Snack Time

A little dose of Wow Wow Wubzy

and afternoon snacks.

Makes the world a happy place!

Popsicles

Nothing beats a warm afternoon,
minimal clothing,
and popsicles!

That is until your brother body paints you with his popsicle

And you even find some sticky leftovers in your belly button.

Now your day is complete!

Vegas - Part 3

Sunday morning, we headed out to the park to launch rockets. Lucky for Anden, Aaron has the same rocket. I guess boys never grow out of some things! And lucky for us it happened to be the ONE day ever in Vegas that there wasn't any wind!

While the boys were fascinated setting up the rocket,
Taylee was fascinated carrying around my purse!

After the first launch, Aaron successfully chased down the rocket.
Now we were ready for Round 2!

After a few misfires and the girls losing complete interest, the rocket finally launched!!
And flew right into the neighborhood behind the park.
The girls laughed. The big boys wasted 30 mins looking for it.

Next up: Ladybug Hunting!

Then Anden finally relented and shared the ladybug with Taylee.
By placing it right onto her neck.
Which it climbed up and over her beloved binky and onto her face.
Which caused a mild panic attack.

Not the type of "sharing" I had in mind.

After all this fun, we packed up and headed back to Phoenix!

Thanks Lyndsay for all you did for us! Anden hasn't stopped asking when we're going back.

Vegas - Part 2

C'mon...did you really think I could summarize our weekend in just one post?!

On Saturday, the kids actually slept in til 7am! Then by 7:30 they were begging to head out to the pool. So while we did that, poor Dad headed to Verizon to eventually get a new phone. (Sorry Dad!! lol but at least your phone lost it's life valiantly saving another life!)

Jer & Anden lassoing the new boat Papa got him

When Dad returned, we headed out to the M resort to enjoy their H20 amenities.

This is our type of a perfect Vegas weekend!

Vegas Baby

We had a FABULOUS weekend!!

It started off on Thursday night, when one of my favorite people came back to AZ! Jes, myself and a lil 5 weeker Canon lived it up. It was so exciting! He slept the entire time and we didn't shut up the entire time. Now if only I can get them to move back....

Then bright and early Friday morning (ok so not as early as I had unrealistically planned) we headed out to Vegas. But not without an emergency pit stop at Walmart to buy another portable DVD player since ours decided to crap out that morning. And there's no way I'm taking a road trip without movies for the kids! After that minor detour, we were on our way! Anden asked 438 times if we were in Vegas Baby yet....and that was before we got to Wickenburg! Seriously kid.

We finally arrived at 3pm. Would have been an hour earlier if it weren't for the Dam(N) traffic. Ugh, finish that bridge already! We were at Lyndsay's condo officially 15 minutes before my kids were going stir crazy. Taylee's quite the interior designer. She couldn't resist rearranging everything in the entire place. So off to the pool we went.

Jeremy taught Anden how to use the 'emergency only' life preserver as a lasso. The pool was freezing so they moved to the hot tub which was luke warm. Perfect! Anden floated inside the life preserver and was loving it. The boys would whip him around with the attached rope. Taylee was hating life that she wasn't in her swimsuit. I finally gave in and stripped her down to swim naked. Well at the same time, a girl and her mom from Lyndsay's church ward were coming over to meet our kids. The daughter was going to babysit for us that night so we could go to the concert. So Jer/I hurried and took Taylee inside to properly clothe her. White trash naked toddlers in hot tubs might not be the best first impression. We were gone 10 mins. Lyndsay and Dad were supervising Anden. The odds were in our favor. 2 adults, 1 child. We quickly learned we shouldn't be in Vegas gambling with those odds.

As I was walking back out to the pool with a properly clothed Taylee. I saw the neighbors had just gotten there to meet us. Also at the same time I see Dad waist deep in the hot tub, in his clothes, scrambling to get Anden. Then we all watch in horror, our new friends included, as Anden is retrieved from under the water while hacking and gagging and coughing and crying. I calmly open the pool gate and everyone proceeds to tell me, all at the same time, what had happened. The story was interrupted when Dad, who's still standing waist deep, realizes his phone is in his pocket. He quickly jumped out. Luckily (for me) that was the only fatality! Not so lucky for Dad. After the quick cellular interruption, the stories continued. Anden was in the floaty. Suddenly he leaned forward and somehow he flipped under the water...while still stuck in the tube. All they could see was his little butt vertical in the air...and no head. Then they could see his little hands coming back up from under the water to try and paddle himself upright. Lynds FROZE in a panic. Dad stared in DISBELIEF for a second and then jumped in. After Anden had caught his breath, we asked what happened. He firmly stated, "I was trying to get that penny!" So in the end, all was well. Just a minor scare...and a broken phone...and a lost penny. He jumped right back in the water and continued to play. However, we had surely impressed the new babysitter. Our parental skills were beyond stellar. I was waiting for the moment for them to flee back to their car and bolt out of there. Somehow they stuck around. It must have been the same concept of a train wreck; they simply wanted to gawk at what could possibly happen next. And we didn't disappoint them.

We gathered the kids and partial belongings and took everyone back inside. Jer had Taylee locked down in a bedroom to try to salvage our image as responsible parents. Well while we were giving the babysitter a tour of the place, Taylee starts death screaming from behind the door. I humbly excuse myself as the tour guide and bolt in to see what happened. Anden "bumped" Taylee who then hit her head on a nightstand. When I slithered back out of the room, surprisingly the babysitter was still there. She definitely must be a glutton for punishment. I guess the grand $20 was already burning a hole in her pocket and she couldn't resist. Even I would have ran at that point. (and yes people, we had only been in Vegas about 90 mins now!)

Fast forward a couple hours and we were now ready to head to the concert! Taylee was already in bed and Anden was sucked into a movie. How hard could this be for the babysitter?! So we bid our farewells and tried not to think about pint size humans the rest of the night.

We had an AWESOME night! We went to the Keith Urban concert - as a celebration for Dad's 60th birthday! And of course we couldn't just roll with the commoners...nope we were up in the balcony at the VIP tables!! (shout out to ROB for hooking us up!!) You know you're cool when even Keith himself pointed to our section and jokingly asked "Is there anything else you would like me to play My Lord?" Nope, Sir Urban you're doing just fine. Well ok maybe just on thing...could you show me your cute butt one more time! (oh wait, did I say that out loud?)

Heading to the Concert

Sporting our Country Gear

The MAIN event

Halfway through the concert he walked out in the crowd and jumped up on a mini stage!

Daddy & Daughters

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!

It was all worth it just to see how giddy you were to watch a man jam on his guitar!

And as an added bonus...

Desert Fun

On Sunday was Stake Conference. This means 2 hours of unsuccessfully containing our children in a small church pew. Therefore, we opted out....rather than ruin the spiritual enlightenment of the others in attendance. I just believe it's near impossible to make a 3 and 1 yr old sit and be quiet for that long. And it sure as heck doesn't put the adults in the best spiritual moods. So we had a family day instead.

Jer broke out the huge water slide and we had the Mortensens over for a bbq lunch. The kids were thoroughly entertained...which means the adults were too! :-) I was too busy chatting, cooking and eating to take any pics.

Later after naps, we all went up to Table Mesa Road (who knew it's like 10 mins from us). There's a canyon and river that run through there. The water eventually dries up. But there was enough to still play and have a good time. And we didn't even bring any motorized toys. Just foot power baby. First we ran into this as we pulled in.

Seriously. It's officially the Rattlesnake weekend.

Tyler said this was all sand and no rocks earlier this year. The huge rain storms we had caused flash floods which carried in all the rocks! Crazy!

(ok ya so he's cliff jumping...into 6 inches of water!)

And even Maxx the Wondermutt got to come along!

They have a puppy which needs lots of exercise.
We have a Great Great Great Grandpa Dog that doesn't need any exercise.
Together, they never stopped running.
Now Maxx can no longer walk.

I thought he would die and go to heaven after such a fun outing.
But not Maxx the (18 yr old) Wondermutt.
He'll never die.

Preschool Portraits

Anden just had his preschool portraits taken at school. When they sent them home, I was a tad nervous to open the packet. Knowing Anden, I was sure he would have a silly face, scary face, doo doo face or something other than a smile.

WOW!
How wrong was I???

We sure do love our perfect little poser!!

And of course we're too cheap to buy the $15/sheet pictures. These are the "borrowed" scanned copy...which I photoshopped the border, title, etc and made them better anyway. So I guess that means their now officially MY work of art? Sweet, no copyright enfringement laws broken here! :-)