Sam the man

my baby boy has turned four!  i'm happy and sad about this.  i don't want either of my boys to grow up and leave me but i'm happy with how sweet and wonderful both of my boys are.  i'm grateful that the Lord has entrusted me with their care.  He thinks i'm the right mom for them.  i'm so lucky to have them in my life.

sam brings so much joy, happiness and silliness into our lives.  life would not be the same without him in it.  he is so outgoing and friendly, sometimes a little too friendly.  he loves being out and about.  loves playing with his friends.  loves playing cars and he has some seriously cute booty shaking skills.  i love this boy of mine.

It is great to be 8

My first born, my jack jack was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I couldn't be more proud of the decision he made.  He was more then ready and he is an amazing example to me!!  love you bug!!

mr. big stuff!!

why does time have to go by so fast?!!  my baby turned three today!!  we are so grateful and blessed to have sam in our family.  he adds a lot of spunk and sass to our lives and we wouldn't trade him for  the world.  he has the the sweetest sounding voice and he can fool anyone into thinking he is the sweetest boy, but don't be fooled, he is a turkey trot!!  but really he is a sweet boy and so easy going. we thank Heavenly Father everyday for both of our boys.

happy birthday sammy!!  we love you

thanksgiving 2012

this year we actually got to go somewhere for thanksgiving and we decided to go to cali!!  it was a busy and fun week and the weather was perfect.

zoo day

nanna and papa were nice enough to come with us to the zoo and let us use their free tickets.  sammy loved all the animals and jack loved being our guide and learning all the facts about the animals.  this day also happened to be john's birthday and it was so nice to actually have him around the whole day so we could celebrate with him.  after the zoo we went to get thai food at our favorite place.  love us some spicy noodles!!  thanks jerry!

la brea tar pits

because we bought a science center pass here in phoenix we were able to get into the pits for free and it was just a good time playing outside and learning about all the giant mammoths that got stuck in the tar.  i think jack's favorite part was rolling and running down the hill outside the museum.

magic mountain

we were lucky enough to be able to go out on a grown ups only date to magic mountain while nanna and papa watched all the kids.  we managed to go the day when you could get a free ticket if you brought a bad of food for the food bank.  so we were able to do something good and get into magic mountain on the cheap.  it was a lot of fun and i managed to not get too sick.  as a bonus i got my delicious funnel cake.

thanksgiving day

thanksgiving day was filled with cooking and playing with cousins and just hanging out.  after the delicious dinner everyone wrote some things they were grateful for and the kids were all excited to participate.  after a long day of playing it was movie time in nanna and papa's room topped off with some popcorn of course!

beach day

our last day there we went to the beach in an attempt to take family picture but the kids would not cooperate at all so the pictures were out.  but we did have fun seeing the tide pools, exploring little caves and off course give little boys a puddle and some mud to throw and you have some very happy little boys.  of course by the end they are covered in sand and freezing.

all in all it was a fantastic trip to california and a very happy thanksgiving!!

way behind

it has been too long and i have a little catching up to do.  since last i posted our jack turned 7.  i know, how crazy is that!!  i can't have such a big kid. over the last year jack really has matured and grown so much.  this year for his party jack decided to go to pump it up and i was more then happy to go along with that because they pretty much do everything for you.  this was his first party where he had friends come and we all had a blast.

i had to have my appendix taken out but lucky for me my mom was already in town visiting my sister so she was here to come to my rescue yet again!!  i owe her for all the times she has been there for me and my family.  

jack has been doing really well in karate still and he had an in school tournament where he got two big trophies which he was really stoked about.  he is actually doing really well learning this cycles forms and has it pretty much memorized.

nanna and poppa came out for a quick visit and we went to mcdonald's ranch pumpkin patch and had a great afternoon with them and the cousins.  jack and lilly are the best of buddies and it was just nice to have time together as a family and enjoy the decent weather we had.

Jack lost his first tooth and he was so excited to share the news with his school class.  here he is fast asleep waiting for the tooth fairy to come and leave her deposit.

finally we had our ward trunk or treat.  steph and family came up to have fun with us and jack loved having cousin tyler come with him.  jack decided to be a teenage mutant ninja turtle this year so i decided to have sammy be one of his teammates and i think my turtles are pretty dang cute!!  sammy was really into going to visit all the other cars and getting his candy and jack had a blast playing all the carnival games.  it was a success!!

oak creek and slide rock

we have lived here in arizona for 4 and a half years and i've been wanting to go to slide rock and the last week of summer we finally made that happen.  john took the whole week off so we could play as a family.  we went up and camped in oak creek and our campsite backed right up to the creek and it was a blast.  it was nice to go up with just our little family and have it be carefree and easy.  the kids had a blast just running around the campsite telling lego stories around the camp fire and eating. 

enjoying our dinner

exploring the creek right behind our campsite.  jack was so brave and just jump right into the freezing water.

sammy and jack had a blast running around, playing football and driving little cars on the rock wall.

slide rock

   

summer catch up through pictures

i'll be the first to admit that when summer first started i was really worried about how we were going to fill our long summer days.  were we all going to get a long and not kill each other?  i'm happy to report that we had a very fun, busy, happy and enjoyable summer.  here is a little of how we fill our days.

swimming of course.  you can't live through an arizona summer without swimming.  we did swim lessons again for both boys and of course made several trips to the community center pool.  jack was finally tall enough to ride on the water slides and he loved them.  he is getting so big! 

trips to chick fil a for my favorite breakfast.  if you haven't partaken of this wonderful treat known as the chicken minis you should give them a try. and so the kids could play in the nice air conditioned play place

we kept up with karate all summer and jack is now a yellow belt and doing great.  we are so impressed with his development!

field trips to places like sea life aquarium and a couple trips to the science center

we did our fair share of just hanging out at the house playing computer games, jack came up with his own adventure outfit to look for things around the house, had popcorn and watch movies at home, played some serious nba in the house

grandma and grandpa came to town because my brother got his masters and we were lucky enough to have them stay with us.

we made our annual trip up to st george for the 4th of july and like all the years past it did not disappoint.  my parents had their annual block party for the 4th with tons of food, water play, kids bike parade and of course the fire works which were spectacular.  jack didn't really enjoy the noise so he decided to put on some headphones.  we got to go kayaking and jack of course loved it, sam was a little unsure at first but once i got him out on the lake he was loving it.  we went and saw the dinosaur tracks, watched movies, went to the main street river and let the kids cool off and splash, went swimming and just had a great time hanging out with the family.

john and jack went to the wnba game again this year and had a blast.  the games are never crowded so you can get really great seats up close and personal to all the action.  jack loves loves loves basketball so this was the perfect guys night out for him and dad.

we took advantage of the kids bowl free for the summer program and the boys had a blast.  sammy beat jack once and jack was not very happy about that one.  jack finally got his victory over his little brother at the end of the summer.

terrible picture but we did the summer movies and i was worried that sam would be horrible in the movie but he loved it and loved the popcorn.

so that is a little taste of our 2012 summer and we are sad to see it go.  i can't believe i'm going to have a 1st grader and that he will be at school all day!