O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

I have now lived in Arizona for over half my life and I absolutely LOVE the fact that we have warm winters and I actually don't mind the blistering heat in the summer as well. In fact I practically feel like a native.

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Some of the things I definitely do NOT miss include:

*Halloweens where you put on your pretty costume, only to have to cover it up with your winter coat to the point that no one knows what you actually dressed up as*

*Those bitterly cold days when you just feel cold and WET all over*

*Tracking snow and mud on the floors when you come inside*

*Only being able to wear flip flops and shorts in the summertime*

*Scary car rides with black ice on the roads*

*Shoveling snow from the roads and the driveway almost every day*

*Daily bad hair days due to hat hair and rain/snow*

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As the winter season approaches and the Holidays have begun to set in, I tend to reflect back on my childhood memories. Even though I LOVE Arizona weather, there are definitely some things I miss about living in a state with a real winter. Some of these include: cancelled school due being snowed in~ which turned into sledding days with all the neighbor kids down our steep street we lived on, making snowmen, pulling the icicles off the roof and eating them on the back patio, fun playtime in the snow followed by steamy cups of hot cocoa, cuddling next to the fireplace with blankets and reading stories together, the first snow storm of the season, and most of all the magical feeling that a WHITE Christmas brings. Another favorite of mine growing up in Utah was the annual trek to the Christmas tree lot to pick "the perfect" tree for our house. I loved to walk through all the trees, examining each, and inhaling that fresh pine scent. Then we would attach it to the car and drive back home, singing Christmas carols together. It always seemed like the Holidays were magical at my house.

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When we moved to Arizona we tried out real trees for a few years, but gradually my parents switched over to fake trees after several years of burn marks on our tree as we were taking the Christmas tree down. One of the wonderful parts about marrying into the Toronto family was the reinstatement of having a real Christmas tree. Jesse's parents head up North and cut down their own tree and haul it back to Mesa each Xmas season, & so after we were married that was one thing he definitely wanted to continue (have a real tree each year).

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Now we don't cut down our own tree at the moment, but we still love to go to "our" Christmas tree lot and pick out a tree each year. My kids are happily settling into this tradition and get excited each year for this special night. I had a fairly large break from work this past week and so we made a trip of it on Wednesday evening after dinner. Miss M and Mr R loved running around the lot and looking at all the different sizes of trees. Robby wanted us to get the "liddle-est one" and Maddie kept showing us the "biggest biggest trees". We have gone to the same lot for the past few years to pick out our tree and we always enjoy the free hot cocoa and candy canes provided. As were loading up our tree Robby found this truck that he loved pretending to drive. We had to fight to get him off of it once it was time to go.

E, Mommy, & Miss M

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Once we got home, we set up the tree immediately and pulled out all of our old school christmas ornaments. I long for the day when I can have my own "pretty tree" with fancy color coordinated ornaments and beautiful bows trimming the branches. Until then I will settle for our "kid-friendly" decorations. My kids love looking through each ornament and selecting the perfect spot for each one. It has been so much fun this year to have my little ones excited about helping with this project (although I do have to admit that our little E went to bed promptly after the Christmas tree pick up so we could decorate without his help :)

A picture of the finished project

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was fairly mellow this year and I was so excited to be able to have the whole holiday weekend off work! We started out our festivities a day early at my parents house on Wednesday night so that we (Jesse) could watch the Suns game with my Dad and eat some Little Caesar's pizzy together. While they cheered on the home team, I took Eli on a coupon clipping, grocery shopping adventure. The end results= saving over $100 between sales and coupons. It was such a fantastic feeling; perhaps I will have to try harder to do this more often!

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On Thanksgiving morning, Jesse got up early and played Football with a bunch of the guys from our neighborhood while I worked on cooking rolls, potatoes, and Apple Yums! We headed over to the parents house around mid-day and enjoyed yummy appetizers and then hours of delicious snacking followed by probably the best taking turkey I have ever had (no joke)

After dinner we played and then had a BUNCH of delicious pies made my Jesse's mom. Every year she makes around 7-8 pies and we all love to try each and every one of them. In years past we would always go to the movies for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but with the young kids we have had to alter this family tradition. This year we rented a movie and all sat together, bundled in blankets on the couch.

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After all our Thanksgiving fun it was off to bed for all of us. The next morning I did a little Black Friday shopping for the kids. I have to admit that last year I went all out with the shopping and this year I was just too darn tired to try that hard. I woke up around 6am and then got ready and went to a few stores. There were a few deals to be had, but for the most part I missed out on the really great stuff.

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Friday afternoon we headed to a friend dinner with Jesse's old high school friends. It was fun to catch up with them and kind of crazy to see how many kids there are between all of us. We then ran over to Jesse's parents for one final goodbye to Uncle Adam and then "home again home again jiggity jig" for bedtime once again.

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**thanks so much for this cute picture Uncle Adam**
This year for Thanksgiving we ate our feast at Nona and Papa's house.

My cute little E modeling his new tie

Joanna, Abbs, Miss M and Esther

Uncle Adam and Robby

Nona's yummy pies
This year was kind of special Thanksgiving for all of us. Jesse's brother, Adam, came in town from Boston. The last time we saw him was last Christmas when Eli was just a few days old. It was fun to see him and watch the kids get to know him once again. Maddie and Robby were practically in LOVE with him by the end of his visit and quite enjoyed the tickling, chasing, soccer kicking, and general rough housing he provided. It makes my heart happy to see them build these relationships with their Uncle. It was also neat to see him get to know our little E as well. Too bad he was only here for a few days and in too little time off he went to Boston. Unfortunately he works Christmas, so hopefully come Spring we will see him again. We sure love him!!!!
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All in all it was a great Thanksgiving

The Case of the Naughty Flip Flop

One day a mommy & her kids decided that for fun they would go visit a fun park with Grandma & the cousins and have a picnic. It was a beautiful fall day in Arizona, so mommy and the kids dressed in their shorts and flip flops, packed up, piled into the car and headed out. Everything was going great (other than mommy forgetting the yummy PB&J sandwiches) and everyone was having fun feeding the ducks their bread when.....

a certain little someone decided it would be MUCH more fun to feed the ducks without any flip-flops on. When the mommy tried to get this certain child to put his shoes back on, the trouble began. During an exuberant kicking action performed to stop the mother's attempt to put the flip flop in question back on, the shoe went flying.

Flying as in sailing into the duck pond flying. Flying as in far away from the mommy's reach flying. At first, the mommy thought she would teach the little child a lesson by immediately buckling him into the double stroller.

~She apparently thought wrong.

Despite the fact that is was perfect timing to stop and show the little one the consequence for chucking shoes into a dirty pond....what the mommy should have done, was dive after that darn flip flop the moment it hit the water. Because within moments of the shoe landing in the water, it took off and quickly became unreachable.

Once the mommy was done teaching the little one about consequences, she realized that the flip flop had already begun floating away. One attempt was made my mommy to "wade" out into the pond with pants rolled, but it was a total failure. Another attempt was made to reach the flip flop with a stick= another failure.

By this time the flip flop had now floated to the dead center of the pond AND was not moving. Things were looking pretty bleak and the little boy was quite distressed about continuing to sit in the stroller........

luckily enters a "hero" or two into this story. After talking with another person at the park and several phone calls later, two "park rangers" arrived to take on the challenge of dragging a little flip-flop out of the duck pond. At this point, the children became delighted to see what kind of ideas the rangers had for the fishing adventure.

Some of those fabulous ideas included:

making waves in the water,

trying to reach with a long extension pole,

the "wait and see,"

and finally one of the brave young "hero's" ventured out in the water up to his abdomen and finally fished out the beloved flip-flop with a pole :)

My how the little children were thrilled to see a grown man, wading out into murky water to collect the precious possession. They were even happier when they saw him walking around drenched in water.

At last the little boy had his shoe and could once again get out of the stroller and first eat some yummy fruit, chips, and rice krispie treat, before playing at the playground on a swing!

The End

(can you guess who the flip-flop in the story belonged to.....good thing he is sooo cute)

Kater-Bug

and a very hot and sweaty little guy

~who by the way NEVER got out of the stroller and was quite the little trouper about that one

Happy Halloween

*Updated post with some cute pictures of Eli as Squirt, the baby turtle from Finding Nemo, and Robby as a fireman....still no pictures from Jesse of Miss M as Belle.

So my camera decided to officially die as of Friday night and I have NO PICTURES of Halloween at the moment (I think/hope Jesse took a few on his i-phone~ please) Until then....this post will have to do.

It makes me want to cry just thinking about no pictures. I love to fuss about and make my kids so stinkin' cute as Maddie would say each year on Halloween. It makes me so sad not to have all the pictures to look back on and smile from the memories.

Plus I am one of those "posters" that always has to have a picture to go along with my words, so here it is:

That is why this little gem is at the bottom of this post. Plus I rather like the expression Miss M has in the picture: I wonder what kind of things are going on inside her head? She has been so proud of her "band" that she made at preschool last Monday and has worn it every day since then. She even reminds me that there is a number 2 on her hat because there are two bats on it as well.

Happy Halloween everyone!

2nd Annual: Schnepf Farms

We had such a fun time last year at Schnepf Farms, that I knew we definitely needed to go again this year. The first time we could all go together as a family was on October 30th due to work schedules/other family activities/etc. At Schnepf Farms they offer half price on Oct 30/31st if you dress up in costumes so we threw ourselves together and went after Jesse got home from work. The kids ended up in their costumes from last year: Cinderella and ASU Football player with Jesse & I as cowboy/cowgirl. It was so much fun once again. We started out having Maddie's face painted with a "green ghost" per Miss M's order.

After some fun face painting we went on Robby's number one favorite obsession: trains. He loved riding the train and reminded us about it the rest of the night. We made sure we hit up the petting barn, rode the bike cars, went down the tunnel slide, played in the kids area, Miss M rode the carousel, and finally had some YUMMY home cookin' while listening to a live country band play.

Thank you Schnepf Farms for another fun fall activity. The kids are already talking about going next year and we will for sure make a whole day out of it next time!

Fun Things I want to BUY for my kids :)

Instead we settled for borrowing a firefighter costume from a neighbor....maybe next time :)

Jeans for Robby.
He seriously has like two pairs of pants that fit right now. Yikes!
The weather change has me scrambling to find something for him to wear to get through the cold front.

Too bad Maddie is too big for this little number. Maybe at some point I will get another girl. Until then....

I am LOVING this dress above with the sweater below. Maybe for Christmas for my little lady.

this past week....

was literally heaven.
*I was off work for almost a week straight :)
*I finally got my hair done again professionally~ it has been almost a year
*I went to a fun "Super Saturday" craft day with Miss M.
*We painted the day away and she was actually quite the little helper there.
*We took family pictures with my family at Freestone park
(which was actually a miserable experience: my kids were very naughty, would not sit still, Miss M decided to be pouty and Robby and Miss M kept running away; BUT Eli was an angel, there were cute individual pictures of all three kids, and we are now done with family pictures for awhile!)
*On Tuesday we got some WONDERFUL news that made us VERY happy!
*We went to the park mulitple times during the week and played, played, played in the sand
*Miss M informed me that "Taj" held her hand in primary, and told her she was pretty (she keeps telling us that he is her "favorite friend"). She asked me all week when she was going to play with him (we were semi-freaking out at this point~ she's only four); but then when she saw him at park day she smiled, said hi, and kept playing with all her GIRL friends. Whewww... I am NOT ready for the interest in boys.
*I attended yet another craft night with some friends and in the process found my new favorite babysitter in my neighborhood. Yeah!!
*And then I came across these little jewels tucked inside my camera of my kidlets sleeping at night

I love how Eli is cuddle up next to his brown bear sleeping
Once again another picture of my two-year old with a pacifier...yikes. I figure we will get rid of it before he hits kindergarten :)

and of course Miss M asleep on her bed with her princess tent propped up on the bed.

Miss M has taken this habit directly from yours truly: hanging up clothes to wear the next day on the dresser with matching shoes placed on the floor :)

relief

Oh what a beautiful day it has been!
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And I did not work a single bit today

~at least with my job :)
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And I actually got sleep last night (did not work last night)~ 9 hours straight sleeping!!
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And I have three of the cutest kids ever
~duh

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And I went to the mall with all three kids in tow and was able to buy a new pair of jeans that I love!

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And I took the kids to the park this afternoon, thus able to further enjoy the beautiful fall weather

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And I felt like a normal stay at home mommy cooking dinner in my apron

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And we all ate dinner together as a family

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And I got a nice kiss from my sweetheart when he got home from work

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And I can hear him and the young men out in the garage working on their go-kart cars right now

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Luv It :)

Shots and Tears

We had a day today that included some master bedroom painting, preschooling for Miss M, cleaning, "potty-ing" by Mr R (we are NOT potty training yet however :), train playing and purchasing (for the previous), napping, cooking, visiting, and lastly doctor visiting. Oh joy....

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Maddie and Eli had their respective scheduled appointments on the same day. So where does that leave Robby? At my wonderful mom's house of course. He was able to have some well-deserved "alone time" with the grandparents and loved every minute of it! Maddie and Eli did NOT love getting shots however. Eli's stats at 9 months:

Height- 30in (90th percentile)

Weight- 21lb 10oz (75th percentile)

Head Circumference- 18.5 in

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Eli had two pokes this time around: a toe stick to check his iron level and a flu shot. He was a champ and barely cried on the flu shot and not at all on the iron test. hurray! He did get upset however when the lady stepped on his toe while trying to vaccinate Maddie (it was the very same toe she did the capillary stick on might I mention). Needless to say, he has been one unhappy baby this evening.

My LITTLE ladies stats at 4yrs old:

Height- 38.5in (20th percentile)

Weight- 30lb (5th percentile)

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Miss M had to have FIVE shots today at the doctor's. We are planning on sending her early to kindergarten next year and so we had to do all the dreaded school shots. She was so not having that. She did fantastic on the first two shots, saying "owie owie owie" when they stuck her. After doing one arm they announced they had to now do three on her other arm. At that point she totally broke down crying and started to say "please no...no I don't want another owie...no..no..no..please don't do it." poor thing. it about broke my heart to have to make her sit still and prep for another go round. the good news is that she is now DONE with shots until she is 11 yrs old~ other than H1N1 and annual flu shots however :)

a day in the life of maddie

Maddie typically starts the day dressed to the "T" at 6:30am with sunglasses, bracelet, multiple necklaces, and shoes all on as well as drawing all her alphabets she has learned thus far on the notebook, while she waits for mom to wake up

after Robby and Eli go down for their mid-day naps, maddie typically has some sort of surprise waiting for me. some days it is a fun puzzle to do, other times she has a bag of popcorn ready to be popped and a movie picked out. on this particular day she prepared our own special tea party complete with rootbeer, crackers and cheese. Yummy!

(obviously I work at a hospital with these goblets right?)

throughout the day she ALWAYS reminds me that she wants to play with friends. She love love loves to play dress up with friends.

then once the afternoon/evening time approaches, we have been trying to walk to the park at the end of our street and enjoy the beautiful weather.

(note: she STILL has her sunglasses on)

*love you little lady....please stay my best friend FOREVER okay?!