the soon to be 5 year old-

Marlee’s birthday is this Sunday, so I took cupcakes & juice to her preschool class today.

She was super excited to see me and probably even more excited to see that I brought princess cupcakes.

She got to wear a special birthday hat:)

The cupcakes came with princess rings on top, the poor boys in the class. Why don’t stores sale a box that comes with half girl and half boy designs? Oh well, they all taste the same.

I love seeing my kids in their classrooms and I even got to read all the kids a story.

pizza pizza

My brother Andy’s family took us to this cool pizza place near their house. On Monday and Tuesday nights they make 2 feet wide pizzas and they are huge! We also got some cheese  bread and salad. All the food was good, definitely a place I want to go back to soon.

The kids liked the arcades as much as the pizza and yes that is my daughter laying on a floor (probably scrounging for coins-ridiculous) and wearing snow boots in Tucson where there’s no snow.

We’ve loved having Andy’s family closer. The kids get so excited to play with their cousins. Monson pretty much just follows Clayton and Porter around everywhere.

How can you tell there’s a girl in our house?

Well, for one thing it looks like there’s a Barbie gymnastics competition going on near the microwave. Actually,  I used sharpie markers to draw bathing suits on Marlee’s Barbies, so that they are modest even when undressed. They are just drying. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but some turned out good and others have smeared some.

yum

Laun is such a good cook, for lunch today he made Indian fry bread- one of my favorite meals because you can have it like tacos and for dessert with honey and powdered sugar.

Silverbell Lake

We took the boat out today.

We saw a crane flying by, but unfortunately, I only had my phone to take pics.

Laun put this ruler on the boat, which will be nice when measuring fish.

A small catch.

I love the reflection of the trees.

This is about as “fall season” as we get here.

Porter’s old enough to hook his own worms now.

hanging out with Porter

I love one on one time with my kiddos.

Today I took Porter to exchange his remote control helicopter since it broke…that is exactly why we get the warranty. Those things never seem to last.

This time he chose a more durable helicopter and some warrior bugs.

Then we went to the food court and snacked on pretzels and a pina colada smoothie.

The kids had fun using the warrior bugs today. You put both of the remote bugs on the trays and one eventually knocks the other one off.

Larsen family visit

We were so excited to have the Larsen’s visit. John had to work, but everyone else was able to come.

The girls went to the mall, while the boys went hunting. Anna and Marlee are the only girls in their families, so they love girl time. We ate lunch at this yummy Greek place.

Marlee loved trying on high heels just her size, such a girl.

And when we finished shopping we got frozen yogurt.

 

I always love seeing Laun’s pictures when he gets back from a outing that I didn’t go on. It helps me feel like I’m not missing out on all these great moments.

The boys got plenty dirty while hunting.

I love this picture of Porter and Alden:

John

Michael

Clayton

Great selfie of Laun:

Laun calls this place the Land of Desolation and I can see why.

 

We all met back at home for dinner, which was awesome…we love adabada (pork tacos in an adobo sauce).

Then the men folk went and cleaned up the quail from their hunt:

Clayton and Porter had a lot of quail meet to clean.

We had such a great time with the Larsen's.

Happy New Year!

The DeGomez family invited us over for breakfast on New Year’s Day. I like this idea of celebrating in the morning, instead of staying up so late. We stayed up so late last night! I think I finally got to bed around 4am! Then we woke up and joined our friends for breakfast at 9am. I’m thinking we need to make that a new tradition. Still have our fun dinner and drinks on New Years Eve and then go to bed right after midnight (or earlier-the kids would hate that idea) and do a fun breakfast the next morning. We were all so tired this morning, but had a great time. The kids made noise makers and the DeGomez kids even made a balloon drop to celebrate, Clayton did the honors of letting the balloons drop. Then the kids rode their bikes.

Goal this year- read scriptures everyday as a family and keep a clean/organized home.