Sun, Swimming, Sunscreen, Shade, Snowcones, light Sabers, Swords, Sleepy, Smiling

We made it to Phoenix without too much trouble, and the cousins have been having so much fun with each other ever since.  Everyone is tired from excitement and swimming and sun and waking up early, and my poor kids are dealing with a 2 hour time difference.  It has been loud and exhausting, but I love seeing the 3 cousins together, they just love playing with each other.

My sister Joanna also is down here visiting with us!  And all the kids are loving having Aunt Jojee around too!!! (plus she always comes with gifts!)

Kaylee just posted something on her blog on Tuesday about documenting the things that come out of our mouths as mothers.  Things I can’t believe we say, like “please don’t eat the bubbles in the bathtub”, or “please stop chewing on your shoes”, or “get your toe out of your mouth”…hmmmm, maybe I don’t feed my kids enough????

Today, the kids and I had to make a stop at PetCo.  I caught Jayden yesterday dumping all of the fish food into his fish tank.  He had good intentions, he wanted to make sure Fishy had enough food while we are in Arizona, but it just put one more thing on my to-do list for today : Clean out fish tank….  Anyways, while I was getting Willow out of the car Jayden was standing next to me.  I grab Willow and start walking but Jayden wasn’t following me.  So, I turn around and say this :

“Jayden.  Will you please stop smelling the tires and come with me?”

Jayden is constantly showing me “tricks”.  Whether it’s hanging from the counter, walking backwards, leaping off the couch, standing up on his pedals on his bike, they are always his “tricks”, and for some reason he always says someone taught him how to do it, when half the time I know he just made them up on the fly.  Like I’m pretty sure that he figured out how to climb up on the trunk in the middle of the living room and leap off of it.  I’m pretty sure Grandma didn’t teach him that, maybe Grandpa Fireball, but definitely not Grandma.  :)  “My grandpa taught me this trick!” and then he rides his bike with one hand.   “Hey mom, you want me to show you the trick that dad taught me?” and then he runs down the street backwards.   “My cousin Brennie taught me this trick” and then he slides down the stairs on his belly.

Today’s trick I took a picture of.  “Hey Mom!  Want to see me drink water with my nose?  My Nana and Papa taught me this trick!”  And then he actually sucked water up his nose, which made him cough, and then it came dripping out the other side.

Really Nana and Papa?  Was this necessary?

We found our first red strawberry of the season tonight!

Then we played a little baseball.  Jayden wanted to be the pitcher.

Royal was the batter.  Look how fierce Royal is in this picture.  I’m guessing it’s because when I was the batter I smacked one way over the fence into the neighbor’s yard, and well, Royal doesn’t like to get shown up by a girl (or really anyone for that matter…).  :)

Scooter even joined us in the yard this evening.  She’s kind of like a dog and follows us down the street if we take a walk, but she’s always about a house behind us, like she’s guarding us, making sure nothing sneaks up behind us or anything.  She also managed to catch a HUGE bird tonight.  But she decided to play with her food before she ate it and gave the bird a chance to get away before I got a picture.

There was a also a little hide and go seek.  But in the backyard there are not very many places to hide.  Under the slide was Jayden’s choice.

Willow has found a new spot in the basement that she likes to sit.

We just had the scariest tornado storm I have been in so far since we’ve lived here, which really isn’t that long, it’ll be 2 years in June.  About 10mins to 5, I called Royal at work, because Royal was suppose to be driving up to Kingman for a business dinner this evening, and asked him if he was still planning on going.  He said he’d just checked the weather and he figured he was going to be okay to go.  He says this to me as I am hearing the tornado sirens go off on the WSU campus over his phone (I can’t actually hear any tornado sirens from our house if I am inside).  I’m a little freaked out and say, ‘Well, I’d rather you not go, but if you think you’ll be okay, then fine.’  I finally got my computer to start loading the live feed of the storm while I am hastily shoving food at the kids and I sit down at the table with them to watch the forecasters and stare out the window to make sure I don’t see a tornado.  15 mins later or so, Royal calls me and says he’s heading home because there is a tornado spotted on the ground about 6 miles away from the airport.  By the time Royal called me I had already grabbed the kids, Scooter-pants, the computer, the camera, and was in the basement office.  Jayden and I had just talked about what to do if a tornado ever came around a few days ago, and when I ran upstairs to grab my purse and came back down I found Jayden like this.

He was “hiding from the tornado”.

He had built his own shelter!  So, clever!!!  But I made him move his shelter into the office where I was watching the weather people and the radar.

Willow made sure Baby Stella was doing alright.

Here’s a picture of the storm after the tornado warnings had passed and we went back upstairs.  It was just rain, hail, thunder, and lightning.  I had to take it from inside the window because the wind was blowing it sideways and I would of gotten soaked.  Sorry, but I am just not THAT dedicated to providing you with storm pictures.

And Jayden’s swimming lessons got canceled this evening because of the storm, but it looks like now he could practice in the corner of our backyard!!!!

The weather here in Wichita has been fantastic this past week (besides today where it’s cooler and extremely windy).  I have been taking pictures of the kids, but my poor blog has been getting a bit ignored because I have been helping my friend Tonya with her StrollerFit blog, putting up videos and pictures from her classes this past week.

So, here’s a little picture catch up for you!

It got warm enough to take out all the water toys for the yard and play in those.

From the pictures you can tell that this little pool is not really holding much air or water.  Turns out that over the winter it developed like 2 huge holes in the bottom and a slow leak in the top portion, so it’s not good for playing in unless you keep a steady stream of water flowing into it and are constantly blowing up the top ring.   It got thrown out.

Then, in more sad news, our beloved splash pad died a tragic and seam splitting death when some energetic 4 year olds kept jumping on it.  It also has been thrown out.

So that leaves us with only our brand new slip-n-slide that Aunt Jojee got Jayden for his birthday.  Thank goodness, because we almost had to resort to just running through a sprinkler or something…booooooring.

And here are some pics of the kids during StrollerFit and playing in the parks when the class is over.

Willow tries to do just about whatever Jayden does.  Isn’t that what just about every 2nd child does anyway????  She has had Jayden read her books, watched Jayden read, and now she had taken it upon herself to read herself books.  She does this all the time.  She will go to the bookshelf, grab a book, sit on the floor, and I will hear her “reading” it to herself.  It totally cracks me up!

Royal has been a little difficult about his birthday.  I’m pretty sure it didn’t stem from the fact he was turning 32, Royal’s never had much of an issue about getting older.  I think down deep he was trying to make his birthday not stress me out or anything, like he didn’t want me to feel like I needed to do something big for him.  And while that is very sweet of him to try and make my day easier on his special day, really it just started to bug me.  I mean, this is what I do for a living these days.  I entertain other people, I fix them the food that they want, I try and make their day fun and special.  So it felt a little like an insult to me, like I couldn’t fix or do anything for him that would make him feel special.  Well, I didn’t let that stop me!
He told me he wanted no presents for his birthday - I am so not okay with this - I wanted to get him something, but Royal didn’t want me to spend any money.  When I asked him what he wanted me to cook him for dinner, he said, ‘Well, I don’t know, maybe hotdogs or hamburgers or something?’.  Okay…  And then when I asked him what kind of dessert he wanted, like did he want a cake, or cupcakes, or an ice cream cake, or his mom had just taught me her pie dough recipe, so I could try to make him a pie or tarts or something.  He replied, ‘Well, I guess I’ll just have an ice cream cone.’  Ugh!!!  How in the world was I suppose to fit 32 candles into an ice cream cone????

So, I didn’t spend any of his money on his present.  When the in-laws were in town for Jayden’s birthday, they brought Royal and my birthday presents too.  And part of my present was money, so I used that money to buy Royal something, but really it was kind of a loan from myself.  You see, someone is paying me to make them a couple cheesecakes by this Friday, so I’ll be getting my birthday money back!  :) ha ha ha

And then for dinner, since he said he wanted ‘hotdogs or something’, I made one of his favorites, kielbasa and krout.  The Lovingfoss’ had brought me some homemade canned sauerkraut and I had some kielbasa sausages in the freezer, so I BBQ’d those and heated up the sauerkraut and they were delish!  The best sauerkraut I think I have every had!

And then for dessert.  I had to get a little trickier here.  When Royal was leaving for work in the morning, I made some comment about how me and Jayden were going to make him some chocolate chip cookies today.  They are his favorite and I fed most of my last batch to our small group on Sunday, which he wasn’t too pleased about.  So, Royal said, ‘Oh, I like those, they are my favorite!’   Basically he had given me permission to make him something, which meant that when he came home and I had 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies on the counter for him, he wasn’t going to gripe that I did something for him on his birthday.  But instead of making him a batch of cookies, I turned my cookie dough into a pizookie (pizza cookie for anybody who has never ate at BJ’s!)  It’s basically a cookie in a round dish that is super crunchy on the outside and half baked on the inside and then you cover it with vanilla ice cream and it melts all over it.  It’s super good and I could fit all those candles in there!

Happy Birthday Royal!

Look at all that smoke!