Trains

Since Emma and Becca were home for the holiday, I thought we'd better do something fun with their day off of school... so we headed to the train park in Scottsdale. I think the last time we went was back in February, so it almost felt new again. And Jake was in LOVE with all the train stuff... since turning 2, he's really been into trains, so this place was just heaven for him.

While there, we rode the carousel...



Claire rode too! :)

We had a picnic (Emma said before we left that she wanted to have a picnic on a blanket and not at a table... it's fun that she cares so much about the details of our picnicking)...




We rode the train... and Jake, in particular, loved it! He kept yelling "all aboard!". It was so cute - I love my Jake...





Then the kids played at two different playgrounds...






While the big kids played, Claire giggled, chewed on her hands, and played with her cute feet :)


Then we all devoured some ice cream...


To finish off our train park visit, we explored the new model train building. It was awesome!








When I said it was time to go, Jake pulled his grumpy face and firmly planted his feet...


The girls lured him closer to the parking lot by finding more stuff to climb and play on :)


What a great day! I really love hanging out with my 4 little friends. :)

Lovely October

Halloween! Yay! I'm extra excited this year for Halloween, because last year at this time, I was oh so morning sick while prego with little Claire. I am sad when holidays are clouded by not feeling well (even though it was for a good cause!)... so I'm particularly thankful to be feeling good this time around. :) Since I'm so proud that I decorated, let's take a little tour, shall we?...

We visited my sister-in-law, Emily's, house this past weekend, and she had her house so cutely decorated for Halloween... so I copied some of her recent finds (felt pumpkin garland from Target, and the crows below from Michaels- Martha Stewart craft line)- also swiped this idea from here for the candy corn and candles display.





Now let's hear some applause! I SEWED something!! And it's not even ugly!! haha! Found (and pinned!) this oh so clever idea for a Halloween inspired pillow... I didn't necessarily intend on making it, because I'm generally scared of sewing, but Ben encouraged me and we all went to Hobby Lobby for supplies. While Ben was working that evening, I made them. Yay! Now I feel inspired to maybe sew something else!






Aw, wasn't that fun? Now for something else. More Jake preschool! This week we continued working on more writing type activities, like writing in sand...

warning- there WAS some sand throwing that occured

And Becca joined us for some preschool animal alphabet coloring. We are to the letter D. I've been saving each of the letters (and I've been coloring them too!), with the thought that I'll make them into an ABC book when we're done with them all. Oh, and ever since I started to let Jake use the markers when coloring, he's decided it's super fun, and will color for a lengthy amount of time...


And this is random, but I thought this was cute - Jake likes to make "trains" with the chairs and stools in the kitchen - most recently he carefully dragged Claire's bouncy seat over to be the caboose of his train... as he did it, he says "c'mon claire! get on the train!". aw.


So, the weather has been AMAZING the past few days. We suddenly went from 100 degrees to 75 degrees, and I just can't help but want to spend all my time outside! It literally feels like a breath of fresh air. Also, Ben has been working A LOT recently. In September he found himself a moonlighting job at an urgent care across town, so even on his days off from working at the hospital, he's often at the urgent care. This past week he had a day off work, but his moonlighting shift didn't start till the evening, so we spent the day playing, and getting some projects done around the house. My favorite part of the day was getting out with the family (minus Emma who was at school) for a little jog/bike ride in this lovely weather. :) ...







We enjoyed being outside so much, that this morning we decided to get out and do the same thing (this time minus Ben)... I put Jake and Claire in the jogger, and Emma and Becca rode their bikes - we made our way to the park and played for a good two hours - such a great morning...
















Since Ben was going to be working a long shift today, we later headed to the hospital to eat lunch with daddy. :)


I'm currently super happy, because Claire is napping, and all the other kids are playing in the backyard at 3 in the afternoon and they aren't even sweating. Hooray!

My kids have personality!

Sometimes I try to explain to others how crazy, fun, or weird my kids are, but it can be hard to really describe each of my kids unique personalities. Jake, in particular, keeps going through new phases - I keep thinking I have him figured out, and then he adds on a new layer of crazy. :) I'm hoping that some of the following pictures help you understand...

Jake being a good little boy and practicing his writing skills during preschool time (worksheet printed from the Cars preschool pack)

oh wait... what?... oh no!

eeee! simmer down there Jake!

sigh... how can I be upset at your crazy manic behavior when you smile at me like that?

You see what he's like? I love him dearly, and admittedly I think part of me loves him because of his spontaneous, sometimes crazy, behavior... so in this instance I just decided to redirect our activity to something a little different... tracing cards with a dry erase marker, this time sitting on the floor instead of the table (Jake loves it when we do activities sitting on the floor!)...

Surprisingly, this time he refrained from destroying the object in front of him AND he proved that he can trace a letter! I actually didn't think he'd be able to do this. It's because of moments like this that I'm so happy we're doing preschool time together. I get to know my boy a little better everyday - the crazy as well as the progress. :)

Show me your paper, Jake, and say cheese!... okay, that works...

you are so funny Jake

I've been putting together tracing cards for each letter of the alphabet - "laminated" in contact paper for repeated use (and if Jake can just contain himself from crumpling them, I'll be a happy momma)...


It's also really fun to see my little Claire develop her personality. She's a sweetie and she's recently started "talking". :) Today she was making the cutest little babbling sounds, so I grabbed my camera to take a video... and I got a fun surprise by actually getting her first time rolling from back to stomach on video! She's been rolling from her stomach to her back for about a month now, but had yet to master it the other way around- she'd always get stuck on her little arm - but this time she did it! Yay for my Claire!

Cave Exploring...

Ben had a medical conference to attend and present at, so we got to go to Tucson for a quick overnight trip. Before checking into our hotel, we had a little adventure at Colossal Cave just south of Tucson. We had a couple of ideas for activities to do while in Tucson, and the cave was one of the options - we let the kids choose what they would like to do, and surprisingly the girls were both excited about exploring a cave. They did get nervous during parts of it, but they both said they really liked it afterwards. :) Jake was the bravest of all, and didn't seem to care whatsoever about walking through dark passageways and past bats.

Waiting for our tour to start, at Colossal Cave Mountain Park...





Jake saw this statue outside of the gift shop, and for some reason he tells us that it's Jesus. We have no idea why he thought this, but we laughed hard! :)

The cave entrance...



This cave is dormant and dry and the passageways are very 'museum like' with staircases and railings and some lit display boxes and added lighting, but the tour was interesting and the cave formations were awesome!








The kids were excited to get settled into our hotel room - they get so excited about hotels! Soon after checking in, Ben had to leave for a couple hours for the conference he came for, so we entertained ourselves with tv, swimming, and coloring :)....










After Ben got back, we all headed to dinner. We ate outside on the patio of the restaurant along with a large group of Ben's coworkers and their families. We were out late, but the food was good and kids were surprisingly well behaved- whew. The next morning we enjoyed a rather large buffet breakfast at the hotel, and then headed home, with a stop in Gilbert to spend the rest of our Sunday with Ben's family, to enjoy General Conference and have some fun family time.

Claire and Caroline hanging out during the afternoon session of Conference. I love these babies!


So, the night before our Tucson trip, Ben wanted to have a date night - it was a last minute decision and I was unable to snag a babysitter, so we decided on a night in. Ben picked up stuff for a fondue dinner on his way home from work - so we got the kids to bed early and we had so much fun preparing and eating our fondue goodies. :) Ben made a cheese sauce and we had asparagus, sourdough bread, Italian sausage, and prosciutto wrapped apple slices to dip into it. It was so yummy and fun! Then we really kept with the fun fondue theme by watching Jane Eyre (haha). During the movie we had dessert fondue - marshmallows, strawberries, and homemade pound cake dipped in chocolate sauce. :) I love date nights with my Ben, even if it's just a date at home!