February 2013

 February has been a busy month at our house.

We spent some time getting ready for Valentine's Day...also known (at our house) as "hearting".

We did hearts, cards, stickers and coloring.  And lots and lots of gluing.

We visited the Arizona Science Center with our friend from college, Jon, and his family.  The kids panned for gold and dug for dinosaur bones.  I'm not sure what the connection is between the two, but panning for gold seems to be a common attraction at Arizona museums and events.

We had a few really warm days to ride our bikes, but mostly, February was cool and sunny.  Just right in my opinion.  

We hiked with C&T and the dog on a cloudy Saturday and then, to make Timmy happy, picked up pizza on the way home because we were all starving.

Timmy's new obsession, as evidenced by his scratched up body, is tree climbing.  He will suddenly jump off of his bike (while it is still moving) if he sees a good climbing tree.

 Cate had to bring an umbrella to school last week for the letter "U" week.  I didn't have anything fun for her to bring, so both kids got a new, Disney umbrella.  Then they insisted on taking several walks with the umbrellas...even though there was not a drop of rain.

Our most recent news is that Tim got their new swing set put together last weekend, so we are hoping that they will get a lot of use out of it before the weather gets too hot!

The Week After Christmas

We didn't really have any plans for the week after Christmas.  I figured that the second week of school vacation would be kind of slow and lazy and that by the end of the week, we would be ready for our regular schedule.

To my great surprise, Tim ended up taking off a few days to just stay home, hang out and get a few jobs done around the house.  It was so nice to have what felt like an extended weekend to do a few things that we always talk about but never do and also to hash out some home repair and maintenance details.

Our first order of business was a morning hike.  It was actually pretty cold that morning and we really needed our hats and gloves.  Cate and Timmy made it around the whole trail.  Cate made it with no whining and complaining, Timmy made it up the mountain without whining...not so much down.

Next to Cate, Zeke got the award for happiest camper.  He doesn't usually get to go out on a hike first thing in the morning.  I guess that's a good day for a dog.

Timmy's main complaint during the hike was that he was hungry (as usual), so after the 45 minute hike, we stopped for bagels on the way home.  We also picked out new paint colors for the outside of our house before settling in for an afternoon rest.  

One of my goals for this winter is to actually do something with all of the citrus fruit in our back yard.  Since mexican food is often on the menu, I do use a lot of lemons and limes, but so far, we have not used any oranges.

 I saw a small, manual juicer at the grocery store and decided to pick it up so that the kids could help to squeeze some orange juice and maybe some lemonade.

The oranges that we have don't really come apart in sections, so they are kind of hard to eat, but they are very juicy.

 See that orange juice in the bottom of the juicer?  It took about 30 oranges to make that.  Each of us got about two sips in a cup.  Fun afternoon activity.  Not doing it again especially considering that we don't even drink orange juice around here.  Maybe next year we will think about investing in a better juicer so that it isn't so labor intensive!

After the juice experiment, Cate and Timmy went up to her room to work on beading necklaces.  Cate got a beading kit from Uncle Rusty for Christmas and she LOVES making jewelry with it.  Timmy was pretty intent on his work too although I had to give Cate the stink eye to get her to allow Timmy to touch her precious beads.

I'm not sure what Timmy is looking at here.  Maybe Cate's black striped leggings, navy blue dress and heart patterned shirt.  I would like to say that she dressed herself and that we were allowing her to make choices or something like that. Actually Tim picked that out for her because he was, and still is, convinced that it looks good like that.

This morning we were rudely jolted back into the school routine, but it was a little bit easier than usual because we are all rested up and relaxed from a fun two weeks at home.

First Phoenix Christmas

 This year for Christmas, we hosted both sides of our family in our new house.  I had visions of being very organized and getting lots of food made and frozen in advance.  Then our oven broke and I was without an oven or stove for two and half weeks.  Until two days before our first guests arrived.  So that was out the window.

Organization aside, we had a fun, relaxing family Christmas.  The weather was nice but cool enough for sweaters and pants, so we even used our fireplace quite a bit.  For just about the entire time that we've lived here, I wondered why in the world we had a fireplace since in the summer, I didn't even want to look at it in case that somehow made me even more hot.  In December and January, we are getting lots of use out of it which is nice.

We went to church the day before Christmas Eve in an effort to keep things on the calm and relaxing side.  I didn't want to pack too much into any one day, so we spread our activities out.

We tried to snap a few photos outside of our church since it is really pretty, but the kids were not interested.  At all.

On Christmas Eve we made a turkey and got out our wedding china for the very first time which was fun.

Cate and Timmy were so excited about everything.  We took them outside on Christmas Eve to see if they could hear Santa's sleigh.  They did hear a very loud bell ringing (almost like someone was ringing it right behind them...) and both of them started crying.  So much for Christmas Eve magic.  

We played lots of games at night and Cate participated for the first time.  She absolutely loved playing charades.  She took several turns and did a great job.  Timmy was not so interested.  He picked up one of Cate's purses and went to work collecting scraps of paper from everyone to put in it.

On Christmas morning Cate and Timmy found their big present, a clubhouse/swing set in front of the tree. We can't wait to get it set up outside.

Cate and Timmy both got such fun presents.  Cate was very excited to get her new cupcake set from Bee Bee and Mr. B. This is her second set.  She loved the one she got from Auntie Jenn so much last year that she wore out the markers and has been waiting for an occasion to get a fresh cupcake set.

Timmy got lots of "Cars" related gifts, but he was very excited about getting "Sally" and "Mac."  He loves his cars.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around and playing with new toys.  It was so much fun to have a full house for a few days and we were definitely sad to see everyone go.

Catching Up

This Thanksgiving and Christmas Season has flown by so quickly.  I have let so many blog worthy events come and go that in order to get myself back on track, I just need to do a quick synopsis and dump a bunch of pictures on the blog.  Speaking of which, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to use our actual, real camera instead of my phone.  The phone is so convenient, but after looking at all of these pictures, I am kind of disappointed in the quality.

Cate,  Timmy and I set out for Chicago the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  It is definitely getting easier to fly with them alone.  It also helps that in Phoenix, there is a play area in the terminal.  It's not elaborate, but compared to them climbing all over the seats, it is great.

One of the main events was making Christmas cookies.  It was totally insane.  They were both so excited to cut out the cookies and decorate them, that they were going crazy.  I eventually had to make a separate staging area just for Timmy so that he would stop laying all over  the flour covered table to reach what he thought he needed.

Tim joined us a few days later and we had a relaxing visit at Mimi and Pop's house.

The following weekend it was time for Cate's first dance recital.  Her song was "Marshmallow World," so she got to wear a fluffy white costume.  Cate did a great job on stage and was so excited to get her flowers when we picked her up after the show.

The very next day, we headed up to Williams, Arizona with our friends Norah and Eli to ride The Polar Express!

Williams is up in the mountains near Flagstaff, so for the first time since we moved here, our winter coats and hats made it out of the closet.

The Polar Express experience is just like the book and movie.  We got to ride a train all the way to the North Pole, drink cold hot chocolate, eat cookies and sing Christmas Carols.  

When we got to the North Pole, we could see (out the window) Santa's Workshop, his sleigh and all of the reindeer ready to go.  Santa got on the train and gave each of the kids a bell to ring.

This is the first year that Cate didn't cry when she saw Santa, but her brother was closing his eyes and also sticking his fingers into his eyeballs to make sure that he didn't see Santa.

After the train ride, we got to have dinner in the lodge and visit with Mrs. Claus.  She was a big hit with both kids after she saw them come into the (empty) room and exclaimed, "Oh my!  I've been waiting for you two!"  Cate was all in after that.  They both told her what they wanted for Christmas and colored ornaments for her tree.

We stayed overnight in the hotel and after breakfast the next morning, we headed back home.

Cate and Timmy have both been getting ready for Christmas at school, and Cate's four year old class had a Christmas program.  Although Cate wore the same red dress that she wore last year when she was three, her performance was much improved!  Last year, she stood on the stage and didn't move a muscle.

This year, she sang all of the songs and did the finger plays without any hesitation.  There is such a difference between three and four!  Except for her height...which is evidently the same as both of her Christmas dresses from last year still fit.

After the Christmas program, the only thing left to do (other than class parties...) was to get ready to host our first Christmas in our new house.  Both of our families were coming, so we had a lot of preparation to do.  Luckily, I have two willing "helpers."  They were both very intent on cutting out gift tags and Cate wrote all of the names on them for me.  Timmy mostly cut up paper.

 Our resident party planner was never satisfied with the amount of decorations that we had out, but she was so so excited to do anything Christmas related.  Once our oven (which was awaiting repair for 2.5 weeks!!) was fixed, we got right down to business making cookies and treats for our guests.

Ho Ho Ho!