Life ...

... is good.

Easter time

We had a great Easter this year at home and enjoying General Conference. Chris took the girls to the Easter Pageant on the Mesa Temple grounds Friday night. They all enjoyed it, although the report was that everyone was cold and that they wished they could see better (gotta fix that for next year!). I decided it was too late of a night for Adam, so he went to bed while I prepared for the weekend. Saturday morning we introduced the girls to the General Conference "quiet zone." We declared the family room the quiet zone where they could do quiet activities and listen to

Conference. Otherwise they were invited to leave to go to the play room; however, they were required to be in the quiet zone for President Monson. Overall, I think we enjoyed Conference.

Saturday, after the second session of Conference, we went to Chris' grandparent's house for an Easter egg hunt.

There were sections in the backyard for different age groups, so that the big kids didn't take all the eggs from the little kids. Brock and Adam loved finding the eggs (over and over again...we would take some out of their baskets and re-hide them to keep the game going while the big kids finished).

(Note the cute bunny on Adam's back...thanks Amy for sharing!)

After the hunt, the kids had to unscramble word strips found inside their eggs to receive the final hunt prize. The kids loved it! And the best part....no worries about possibly missing an egg in the yard full of candy that had to be found!

Sunday morning, the Easter bunny felt that the kids had already had an Easter egg hunt, so the Easter bunny put all the presents and candy into each child's basket. The Easter bunny thought it was a good idea...the kids thought they needed another Easter egg hunt. Oh well, you don't win them all! Although the sadness over the Easter bunny being lazy was lost when presents were opened. All was well again.

I think Adam's favorite part about Easter this year is that he thinks Easter eggs are balls, which are his favorite thing. In fact, he would see one and call it a ball. Gotta love boys!

Sunday's General Conference was great. The quiet zone was a little hard to enforce after 8 hours on Conference....As you will see, Megan is under the table with her legs in the air, and as I'm sure we all know our cute little Megan, there was probably no sense of quiet about that!Adam was his usual cuteness.

After Conference was finished, we went to Chris' grandparent's again for a wonderful Easter feast! All in all, a great weekend filled with fun and thoughts on our Savior.

Cool Summer

Last summer, we knew our A/C unit was running on its last leg. It would run so loud next to the family room window that we would have to turn up the TV if we were watching something. This year we had our usual spring maintenance on the unit and found out that it was time to replace it. So after a second opinion, much deciding, frustration that the tax refund money was not going to buy me a new TV, gratitude that the tax refund money nearly paid all of the service....we have a new amazing A/C and heating unit. I've learned a lot, but mostly I'm glad to know I have 10 year parts and labor warranty and that my unit won't burn out on me in the middle of the summer!

Old and busted

New hotness

I hate scorpions

Scorpions are just ugly. Sorry if anyone out there has a soft spot for them, but I hate them. They are dormant here from October to April, so that's when I forget about them. Ignore that they exist. However, we have warmed up so I knew the little things would come out and show themselves. A few weeks ago on a Sunday, I was thinking it was time to have Chris start "hunting." He goes outside with his black light and kills the ones we can get. They glow a green/yellow color under black light so they can be easy to see at night. Well, we had too close of an encounter that next day. Katelyn went to put her shoes on for school and we hear her and Megan scream and run yelling "scorpion!" That makes your heart start racing! I killed it with my flip flop and felt that sinking feeling that the season has begun. It doesn't end there. Just 2 hours later I was playing in the playroom with Megan and Adam. We had been in there for 10 minutes already when all the sudden Megan screams, "it hurts, it hurts" and then I see the scorpion as she is backing up into me. I jump and pick Adam up and get Megan out of the room. She had been stung on her leg below her knee! I wanted to scream! I had enough mind about me to know that I needed to call poison control. I got the number from Amy (I knew she had called it about something else recently so she knew the number) and I called. They gave me instructions and it was so nice to have someone I could talk to and they could help me. We washed her stung spot and gave her pain medication. Then we waited and watched for signs of problems. I went back after about 5 minutes to the playroom to kill the offender. I was probably hilarious to watch. I had our heaviest hammer covered in duct tape so he couldn't escape. Then I slowly approached the room. The scorpion ended up being in about the same spot we left it. I felt no remorse smashing it flat for what it did to my little girl. I couldn't be in my house that day. I went visiting some friends, ate lunch out, I was home long enough for Adam to take a small nap and for Katelyn get home from school, then my wonderful mother-in-law realized I needed "retail therapy" so we went shopping. I think going shopping is the only thing that kept me from packing boxes and moving far far away. In the end, Megan ended up being just fine. It hurt her for about 6-8 hours, then she didn't complain about it anymore. It's debatable whether I'm OK, but each day we don't see any in the house it gets easier. I hope that was the only encounter we have this summer!

Done

We've back-posted (and front-posted) a few more things.  I think this makes us completely caught up.  Now we can sit back and get behind again - hooray! (j/k)  Here are the dates to look for, if you're interested:
September 19, October 30, January 16, January 19, January 31, February 26, March 15, and March 16.

Happy 4th Birthday Megan

We didn't mean for it to become a tradition, but since Katelyn's birthday last year the girls expect that a birthday breakfast has to be breakfast in bed. And, why not? Megan's birthday breakfast choice was a chocolate sprinkle donut. I added the banana to try to make it look healthy...it wasn't even touched.

Our day then moved to the Phoenix Zoo. It's nice to have Megan's birthday during Spring Break. Then we get all the cousins to join in the festivities!

Keep your eyes open, WILD animals ahead!

About mid-morning, the kids started to say they were hungry for a snack. We brought the leftover breakfast donuts to share.
Mmmmmm....donuts.

Megan asked all morning to see the zebras. We finally made it there, and it looks like Megan was on her way in! She climbed as high as she could on all the fences. She didn't really ever try to go inside, she still had enough fear of the animals. I think she just wanted to be taller and get the best view.

This is our attempt at a cousins picture in front of the elephants. Here we got not so much elephant and an attempt by Blake to run away. We love all of you!

Stroller buddies! Brock had the right idea to take a nap. Adam finally did give in around lunch time and he took a small nap too.

Thank you zoo for a fun outing! The kids enjoyed it.

The evening party was all chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...Megan's favorite food group. Her birthday cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate chips inside, chocolate icing, and covered in M&Ms. When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said, "I don't know, but it's going to be pink and purple." We decided to that pink and purple M&Ms on the cake would do the trick.

Happy birthday princess Megan! We love you!

Gorgeous weather

Katelyn has Spring Break this week and the weather couldn't be better. The kids played outside most of the day today. Adam has discovered that he LOVES the outside. He found a puddle and started playing in it, so since his pants were wet, we just took them off. Ahh, who needs them anyway in this weather?