Sweet Cakes

My friend Jaime invited us to an event she was hosting at.  The place is called Sweet Cakes located in Down Town Mesa!  I never go down to down town Mesa (unless for a photoshoot) and never heard of the place.  The kids enjoyed decorating the cookies!  Such a great idea for the kids during the summer!!

 I caught him sneaking candy...

 Daniel was putting some effort into his work

 Then of course she has to be ... well a goof ball

 Caleb got right to work and got his cookie decorated and couldn't wait to eat it!

 Then I found another kid sneaking candy...(Brooke)

And here is my lovely friend Jaime!  

The kids had a blast!!  I can't wait for the next event that we are invited to!

Dads Birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated my dads 48th birthday!!  There was some fire works involved.  Nothing wrong with celebrating the 4th of July a little early - right?  Leave it to Jerod to have the fire works!  The kids always ask him if he has smoke bombs when he comes to get Caleb after work.  He stuck to his word and got the kids smoke bombs.

 My sister bought this from Costco for 25 bucks!!  The kids loved it!!  Steph first bought one for Caleb to try it out.  I warned her that there was going to be some fighting involved if we didn't get more for my two...so with Daniel's birthday being the end of Aug and the end of Summer, Steph decided to get Daniel his birthday gift a little early so that he could enjoy it all summer rather than at the end.  Then Jerod bought one for his parents house, so Brooke got to take it for a test drive before he took it to his parents.  I will have to buy one so that she has one too at my parents.

 Then of course we have to add Miss Ashtyn.  She sat on the side lines just chilling.  She sure didn't like getting sprayed by the kids when they were shooting eachother!

And what is 4th of July without sparklers!!  

BTW - that is chocolate all over Daniels face...

Father's Day 2013

I decided this last month or so that I am going to start taking pictures on holidays more.  It's really nice to have something to look back at from time to time or even for those uneventful times.  It's never something we ever want to look forward to or think about but it happens.  So, why not have something to look back all the time - time that you never get back.  

Yesterday we celebrated Father's Day.  The kids and I got Chris a new cold air intake for his truck - something he has been wanting for his truck.  (He is super eager to do something to his truck - he pretty much has a full list of things)  After a few hours of him trying to figure out how to install it on his truck - he figured it out.  After he installed it and got things set, we took a trip to see how it changed his truck and so on.  Our trip to was to the fire station!!  Yes, my dad had to work on Father's Day.  It is something I have grown around - so fact that yes my dad is a firefighter but he doesn't always have holiday's off - in fact he has probably had about a handful of Christmas Day's off since being a firefighter (20+ years!)  So we decided to make it a memorable Father's Day for him.  Plus, I couldn't remember the last time we had visited him at the station.  Brooke couldn't even remember how the whole fire house (station) thing went.  She imaged it being like in the movies - when really it's not.  She actually asked where the fire dog was after we left...that was a whole other story.

 The kids were talking to one another on the radios - they just thought that was the coolest thing!!

The kids left with some good bags that the firefighters at the station packed them with.  I am yet to perfect my indoor photos - so the photos didn't really come out all too well.

Next trip was Chris's parents house to visit his dad for Father's Day.  It was an evening of swimming and hanging out by the pool.  The Arizona weather has been pretty nice in the evenings.  So far it hasn't been to muggy for us.  We can for sure feel the humidity but nothing too uncomfortable (yet).  

Papa with all four grandbabies.  We do not have many photos yet of Ashtyn but I promise you that we will soon!

We are back in business

So it's been a REALLLLLY long time since I lost posted on the blog - nearly a year!  A lot has changed since September!!  We now have a new addition to our family.  Today she is 7 weeks old!!  I will post more pix of her as time goes.  Right now she just sleeps - so I'll spare you the pix of her sleeping... but I will say she is beautiful!  She looks a lot like both the kids.  I love looking back at previous weeks and seeing how much she changes in just a matter of days. It kind of makes me sad at times because it is going by so fast! 

Brooke turned 3 in January and boy is she 3!  It seemed that 2 weeks after she turned 3, her 3 year old attitude came out.  We lucked out and didn't really get the terrible 2's with her...instead we got 2's and 3's together - its quite an adventure at times.  

Daniel finished his first year in Kindergarten!  He is totally excited for 1st grade.  I can't wait to meet his new teacher for this school year.  We really liked and got to know his Kindergarten teacher - so it's kind of hard to move on from her.  We hope that Daniel gets someone just as caring and eager about teaching as his Kindergarten teacher is.

At the end of the month, Chris and I will celebrate our 6 year anniversary!!  It is unbelievable that we have been married that long - it seems so much longer - in a good way that is :).  I think that Chris can agree with me, that since the moment we started dating it was something that we both knew it was forever and that we felt we had been together a lot longer then we had been.  Our relationship/marriage has always come so natural for the both of us.

I think that is a short story of the last 9 months!!  It's tiring at time but it's a blessing to look back at!