Playing Catch

Ellie and Matt had a fun little game of catch with a golf ball.

First Bounce House

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for Arianna - her parents are friends of ours and put together such a fun afternoon. They had pizza, cheetos (Hayden's new favorite party snack), a bounce house, and a pinata!  Hayden took a few swings at the pinata and Ellie had her first experience in a bounce house.

Such Style!

Hayden came out of her room wearing this the other day.  Multi-colored stripped leggings, a red and green Christmas skirt, and a long sleeved spring shirt - on backwards.

She's so stylish!

First Swim Lesson of the Season

Hayden had her first swim lesson of the season with Ms. Allison on March 31st. It's not quite warm enough to swim in our pool (still at about 70 degrees) but the pool that Ms. Allison teaches in is heated (lucky!) so we are able to get a head start this year.

Hayden was a little anxious about starting this year until I bribed her with a new swimsuit cover up. This parenting is super easy when you can BRIBE your kids!! Ha!  But seriously, she got excited about the cover up so she momentarily forgot to be anxious. Plus she found her goggles and was so excited to wear them that she put them on during breakfast.

The weather was perfect so Matt, Ellie, and I really enjoyed sitting out in the shade watching Hayden.

After the lesson we stopped at the little park next to the pool and the girls played for a bit. It was the perfect start to the weekend!

Sisters

Mohawks!

Sister Love

I made the girls these matching t-shirts and love how they turned out. What's even better is their Sister Love and how they are becoming better friends every day.

Still Going Strong!

Thanks Aunt B and Uncle Phil! The castle is holding up and still going strong. The girls love it!

Hayden and Grandma

Hot Air

At the corner of our community is a popular hot air balloon launch zone. It's typical for us to see hot air balloons at least once every two weeks right over our house.  Matt was taking the girls to school and came out to this. The girls (and Matt) were in awe.

Visit with Pop

Pop came to visit for a long weekend in mid-March and we had a blast. We packed the days with food, snuggles, and baseball. The girls absolutely adore Pop and look forward to his yearly Spring Training visits. Here are some of our favorite pictures from the visit.

Pop Visits

Pork on a Fork

With Pop in town visiting we are always guaranteed to eat BBQ. As luck would have it there is a new BBQ a few miles from our house so we decided to have dinner there with him on Thursday night. The place is called "Pork on a Fork" and the food was very good. The meat was really cooked well and they had a wide selection of sides as well. We ordered a grilled cheese sandwiches for the girls and while Hayden enjoyed hers Ellie preferred the pork sandwich.  Mmmm..delicious!

Cheers to a wonderful dinner!

Mmmmmmm! More pork sandwiches please!

He Shoots! He Scores!!

I forgot to post this video from when Bethie and the kids were in town visiting. I'm pretty sure Matt wished we had played in the basketball trampoline section the entire time we were there...

Tubes

Starting in December Ellie started having a bunch of ear infections. She kept getting one after another and we kept having to get antibiotics to treat them. By the third round of infections and antibiotics Anabelle started to fight us taking the medicine which resulted in her fighting us on taking her heart medicine, which is not an option. So we made an appointment with the ENT that put in Hayden's tubes a couple of years ago and he agreed to put them in Ellie as well.

Ellie and I got up at 4:45 a.m. and headed to the hospital to be there by 5:30. We went to the same hospital that she was born in and got first rate service. The nurses and anesthesiologist were wonderful and Dr. Dyer was also great. Anabelle was taken by the nurses back to the operating room and Matt met me in the waiting room. The tubes were in in a matter of minutes and within 15 minutes we were back in the recovery room. Anabelle did really well and was just a little fussy the rest of the day.  We're so glad she got tubes and hope they'll really make a difference for her.

At the hospital waiting. Her head looks GIANT!

In recovery

Sweet babe. She was pretty sad.

At Einstein having breakfast afterward.

Ears Fixed + Sleep + Banana = Happy Ellie!

First Spring Training Game of 2012!

We are fortunate enough to have the Colorado Rockies Spring Training facility a mere 20 minutes from our house so as soon as the 2012 Spring Training schedule was released Dave purchased our tickets to a game.

I went to a baby shower that morning so Matt and the girls met Dave and Sarah at the ballpark and I joined them about 45 minutes into the game. The weather was perfect and we had great seats on the first base line near the top so we could get in and out with the girls easily.

Right after the 7th inning stretch we were on the Jumbotron! Hayden made it on the Jumbotron last year in a face-off with Vincent for "Fan of the Game" (I have to say that the first time I typed this I said "Player of the Game". Haha oops!  Thanks for catching that Matt) and the same camera guy found her again this year! We were dancing in our seats and he came up the isle and she was on the Jumbotron. I just wish we could have gotten a picture of it!

By the end of the game the girls were completely wiped out (and truthfully, so were we) but we were so glad to be outside spending time with Dave and Sarah. We love Spring Training in Phoenix!!

Girls Day Out

Matt attended a 20/30 event today with his buddies so the girls and I had the entire day to ourselves and we had such a ball.

After breakfast we got ready and drove to Hobby Lobby. Ellie rode in the cart and Hayden walked with me. They both did really well in the store (it's amazing what fruit snacks and the promise of McDonald's will do to motivate them) and I was able to pick up a bunch of crafting stuff. There was one small incident where Ellie managed to break a glass wall sconce but the check-out gal was really understanding and insisted that I not pay for the broken one.

After shopping we picked up McDonald's and headed to the park. I grabbed the stroller and blanket out of the back of my car and we had a little picnic in the grass. The girls did pretty well with their food, taking into consideration all of the things going on to distract them from eating, and after we were done we headed over to the little play area. Hayden saw a little friend of hers there from school, Rory, and they played on the swings while Ellie and I went down the slides.

The girls both took great naps when we got home and I'm proud to call the day a complete success!

Nakey Trampoline?

The girls are normally pretty good about taking turns jumping on the trampoline but this night they climbed up there together. There wasn't much jumping but there was a lot of tickling and laughs!

Hi Cuties!

Uncle Cyrus

At the end of February we had a very special visitor stay with us for the week...Uncle Cyrus! Cyrus was a college roommate of Matt's and one of the most wonderful people we know. We were so glad to have him stay at our house and especially excited that it was for four days!

He got in late on Monday night so Tuesday after work we went out with the girls to Maggiano's for dinner. The food was great and the girls immediately fell back in love with Cyrus. It's been several months since Cyrus was last in Phoenix but during dinner Hayden sat on his right and Ellie sat on his left. I can't say that Cyrus enjoyed it all that much but I know that the girls sure did. That night he also gave each of the girls a singing Ernie doll (of the infamous Bert and Ernie) and their love for Cyrus continued to grow.

The next few days were spent at home (me home with a sick Ellie) and then dinners with Matt's parents one night and out a Culver's another night. Cyrus also made a trip to the Grand Canyon (which is a little crazy since neither Matt nor I have ever been) and came back with snow globes for both of the girls. While he was here he also got us hooked on Lost. While I'm convinced that we're going to be annoyed during the entire series and with the ending, we are still hooked and can't wait to get through it. And Cyrus, we will be waiting for your dissertation upon our completion of the series.

Hayden was LOVING her talking Ernie doll from Uncle Cyrus.

Cyrus had recently returned from a trip to Australia where he visited an aquarium.
Hayden was totally digging the fish and shark video he took. 

Sick Girl

In late February, our sweet Ellie got a nasty flu bug that wiped her out for four days.

It all started with a really wonderful dinner out at Maggiano's with the girls and Cyrus. She ate really well but was a little quieter than normal. We put her down without any trouble that night but at about 9:30 we heard a weird sound and then crying. I went into her room and found her covered in throw-up (sorry for the visual). Poor baby. She had such a sad face like she was asking, "Mommy, what the heck is going on here?!"

We got her all cleaned up and sheets changed. To cut the chase we had to clean her and her bed up another three times that night before we got to sleep. That was Tuesday night. I spent the next two days at home with her and then Sarah came over Friday morning to take the morning shift and I came home in the afternoon to be with her that afternoon.

She was just completely wiped out. She slept on the couch next to me most of the two days and even snuggled with me and fell asleep on my chest a few times. It was super sweet and made me miss her being a baby. By the end of the weekend she seemed to have bounced back to her normal self. And even though I felt so sorry for her it sure was nice to spend some one-on-one time snuggling with her.

Conked out on the couch

Awwww...that sweet face.

I was totally loving her sleeping on me.

Cousins Visit!

In late February Beth, Zoe, and Zachy came to Phoenix for a few days for a visit!  Yay!

We met them out for dinner on the patio at Dos Gringos on Wednesday night and followed that up with dessert at the Gelato Spot in Old Town Scottsdale. They spent the night with Dave and Sarah in Chandler and we saw them again on Friday afternoon when we met up with them at AZ Air Time, an indoor trampoline center. Matt and I took the afternoon off and after plenty of bouncing around we headed for home to clean up for dinner at El Encanto in Cave Creek.

El Encanto is a huge restaurant with outdoor and indoor seating as well as a duck pond. The dinner (and margaritas were excellent) and the kids were really well behaved. We were serenaded by a Mariachi singer table-side and the kids couldn't keep their eyes off of him while he sang and played his guitar. After dinner we let the kids feed the ducks, which they loved. After we got home and got the kids to bed we hung out in the backyard listening to music and playing Phase 10.

The next day Matt had a golf event he had to attend so Beth and I took the kids out to the Train Park. We walked through the model train museum, rode the train through the park, rode the carousel, and played on the playground. Afterward, Beth treated all of us to lunch from Culver's (YUM!) and we let the kids run around in the backyard while we soaked in the sun. That night Matt made dinner and we got the kids to bed early without much fuss.

On Sunday Dave and Sarah came back to the house and joined us for a HUGE brunch prepared by Matt. We ate outside by the pool and let the kids play. Grandma and Grandpa also helped Hayden put together a giant castle that she got from her cousins for Christmas. They all loved hanging out in it! Their flight was early afternoon so we had to say goodbye after brunch.

Thanks for a GREAT weekend!  We love you guys and wish you lived closer!

One Night of Queen

Savannah had the idea to go to a Queen concert and got tickets. No, this was not back in the 80's this was in February. And it was not the upcoming tour with Queen and Adam Lambert. This was Gary Mullen and the Works and their show "One Night of Queen." This guy Gary Mullen and his band plays tribute to Queen and performs all the hits.

If you didn't know any better, you would think Freddie Mercury crawled out of the grave and jumped on stage (minus the Dawn of the Dead zombie look).

All the moves, the dancing, the weird pointing and butt slapping - it all looks just like Freddie. Don't believe me? Check out a video of them (not taken by us).

And a video of the real Freddie here.

It was a theater in the round so the stage rotates at a pace of about once every 10 or 15 minutes. It is a great place to see a show.

It was a fun night and they were great - just like the real thing.

Under the Table and Dreaming

Playing Outside

A couple weeks ago we got home from work, fired up the grill for burgers, and hung outside with the girls. The weather is perfect lately and the girls were both in such good moods for the rest of the night. I think getting to be outside definitely puts them into great spirits and also makes for some cute photo ops.

Father/Daughter Dance

I couldn't help but capture this moment between Matt and Hayden. Matt put on some Coldplay last night and then had a little slow dance with Hayden. It kind of melted my heart.