Memorial Day

We didn't do much for Memorial Day. We just enjoyed a day together as a family! That evening we had Jaron and Beth's family over for dinner, swimming, and playing with sparklers!

I just had to throw this picture in here. Max was so excited to be sitting with the big kids!

The kids had so much fun playing with the sparklers!  Kate and Maddock got into it right away.  Jaylee was afraid at first, but she warmed up to it towards the end.  I had fun taking these pictures, but just could not figure out how to take those fun light painting pictures.  Anyone know the settings to do that?  Anyway, I like how these turned out, even if they are really blurry.

Happy Memorial Day!

"Arts and Craps"

I've mentioned before that I've been having to come up with creative ways to keep Kate entertained during the day.  Every day (mostly) we have time set aside to do arts and crafts.  Which Kate pronounces as "arts and craps" and I haven't corrected her yet.  Here's a few things we've done lately.

We got together with Maddock and Jaylee and made some shirts!

We painted our faces!

 Even Mommy got in on the fun!

One day I tried to keep Max entertained with a crayon and paper,

 while Kate painted with her hands and feet!

Arts and crafts is Kate's favorite part of the day! 

I'd have to say it's mine too.

I love my iPhone

If you thought I took a lot of pictures before, I'm about to make you even more sick of me :) We haven't even scratched the surface into another medium of photography. My iPhone! I have been using my iPhone camera a lot lately. It's small and easy, and lets face it, I always have it with me. It's perfect for quick snapshots, and with apps like Snapseed, Camera+, VSCO cam, and the oh-so-addicting Instagram, it's really fun to get creative with it as well. Also I got a fun little toy for Mother's Day, the Olloclip! It's a 3-in-1 wide angle, fisheye, and macro lens that snaps right onto your iPhone. So fun! I may be a tad obsessed.

So today I thought I would finally try to get some pictures off of my phone and into my blog.  All of these are pretty recent, taken within the last month or two.

Even Batman needs to eat lunch, Max will eat anything off of the floor, Max in the doorway, and a couple pics of my with each child.

Swimming in the pool, Dr. Kate doing her "research", the Pirate Princess and Max, playing with our new iPad (which I already broke but that's a story for another day), me and my cute kids, Kate "catching fairies".

The best way to watch "TB", Kate trying to stop Max from going outside, Daddy and Max at sunset, Max getting into the laundry, eating goldfish crackers, and a picture I took of the eclipse!

Kate brushing her teeth, a carrot covered smile, Kate taking a rare nap, Max and Daddy napping, Kate and Max waiting at the window, and Max crawling into his room.

Kate helping me vacuum, Kate and Max waiting for daddy to get home, Max napping, another one of Kate napping, playing "princess" with the curtains, Max playing peekaboo.

Kate and Max playing in their favorite spot -under the desk, Kate riding the carousel at the Superstition Mall, and some shots with my olloclip!

The iPhone of course will never replace my real camera, but you can expect posts like these every once in awhile!

Wordless Wednesday

Beating the heat

It's offically summer here, which means it is soooo hot outside! For me that means I need to put extra effort into entertaining Kate during the day. When it's too hot to play outside, and we don't have a car to go anywhere anyway, we've got to get creative.  Yesterday I introduced Kate to how much fun a simple paper bag can be.  We made puppets!  And Kate sure got a kick out of it!  I helped her make most of them, but the one that looks like a scary dictator, she made herself.

I got out my background stand and white muslin and made a puppet show theater! 

That night for FHE I asked Kate what she wanted to do, and she chose playing in the pool!  She loves this pool!  And so does Max!

He looks too big in this picture.

Isn't our backyard lovely?  The side where we drain the kidde pool is lush with green [weeds].

What makes a kiddie pool even more fun?  A kiddie slide of course!

My kids are too cute!  I love my family!

Home in the Mountains

A few weeks ago, we took a long weekend in the mountains.  I completely forgot to post about it!  We went up so Dustin could play in a golf tournament with his Dad and brother.  It was a lot of fun (as always) and it's always nice to escape the heat!  We visited my family on Friday, Dustin's family on Saturday and headed home on Sunday. 

Here are a few pictures of that weekend, and my favorite picture of Kate and Jaylee ever!

10 months

*tear*

How is my baby 10 months already?!?  I'm going to have to plan his first birthday soon, and that breaks my heart a little. 

Max is awesome.  He is the cutest little guy I know. 

He's a super fast crawler.

He's very curious, always wanting to explore.

He loves to play with cars, and basketballs of course! 

His favorite and only word is still "woah."

He's really fast at walking along the furniture, but isn't good at standing alone, so I think walking is still a ways away.

He loves to play with his sister, and he finds her hilarious.

He eats, drinks, and poops a lot.

He still has no teeth.

He's still in 9-12 month clothes, and he has a few 12-18 month outfits but they are still a little big.

I don't have current stats because I still have yet to make his 9 month checkup, oops!

Although he's busy busy now, he still makes time to snuggle with me.  It's the best.

He's getting to be a much better sleeper.  He goes to bed at 7:00, then I'll sneak a midnight feeding in, and then he usually will wake up around 6:30 and if I just give him a bottle at that time he will fall back asleep until 8:00.  I probably need to stop the midnight feeding, but I'm a little selfish.  I love to snuggle and feed my sleeping baby, and it ensures me that I'll get 6 hours uninterrupted sleep :)  So I'll continue that for a little while longer.

 Oh, look at that face!  Cutest little guy ever! 

I just love him.

I'm so lucky.

Oh dear...

Max wants to play with Kate, but Kate doesn't want to share.

3 years

I can't believe my baby girl is already 3 years old!  I've been slacking on taking and posting her 3 year old pictures so here they are.  The outdoor ones were taken last weekend, and the ones on the black background were taken today.  I decided to do something new and do these all in black and white.  I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.

I love you so much Kate!!