Half-birthday!

Today is Jake's 6 month birthday! He's so big and cute! For his half-birthday present he got shots! ;) He's 16 1/2 lbs and 27 inches TALL - he's 75th for height and 50th for weight. What a good boy he is... growing all big and strong. I sure do like him. :)

Seriously fun stuff (and a scary story)...

Ben had a work conference where he presented a poster on a case he had worked on at the hospital. Since our lodging and mileage was all being paid for by Ben's work, we all went along with him and stayed at the lovely Starr Pass resort in Tucson. It's been a couple years since we were there and since we last visited they've added a lazy river and waterslide, which made it all the more amusing. :) I feel like as our family grows, our trips and outings are becoming even more enjoyable... I guess because we get to share the fun with even more little people. It's also a juggling act of taking turns in watching Jake on the side of the pool and keeping eyes on little girls who aren't great swimmers... resulting in lots of flotation devices and plenty of sunblock too. ;)

Lots of pictures...















Taken from the balcony of our room















A scary story...
So the resort was lovely and is definitely right in the middle of some beautiful Arizona desert... and as a reminder of what type of creatures live in the middle of the desert, I was presented with quite the surprise when we were hopping out of the car at the entrance of the hotel (just after getting back from a dinner with Ben's co-workers and bosses). We were in the process of getting the kids out of the car, when Ben and I both spotted a huge adult-sized hairy tarantula right outside of the doors of the hotel. AHHHHHH!!!! Ben says he was impressed with my ability to hold it together, because considering my huge fear of bugs and spiders in general, this should have been my worst nightmare. I think Ben didn't realize I had seen it yet and quietly told the valet about the hairy intruder. He then just shooed it off gently with his foot and said that he'd been seeing him around lately and was glad that it was eating all the bugs. Seriously?! It's not the other bugs I'm worried about - it's THAT bug I want to get eaten!!

And now for some other random things... Emma has been keeping up her reading skills and she does some reading practice with me almost every day. She has a little reading chart and she adds a sticker to it for every 5 pages that she reads. She filled up the chart last week (for a grand total of 125 pages read!) and as her prize she could pick any treat that I could make from home. Of course, she chose a chocolate cake (definitely her very favorite dessert!). So, I made a chocolate cake (just from a box mix and pre-made frosting). After it was frosted and all, Emma said it needed candles. hmmm... well, it wasn't a birthday, but why not have candles?! So, we put on some candles and after dinner we lit them and she blew them out and we all ate a piece of Emma's reading cake. :) It was pretty fun.



Last week Emma had her first field trip with her preschool class. It was a very simple field trip and we just walked the kids to the nearby traffic light and crossed to all four corners. The teachers taught the kids about road safety and traffic signs and such. It's amazing how such a simple activity could be so amusing to the kids. Emma really enjoyed it! And I really loved getting to go spend time with her at school (luckily Ben had that day off of work, so he could keep the little ones). I'm really happy that Emma has such a good class and great teachers.





And lastly... we finally went to see Harry Potter! LOVED it! Now I'm aching to go read the 7th book again so I can remember what happens next. And we found the greatest babysitter to watch the kids that night. She even unloaded and loaded my dishwasher!

Some animals and lots of water

I feel like we've been getting lucky lately and once again we found a free outing for ourselves... to the zoo! Every Wednesday in September is free (for 2 people... Becca and Jake are free anyway since they are under 3) if you show them your Fry's card. I picked up Emma from school today and we headed straight over to the zoo. I packed the girls swimsuits and were quick to head to the splash pad (since it's still VERY hot!).








They were extremely happy to play and get wet, but eventually I dried them off and changed them back into their clothes and we wandered a bit through the shade (where available) and looked at some animals, and enjoyed the pleasant surroundings.






Eventually we came upon another splash pad area (it's relatively new, and I had forgotten about it completely) - I had already done the whole song and dance of changing clothes and drying off and all that, and I definitely didn't want to do it all again. Well, it looked too fun to pass up, so I just told the girls to try not to get soaked because they were going to have to drive home like that. They started out being somewhat cautious with the water...




but quickly progressed to drenching themselves completely.


Oh well. Surprisingly they didn't complain one bit about riding home in their carseats in soaked clothes. It must be hot enough that they just didn't care! It was definitely a fun afternoon!

Desert Bontanical Garden

Yesterday Ben had the day off, which was so fun! It was nice to have him come along with us to pick up Emma from school, so he could see where she's going everyday. :) Also, we stopped at the library and picked up a Culture Pass to the Desert Botanical Gardens - which got us all in for free. I love free. It was a very amusing Family Home Evening activity. We had a heck of time getting there (there was lots of construction and detours around the area), but we finally made it with about 45 minutes left till closing. It was enough time to have some fun... and even though it was dark, much of it was lighted so we could see some pretty awesome cactus and very unique desert landscaping. And it wasn't hot since there was no sun. :) We had never been to the Botanical Gardens before and we were very impressed! I'm going to keep my eye out for another culture pass to try to get in free again - and hopefully this time we can get there while the sun is setting... it would be so lovely! The only one of us who wasn't thrilled about the outing was Becca - she was scared of all the cactus. You can tell by her cranky face in the picture below. ;)

My Little Cuties

Ben was working on Labor Day, but we decided we still needed to get out of the house... so we walked to the nearby park and played and had a little picnic. It was nearing on too hot for this type of activity, but I'm desperate to get into the outdoors more and play... so we filled up our waterbottles with plenty of ice water and headed out. By the time we got back home we were very sweaty. ;) But it was fun! And I learned that we can definitely walk to the park (it took a little less than 10 minutes to get there), which will be a very fun outing option when the weather cools down some.


This morning the kids were cute - just before leaving for church and all dressed up. So, I took a few pictures. I love these kids so very much! And Emma had her primary program today and she did great and sang so well. Her favorite song is "Families Can Be Together Forever" - I could tell she was singing that one very enthusiastically up there. I feel pretty lucky to get to have these little goobers in our family forever. :)

A lovely September Rain

Ben is on call at the hospital tonight... on those days we get creative for dinner, since daddy won't be eating with us. We did breakfast for dinner (pancakes and eggs), which we so often do on call nights. I love it because it's quick and easy and the kids always clean their plates! :) As we finished up eating it started to rain pretty hard outside (with the sun still peaking through the clouds, which makes it oh so fun). Since it had been an otherwise uneventful day, I quickly shooed the kids outside to play in the rain.











It was a nice end to our day as I then threw them both in the tub and then into pajamas. Just as I was quite impressed with Emma and Becca's puddle jumping talents, I was also impressed today with Emma's puzzle-put-together skillz. I knew she was working on a puzzle while I was getting some dishes done downstairs... I came up to check on her progress and she was finishing up with the last few pieces. I couldn't believe she did the WHOLE thing by herself! She then pointed to the state of Maine and asked if that was the North Pole. :)