T-ball and Field Day

Ella's Field Day was in March, but I don't think I put up any pictures. Caden was upset a lot of the time because he was only allowed to participate in a couple of events. For him it was pretty boring since it was just watching Ella's class the whole time. One of the class favorites was the pizza box relay. It was a fun day and Caden can't wait until next years field day.

Swing away. Caden started T-ball in March and loves having games, mostly for the snacks after the game :). The whole team is getting better at paying attention, they are hilarious to watch. Sometimes they are in outfield just spinning around, you get one kid started and then it has a Domino affect on the whole team until the coach puts a stop to all the shenanigans. Now the team does pretty good paying attention to the ball and throwing it in the right direction. Caden loves to show off how far he can throw, once he was at the pitchers mound and threw it over the fence behind home plate. He looked a little sheepish after, it was funny.
Team picture. Taylor gets into the games too, we drive by the field and he'll say 'Cade game' pointing towards it. Its been fun, only five games left.

Busy yet not so busy

The last three weeks Jeremy has been working nights. Finally this week he will be working days again. We're excited to have him back in the evenings. Although that means I will have to start making dinner again. I have gotten used to having cold cereal and macaroni for so long with the kids I am going to have to think of menus for dinner.
March has been full of fun stuff for the kids with school. T-ball finally started for Caden, He loves it as does Taylor. Taylor just wishes he could participate a little more at practice. Caden had green eggs and ham on Dr. Seuss' birthday, and then celebrated Easter and St. Patrick's day on Friday, because it is spring break this week. Two weeks ago we went to the zoo and met Ella's 1st grade class there. We had a fun time chaperoning, it was perfect weather. I do know now if I am just going to the zoo with my kids, I don't want to go on Fridays, that is field trip day at the Phoenix zoo. The kids even got tired before it was time to go back to the buses. It was a great day. Ella just had Field day on Thurs. She had lots of fun. They do lots of fun stuff for the younger grades, hula hoop, jump rope, scooter relay. She really enjoyed it. Caden was a little upset that he couldn't participate in everything, he finally settled for playing on the playground while I watched Ella.
Even though the kids have been keeping me busy, I have really gotten into some bad habits. With Jeremy gone at night or sleeping during the day, I kind of let the house go and the kids run wild, and what was I doing all this time, reading way too much, with intervals of playing with the kids. Most of the series I have enjoyed recently Jeremy read first and knew I would like them and others' friends suggested. Here's what I have most recently read;
Loved "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" by Jonathan Stroud, very clever writing, really enjoyed it.
"Inkheart" by Cornielia Funke have only read the first but sequel is on hold at the library waiting for me.
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull, Amy turned Jeremy and I onto this book in Hawaii. have only read first of this one also and have sequel waiting.
Currently reading the last book in "The Dark is Rising Sequence" by Susan Cooper, 5 books in the series some of the books were predictable but all of these books are in the young readers section. Love it because you know they are clean yet very exciting books. Two books by cooper won newbury or newbury honor.
So this is how I would escape Jeremy not being there and slip into my fantasy worlds with magical creatures. It's been fun, but I need to start getting back to reality and just escaping into my books for a few minutes at night before bed like I used to.

Taylor turned 2!!!

Taylor turned two years old on February 3rd. He is such a cutie. This boy loves balls. so I had to do a sports theme cake plus it was super bowl Sunday, so we had to have a football on there. Which Taylor wanted to grab off his cake and probably would have tried to throw it.
We just had a small party for him with our family and my brother Brandon and Amber's family. Ella and Caden were so excited. They kept bugging me when was I going to make a cake and how come they couldn't make a cake in their easy bake oven for him. They were busy all day preparing for his birthday finding things they could give and making cards, it was so cute.
Taylor's 2nd love after sports is cars or anything with wheels whether it is a car he rides or an rc car he loves it. He is talking so much now. It is so fun to figure out what he is saying and here his little vocabulary grow. We would always ask Taylor how old he was and he would put up one finger so now he just puts up both fingers, so cute. Taylor and Caden are playing more and more together, They are already wrestling and rough housing at 2 and 5, and Taylor defends himself pretty well. They are quite a funny pair.

Taylor's two favorite things that he has to have are his "pacie" and his blankie. This green blanket I made for his last b-day and he has loved it since. Sometimes we can get him to use a smaller blue one with the same silkie border. At the retreat he had to walk around with his blankie, partially because he kept getting hurt and needed it for comfort, Ella got to follow him and hold it up off the ground so it didn't get muddy. She felt like she was holding up a dress. He is hilarious. We are so glad he is our little guy Ella and Caden love him so much. It's so fun to see how the three of them are growing together.

Baptist Retreat

Ella and Caden were dying to make something, this was over christmas break. I just had to take a picture of her with her fruit pie and recipe. I hadn't gone grocery shopping in a while and this was literally all the fruit we had. Ella didn't like the final result. The grapefruit was just too overpowering. She had me eat all the grapefruit, even then its juice made everything else taste funny. She did a great job and had a fun time making it. Phoenix Baptist has an annual retreat the first weekend in February and families get to come too. We had so much fun up there with everyone. About 20 min. before we left our house to come up Taylor fell off a chair onto tile climbing onto the counter to get "piece" of candy. So he fell on his face and got a huge fat lip, three little teeth marks on the underside of his lip. The picture doesn't do it justice for how bad it was. His pacifier was lopsided the whole time, but he still did great, and loved playing in the snow.
I hung out with some of the kids and did crafts and stuff while all the adults played some games.
Jeremy just finished paintballing. he faired ok , but his hat took a beating from a couple of paintballs. He came and found us playing afterwards.
Marty had all the kids wrapped up in a story about the "children of the light." They LOVED the story. Ella was really worried that rocks and pebbles were going to start sneaking up her. She had to make sure with Marty that it wan't a true story. As soon as they got their glow sticks all fears were forgotten. Caden kept talking about how nice Marty was.

My computer is taking forever to upload the last few images, I am ready to post so I may have to add the other pics later. More of the retreat. We had so much fun playing and getting to know everyone a little better. Thankyou Phoenix Baptist for such a fun time.

I think I post about as often as I write in my journal. Or sometimes I want to post and start writing and erase everything. So this time I think I will follow through with my post. The holidays went well. Always busy and lots of family sometimes too much family. Christmas Day we went to all three sides of the family this year, but it worked. Lots of parties. Taylor was afraid of Santa it was pretty funny. I know I shouldn't laugh at my own kid when he is scared, but I get some amusement from it. Even in the picture he is looking at Santa with some speculation. This was at Jeremy's work party. The snow was also at his work party. I don't know how I got two pics of it on there and not sure how to get it off.

It was a lot of fun over the holidays we loved seeing so much family and having them over for sleepovers and visiting. We had my sister and her kids who stayed with us for a few days after Christmas. We also had our nieces spend the night for one big last hurrah before they moved to Utah. They wanted to try out the pool, I totally wish I knew how to download the video because it is hilarious. All the kids except Taylor joined the polar bear club. Jeremy said the pool was probably colder than it is for the scouts when they do their polar bear swim at Camp Geronimo. Paden was the toughest she jumped in at least three times I think. We had fun with you guys hope your doing well up there in that freezing weather.

The etch a sketch picture is random, after a Christmas party at our house my brother in law sat there for about 15 min. using a picture of Jeremy and I. this is how it turned out, not bad. Someday I'll figure out how to get the pictures in the order I want them.

Mommy Makeover

I kind of messed up this image I was trying to move it and ended up stretching it a little. these were after the makeover if you can't tell.

It's Sunday afternoon, Jeremy is on call and Taylor was just put down for a nap. Ella, Caden, and I have a good 2-3 hours to our selves. I am just coming down the stairs and Ella asks if we can play makeup. This usually consists of thick layers of lipstick and sometimes nail polish, I stall for time. Do I really want to "play makeup"? Ella, "Please mom your the only other girl in the house , so I can only play with you." Ok so how am i suppose to refuse that and still have a clear conscience. She has a good point. So I finally agree to "play makeup" and now caden wants to join in.

Ella; No Caden I am doing mom's makeup.

Caden: No, I could do her Hair.

Ella: good Idea

Ella proceeds to pull out all her lip gloss and lip stick, talking to me about what other 'patients' like , so what would I like.

I tell her she is the makeup artist and she grins and tries out a few different colors.

Ella: Hey Caden, How does this lipstick look with mom's skin.

Caden; good

she tried a new color, got some out side of my lips and on my teeth,

Caden: laughs, "you look like a clown"

Ella dabs it off of my face and does her best to get it off my face.

Caden ran upstairs to find a brush and he grabbed two bottles of spray gel. He asked me which I would prefer, one bottle was the real stuff the other filled with water. I choose the water filled bottle. Caden douses my hair with the "gel" and as he brushes says, "this is going to be so pretty." Later he sighs and says, "How do you get it straight?"

Caden finishes my hair and asks if I know where some lotion is.

Ella: Oh yeah you get a free massage, all our patients are so excited when they find out they get a free massage. they are like(she fans her face and in a high pitch voice) "A FREE MASSAGE!!!!

they do, they freak out." I love how her imaginary 'patients' get so excited about a free massage.

Ella and Caden proceed to paint my nails Caden does my toes and Ella my fingernails.

the makeover is complete, lots of glitter, sticky eyeliner from her makeup kit, and I lost track of how many coats of lip stick and lip gloss , and the cherry on top is the nail polish that covers not only mynails but the surrounding skin as well. And Caden wanted to make a pattern he says so he does a different color on each foot. The mommy makeover is finally complete. Why would I wnat to pass up something like this? We had a fun afternoon and Ella couldn't wait to show off her mad makeup artist skills to Jeremy when he got home. I am just hoping I don't have a major breakout because of the little kid makeup.

Caden's first lost teeth

Caden woke up this morning with out his second bottom tooth. He lost his first tooth on Saturday. Last night it was hanging on by a thread, so we are going to look for it in his room since it fell out during his sleep. He is talking with a little lisp since both teeth are gone now. He is doing really well in school, he also take an arts and crafts class on t&th, since preschool in only three days a week.

Ella is reading more and more. I am going to have to start going to the library with her. The books that she gets from her classroom are way too easy for her. Ella still asks to go swimming even though the water has been in the 70s lately, that is too cold for me, even after mowing the lawn yesterday. The weather has been so nice lately, we have been going to the park a lot lately.

Taylor is getting cuter everyday. He is talking more each day. Not that I understand it, but it's really cute. When you ask how old he is he holds his finger out and it looks adorable. He loves looking at his animal board books. I can't believe how long it entertains him.

Ella and Caden have been riding bikes and scooters with the neighbor kids. They are loving having other kids they can go and play with.

Jeremy's schedule has been horrible. This month he has been doing ob. This weekend we hardly saw him. He worked about 30 hours straight sat to sun. Then got home and slept until six or so. then had to go to bed early so he could wake up at 4 am. I'll be glad when this rotation is over, as will he.

Ok so I connected my camera and found the pictures, but when I try to look for them in blogger I don't know where to look. so Maybe Jeremy and I can figure it out later.

Hopefully soon I will have picture up.