam's classroom. They earn money for turning in homework on time and for following directions and such and once a month they get to spend their money at the class store. So I helped man the store. It is interesting to see what 7 year olds get excited about. And I've said it before but I will say it again, I ADORE my son's teacher. Seriously. Looking forward to working much more with her this year!

Re-purposed
Thursday, September 8, 2011

We have a square table. I love my square table. Except that I can't find a table cloth to fit it. I've been looking for MONTHS for a table cloth that fits with no luck.

Today I was wandering around Target and found this shower curtain on clearance. When out of the blue it hit me-the shower curtain was exactly the size I've been looking for in a table cloth! Apparently I've just been looking on the wrong isle all these months.

This is one of the plastic shower curtains so the kids can spill on it and it wipes right off. And it fits my table!!!! I'm in love.

Sweet Serendipity
Friday, September 9, 2011

Adam has been reading Mr. Popper's Penguins. I told him once he finished it maybe we'd go see the movie. He finished it earlier this week so I figured today would be a good day to pick the kids up from school and surprise them by taking them to the movie. So I started checking online to see if I could find it playing anywhere.

It was just my luck that starting today the Harkins Theaters have a free movie playing at each of their theaters in honor of their 78th anniversary and at the theater closest to the kids' school the free movie was Mr. Popper's Penguins.

I could not have planned that better if I had tried!

Let's get down to business
Saturday, September 10, 2011

I spent pretty much the entire day in my bed room watching Tamara Lackey's Business course on CreativeLive.

I have no idea what my kids did all day. But they didn't break anything and nobody got hurt.

Believe in Magic
Sunday, September 11, 2011

Yesterday Zoey received a very special delivery. (Okay, there was something for me, too. But she's cuter.)

This is her all ready for church, wearing her very special new necklace. She is completely smitten with it.

Home Alone

2011-09-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

For the first time since we arrived in Arizona Mike had to travel for work. He was gone all week and although we survived it was a long week. We are still new enough in this house that I don't quite know all it's creaks and quirks so with Mike gone every little noise at night freaked me out. Plus I don't really know any of our neighbors yet so I worried (more then was necessary) about what would happen if I did need help.

Turns out it was a lot of worry for nothing (it usually is) and we all got along just fine.

What's for Dinner?
Monday, August 29, 2011

I hate cooking. I mean HATE cooking. Seriously. I have no passion or talent for it. Which means I procrastinate meal planning. Which means I NEVER know what we are going to have for dinner. Ever.

Tonight I had a bunch of random ingredients: canned crescent rolls, some cooked chicken, broccoli, shredded cheese. So I rolled out a crescent rolls, put a little of everything else on top, then slapped another rolled out roll on top and pinched the sides together, sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top for good measure and voila!

I thought for sure my kids would think they were great because all the ingredients are things they typically eat. But of course everybody found something to complain about. Hence the reason I hate dinner time!

Picture Day!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Today was picture day. I don't actually buy the individual picture packages (I do purchase the class picture) but the kids still got all dolled up just the same.

Don't try this at home
Wednesday, August 31, 2011

We stopped by the house today after school to check on the progress. It never ceases to amaze me how fast these guys work. Mudding and taping of the entire house completely done in one day. The kids were especially impressed by the guys on stilts.

As you can see, it was a very hot day.

Happy Anyday
Thursday, September 1, 2011

Harrison's birthday was 35 days ago. I guess we just like to keep the party going at our house.

Happy Friday?
Friday, September 2, 2011

When I put this shirt on this morning I was optimistic. Turns out it was anything BUT a Happy Friday.

The short list includes:
AC quit working, again
Mike had to catch a later flight (LONG frustrating story) so wasn't going to get home until very late
Both my boys began what turned into over a week of diarrhea

What a way to begin the holiday weekend!

Trains! Trains! Trains!
Saturday September 3, 2011

We decided we needed to do something super fun to make up for how craptastic Friday was. I had originally planned on just heading to the community pool but with 2 boys with mild diarrhea the day before we figured we should be good parents and keep them out of the pool.

But the boys weren't feeling sick at all. So we headed to Scottsdale to the McCormick-Stillman Train Park. It was HOT but that just meant that nobody was there. The kids all had a FANTASTIC time.

We did have one little bathroom accident but luckily I had brought along clean shorts, just in case.

Mother in Training
Sunday, September 4, 2011

Zoey LOVES to bake. Which she so doesn't get from me. (See Monday.....) But it was kind of a lazy Sunday afternoon (due to continued diarrhea we stayed home from church) so I let her mix up some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

I'm hoping that when she is just a little bit older she can just take over all the cooking permanently at our house.

To tumblr or not to tumblr? That is the question.

2011-09-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Not that anybody cares....but it's my blog so I can ramble aimlessly if I want.....but I have spent a considerable amount of time this week working on transferring this little blog of mine over to tumblr. Because I was looking for ways to keep up on this blog without it being such a big ordeal at the end of each week to get my pics from my phone to flickr then to my blog and tumblr has a really great iPhone app for posting straight from my phone.

So I spent way too much time trying to make my life easier when just writing this blog post would've been faster. Do you have weeks like that????

And after all that time spent I have decided, for now at least, to just stay here. Lots of reasons why that are boring and I won't go into but mostly because tumblr doesn't support comments and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I like getting comments from ya'll. It makes me feel connected....and since we moved and I don't have friends here yet and I'll admit, I've been lonely. So feeling connected to a vibrant online community has become more important to me then ever.

Although I am still considering switching to a daily post instead of a weekly one....I don't know I'm torn. Are these weekly posts getting too long? Heck yea they are-because I'm still yammering away about this! Less typing and more pictures already!

Zoey's Home!
Monday, August 22, 2011

The only thing missing from this picture is her shoes thrown haphazardly into the mix. Having Zoey in our home is a little like living constantly in the wake of a hurricane.

I think she may be genetically predisposed to mess making and hoarding. Do I try and train this out of her or just try to manage the best I can but mostly just love her just like she is?

Sleeping Handsome
Tuesday, August 23, 2011

He doesn't nap much these days but today Harrison crawled up on my lap and feel asleep. Is there ANYTHING as precious as a sleeping child?

Notice the super matted down hair-ALL my kids sweat profusely when they fall asleep. Seriously. One of these days I should take a picture of on of their pillows after they have been asleep so you can see the huge sweat spots left behind by their sweaty little precious heads.

Not a commentary on gas prices
Wednesday, August 24, 2011

This is actually a story about me having to get gas in my pajamas.

We were running late this morning. I typically get up before the kids and have already showered before they awake. It's just easier that way. But this morning I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. Then the kids couldn't get moving. And shoes were missing and homework wasn't in the backpack and so I didn't make it to the shower before time to start the school trek. Which meant that for the first time since school started I was taking the kids to school in my pajamas. (Which means I didn't have on a bra.)

Which would have been fine except that as soon as we got in the car it starting dinging and flashing at me that I was very low on gas. Why didn't I get gas last night? Why?

The school run is a long drive and my choices were all bleak. I could stop and get gas, but we were already running late and would this make the kids late for school?

I thought about trying to get the kids to school then getting gas on the way home. But there isn't a gas station near the school. And when you add all the idling in the drop off line on top of the miles to school I wasn't 100% sure I'd make it.

Still I almost chanced it until I remembered I was in pajamas. And this is our only car so I ran out of gas I couldn't call Mike and beg him to come get me. If I ran out of gas I would be hiking in the Arizona heat in my pajamas and slippers to get gas. And if I ran out anywhere close to the school I would be hiking in the Arizona heat in my pajamas in front of all the other school parents.

So stopped first and got gas. And we weren't late. We pulled up after the first bell but before the second, cutting it closer then I like but at least I didn't run out of gas in my pajamas!

Sweet
Thursday, August 25, 2011

So many hours to fill while the older kids are at school-today he played Candy Land by himself for about 45 minutes.

I would've played with him but it was actually much more amusing to me to watch and listen to him play by himself. The little gingerbread men would talk to each other as they moved along the board and at times I couldn't contain my giggles at what they would say to each other.

Swiftly and Skillfully
Friday, August 26, 2011

A crew of 6 men sheet rocked our entire home today. The whole thing. When we finished the basement in our Utah home it took Mike weeks and weeks to do the sheet rock.

I know you can't really compare because Mike was still working a full time job and was often times working by himself. But it is still amazing to me to see how fast they worked.

These two for, example, where throwing up these ceiling pieces like it was no big deal. They grab the together and then jump up those step ladders like nobody's business. They hoisted it over their head as if it was light as a feather. (My dad has the bump on his head from helping Mike put up ceiling pieces to prove that they are not in fact as light as a feather.) And then one handed they'd place a nail and then pound it in with 3 swings.

I'm thinking that the transition from construction worker to Cirque du Soleil performer is not as big of a stretch as you'd imagine. Especially the roofers. Have you seen they way the dangle off the side of a pitched roof?

Inspired
Saturday, August 27, 2011

Too hot to go outside, too stir crazy to stay home we did a little window shopping today. These are some of the things that inspired me.

I am very in love these days with cool colors. Greens and blue hues I guess remind me of someplace tropical. I am also drawn to geometric shapes. So of course I loved this chair!

I loved this armorie as well. Green and squares! I actually like Zoey is that bright yellow next to it. I feel inspired to spray paint my bed green and my night stands yellow.

A Robot Fairy
Sunday, August 28, 2011

Zoey found the box of dress ups that I had hidden the back of a closet hoping that could just stay in their box until we moved into the new house. But she was NOT having that. She found that box fair and square and she WAS going to dress up.....as a robot fairy?

And why shouldn't she be a fairy robot? That girl dances to the beat of her own drum and I love her for it.

Life as Usual

2011-08-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

On the Boardwalk
Monday, August 15, 2011

My kids, 7, 5, and 4 love to play Monopoly.

They only sort of know how to play and so I get endless enjoyment out of listening to them trading properties and building little green houses.

Last Call
Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Each time we visit the house and wander around I am amused by the empty drink containers left behind by the works. I don't know why exactly this amuses me. Somewhere in my head there is a poem or a short story about what each drink choice says about each worker. I can't quite make this idea come into focus for me but am amused just the same. So today I documented it.

Editing
Wednesday, August 17, 2011

I spent all day (and night) editing a short video entry for a chance to attend a Photography Business workshop.

I shot my video here in my bathroom.

And I didn't win, FYI. But life goes on.

Losing my cool
Thursday, August 18, 2011

The car (our only car) has been in the shop since Monday. When we picked it up today the bill was a little over $1300. (Plus the cost of the rental car we'd been driving for 4 days.)

Don't ask me how I felt about that.

Of course I assumed that after paying that kind of money to have the car fixed that the consolation prize would be that at least now the car worked.

So imagine my dismay when is started to overheat while I was picking the kids up from school.

This was taken about 5 minutes before it started dinging and flashing at me.

Notice also the outside temperature of 117 degrees.

Weather
Friday, August 19, 2011

The damage we found this morning........(tree down, screens blown off windows)

....After last night's rain storm

Icky germs
Saturday, August 20, 2011

Today I picked up from the pharmacy the SECOND antibiotic for some member of our family in just 2 weeks. I certainly hope this weekly trip to the Instacare is just a fluke and not something we are going to make a habit of.

But while I was waiting for the prescription to be filled I got the kids new toothbrushes. They got to decorate them with the enclosed stickers, a project that kept them happy and entertained for a full 45 minutes. Seriously. Which made those slightly overpriced spin brushes worth every penny.

Dear Grandma
Sunday, August 21, 2011

I love the letters that the kids write to their grandmas!

Zoey still very much has kindergarten handwriting but she is actually a really good little speller. Well, phonetic kindergarten speller, but still pretty good. She is completely into writing lists and stories and poems right now.

Now the real challenge begins

2011-08-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

Up until this point it's been fairly easy to find something to take a picture of each day. The environment was still new enough that I could find something unique each day to document. But now that we've been back in school for a few weeks now and have sort of settled into a new routine each day is beginning to be same old, same old. If you know what I mean. So this week I really had to stretch to find something to photograph each day.

I did succeed, but I can tell that going forward from here I'm really going to have to try harder to think outside of the box to find something interesting to capture each day.

This little pig built his house of wood
Monday, August 8, 2011

Been a little while since I posted a progress shot of the house. And it really is starting to look like a house! Wahoo!!!!

One Step Closer
Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Yup, we are now one step closer to being true Arizonians. Our Utah plates expired at the end of the July so today Harrison and I braved the DMV. We were rewarded for our efforts with a shiny, new Arizona licence plate to call our own.

Spirit, Hope, Believe
Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I've been discovering lately the joys of having jewelry that is not only pretty, but that also inspires. A physical reminder of something important. So I've been doing a fair amount of soul searching as of late and I wanted something to remind myself that dreams do come true.

I also happened to have $10 Kohl's cash that had to be spent by today.

And, as luck would have it, I found these on the Clearance rack for $10.

Mugshot
Thursday, August 11, 2011

Earlier in the week Andria requested a picture for a project she was working on. So since I happened to be having a good hair day I took a few minutes this morning to snap a few self portraits.

And then, since Adam had strep throat I spent the rest of the day at waiting at the Instacare, then waiting at the pharmacy, and then snuggling a sick boy. Which meant I completely forgot to take any other pictures. So you are stuck looking at my mugshot as today's picture.

Men at work
Friday, August 12, 2011

There is no way to sugar coat this so I'll just say it: I hate the twice-daily school run. Between drop off and pick up it's 2 hours in the car each day that I could live without. Especially since the A/C in the car doesn't work all that great the temps are still over 100 everyday.

So imagine how *happy* I was to discover that there are now not one but TWO construction zones I must pass through to make the school run. This has increased my daily drive time from 2 hours to 2 1/2 hours.

My blood starts to boil as soon as I start to see the signs.

Zoey at Zoe's
Saturday, August 13, 2011

We were out car shopping today (nothing will make you hate a car faster then broken A/C in the AZ summer) and we stopped at a little place called Zoe's kitchen for lunch.

My Zoey was, of course, in heaven thinking she had her own place.

The food was actually really good, and the cookies were as big as my head!

Go Towards the Light
Sunday, August 14, 2011

The view from my bed this morning.

Well, the view from my bed every morning to be honest.

But last week at Skip's Summer School Roberto Valenzuela talked about (among other things) looking for lighting patterns in natural settings that you can recreate to make interesting photos.

So even though this is what I wake up to every day today I stopped to recognize and appreciate the ethereal glow from the big window in the bathroom, and then got to work practicing my craft and looking for ways to make interesting photos using this light.

If you like Pina Colada, and getting caught in the rain

2011-08-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

I DO like Pina Colada! But what does that have to do with anything? Read through at least Tuesday to find out. ;)

How much WOW can you fit in one room?
Monday, August 1, 2011

Today was the first FULL day of workshop, and I do mean FULL.

This was also the day I spent crying. I mean full-on runny nose, blotchy faced crying. But that's another story for another day. (And another blog.)

This picture was taken later in the evening at a open/unscripted panel discussion with any of the presenters who felt so inclined to show up. And yes, by then I had, thankfully, stopped crying.

From left to right we have Bob Davis, Jerry Ghionis, Tamara Lackey, Bambi Cantrell, Jules and Joy Bianchi, Bobbi Lane, Roberto Valenzuela, Matthew Jordan Smith

Amazing photographers who were SOOO generous with their time and knowledge. I was blown away at how much they really seemed to want to help each of us be successful!

Feeding my mind AND my stomach
Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Today was full of hands-on demonstrations, like this one.

It was a LONG day and afterwards I set out with fellow attendee Matt Vanecek to find something for dinner.We had almost resigned ourselves to McDonald's when we decided to take the tram next door to Treasure Island for one last punt.

At the bottom of the escalator was a bikini clad woman handing out full color fliers of some sort. If you have ever been to Las Vegas you know you should usually avoid scantily clad women handing out anything...but she said the magic words: Free Food.

We took her coupon and discovered it was for a free entree at one of the restaurants, Kahunaville. Buy one entree, get one free.

I ordered the Pina Colada Chicken, which turned out to be the single tastiest meal I had my entire trip. And pretty to boot!

Welcome Home!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011

My time in Vegas at a close, it was finally time to return home. This is the happy sight that greeted me at the airport!

If the shoe fits
Thursday, August 4, 2011

When we drove past the house today there was one shoe on the back of this truck. Just one, single, lonely shoe. And it amused me. What can I say? I'm easily amused.

Weekend Plans
Friday, August 5, 2011

The kids LOVE the iPod touch. They are junkies and would play games on it all day long if I would let them. (Their current obsession is Plants vs. Zombies.)

The only problem is there is one iPod and 3 kids. So after school typically looks a little like this.

Happy Hour Tragedy
Saturday, August 6, 2011

If you know me well you already know that I am just a tad bit obsessed with Sonic Happy Hour.

Today my addiction bit me in the but, literally.

Harrison had fallen asleep in the back seat so I was trying to juggle my drink and his. (Our Audi has no cup holders. Apparently Germans don't drink and drive.)

Which means that before we made it home I was wearing 20 oz. of ice cold Cherry Sprite.

Together again
Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sundays are usually the days I attempt to sleep in, just a little. Unfortunately my kids still wake at 6:30, on the dot. And if I am not up fixing breakfast they feel it is their duty to personally come find me and snuggle me until I get up. Which means by 7:00 am on Sundays my bed usually looks like this.

I think we need to buy a King Size mattress, or start locking the door!!!!

A week of firsts

2011-08-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

First day of school, first time traveling by myself, first time my baby turned 4.....it was a big week!

Back to School
Monday, July 25, 2011
Day 57

Today was the first day of school-but not just any old first day of school. It was first day so school in Arizona. For Adam it was the first day back to public school after doing home school. First day of school EVER for my little kindergartner.

Remind me again why we moved to Arizona in the middle of summer
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Day 58

Sometime during the night the AC quit working. We called the property manager at first light and he told us the soonest his AC guy could arrive was 5:00 pm. That was 11 hours away!!!! Before he arrived the temperatures in the house rose to over 90 degrees. This did not make for happy kids or happy parents.

Around 5:00 a different AC guy called (long story) and diagnosed the problem over the phone, but couldn't get parts until morning. Trust me when I say it was a LONG night!

Breakfast at McDonalds
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Day 59

I waited and watched the clock all night until 5:00 am-the time McDonald's dinning area opens. And then we got dressed and headed to breakfast because McDonald's is close and they have air conditioning!!!!

Thankfully the HVAC guy came as I was taking the kids to school and had everything fixed and working by around 9:30 am. Thank goodness!!!!!

And Then He was 4
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Day 60

We celebrated his birthday last Friday, making today relatively quiet, but today is my baby's birthday. He is now officially 4 years old.

The Last Supper
Friday, July 29 2011
Day 61

I am leaving very early tomorrow morning to go to Las Vegas for Skip's Summer School . I will be gone 5 days, the longest I have ever been away from my kids. So we spent the night in style with dinner at Chino Bandido.

It's a Circle of Life Thing
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Day 62

While in Vegas I splurged and bought tickets to see The Lion King. I felt so guilty for spending so much money when we were stretching financially just to get me to Vegas for the workshop in the first place-but I SO BADLY wanted to see it. And I was NOT disappointed!

Here is the stage before the show began. (Before the two big, tall guys sat down directly in front of me.)

It is crazy how much I love live theater. As the opening strains of Circle of Life were being sung I started to cry. I was so excited and so moved and it was stupid and embarrassing but I cried!

And then, because we are completely insane, we got reduced price tickets to Mystere at 9:30. (Reduced because they were for same day.) The show was, of course, amazing. But having gotten up at 4:00 to make my early flight meant I was really too tired to truly enjoy it. Note to self. Two shows in one day is just TOOO much!

Despite being completely wiped out by the time we got back to our room at the Stratosphere we took a trip up to the top. We got a free ride because we were hotel guests, and we were only staying one night, and it really is a much better view at night-so we dragged our tired selves to the top. Took a quick picture. Then we went to bed!

You had to be there
Sunday, July 31,
Day 63

My water glass at the Paris Buffet. This picture was taken for the benefit of a select few, who know who they are. Enough said.

Stop, go back!

2011-07-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Since I started this little 365 day project of mine my family has gotten used to me uttering 3 little words....Stop, go back!

These days I find that I am consciously and constantly keeping my eyes open for something to take a picture of each day. I often see something while we are driving, so it's become common for me to coerce my husband into driving around the block again so I can take a picture.

Except that after several weeks of this behavior the whole family is getting less and less patient with my quest for the daily picture. The kids cannot understand why we are stopping AGAIN when they are SOOOO HUNGRY. So, sometimes I miss a photo opp.

My favorite missed photo opp this week-the Adopt-a-Highway sign that said that a particular mile of highway was sponsored by the Florence Sr. Citizen Center. I immediately pictured in my head little old ladies with blue hair and little old men using their walkers to pick up trash on the side of the road and the mental image tickled me. It's just the way I roll, I guess.

Off
Monday, July 18, 2011
Day 50

Because AZ is so hot during the summer most of the shopping centers and restaurants have misting systems that will spray a fine mist of water down on you as you walk along the sidewalk. Not enough to really get you wet but enough to help cool you down, just the tiniest bit.

But the problem is that they all also appear to be on timers and no matter where we go they all turn off at 6:00. Believe me when I say that it has NOT cooled down by 6:00. And 6:00ish is when we are most likely to go out to dinner. So why, I ask you do they turn them off right in the middle of the dinner rush? Why????

So this picture is because I am disappointed, once again, that the misters have already been turned off for the day and we can't in fact eat out on the patio.

If you look really close you can see one little tiny drop of water falling from the sad, turned off mister.

Quiet, man at Work
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Day 51

Today Mike had a long day of conference calls and the kids were getting a little bit too loud in the other room. So I was trying to come up with a way of helping them keep the noise down without coming across and mean mom. So I encouraged them to get out their markers and make some signs we could post around the house when dad was on the phone to remind us to be quiet.

I'm gonna soak up the sun
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Day 52

Since school starts next week our mornings at the pool are quickly coming to an end. Too bad. My babies look good in the sun.

Meet your Teacher
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Day 53

New state, new school, new friends, new teachers.

Zoey is ECSTATIC about starting kindergarten.

Adam is a little bit more reserved, but optimistic.

I know school hasn't started yet but I feel fantastic about the kids' new teachers.

20 Guesses
Friday, July 22, 2011
Day 54

Harrison's birthday is really next week, but since his siblings will be in school and his dad may be out of town for work we decided to celebrate his birthday today.

Here I am working on his cupcakes.....any guesses as to what they are going to be?

Dear Environment, I apologize in advance
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Day 55

The dishwasher has been acting out lately. I did all the things the Queen of Clean recommended for cleaning your dishwasher and removing hard water build up. But the dishes were still coming out dirty. And I was tired of washing all my dishes 2 sometimes 3 times. (Pre-rinse, run through dishwasher, wash again by hand because they came out dirty.) So today I gave in and bought paper products to use until we move to our new house with a new dishwasher

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Day 56

School starts tomorrow, so we spent the evening getting back packs ready to go. Tomorrow we kiss goodbye the blissful summer mornings by the poolside. Instead we will be waking up bright and early so we can be ready on time to make the 25 minute drive to school and still be on time. School hasn't even started yet and I already can't wait until our house is finished and the kids can walk to school!

Ground Breaking

2011-07-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is actually starting to wind down for us. Not summer the season. But summer break. The kids start school on July 25th so we've been trying to cram as much into our remaining weeks as humanly possible.

Since Mike works from home and doesn't have to get up and ready to go to the office at any particular time we have also taken the opportunity to sleep in. Sure I get up early a few days a week to do the shopping before it gets too hot, or to just to enjoy the quiet time before the kids get up. But I don't HAVE to get up. And that has been a lovely thing. Something I will surely miss once schools starts again.

And so it begins

Monday, July 11, 2011
Day 43

Zoey went this morning for her Pre-K assessment at the school, which literally took less then 10 minutes. I like to believe it is because she is so stinking smart that she flew right through all the questions. But since they didn't let me in the room with her while they did the assessment we'll never know.

But, since our homesite is so close to the school (less then a block, yea for walking to school!) and since we were a little early before heading to the school we drove past our lot and were met by this happy surprise!

After her test we drove back past hoping to get a better picture of the backhoe but he is FAST and was already gone.

So excited that actual work has begun I can hardly stand it! Was getting tired of all the paperwork.

Priceless

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Day 44

I don't want to get too bogged down in the details, but the past few weeks we have been in a little dispute with our builder. Our floorplan has an option for a walkout deck upstairs off the master bedroom. And we opted for said deck. Only to get paperwork back later with pricing we didn't agree with.

Long story short, our agent is awesome and totally went to bat for us, but in the end we were pretty much roped into the deck at a price we didn't love because everything was already signed.

So-we drove back out to see if anything new had happened at the home site today. (This has actually turned into a night ritual now. It's our first build and we're just a tad bit excited.)

They had added rebar to the big holes in preparation for the concrete. Not so exciting visually.

But we were there just late enough to witness this amazing view of the sun going down as the moon was coming up.

And as I realized that this amazing view would be what I would see EVERY NIGHT sitting on my deck suddenly all the angst over the pricing and such disappeared. A view like this is priceless.

(No houses are going to be built behind us because it is a designated flood washout area. Score!)

Expect Great Things

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Day 45

That's Kohl's catchphrase, right?

Anyway, I have been having anxiety over what to wear on my upcoming trip to Vegas so I decided to trade in my AMEX points for a Kohl's gift card and use it to get something new.

I waited impatiently for days for it to arrive. I couldn't wait to go shopping!

I shopped till I dropped, and then completely forgot to use my gift card!

Put your best footing forward

Thursday, July 14, 2011
Day 46

Today was great! I finally found the library book that went missing just before we moved (which is perfect timing because I had run out of renewals and it is due next week.)

AND on our nightly pilgrimage to our home site we were thrilled to discover that the footings had been poured!

I'm wishing.....

Friday, July 15, 2011
Day 47

Zoey is my child who wants to BUY BUY BUY. She earns a quarter for something and immediately wants to find something to spend it on.

Adam is my saver. We practically had to force him to spend his hard earned money on a souvenir at Disneyland, even though he had been saving it all year SPECIFICALLY for our trip to Disneyland!

You're feeling that I'm not about the tell you a story to illustrate this point, right?

Tonight we went to dinner and ate outside by the fountain. So of course the kids asked for pennies to make a wish.

I gave each child 3 cents. Adam encouraged each of his siblings to throw theirs in first. And then he promptly pocketed his 3 to put in his bank at home.

Closed for the Season

Saturday, July 16, 2011
Day 48

For no particular reason we decided to drive South today and visit the little town of Florence, AZ. On the 4th of July when we were at the pool one of the ladies there was talking about how she had made some pastries to sell at their main street festival and the way she talked it just sounded like the kind of little town I wanted to visit. And it's only 20 minutes away so why not.

We arrived to find it was more like a ghost town, at least during this time of year. Apparently the historical museum and several of the cool old buildings close down for the summer. Who knew?

Luckily we were able to go into the first Pinal County Courthouse, so the drive wasn't a total waste.

Mike gave the kids their first lesson on the judicial system.

Ironically, the county prison is also in Florence. In fact you can't leave town without driving right past it. It's close enough to the road that you can see the inmates out in the yard in their orange jumpsuits. What a way to round out our lesson on the judicial system!

On a sidenote here-we ended up leaving Florence and driving to Tuscon. It's only another hour and a half so we figured why not. Once in Tuscon we ate at Chick-Fil-A, then the kids played in the play area for way too long and then we drove back home. Yup, drove clear to Tuscon for fried chicken! Now THAT is an effective use of time and resources.

Little Bunny Foo-foo

Sunday, July 17, 2011
Day 49

Sundays are always the hardest day to get a picture because we usually go to church then just chill at home the rest of the day.

But today, during dinner, the kids spotted this out the window.

Okay, it's a crappy picture through the screen, and he jumped away before I had a chance to actually go outside. So in case you can't tell, it's a little jack rabbit!

Another week bites the dust

2011-07-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is where I typically wax philosophical about the past week before launching into the week's photos. But I am not feeling like my normal, witty self today. So, I'll skip the idle chatter and get straight to what you came to see anyway!

Let Freedom Ring
Monday, July 4, 2011
Day 36

Yes, today was Independence day. And yes we went swimming and went shopping and saw fireworks. But the real news of today was that Adam lost another tooth.

Tooth #3. And the tooth fairy forgot to come. Does that happen at anybody else's house? I think she may be getting a little old and senile.

Haboob
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Day 37

Today we experienced our first dust storm, or Haboob. Were we are living we were really just on the outskirts of the the major storm, but it was a surreal experience just the same. We were sitting in the living room and Mike looked out the window and said, "The sky is brown." I opened the door to get a better look and sure enough, the sky was brown.

Unfortunately by the time I grabbed my camera the wind had really picked up and the strange brown sky effect had already passed and this is the picture I ended up with.

My picture really doesn't do this storm justice. To get an idea of how massive this storm really was check out the time lapse below.

Home Office

Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Day 38

We finally got the home office set up. Well, mostly.

You can see there are still a lot of boxes and a filing cabinet in front of the door. But, after over a month of doing most my computing from my phone the computers are all fully operational now!

Which means I spent ALL day today catching up on recording the finances and paying bills.

Stating the obvious

Thursday, July 7, 2011
Day 39

We laugh at this sign every time we pass.

So today as I passed it again today I snapped a quick pic.

A first, and a last

Friday, July 8, 2011
Day 40

Pulled the kids in front of the computer to watch their first ever shuttle launch.

Which, unfortunately, may also be their last.

Two Balloons

Saturday, July 9, 2011
Day 41

At Chick-Fil-A today a kind employee came around and offered my children balloons.

Harrison said he wanted a yellow one. There were two slightly different colors of yellow so the kind employee asked him which specific yellow one he would like.

Harrison's response: Both!

We all chuckled at his response, which then caused this response:

So then, of course, he was quickly given both balloons!

World's Best Dad

Sunday, July 10, 2011
Day 42

It's a good dad that will play Princess Barbies with his 5 year old daughter.

I suspect that having 4 sisters growing up prepared him well for this role.

Funniest part is that Mike was all ready to be Jasmine-but Zoey had something different in mind. She wanted him to pretend he was to be a toy builder who was building the dolls.

This is your brain in the AZ sun

2011-07-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Every time we have had to venture out this week my husband comments that it is so hot that it is cooking his brains. So of course all I can think of when he says that is the old public service commercial with the egg frying as the voice over says "This is your brain on drugs".

Weird and random, I know.

To flip or flop or not

Monday, June 27, 2011
Day 29

For years I have been trying to convince my husband to wear sandals. I wear sandals whenever the occasion permits. I love letting my toes be free! (Sometimes to my detriment, but that doesn't stop me!)

I thought that once we moved to AZ he would FINALLY decide to give up his socks and shoes in lieu of something a little cooler.

But-here are my feet at the park today.

And here are his feet at the park today.

As you can see, even in 118 degree weather I am still losing this battle.

Reunited, and it feels so good

Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Day 30

Today I FINALLY unpacked some of Zoey's toys. It's been almost 2 months since I packed them and she has been asking for weeks when she is going to get her dolls back.

So today she was reunited with her princess dolls. And she was just a TAD excited.

Yes, she is still in her pajamas, and yes it was after 4:00 in the afternoon. Don't judge.

Paint with all the colors of the wind

Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Day 31

Exactly what color is the wind? Would you call it Pebbled Courtyard? Or Toffee Crunch?

Today's picture was inspired by a conversation on Twitter with my cousin Andria and my Sister-in-law Karen. I was making fun of paint colors but Andria told me she gives paint chips to her high school students to help inspire them when they write poetry. So then I couldn't make fun of goofy paint color names anymore because that actually is a really good idea.

Finding Sanity on a swing

Thursday June 30, 2011
Day 32

It's been so hot all week that we haven't gone anywhere. At all. And by today I was going completely stir crazy. So around dusk I decided to walk down to get the mail and committed to not head home until I saw something that intrigued or inspired me. I went all the way around the block without much luck. Just across the street and down a few houses from our house is a small little "park". If you could even really call it that. It is just a sand pit with two swings and a teeter-totter. So I walked over to the swings and sat down and started to swing a little, unsure of what else to do. I just knew I wasn't ready to go home yet but it was TOO HOT to keep walking. And at least the swings were in the shade.

And as I started to swing I had a moment of feeling like a kid again, for just a moment. And I tried to see how high I could get. And then I reveled in the feeling of the breeze rushing past me as I swung back and forth, back and forth, higher and higher.

And my cares started to melt away. The stir-craziness of the week started to melt away. My heart was lighter. And I thought about how I found my sanity on the swings-and knew that had to be my picture for the day.

So I propped my phone up and put the timer on. But it kept clicking at weird times so all the pictures were really awkward. Of all I took this was the best.

And it wasn't great. So after about 5 minutes of running back and forth and setting the time over and over I came up with this one instead.

But the process of trying to come up with a creative picture of me on the swings was in and of itself amazingly cleansing and refreshing!

Vitamin D therapy

Friday July 1, 2011
Day 33

After weeks of waiting, impatiently I might add, the HOA FINALLY delivered our pool pass. Which meant today it was time for to get our allotment of vitamin D.

Made for 3 very happy, very tired kids.

Ghetto Fab

Saturday July 2, 2011
Day 34

We are having record breaking heat here in AZ right now. So we have stayed pretty holed up in the house, but we had to venture out today. The AC in the car isn't working up to par and we have been struggling to come up with a doable solution to make car trips bearable. We bought a fan that plugs into the 12 volt outlets in the car but didn't have anywhere to clip it.

So I grabbed my small cutting board, clipped the fan to that and and used bungees to strap the cutting board to the arm rest.

I can almost hear Jeff Foxworthy now, "You may be a red neck if......"

In the name of fashion

Sunday, July 3, 2011
Day 35

I guess today's picture is less about documenting our time in AZ and more about revealing a little more of my crazy side....but you know.

See I pulled my watch out of my jewelry box today only to find that it had a dead battery.

But the watch is so cute and matched my outfit for church so well that I wore it anyway! And prayed nobody would ask me what time it was.

Things are really starting to heat up

2011-06-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

I just deleted everything I wrote. Because I started out trying to paint a rosy picture of this last week. But in reality it was kind of a rough week for me. Not that anything "bad" happened. Just turns out that my mood tends to be a direct reflection of my surroundings and well, the house is still in shambles as we struggle to get unpacked and settled in and I guess I just wasn't coping well. Because I was pretty crabby all week.

Add to that the fact that the car's AC decided to give out about mid week and well-I was REALLY crabby all week.

But, by week's end, after 2 unsuccessful trips to Ikea, we FINALLY found the hardware to our bed so we aren't sleeping on the floor anymore. Plus we got the table set up in the kitchen so we are not sitting in camp chair eating out of our laps anymore. Am hoping it will make this upcoming week go a little smoother for me.

Unfin....

Monday, June 20th, 2011
Day 22

Have you ever heard that BNL song, Unfinished? Because that feels like my life right now. I am drowning in Unfinished.

The painting is unfinished.

The unpacking is Unfinished.

Even the laundry is Unfinished.

This is only a test

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Day 23

Today Adam and I headed out fairly early to the Chandler Unified School District offices. Since I home schooled Adam last year they insisted on testing him before they would enroll him in 2nd grade. I'll be honest that it torqued my shorts a little that they were insisting on testing him. Especially since he technically was enrolled in a state funded online charter school. A school that had to comply with state curriculum standards. And I had his end of year report card to show that finished all the required curriculum. But because he completed this curriculum at home instead of in a standard school room they still insisted he be tested.

But we made the best of it. (All 3 hours of it! Yes, it was a LOOOONG test) and we had a lunch date, just the two of us, afterwards.

Best kind of lunch date!

Feelin' HOT HOT HOT

Wednesday June, 22, 2011
Day 24

It shouldn't come as a surprise that June in AZ is HOT HOT HOT. So a picture of the sunshades up in my car may seem a bit too obvious.

But I took this picture because I had to put them up when I went to the grocery store at 6:00 in the morning. Yes, it was ALREADY hot by 6:00. Which is why I was up doing the grocery shopping that early. Because by afternoon it gets REALLY hot.

Self Portrait

Thursday, June 23, 2011
Day 25

Decided that if I really wanted to document our first year in AZ I needed to show what I looked like pretty much every day for the first month now.

This is me. Hair pulled back, clothes covered in paint, no makeup on. Yup. That pretty much sums it up.

Snip, snip

Friday, June 24, 2011
Day 26

Everybody's hair has been getting a bit too long. Especially for this AZ heat.

Mine was half way down my back and I was contemplating a drastic cut.

And Adam's was getting so long he looked like teenager. (He thought he was just using my phone as a mirror. He didn't know I was recording.)

So we ALL went and got hair cuts. (Which cost a small fortune.)

In the end I chickened out and cut out and only had about 8 inches cut off.

The kids all went much shorter.

Agents on a Mission

Saturday, June 25, 2011
Day 27

Took the kids to see Cars 2. (Free tickets from our amazing Realtor and lender)

Was really the highlight of the entire week!

Pop-Pop-Pop

Sunday, June 26, 2011
Day 28

At 7:00 tonight I realized I hadn't taken my picture for the day yet. And had NO clue what to take a picture of. The day was pretty uneventful. Went to church and then spent the afternoon just hanging out.

So, here is what I scrambled and came up with-a picture of what we had for dinner.

And, as you can tell from the fact that the bowl is nearly empty, it was a success!

Our new normal

2011-06-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

Has it really only been 3 weeks since we started our Once Upon a Time? In some ways it feels like it's been an eternity! In some ways we are still adjusting and figuring out what we are doing, and in others we have already started to settle into our new normal.
So this is what our new normal looks like
Monday, June 13, 2011
Day 15
Mike, working in the front room in his shorts and a tee shirt

The kids playing together because, well, each other is all they've got.

Finding meaning in all this madness
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Day 16
Today I started to question all the insanity. But a Mondo Beyondo interview helped me change my outlook. And I finished painting the Master Bedroom!

Before and After
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Day 17
With painting in the master bedroom done it was time to tackle the kitchen.

Here is how it looked when I began.

And how it looked by the end of the day.

PROGRESS!

That's Entertainment
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Day 18
Happiness arrived in the mail today. The first time in our new home.

Where is a designer when you need one?
Friday, June 17, 2011
Day 19
Today we went to the builder's design center to choose tile, and carpet, and cabinets and counter tops and faucets, etc, etc, etc. I had every intention of taking my daily photo in the design center, since this was a big, important day in our home building process, but I was so caught up in the decision making and the kid entertaining that I completely forgot!
So I did what any sane wife would do-I made my husband drive back to the design center so I could, at the very least, take a picture of the sign.

I did, at one point, take a quick pick to send my sister-in-law to ask her opinion, so this is the only real picture I have from our day at the design center.

Murphy's Law
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Day 20
We had to buy a new dryer this week. We have a gas dryer and our rental only has electric hook up. But the home we are building will have gas, meaning we only need a dryer for 5 months so we didn't want to pay a lot. We found a a washer/dryer set on Craigslist. But had no way to transport it. So then we rented a truck. It was quite the ordeal but we were feeling good about our efforts because we saved quite a bit of money. So imagine how frustrating it was when we tried to plug it in and found we couldn't.

A trip to Walmart fixed the problem in the end. AND we were rewarded at the end of the day by sleeping in our own beds for the first time in weeks.

Of course we still can't find the hardware to our bed frame so our mattress is on the floor. But it's still our mattress and great to sleep on again just the same.

Happy Father's Day
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Day 21
After working 150% for weeks straight we decided to just take it easy today. Slept in. Hung out at home. Didn't paint a single wall or clean any grout. It was wonderful.

My husband, with his youngest son, video chatting with his own dad.

It's kind of one of those circle of life kind of moments.

Quick clarification

2011-06-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

For those who are a little confused.....

We are building a house. It won't be done for 5 months.

So we are renting in the meantime.

Our new landlord was still in the process of acquiring the house we were to rent when we arrived in Arizona. He was supposed to close on it back in May but it was a foreclosure/Fannie Mae property and it took longer then expected to close on.

So we spent the first week in a hotel.

It closed/recorded last Monday but the landlord wasn't ready for us to move in quite yet. But he also happens to own a fully furnished vacation rental one street over that he let us stay in while he prepped the new property for us.

We decided to paint the rental (because the walls were neon yellow and florescent orange.) The landlord bought the paint and is letting us stay at the vacation rental while we paint. (Middle of summer is the off season for Arizona vacationers, go figure.)

So-our truck has been unloaded at the long term rental. But we are still living at the vacation rental for another week or so while we finish painting.

Is that now clear as mud?

When you're up you're up, and when you're down your down

2011-06-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

It such an overused analogy, but for lack of something better (my brain and body are both so very tired) this week has been a crazy roller coaster ride! There were days that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to crawl out of bed, and yet if I HAD to crawl out I was so glad to be crawling out in Arizona, even though the very things stressing me out where the details of getting settled in Arizona.

I love to read the Superhero Journal blog written by Andrea Scher Awhile back she wrote something that stuck with me. She said that she had read that the nature of emotions is flow. That instead of trying to fight an emotion (sadness, pain, etc.) that if we let it flow in, then like the tide, it will flow back out.

This has been my mantra this week. So when I would wake up, overwhelmed and panicked, I would go ahead and let myself feel overwhelmed and panicked for as long as I needed to. And guess what-by allowing myself to experience these emotions I really was able to get through this week. The emotions flowed right back out and I was able to accomplish everything that needed to get done.

Freedom

Monday, June 6, 2011
Day 8

For the most part of the last school year I have been home schooling my oldest. It's been a year full of ups and downs and there are some things I actually really liked about home schooling. But it has also meant having nearly no time to do anything that I want to do just for me. So, you can imagine what it felt like on Monday to take my two oldest to the local school and get them registered!

The schools here was actually one of the big deciding factors for moving to AZ. We did a lot of research and picked a school that we think will be great for our kids. And the best part, kindergarten is ALL DAY!

The Key to my Heart

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Day 9

Today, after several hiccups, we FINALLY got the keys to our rental.

Our new landlord was still going to have the place cleaned so we couldn't move in yet, but we have keys!

I was so excited that we celebrated with our very first Arizona Happy Hour.

The Sonic is only 7 minutes from our rental. Home this could be a recipe for disaster, or for pure bliss.

Reunited and it feels so good

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Day 10

Two full weeks ago this truck pulled away from the curb in front of our Utah home. Today it reappeared on the curb in front of our Arizona home.

It was a lovely and intimidating and sight.

Summer School

Thursday, June 9, 2011
Day 11

Amazing day!

Enough said

Send me a letter

Friday, June 10, 2011
Day 12

We got our mail key today. And it appears that our mail forward is working.

Messages from above

Saturday, June 11, 2011
Day 13

On Saturday, after several days straight of painting, and unloading in the Arizona summer heat I was feeling particularly exhausted which lead to feeling overwhelmed. I may have even cried a couple of times. But then as I was moving a nightstand something fell out onto the carpet.

I choose to believe it wasn't an accident that it tumbled out at just that moment.

EMPTY

Sunday, June 12, 2011
Day 14

It took the better part of 3 days, but around 6:00 pm tonight our 28' moving truck FINALLY looked like this.

We still have painting to finish, and it will be a few more days before we are actually living there, but all our stuff is in the house.

Now, who is up for a rousing game of "where did I pack that?"

Last week I used Instagram for all my iPhone photos. This week's pictures are brought to you by The Best Camera.

What are you favorite iPhone shooting/editing/sharing apps? I want to try them!

Once upon a time.....

2011-06-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

I was talking with my cousin Andria just a short while ago about how much she loves that "Once upon a time" moment. It's the moment where everything is new and anything and everything is possible. It's the moment the adventure begins, where trouble is waiting just around the corner but a hero is waiting around the next corner to defeat whatever evil exists and set order to the world once again.

My little family and I have just begun our own "Once upon a time". Just a short week ago we loaded up in our little car, pulled out of our driveway for the last time, and headed out on an adventure.

I have wanted to do a 365 photo project for a couple years now. I even started one once. I thought I would start on each of my kids' birthdays and take a picture of them a day for a whole year. Well, I got as far as day 64 on the first kid and that's where that grand idea ended.

So this time I am keeping it simple so that I'll finish the project.

First-I am going to use only my iPhone. I always have it with me and I can upload photos directly from it. No pulling a memory card in and out of my camera every day. no searching for a card reader. Since we are still in temporary housing and our moving truck is still sitting on a truck yard somewhere in Phoenix right now this was the only way to go. Plus this will give me a chance to try out all the various iPhone camera apps out there and find which are the best.

Second-I will update the blog once a week with all the pictures from the previous week. Once again, keeping it simple and doable.

Welcome to Arizona!
Monday, May 30, 2011
Day 1
I really wanted my first picture for this blog to be us hitting the state line. Because wasn't that really where our "Once upon a time" began?

But the kids were all asleep in the back seat and refused to be roused.

So-it's just me at the state line.

Already this little project of mine is not going exactly according to plan.

Racing Lizards
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Day 2

Kids are ingenious when it comes to turning everything into an adventure. So when they climbed up on the fountain in the hotel courtyard and started pretending they were in a lizard race I knew this had to be my picture for the day.

Because here they are teaching me how to turn this new phase of our life into a real life adventure. Us adults often need kids to remind us this important lesson.

Coincidently-this is what they were sitting on.

Does it look like a lizard? Or a beaver?

Desert Beauty
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Day 3
I used to think of the desert and dry, and ugly. But I am really starting to appreciate the unique beauty of the desert. This, so far, is my favorite desert plant.

And this is my favorite desert dessert. Or in this case, dinner.

Yes, we had frozen yogurt for dinner. And I loved it!

The West's Most Western Town
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Day 4
We took a walking tour of historic Scottsdale this day. The city's catchphrase is "The West's Most Western Town."

This was the kid's favorite part of the whole tour. Not sure it fits in with the rest of the "western" feel.

Signed
Friday, June 3, 2011
Day 5
We signed all the paperwork to begin the building process on our new home.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Day 6
This street was just down from our hotel, so as we left the hotel for the next temporary house (still won't be in our long term rental for another week) we had to stop and take a picture. (This is our last name.)

Made kids get out of car for a picture with the sign. It was 100 degrees outside and they were NOT amused.

Then we chanced upon this street and had to pull over to take a picture for my nephew.

And, inasmuch as one of the reasons we came to AZ was for the sun to help with my SAD (season affective disorder) I took this sign as a literal sign and had to take a picture of it, too.

All you can eat church buffet
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Day 7
Maybe I've just lived in Utah too long, and maybe this type of thing is totally normal everywhere else, but I'm highly amused by the signs on every corner advertising all the local churches.

The thing that strikes me most is that the majority of the congregations meet at the schools. One church is held at the elementary, one at the High school. Once again, maybe this happens all the time outside of Utah. I guess I'm just surprised there is not more people up in arms about "separation of church and state." I actually think it is awesome.

This one is my favorite.

Maybe I should stop by next week.