The Beach

At the end of April, Jon ran in his 2nd Ragnar for the year, in LA. I decided that I didn't want to just sit around here at home, while he was out having wild, crazy fun. So I talked my sister into coming with the kids and I to LA. We stayed with some friends from law school, which was so much fun (I know that Jon was jealous that he barely got to see/visit with them). But the highlight of our trip was going to the beach. Savannah was the most excited to go. She ran down to the water right away and started playing. Unfortunately, it was very windy that morning and so it was quite cool. And of course, about her 2nd or 3rd trip down to the water she tripped and got all wet and sandy. This made her upset and she whined for a good long while because she was cold. She did get over it towards the end of our stay though because it started to warm up. Melanie was quite the opposite. She insisted that she wasn't going to get in the water and so she wouldn't even wear her swim suit to the beach. But we'd only been there for about 20 minutes when she decided that she wanted it on and was down playing in the water too. She had a great time and was a good helper on our castle! Spencer loved everything about it...being outside, the water, and the sand. No matter what I did, he was always sticking his face in the sand and he constantly had it in his mouth. We seemed to be continually trying to wipe it off of his tongue. But he loved every minute of it.My sister, Andrea, just wanted to build a sand castle. After a little time in the water, we spent most of our time working on our castle. It was complete with moat and had towers in the corners where the water could go under them. The castle was basically 3 boxes stacked on top of each other. But it took us quite a bit of time to accomplish it. And it was a miracle what we did get done, because we kept running into this little problem...Yeah Spencer, he was all over the place and oh so helpful. Here he is sitting in our moat. But overall we had a great time and can't wait to go back again. Here's our little crew down by the water. Bet you didn't know that my girls are pirates! Arrrr!

Veteran's Day

Since Savannah didn't have school on Veteran's Day, we thought that we'd try to have a little fun. We took a little trip to the dairy farm that's just around the corner. We had a lot of fun, but man did it get hot pretty quickly! And I thought that it was November. I guess that that doesn't really mean too much here in the valley. We invited both sides of the family to tag along with us and got a small turn out from each. Here's a shot of all of the kids up in one of the tractors. Melanie liked climbing around on some of the tires that they had set up. Of course, Spencer loved that too, mostly because we let him out of the stroller. Here is all of us waiting to go on a little hayride, which is also a tour of the dairy. We were lucky to get both Grandmas to come with us! Here is my mom and the girls, once we finally got on the hayride. We enjoyed seeing all of the cows and learning lots about them. They have about 1000 cows at the dairy. Did you know that each cow gets 4 showers a day? They are given 2 showers before each milking, and they are milked twice a day. The thought may have crossed my mind that those cows were usually cleaner than my kids, but then again, we get a good whiff of them every once in a while over at our house, and they don't smell too clean then. We even got to see 2 little calves that had been born that day. Pretty amazing. The kids all loved feeding and petting some of the other animals. The girls really wanted to pet one of the sheep, but it was much more shy and so we had to settle for the goats. Melanie's favorite was petting the bunny. It just sat so still and let everyone touch it. That's definitely Melanie's kind of animal. To finish up Savannah got her face painted, a unicorn. And of course, we all got free milk. We had fun, despite the heat and the crowd. And hopefully we can go back to the farm some time when Daddy can come too.

Other June Happenings

The kids and I met up with some friends at the Arizona Museum for Youth last month. I had a good time getting out and visiting with an old friend. Savannah also had a great time playing with new friends and of course getting to go to the museum. Spencer also enjoyed playing in the little play area in Artville, at least for a little while. Melanie kind of had a rough time though, which required us to have an early exit. That same day we also went back Downtown and ate dinner. The Family Fun Van was there for a little ice cream social and so the girls colored pictures and Savannah got a butterfly painted on her face. We also got to have an ice cream cone while we listened to a live band. I think that the music was a little too loud for the kids. But other than that, we had a great time. One Sunday, Savannah decided that she wanted to make me a flower petal necklace. We went out front and picked one of our dying Gerber daisies and she made me a little necklace. It was a little tricky to figure out how to glue a petal to some yarn, but the end result was very thoughtful and cute. I also got to wear the flower in my hair! Oo-la-la! Melanie also made herself a necklace and I thought that she looked even cuter with the flower. Jon and I also got to take Savannah and two of my sisters to a book signing. Jon and I have previously been to an unsuccessful book signing (when I was pregnant with Spencer). The wait had just been took long and we had to leave. But this time we were successful! This is Rick Riordan. He is the author of the series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I got Jon the first book for Christmas and since then we've read the entire series of five books. We really enjoyed the books and would recommend them to anyone that enjoys a little adventure and fantasy, especially if you're interested in Greek Mythology. Savannah and Natalie were also excited that we let them do the face (or arm) painting. Savannah got a mermaid and Natalie has a pen turning into a sword, both things are in the books. I also had to show off these nice little patriotic stars that I made at Enrichment. I'm not the most crafty person and so I'm always glad to have a little project turn out so cute. And lastly, I just had to share that we have been doing the Summer Reading Program though the library. I've never taken the girls to the library before and they were sorely disappointed to find out that we didn't get to keep all of the books. But we have been doing a ton of reading! The girls have also enjoyed going and getting their prizes at the library. Here is one of Savannah's prizes: Wiki Sticks. I thought that she was pretty clever to spell our names out. So we've been having plenty of fun and I hope that you enjoyed our random June happenings!

Party Week

We had so much fun this past week. We had play dates at our house 3 times! And if that wasn't enough fun, Savannah wanted her cousins to come over for a sleepover on Friday. I think that all of the girls had a great time. We let them all make their own pizzas. They turned out pretty good and Jon made one for us, which turned out great of course! We also watched Barbie and the Diamond Castle and ate a bunch of treats. Getting them to sleep was a handful, but Jon did a good job there as well. Here they are all asleep in the girl's room. I thought it was funny that Melanie ended up on the floor behind the mattress; I have no idea how she got there. And it was also really cute that Savannah was trying to snuggle up to Tabitha. We all got up at the crack of dawn! (If only that sun didn't come up quite so early!) We had some breakfast and then headed back over to our cousin's house for Audrey's birthday party. Auntie rented a bouncy water slide (from my cousin)! The kids all had so much fun on it! We stayed for about 3 hours and Savannah didn't miss a second on it. She didn't even want to leave because she knew that the slide would be gone when we came the next time. (If you're interested in renting the water slide, check out Arizona Air Bounce's website, or see their link in my sidebar.) Melanie was too scared to go down the slide, so she stayed in the house and played with Audrey's new birthday dollhouse instead. And I'm happy to say that Audrey loved the dress-up clothes that we gave her. Happy Birthday little princess! So, we had a jammed-pack, fun week.

To Dive or Not to Dive?

Sorry this is picture overload, but I'm so glad that swim lessons are over. I know that Savannah is already missing them though. Here are a few of the highlights from the last few days of lessons.

Savannah diving through the hoop. Probably her best dive ever. Audrey diving from the side. She's probably the best diver of the group. Tabitha's turn! Savannah diving from the side. I don't know why, but she likes to tuck her foot up under herself. Melanie hesitated and she totally faked me out. I missed the dive, but she did it! Happy Vannah girl on the rock, waiting for her turn. Again with the foot tucked under her! Melanie: On your mark...get set... Go! She gets better with every turn! And since it was the last day, they got to go down the slide for fun. Savannah was even brave enough and copied her cousin and jumped in off of the rocks. Melanie went down the slide twice by herself. As you can see, she plastered herself to the slide and ended up hitting her head both times. But she was so scared, I couldn't convince her to sit up. I was just glad that she'd do it. We're done! Now we'll just have to keep up the practicing at home.

Swim Lessons

We're halfway through our swim lessons for the summer. Savannah is absolutely loving it! She has learned so much and I'm quite impressed that she can even attempt to do the Butterfly and Freestyle strokes. The Breast stroke is by far her favorite and best stroke. She is certainly becoming a little fish. Melanie had a rough start. She was really quite scared. So even though she would go out and do the strokes with her teacher, she would sit on the step and cry when it wasn't her turn. She did much better her second week and has become really good at floating. She was even brave enough to jump into the pool all by herself today, without her teacher holding her hands. Really quite an accomplishment. Spencer also got to tag along the past 2 weeks. He enjoyed just being outside and getting fed a bunch of snacks. He loves being in the water, but never complained that he never got a turn. I also had to pack a sandwich and snacks for us and the girls when they weren't swimming. Both girls have enjoyed getting to swim with their cousins. And I'm really glad that this current session of lessons the girls are in the same class and we only have to sit outside for a 1/2 hour!