Chase's birthday party!

We decided to have Chase's birthday party Saturday because Jacob, Devan and Boston could be there. And let's face it he loves having time with the boys. He gets tired of being with girls all day long.

As requested by Chase he had a Buzz Lightyear birthday party. We lucked out. Boston had a Toy Story party the week before so my brother Carl saved all the decorations for us to use. Thanks again Carl, that was awesome!

The plan was to have pizza, do presents cake and ice cream then let the kids play in the sprinklers and slip n' slide. Well the kids had there own plan so they started off playing in the water.

Boston and Chase

Devan and Jacob

Jacob, Devan, Chase, Bosten and Maeley

Zoe, Maeley, Boston and Chase enjoying lunch.

Marc, Tyler (in the back ground) my dad and Derek

Derek's Grandma and Grandad Jones, my grandpa Stratton and my mom

Chase's very first remote control car. He really is having a great time with it.  

(looks like we forgot to wash his face after eating pizza, whoops)

The toy he's been asking for for a very long time now.

More  Buzz Lightyear toys. He got plenty of Toy Story toys but has done an excellent job at sharing them with Maeley and Zoe.

The awesome cake made by Laurel.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY!

Silly girls

Chase got a Buzzlightyear toy from my parents that once you shake it and put it on the floor he shoots across the floor in his rocket. Well Zoe was having a great time playing with that this morning. Later I caught her saying "1, 2, 3, go" and running across the room and then doing it again and again and again. It was pretty entertaining to watch and she was having a great time.

Today at lunch Maeley was telling me what her favorite things are. In this exact order.
-food
-animals
-lettuce
-broccoli
-carrots
-and her most favorite animal is the polar bear (of course)

I love these silly girls.

I'll be blogging about Chase's birthday party soon but I've got so much to do today.

Fun Kids

Maeley had been wanting a Jessie doll so Derek and I decided that she could use some of her money from her piggy bank to purchase one. Saturday I took her to Toys R Us and she chose one that came with Bullseye too. She loves them.

and sometimes will share

Zoe loves Bullseye

It seems like the kids are obsessed with Toy Story lately.  Zoe loves Lotso bear from Toy Story 3. I think it's funny because he's not a nice guy.

Chase has a birthday coming up. The card he's holding he got in the mail yesterday from Toys R Us. He was pretty excited. Notice he's awesome giraffe boots. He wears them a lot. Thanks Shannon!

I'm seriously not enjoying this summer. The day's seem so long and the kids are having a hard time being couped up during the day. Maybe its just me anticipating our move coming up and everything we still need to do. 

Things the kids are enjoying:

Lego's- mostly Maeley

chicken nuggets- we haven't bought them in awhile so Chase is in heaven

playing in the sprinklers

eating popsicles

making cookies

taking Dad to work

going to the library

going to the park (only in the morning)

watching a Yogi Bear movie from the library

reading books, Zoe's favorite is Too Many Toys

coloring

There's definitely more but I can't seem to think of them.

Canvas print

After our photo shoot at the park recently I decided it was time to order a canvas print. When I was at my sister Marie's house a few weeks ago she got a free 8x10 canvas and it looked great.  We were going to just get the 8x10 but once we were checking out they offered us a 16x20 for only $13.99 plus shipping. Do you know what a great deal that is? We really needed an up to date family picture hung, so the bigger the better.

If you'd like to check it out the website is http://www.canvaspeople.com/ .

6 happily married years

Last Wednesday Derek and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. In some ways I feel like we are still newlyweds. I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend. We enjoy doing everything together and that's no exaggeration. Happy anniversary Derek! I love you more than ever.

(couldn't get the new scanner working so this picture will have to do) 

Benches

Derek and I made two benches for our kitchen table. I love how they turned out. We also refinished our table top. Now we just have to refinish 2 chairs and the table legs. We are waiting on those until we decide on paint. We want to add some color. I'm waiting on paint because I haven't found the perfect fabric I'm looking for for inspiration for our new place. I've found a couple that I like just nothing that I really love yet. I'm confident I can find what I'm looking for though.

Weekend events

Derek was supposed to work both Saturday and Sunday. Luckily that didn't happen and left us with a weekend without plans. Last minute we decided to go up to Gilbert. We really just hung out Saturday with Kari and Marc. In the late afternoon we all went to see Toy Story 3. Awesome movie by the way. Zoe sat through the whole thing. Which was simply amazing! After that we met up with a family friend Linda for dinner.

The kids gave Derek his Father's Day presents Sunday morning. I think he really enjoyed them. One was a cook book and the other a trophy. The kids picked out the trophy. I can't remember exactly what it said (he took it to work to place on his desk) but it said something about how Dad was the best handy repairman. Then we went to my parents house for breakfast. We always have so much fun being around family.  

Now I need to figure out a way for Monday's to not be so difficult.

Family pictures

Growing up every year my mom made us get family pictures taken. Trust me there were plenty of years we did not want to, and it shows. Now that I'm the mom I want yearly family pictures taken as well. Well besides just a couple we've taken we haven't had family pictures taken since Febuary of 2009. These kids are growing way too fast and they are out dated now. So yesterday Derek asked what the plans were for Saturday and I quickly suggested going to a park. So that's exactly what we did today. I'm grateful our kids were happy to get pictures taken. I'm also grateful for a tripod and remote control for our camera.

Sorry for the picture overload but we took nearly 200 pictures and there are even more cute ones.

Zoe's pigtails

Zoe has some pretty funny hair. Her hair on top and the sides is not growing very fast. However her hair in the back is growing just fine. This means she is sporting the baby mullet as we call it. I know I should take her to get her hair cut but part of me thinks its crazy to cut off the only hair she has.

From the back her pigtails are pretty cute.

See the little pigtail poking out from the back.

Or here you can see both.

I love this little girl. She brings so much love into our family. And she is full of spunk.

Her nursey leaders on Sunday told me she is trying to do the actions to the songs. She loves making animal noises, especailly cow and monkey noises. She is alsolearning more words but isn't talking too much yet.

Daddy's Girl

I have been trying to teach Zoe how to say I love Mom for quite sometime with no success. When I say I she repeats. Then when I say love she quickly says Dad! Often she even laughs after Dad. She knows what she's doing. Well yesterday she was crying a lot. I'd ask what do you want Zoe and her reply, Dad! Little stinker she did that 3 times. She has become quite the Daddy's girl and I'm okay with that.

Memorial Day weekend

We had such a great weekend. It started off by going to visit my sister Marie. We love going to visit them and it had been way too long since our last visit. We we ended the day by having a movie night and watching Cheaper by the Dozen. Sunday Derek did a duet playing his violin at church. Many people came up to me or him saying that they had no idea he played, and played well. What was more funny was that nobody in my family remembered that he played. Monday we did some shopping. Maeley and Chase really needed summer clothes.  Maeley is hard to shop for. Shirts we have to be careful because she has a long torso so often they are too short. And shorts are even harder. She is so skinny that the girl section is much too big and the toddler section doesn't have much to choose from. She's not a baby or even a toddler so finding something that looks older has been difficult. Derek found Chase a new red, white and blue outfit to replace his from last year. It's been his favorite outfit but its way too small for him now. He's very happy to have one similar that I think he likes more. For dinner we had a BBQ. Derek made some amazing ribs. Seriously they were the best we've ever had. He also made homemade mashed potatoes. Actually Derek cooked all weekend. I loved it!  We were all wanting something for dessert so we went out for Gelato. We will definitely be going back. It was delicious!

Wild life

Since we have moved into this house we have seen more creatures here than anywhere else we've lived.

What we've seen:
- mice in the shed
- bumble bees that Zoe tries to catch -she's not afraid of anything
- a gopher snake
- snails
- Cardinals - I've come to recognize its chirp. I've tried to get a picture but haven't manged yet. He always seems to fly away.
- a squirrel- I've seen one twice and think its the same one, it may or may not be living in the shed
- black widow- also found in the shed - the kids and I no longer go in there
- lizards- I'm not talking about small gecko's I mean larger lizards
- Coyote- this wasn't on our property but in our neighborhood Monday morning

Chase

Chase is a sweet little kid. I love the way he gives Zoe kisses before her nap. Or the way he and Maeley carry on conversations that sometimes are pretty darn hilarious. I find it so funny that he insists on getting a blue Jeep and driving himself to Disneyland. Maeley did convince him that he needs to take her with him. Or how often he talks about camping and wanting to go again as a family. Or how this morning he told me the reason he slept in was because he was dreaming about his Buzz Lightyear birthday party and his cake. He is wonderful  kid. He has been really emotional lately and driving us crazy. But we love him regardless.

Zoe's new shoes

Now that its summer time Zoe really needed a pair of flip flops or sandals. Because her feet are pretty small (size 3) its been hard finding a cute pair. I just happened to be near Tuesday Morning so thought I'd stop in. Surprisingly I found some there, who would have thought? And for only $4 I couldn't pass them up.

She was being grumpy at the time.

Zoe loves these shoes. The first couple of weeks she wore them during her nap and sometimes at bedtime. We finally started hiding them after we took them off for bath time. Immediately when she wakes up though she would ask them to be put on. I love that Maeley will put them on her. I just love this girl.

Crazy Maeley

One of Maeley's favorite things to do is to tie things up. She has been doing this for quite sometime now. It first started with her stuffed animals, then on to her toys. Luckily she hasn't tied up Chase or Zoe.  She often ties up her toys in a way that she can then carry them around as if they were a purse. I don't know were this obsession has come from.

Seriously! She used the hose to tie the trees together. She's completely crazy!