Rory turns SIX!

On December 1st we celebrated Rory's sixth birthday!

It was a simple affair, but full of fun.

Our neighbors and cousins joined us.

Her dinner of choice: chicken flautas (straight from the fridge aisle at Costco).  I decided to add a big Mexican salad, sweet rice and chips with salsa...but the girl would have been happy as a clam with just the flautas!  And, an oreo cake...also her request.

Funny story:

When Rory came down the stairs on the morning of her birthday that stuffed whale that she's holding in the picture was waiting for her...she had been wanting that stuffed whale forever!  She was so excited and it pretty much went with her EVERYWHERE.  (Sidenote:  Piper has a whale exactly like it that she got for her birthday earlier in the year.  They would joke and say their two whales were husband and wife).  

Well, about fours days after her birthday we were putting her to bed and she realized she couldn't find her whale anywhere!  We looked and looked for it!  Finally we decided she must have left it at church earlier in the day.  We texted some people (her teacher, the bishop) to see if they happened to fun across a whale there.  No luck.  Rory was so upset, and her sleep suffered because of it...as did Ryan and mine!  She would come into our room throughout the night and eventually ended up in our bed.  Well, after three nights of that, and still NO whale, we decided to just buy another one exactly like it.  She came home from school and there was her whale waiting for her...oh the joy!  Problem solved.

Well, a couple of days later I was picking up the living room and realized that Rory forgot to bring her whale upstairs with her to bed, so I bring it up and give it to her only to see that she has her whale tucked in with her already.  So, thinking it was Piper's I hand to her, but again, Piper has her whale also tucked in with her.  The girls are now super confused as to where did this mysterious third whale come from?!!  I didn't want to blow my cover, because Rory truly thought I gave her the original whale!  So, I told them, "Wow, your whales must have had a baby!"  (It was the first thing that popped in my head.)  I thought they would think it was super cool and just go to bed...wrong.  They were completely freaked out...and there was NO WAY these two kids were going to go to sleep after hearing that two stuffed whales just reproduced a baby. Piper even got scared and started crying.

So, I caved...I told them the entire REAL story of what had happened.

We all had a good laugh.  

And Rory is super happy to be the owner of TWO whales now.

The end.

Happy Birthday Rory!

We sure do love you!

Thanksgiving 2017

 Here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving!  Where has the time gone?!

As per tradition we made our way south to Sedona for the holiday, and we were welcomed with temperatures in the upper 70's/80's!!  It was amazing!

Some highlights include:

Hot tubbing at Grandparents' house.

Lots of mountain biking!

This marked the first time I had mountain biked since the last Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good!

Piper and Morgan joined us a few times too!

Hit up Talaquepaque.

The girls coloring on a quiet morning.

We enjoyed an outing to the V Bar V Heritage Site.

This included the largest and best preserved petroglyph site in the Verde Valley!

Absolutely fascinating!

Explored around the nearby creek.

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our last evening we sat around the fire pit and roasted s'mores!

And somewhere in there we had a feast...which I seemed to have neglected to take photos of.

Such a lovely visit!

Until next year!

St. George Trip

A couple of weeks ago the girls had their fall break from school.  We decided to take that opportunity to soak in some sun in St. George.  It was quick trip, only three days, but it was so worth it!!

We stay in the same hotel pretty much every time we're there.  The main draw is their pool side rooms...it makes such a difference with a family to have access to your room poolside.  We'll pay extra for that luxury!

The kids swam every second they could!

 Haley had to take drastic measures to be able to look at her phone in the blinding sun.  Haha!

 We also spent some time at Snow Canyon State Park...one of our favorite places in Utah!

We've been going to this state park since Haley and Morgan were babies...and I have fond memories of going there as a kid too.  So, it's always so nostalgic...it seriously is one of my favorite places!

Halloween 2017

 Monday evening (the night before Halloween) we carved our pumpkins.  It makes me so happy when it's warm enough to carve outside!  And the dogs are happy too because they get a lot the scraps!

 I think they turned out pretty good!

And to make things a little extra spooky the girls found a black widow on our porch...lovely.

This is the second black widow that we've had around this house since we moved in...the other was found in my laundry room years ago!!  Yes...pretty scary indeed!  They both met their death by being blasted with ant spray...and then squished for good measure.  Sorry spiders.

 This year we have: Lydia Deetz, a dark angel, Dorothy and a cute little witch.

And as for us: Tom Petty (it had to be done this year) and his super fan.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Everyday Life

Things have been moving so swiftly lately, I just can't seem to keep up!

October is already half way through!

The fall colors have moved from the mountain to down here in the valley, and it's beautiful!

The kids are so, so excited for Halloween!  Fortunately, I think they are dialed with their costumes...that's record time for me!  Although, I resorted in buying all the girls' costumes this year, so that helps.

 Last week we picked out our pumpkins.  It doesn't feel like a Halloween until you have pumpkins on your porch, am I right?

I have hardly taken a single photo in the past few weeks.  However, my girls seem to swipe my phone on occasion and snap a few.

  Such as this photo of Haley's cup of tea.

Speaking of tea...I swear I cannot watch an episode of Call the Midwife without a cup of tea in hand!

Anyone else do that?

And these two photos, taken by my darling Rory.

She snapped this photo of my classroom this morning.

I work every morning up until Rory is released from Kindergarten and then sometimes I have to bring her to my room to finish a couple of things before we leave for the day...and she apparently snaps photos while she waits, ha!

We have just one more day this week and then the kids have fall break!

I think we're going to head south for a few days to find some warmth and maybe, just maybe, do some swimming!

Hello October

I love summer...I hate to see it go...I really do.

But I have to admit, fall is beautiful around these parts!

It's peak season for fall colors, and we knew if we didn't get out this weekend it would be gone and we'd miss it!  So we devoted Sunday afternoon to driving through the mountains and soaking in some of this beauty.  Unfortunately, about a million other people had the same idea!  So we aborted our original plan of driving the Alpine Loop  (seriously, the road was backed up for miles!) and decided to go off the beaten path to Squaw Peak road.  This is a dirt road that follows the ridge of the mountain behind our house.  It was much quieter!

Squaw Peak Overlook.

It was stormy and pretty ominous for most of the day, but it made for some amazing views!

We drove the dirt road and got out at various places to walk around and check out the views.

It was quite chilly!!  The temperature sunk down into the 30's at one point!  We even saw a few snow flakes!

After our little walkabouts, admiring the views, we'd jump back in the car and turn the heat full blast to warm up again.  And then when we got home we all put on warm pj's and cozied up on the couch to watch some TV.  I don't think any of us are ready for the cold season yet!

Happy October!