Phoenix Zoo Day

It's Veteran's Day and the kids have the day off. What am I going to do with all the monkeys? Go to the Zoo! Chris' work provided us with free Phoenix Zoo tickets that we hadn't used yet, so today was a great day to use them up. Katelyn even got to invite a friend to enjoy the day. Here's some of our favorite picture moments:

Happy Halloween

Presenting the Halloween bunch from 2011: we have Princess Leia complete with wig,  Dorthy complete with red ruby slippers, and Thomas the Tank engine who "choo-chooed" his way through trick or treating. We had a great year!

 Each year the school puts on a costume parade. The older grades get to watch while the younger grades get to dress up and be the parade.

Megan as Dorthy. "There's no place like home."

Katelyn as Princess Leia. "I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but from now on, you do as I tell you. Okay?"

Another Halloween tradition is crashing Chris' parent's neighborhood Halloween party to grab dinner and play carnival games. 

After the neighborhood party, we went trick-or-treating to Great Grandma-ma and Grandpa Long's house. Then we made it home to go to a few friends in our own neighborhood. As always, the kids have too much candy and had a great time getting it! Sounds like a perfect Halloween!

It's that pumpkin time of year again!

This year we got a Groupon to go to a family farm close to our home to pick pumpkins and play around in the hay. There were games, mazes, horses, and a lot of dirt...oh, and pumpkins.

To get to the pumpkins you had to ride a horse pulled cart. The driver was kind and let the kids take turns "driving." Scary!

Katelyn's turn

   

Megan's turn

 

Adam's turn

When we got to the pumpkin "patch" location, I was expecting farm land where the kids would get to pick their pumpkin from the vine. That was not what we found. It was a grouping of pumpkins set on a bunch of hay barrels. Little bit of a let down for me, but the kids were still excited to pick their own pumpkin!

Katelyn is a Rock Star!

I admit I'm one of those mean moms that doesn't let their kids have a friend birthday party every year. We always celebrate with the family, but I stress out too much about the big themed birthday parties with the friends and just don't want to do it big every year. On their "off years" they can invite a few friends over on a Friday and stay up late watching a movie and eating movie junk, but nothing big. Lucky for Katelyn she turned 8 and we get to celebrate! She chose a Rock Star theme and we had a blast! The girls made rockin' chokers and bracelets, made rock-star ponytail holders, did their own makeup and then had a photo shoot. Oh, and did I mention, Katelyn got to invite 16 of her close personal friends? What was I thinking?!

After the glam-out session, they played RockBand on the Wii while I cleaned up the enormous activity mess and got ready for treats.

Then they enjoyed frosting their own rockstar sugar cookies.

We had a Rockin' great time!

Phineas and Ferb! LIVE!

On the Disney channel, there is a show called Phineas and Ferb. The kids love it, and let's be honest...it's one of Chris' favorite shows too. Disney productions put on a live show and brought it to Phoenix and we were lucky enough to go with our Partridge fam. The kids had a blast and it was a great show!

Cute family waiting for the show to begin.

Girls with a cast member

Tada! Fun show!

After the show as we were walking to the cars, the kids noticed the huge basketball by the arena. Here's their best attempt at "picking it up" minus Katelyn who is doing a dance pose next to it.

And a trip to downtown would not be complete without a stop at Hard Rock Cafe. Yum!

Happy 8th Birthday to Katelyn!

My sweet, wonderful Katelyn is 8! I can't believe it. She was so excited to get to her birthday. She called it her "golden birthday" because her birthday is the same date as her age. Plus she got lucky that our ward's scheduled day for baptisms was the 8th. So we had quite the long, happy, exciting day!

It started off with our birthday tradition of breakfast in bed...often times with donuts.

Good morning!

We are so grateful for so much family support on this special day for Katelyn. She is so excited to get baptized and be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She has been looking forward to this day for a long time. As a parent, it is an amazing experience watching your child dressed in white and committing to try to make correct choices and be like Christ.

I love my family!

This is the entire group of family who were able to attend the baptism.

The service was wonderful, simple, and perfect. We are grateful to Aunt Kristin who played the piano, Aunt Amy who gave a great talk on baptism (including the messy peanut butter analogy we will never forget) and Grandma Chesnik for saying the closing prayer. And I feel so blessed to have a worthy husband who honors his Priesthood and was able to baptize and confirm Katelyn.

It was such a great day, but it didn't end there! Of course we still had to party! Katelyn chose a luau style party and it was amazing. Amy made her famous Kalua Pork that was the hit of the party. And a HUGE thank you to all who helped with the food and decorating! I was able to enjoy the day instead of stress over all of the things that needed to get done!

Here's what the decorated kitchen looked like. Luau anyone?!

Thanks to Amy and Cheryl for their cute decorations and the right eye to put it all together!

Birthday girl about to open presents!

Present time!

Putting a candle in a sugar cookie to sing Happy Birthday is a lot harder than it looks.  I think we cracked the cookie but it stayed up for the song!

For dessert we had white sugar cookies with white frosting to celebrate the day. My dad, who started out as a baker in his profession, piped "Happy Birthday Katelyn" on her special cookie in orange because that was her favorite color of the day. We also enjoyed chocolate macadamia nuts, our favorite Hawaiian treat. Happy Birthday Katelyn! We love you!

Play Ball!

Chris took the kids to Diamondback games this year.

Monday was Katelyn's turn:

That's a happy face! So fun to have a special daddy-daughter date .

Tuesday Megan and Adam had their turn. Chris' Dad's office was welcoming a new doc and invited family to come along for the celebration. Katelyn wasn't able to come this night because of dance, that's why she got her own special night. Not sure how much Megan and Adam watched or enjoyed the game, but they had a fun time being there!

Hello Megan! Welcome to the game!

Megan in the "All-you-can-eat Suite"

Megan and Adam enjoying the suite.

Megan and cousin Bryson

Happy boys!