Off to the BIG APPLE!!

I am leaving in 8 hours on a red eye flight with ONE of my BFF's. Until then I need to finish packing and attend my cousins wedding. I am leaving behind this cute guy who is silently playing legos right now.  

 

This girl who frankly I could use a little break from  

 

                                                  

 

I am headed to my FAVORITE city to take some  pics for my other BFF and her family. 

My amazing husband is hanging out with the kids and spending our anniversary alone or possibly at the movies, but most likely at work thinking about me.

I will be thinking of him while walking around the city. 

Emmas dream come true.........

Having 12 animals contained in a little area where they could not run away from her as she tried to hold them all. I'm pretty positive that you weren't supposed to hold all these baby animals like this but Emma is never one to follow rules and apparently I  just wanted a cute picture. She was in heaven and would get down on all fours pretending she was a sheep trying to get the animals to come over to her. This did not work.  

 

 

 

 

My sis in laws work was having a company party at a park close to where we were that day so we headed over there and took advantage of the animals, free face painting, balloon animals and Hunter and I pretty much beat everyone at the egg toss game. It was a fun afternoon spent with Aunt Katie. Thanks for the invite Kate!

Ben could not get his face painted because as they were picking out what they wanted on their faces the lady saw him sneeze and apparently that is against her policy to contaminate her brushes. I'm pretty sure her brushes were already well contaminated touching dirty faces all day but Ben was pretty disappointed to miss out. 

Also the last pic is of my cute baby niece Ava that I pretty much delivered. She only smiles at me and I have yet to see her smile for anyone else. I don't blame her though. 

 

 

 

 

Ben's last day of school!!

Every time I would volunteer in his class this year I notice he would always gravitate towards the all girls table and one of his best friends was a girls so this only made sense.  During the class party after he had gotten his ice cream he headed straight over to the table full of girls and took his seat there with no second thought.  

This is complete opposite of his brother who thought it was torture to talk to girls at this age. He's getting a little better but I'm pretty sure I know who we are going to have to keep an eye on.  

Teaching your kids to swim is like on of the major hurdles here in AZ right up there with potty training. Since we apparently have no skills in the whole potty training I figured we might be successfull in the Swimming portion of parenting. I think i was right.   

Last year I couldn't bring myself to put Emma in swim lessons because the type of lessons were like like torture for her (and she was adorable and innocent and I really didn't like to hear her cry) but this year I figured not only did she need to learn to swim because we go everyday, but she kind of deserves it. The teacher is perfect for this type of swim lessons, plus shes 8 months prego with twins posssibly so that gives her very little patience with the kids that whine. Emma did great and she actually loved going. It helped that the pool owners have this nasty dog that Emma is in love with. She wakes up every morning wanting to go and did much better than I expected. Maybe her teacher really does know what shes doing?? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

I remember quite a while ago how Emma was a little on the old side to be bathing in the sink. The combination of her being our most mischievous child and our busiest made me rethink the minutes of play while being contained and getting CLEAN all at once. This is quite the opposite of her usual adventures. I think this will be a new fav. play spot from now on. Of hers and mine. 

***** I think I may give her all of our veggies and lettuce to wash while shes in there. 

 

 

 

 

As I was packing up after church my husband informed me that we were going up north for the day with a family in the ward that is less active.  Always trying to find ways to help out this little fam.  I  agreed and we were headed up to Prescott to a nearby lake in the mountains to spend the day relaxing. It was nice to get away from the heat and take a nice little hike around the lake and let the kids skip rocks and look for gross things in the lake.  

In other exciting news, Ben has pretty much dropped out of kindergarten and has missed 3 out of the 5 days this week because of his asthma and this was after I told them on Monday that he was not staying home one more day until school gets out next week.  Hopefully he can go on to 1st grade.  He is better just in time to go to the father and sons camp out tonight so I will be relaxing with Emma if their ever was such a thing as relaxing when I am with her. I am hoping 4 will be the magic number for her. 3 definitely is not.