Our Sweet Old Girl

The dog that started it all.

Will's 5th Birthday Party

We got to go to Chuck E. Cheese today to help celebrate Will's 5th birthday. We had never been to Chuck E. Cheese before. The night before the party, we drove past it and Wes said, "Mommy, can we go to Chuck E. Cheese sometime?". Why yes Wesley, we can, how about tomorrow!

Wes had a great time playing games, eating pizza and cake, and especially hamming it up with Chuck E.. Chuck E. came out to wish Will a happy birthday and he sang and danced. He got Will up to dance with him and Wes happily jumped up to join the party. The other kids just sat there looking a little stunned by the sight of the giant mouse. Not Wes, nothing's going to keep him from an opportunity to perform.

Daddy and I thought the funniest part of the day was driving home from the party. Wes found this glasses and nose set in his goody bag. He quickly put it on and started goofing around. Soon, he paused, sniffed, and very seriously said, "Hey, it smells like fried beef in this nose". Chris and I are still not sure what fried beef smells like, or what the smell was doing in that nose but it cracks us up every time we think about it.

Crisis Averted

I cringed this morning when I heard Wes yell from down the hall, "Mommy come here, I spilled the sunblock!". I had to laugh when there was one little drop on the tile. I had pictured the worst.

Wes's Photography

Wes loves to take pictures. About a year ago, I gave him control over my old point and shoot digital camera because his toy camera wasn't cutting it anymore. The results are so fun to look at. I love to see his perspective on the world and the haphazard composition makes for some really cute photos. Here are some of my favorites that he has taken over the past year.

Splash Pad

Summer has officially begun, so we decided to hit the splash pad with our cousins. Nate was really able to get in to it more this year, walking will do that for you.

Miss Lucy sat in her stroller and looked pretty in her hat.

Poor Jack didn't think it was quite hot enough for the splash pad yet, and spent most of the time in the water shivering. Luckily, he discovered that he could head over to the playground area to warm up.

Wes is an old splash pad pro and decided to take a moment for a snack before heading back out to play his heart out.

Last Day of Preschool

Wes had a great first year of preschool. He really enjoyed it, just like we knew he would. We saw great strides in his coloring and writing. By the end of the year he could write his name and all the letters.

The teachers said that his favorite part of the classroom was this library. When they had free time he would head over here to snuggle up in some bean bag chairs and look at books.

Wes's teachers this year were Miss Jill and Miss Tina. Mommy had to get to work and couldn't wait to get a picture with Miss Jill, but this is Wes with Miss Tina. We're so glad that Wes loves school and we are so proud of him.

Our Big Helper

Wes loves to help. You just have to give him a job and he's all over it. Here he is helping Daddy clean out the pool filter.

Nate's Baby Signs and Animal Sounds

Signs

Please
Thank you
Monkey
Nuk
Up
Milk
More
Animal
Softy (Stuffed Animal)
Turtle
All Gone/Done

Animal Sounds

Elephant
Owl
Dog
Monkey
Horse
Fish (not really a sound but he chomps his teeth together trying to imitate fishy lips)
Lion/Tiger/Shark/Monster/Dinosaur/anything scary looking (all these things say "grrr")
Car (I know, not an animal)

Nate's First Words

5/20/10
These are all the words I can think of that Nate is saying right now:

Mama
Dada
Grandma
Linde
Papa
Jack
Adam
UhOh
Thank You
Ball
Baseball
Baseball bat
Basketball
Shoes
Drive Drive Drive
More
Please
Nippett (Bippett)
Dog
Nuk
Where ___?
Nose
No
Hi
Bye Bye
Book
Motorboat
Duck
Stinky
Choo Choo
Eye

Lucy's Baptism

Today we got to be a part of sweet little Lucy's baptism. The boys were dressed in cute matching shirts and everything. Neither of them sat very still, so there was a lot of taking turns walking them outside.

Lucy was a perfect doll as always though.

After a nice ceremony, we all headed to Mary and Dave Petroff's house for some yummy food and good company.

Happy Baptism, sweet girl.

Twilight Town Trek

Chris and I ran a race called Twilight Town Trek. It's an Amazing Race kind of race, but it was in downtown Phoenix. You can only get around using public transportation, or your own two feet. You are allowed to have a cell phone, smart phone, and/or computer to look things up. You can also have people at home that you can call for help. We were given a packet with a bunch of clues. The clues led you to different addresses where you either had to take a picture, collect something or complete a challenge and get signature from a race volunteer. We could go to the locations in any order we wanted and could skip one location of our choice, except the one required location that everyone had to go to. There were also two bonus clues that you could complete.

Here are the clue sheets that we worked with.

We had to get five strangers to stand like this and let us take a picture for one of the bonus clues. These ladies were on their way to see a show at the Dodge Theater and were happy to humor us.

Next, we had to stand by the letters outside the Sandra Day O'Connor United States Court House to spell the word "RACE".

Another bonus challenge was to get 3 bank buildings in one picture. It's kind of hard to see, but that is Wells Fargo, MidFirst Bank and US Bank.

Both team members had to get in this picture with a "social invertebrate" statue. We had walked past these statues on the way to the AZ Science Center the weekend prior, so we knew exactly where these guys were. There was no one around to take our picture, so I was able to set the camera up on another statue and use the timer.

Here, Chris expertly makes and flies a paper airplane. He flew it the right distance on his second try. There were people there that didn't seem like they were ever going to make it.

Chris posing for a picture on a statue near the light rail station at Central and Camelback before we had to run across Camelback to Dutch Brother's coffee for a volunteer signature, then down Central a little ways to a little shop to get a business card. We had 10 minutes to do these 3 things and get back on the next light rail heading south, otherwise we would have had to wait another 20 minutes.

Our final stop, the required location, said it was a kissing booth. It all made sense when we got there and saw the dogs (the race was helping to benefit the humane society). I happily knelt down to give the pup a smooch. The poor dogs were a little tired of kisses by this time.

We totally rocked the puzzle challenge, of course. We had to wait in a bit of a line to complete a simple Spiderman puzzle, but when it was our turn we got it done before anyone else that had been sitting there working for awhile. The funniest part was a challenge where they strapped a pedometer to Chris's head and said he had to make it say 100 in under a minute, any way that he wanted. He took off running in circles and the lady said that most people just stood there and shook their heads. I yelled to Chris that he should just shake his head. He started shaking his head but kept running in circles. It was really cute and funny. I would have taken a picture, but he had the camera in his backpack.

We had so much fun doing this race and can't wait to do another...when I'm not 19 weeks pregnant. We also did awesome! We came in 9th out of 125 people. Our final time (after receiving credit for the bonus challenges) was 1:55:15.

Lemon Harvest

Holy moley! Look at the size of the lemon that Wes picked off our tree, it's the size of his head. We harvested most of the lemon tree today and I made a bunch of lemon pound cake to share and freeze. Grandma and Wes also juiced a bunch of lemons and we froze the juice so that we can make lemonade all summer. This gigantic lemon gave us a whole cup of juice!

18 Week Ultrasound

We went for the 18 week ultrasound today. This is the ultrasound where they measure everything and make sure that the baby looks healthy. This is also the ultrasound where they can tell you the sex of the baby...we looked away at that part. My doctor sent me to an ultrasound specialist because she wanted them to get a good look at the placenta to make sure I didn't have any placenta previa this time. They were doing the ultrasound and all of a sudden switched it over to 4D. Wow! I'd never had one of those before and it's pretty amazing to see that little 18 week old face in 4D. I have no placenta previa...hooray! I am going to try and deliver the baby normally this time and now I am a perfect candidate. Also, the specialist said the baby was, and I quote, "perfect, perfect perfect". Yea! What a great ultrasound!