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.

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.

Easter

We had to wake the kids up extra early on Easter, so they would have time to look at their Easter baskets and still get ready for 8 o'clock church. I think it's so funny to see how they're actually sleeping. I don't know how Melanie even manages to stay in the bed. Savannah was very excited to get up, because she knew it was Easter. She was so thrilled with her basket. She especially loved that the Easter Bunny brought her a little pig that she had seen at the store and Mom didn't buy for her, despite her major fit. Melanie just wanted to keep sleeping. She finally got up after she heard Savannah being so excited. She was pretty thrilled about her basket too. Spencer didn't get left out either. He was very happy to find a bucket of beach toys in his crib, even though he looks totally sleepy-stupid in this picture. Here are the girls in their matching Easter dresses, along with their new stuffed animals. We managed to get one shot of all 3 kids in their Easter best, but Spencer wouldn't hold still for any more than one. I love his little pin-stripped outfit with the pink bow tie!We all got naps and then we colored a few eggs. I got an egg spinner at WalMart, and I love how the eggs turn out all multi-colored! And it's so easy! Then we went over to Jon's parent's house for dinner and an egg hunt. This was the girls 3rd egg hunt, but the first one that I had a camera at. The loved looking for the eggs. Melanie needed a little help, but she was so cute whenever she found one! Can you spot the egg here? It took Savannah quite some time to find this one, even when she was told where to look. She was quite proud of herself for finding it. The kids had so much fun that we emptied the eggs of all the candy and then hid them again. They had just as much fun looking for them the 2nd time, even though they were disappointed that the eggs were empty. The kids were pretty tired by the end of the day. The girls were very excited to get to wear their new nightgowns to bed! And they were being such good friends with each other, that they decided to both sleep in Savannah's bed. They're cute here, but I'm sure that they would have been on top of each other if left like that for too long. Hope you had a great Easter too!

Ragnar Del Sol

This past weekend has been dedicated to Jon running in the Ragnar Del Sol. It is a 12-member relay race from Prescott to Mesa. Each team member runs 3 different legs. The team ran a total of 202 miles! Their start time was 7 am on Friday and they finished at 4:18 pm on Saturday! In total, they ran for 33 hours 18 minutes! I know, it's CRAZY! I was so excited that Jon was keeping me updated when they first took off and left Prescott, but then they were out of cell service for most of Friday (I mean, who has ever heard of Kirkland, AZ?...bonus points if you have). They ran from Prescott down to Wickenburg and then over through Scottsdale and Fountain Hills and then down to Mesa. They ended at Riverview Park on Dobson and the 202. Jon was runner #7. He ran 4.4 miles (Moderate) at Noon on Friday, 8 miles (Very Hard) at Midnight, and then 2.7 miles (Easy) at Noon on Saturday, for a total of 15.1 miles. So on Saturday, I loaded up the kids and my parents and we drove out to Fountain Hills to watch Jon run his last leg. It was so fun! Once we crossed the 202 on Gilbert we started to see runners. After we realized that they were all for the Ragnar, we rolled down the windows and my mom cheered on every runner that was coming down the Beeline until we got to Fountain Hills. We met Jon at a church building for the last major exchange. I helped him stretch and then we anxiously awaited his teammate. I was so proud of him and he did an awesome job conquering a HUGE hill in his last leg. We drove to the next exchange and watched him hand off to the next runner. It was lots of fun watching him run down this hill at full speed and seeing the fountain in Fountain Hills going off. (Can you see the fountain right above the stop light?)We went back to my parents' house for a few hours, but then met the team at Riverview Park to watch them all run across the finish line together; not that Justin was going to wait for them once he could see the end! The team did awesome! Their goal was to finish and finish close to their estimated time. Needless to say, after running 33 hours, they were only about 20 minutes behind their goal time! I think that that is absolutely amazing! But just so you know, they ranked 179th out of 214 teams. Some of those runners out there were totally hardcore! Jon is now sore and sunburned, but he's already talking about next year. I'm so proud of him! Thanks to all of you that ran and helped out with the race. We love all of you and are so blessed by you!

The BIG Day

So it's finally here! RAGNAR! Yes, it seems like Jon has been training for it forever, but now it's finally here. Jon drove up to Prescott last night with his brother, Rob, our good friend Kim, and another teammate, John. They were up bright and early this morning because I got my first text message before 6 am. They were supposed to check-in at 6:00 and then their start time was for 7:00 am. Jon called me at 8:30 and said that they were already on their 3rd runner; which means that Kim was already done with her first leg (of 3.6 miles)! Now that it's 10:30, Rob should have just finished up his first leg too (5 miles)! Jon won't start his first leg until around Noon, and he'll be running 4.4 miles. Anyways, I'm really excited for them and am only sad that I'm so far away from all of the action. But good luck to all of the runners - there are 12 people on the team, including Jon, Rob, Rachel, Kim, and Justin. But please keep them in your prayers too, as they still have at least 2 more legs to run and will be running all night and into tomorrow. Their estimated time of arrival is about 4:00 pm on Saturday. They will cross the finish line as a team and we plan on being there for that. I'm sure that they would love any support from anyone that wants to venture out for that. The race ends behind the Bass Pro Shop at Mesa Riverview. Anyways, good luck guys! We love you!

A Glimpse of December

Life has been crazy! Here are a few pictures from December!

The day after Thanksgiving we put up Jon's Nutcracker collection. The girls love it and have their favorite nutcrackers. I really wanted to get them up right away, so it would feel like Christmas (especially since we decided to move the weekend after Christmas and had to pack up all of our decorations the day after). We had lots of fun decorating and getting into the holiday spirit!The girls also helped put up our window stickers. They each enjoyed decorating their own window. And Savannah helped Jon put up our tree. I think that next year we'll have a real tree! Yay! Jon and the girls made a Gingerbread House a few days later. The girls love their "Ginger Man House!" Spencer has been getting dressed up for church in his white shirt and tie. Got to start that habit young right? I just think he looks totally cute. Savannah got to go to a Primary Activity Day. We did a Drive-In movie; where we showed a slide show of the pictures of the kids through-out the year. Savannah made her little car that she got to sit in during the "movie." We also went caroling with some friends. We made little goody bags for the people that we sang to. The girls loved it! Savannah loved going to sing to her primary teachers and giving them a treat! The girls also had fun eating their "Ginger Man" peeps. They (or maybe just Savannah) loved them, but they both enjoyed biting their heads off first! Savannah's preschool had their annual Christmas concert. I dressed all the kiddos in red just for the occasion and managed to get one good shot of them. I thought that Savannah looked beautiful in her red "Santa" dress that she picked out herself. We were so proud of her too for sitting on Santa's lap. Too bad she couldn't remember what to tell him. I guess that it's a good thing that she wrote him a letter. The weekend before Christmas was hectic. Jon and I (and Spencer) started out by going to Wickenburg for his company Christmas party (and staff meeting). We also celebrated our 6th anniversary here. We stayed at Ranchos de los Caballeros again (just like last year). We had a great time!Our girls went with Jon's family to Pine to stay in a cabin and play in the snow. We stopped back in Mesa on a few errands before joining them and found this on our doorstep! Yes, thank you Justin & Robin for the beautiful Peeps tree! Our girls honestly loved it! Jon and I got a kick out of it. And Jon has now declared war on you! We did manage to make it to Pine to join in the cabin fun. The girls got to play in the snow before we got there, so I only got a few shots of Spencer and Uncle Rob! But we had a good time there too. Here's my dad with Spencer. My dad loves to get the kids to stand up in his hands and Spencer was doing it so well! On Christmas Eve we went over to Jon's parents' home. We enjoyed a great dinner, even Spencer, who was styling his "Who needs Santa when I have Grandma" bib. Totally true! The kids got to open a present from Grandma and Grandpa - New Jammies! They all looked so great in their nice new jammies. Christmas morning was wonderful! I just loved the look of surprise on the girls' faces as they opened their presents! Here's Savannah opening a new "My Little Pony." She was so excited. Melanie is in love with her "Peter Man" movie. (I love it that she calls it that...too cute!) The girls made out like bandits! One of their favorite gifts was the Barbie & The Diamond Castle movie, along with the matching Barbie dolls. (Laurie- I figured that since your girls loved the movie so much, then mine would too!) Spencer just loved eating all of the bows and paper! He did get a few toys that he really likes to play with though. Savannah made a little present for Jon and I at school. I just love the little gifts that they make at school and I love that this one has her picture on it! Both Melanie and Savannah got new babies and they also got this baby bed that Melanie just loves! We then went over to my parent's house for breakfast and to talk to my sister, Andrea, who is serving in the Washington Tacoma mission. It really was so nice to get to talk to her on the phone. Savannah asked if Andrea gets to come home now. I told her that she wouldn't be back until after next Christmas! We also opened a few gifts from my family. Jon got 2 more nutcrackers...surprise, surprise. I really liked the baseball one that my sister, Sarah, gave him. I just wish it said Diamondbacks on it! Savannah loved getting this poodle that Uncle Tyler let her pick out for herself. The hard part was waiting that 1 day to open it before he'd let her play with it. We also made our way over to Jon's parents again for a few more gifts. All in all, we had a great Christmas. Spencer loved all of the hustle and bustle and especially the bows and ribbons! Congratulations if you made it to the end of this extremely long post! There you have all of our Holiday festivities! The day after Christmas we packed up and moved that weekend. The camera got packed away and I didn't dig it out until last week. We've had a lot go on since we moved and hopefully I'll get around to posting that soon!