Arizona Museum of Natural History

We call this the dinosaur museum! They had some really great fossils and fake fossils of dinosaurs and mammoths among other animals.
The kids thought it was pretty cool to see all of the bones. They also have an exhibit on feathered dinosaurs that were cool, but they don't allow pictures in there.
The museum also has the old Mesa jail inside, Big Man kept wanting to go back to jail. They also have a mine replica and you could pan for gold outside. I highly recommend this museum, it is probably more interesting to boys than girls, but I thought it was great and will definitely be going back!

Boys

The scene: I'm laying on the couch exhausted trying to block out my kids as they are in the bedroom, half playing and half fighting.

Little Man: Screaming Stop it, stop it brother. Getting louder and madder as the minutes go by.

Me: Big Man get in here. What is wrong with your brother?

Big Man: I don't really know, all I'm doing is spitting in his ear, that's it.

Me: Oh. I just didn't even know how to respond. Where do they learn this? Will they ever be normal??!!

Barefoot and Pregnant in the Kitchen

Pregnancy tends to bring out my homemaking/crafty side. While pregnant with Big Man I learned to quilt and crochet and with this pregnancy I have been really into baking. Recently I even starting baking our bread, gluten free of course! For those of you who can buy bread at the store to eat, you just don't realize how lucky you are. We just haven't eaten much bread for the past year, but since I have found this bread recipe we have been eating quite a lot of it. Even my gluten eating husband and son like it too!

I also like to make banana bread regularly as well. Don't they just look beautiful!
So most days when I am trying to find ways to get out of having to do housework you will find me in the kitchen cooking something:)

Why Won't He Sleep When I Want Him Too!

Little Man takes a nap maybe 25% of the time that I want him too. But when I wanted him to come eat dinner tonight this is how I found him. He refused to wake up too! I think he was just playing and couldn't go on:)

More Allergy Testing

More testing at the allergy Doc today. He had a bunch of labs drawn last week and then more follow up testing today. She determined that he probably has an immature immune system. It is possible he has an immune deficiency disorder of some kind, but they will not diagnose that unless his numbers do not go up by the time he is 6. Some of the labs she drew were testing to see if his body created antibodies to some of the vaccines he had gotten and for most of the vaccines not nearly enough antibodies were present. So I guess I poisoned him for nothing. The Dr. said that up to 30% of kids do not show that they are immune to some of the diseases after they have been fully immunized!
The good news is that he does not have to avoid anything other than gluten for now. She does want him to go back to the Gastro Dr., though, to have another endoscopy. One of the pathology tests showed that he was borderline for allergic gastritis and she wants to know if his numbers are better now that he is gluten free, because if they are not then there are other tests they can do. The endoscopy was just horrible so I don't know if we will do that yet!

My Little Cowboys

The boys spent the day with their Grandma and Great Grandma and they went shopping! This is how they looked when we picked them up. They will probably want to wear their boots and hats everyday for a while and they say they also want to be cowboys for halloween. They would not look at the camera tonight no matter what I did, but I just thought they looked so adorable!

Happy Birthday To Me!

29...for the first time! (I think I'm going to stop here for a couple of years)

Splash

We went to the splash pad at Desert Ridge and had lunch yesterday.
The kids are always trying to pick each other up right now!

Is There Anything Messier Than A Popsicle?

No Training Wheels

Big Man has been asking for a while to take the training wheels off of his bike, but he can barely touch the ground on that bike so I would not take them off. My dad then found this old girly bike that he thought would be perfect for him to learn how to ride! My brother was over and took him up and down the sidewalk twice and then he got it.
I was pretty impressed with how quickly he learned and how fast he was able to go.
Of course he did spend a lot of time like this as well. He only had one bad fall with a scraped elbow, so not bad for the first day! You would never know by watching him that he thinks his bike is too girly either! He was calling all of his friends over when he saw them outside and showing off his new bike. Someday he may be a little embarrassed that he learned to ride on a pink bike, but he isn't right now:)

The Rest Of Our Trip

The next day the kids had fun picking wild flowers for Grandma,
Building caves for their dinosaurs,
Learning how to shoot a slingshot with Grandpa,
Making bird feeders to see what birds we can get to come eat,
Then finally napping after a busy day.

That evening it started raining, so the kids had fun playing and being silly in the rain.
It ended up raining most of the night and was very cold. A welcome change from the hot sticky weather in Phoenix right now. We are back to reality now, though, but it was fun to get away for a few days!

Camping Again!

Hubby got off work early today and we headed up to Woods Canyon Lake for the weekend. We are just happy to have made it because as we were pulling out of the driveway I noticed that we did not have brake lights, so for the next hour Hubby worked on it in 103 degree weather and found the bad connection and then thankfully we were able to get on our way! When we got here it was a wonderful 69 degrees. So tonight we roasted hot dogs on the fire and then sat around the campfire talking and singing songs, it was a good night:)

Motorcycle Riding

My kids love riding Motorcycles with their Daddy and Grandpa and Uncle Austin. They have no fear, but it is not like they are going very fast either!
Today Grandpa got out his Tote Goat ( I think that is what it is called!)
The kids sit perfectly still and just enjoy it.

Goodwill Pile

I cleaned out the kids toyroom and have a large pile for goodwill now. I am hoping this will decrease the amount of clutter that seems to get everywhere in the house. I told the kids that Grandma is going to come and take the pile to her house:) So if they miss something they will blame Grandma for not being able to find it and not me!! Now I just have to find a time to take it when the kids are not around. Next I'm going to work on the boys room. I need to shorten their curtains and get Little Man a twin bed and get him out of the toddler bed/crib. He was not happy when I talked to him about getting a new bed because the baby is going to need his, so I think I need to get him out ASAP so he doesn't get mad at the baby when she comes.

I Help I Help

I think it is cute how kids assume that when you need to do something that you need them to help. Hubby needed to repair a bookshelf that we have and he brought it in and was getting his supplies and the kids ran and got their hammers and just assumed that they were needed in order for the project to get done.

Hubby is so patient too, he let the kids hammer in most of the nails even though it took quite a while.
Big man has the most interesting faces when he is concentrating! The bookshelf looks beautiful now and the kids are very proud.

First Shopping Trip

After church last night we went out to Arizona Mills Mall to get some girlie clothes because they were having good sales. So we went to the Carter's outlet, the Children's Place outlet and Old Navy. With what we bought her last night (Thanks Mom!) and the bags of clothes my sister has from her little girl we are set! I did buy the boys a couple of shirts so they wouldn't feel left out as well. Carter's has winter clothes on sale for 70% off, how can you beat that. Today we are off to Pottery Barn Kids, they have a lot of bedding on clearance and I want to take a look at the Mallory pattern as I love the way it looks online.

It's A Girl!!!

The midwife is 95% sure that it is a girl:) She would not open her legs very much at all so we did not get a great shot, so we will get confirmation at my next appointment. The small glimpses she did get, though, she is pretty sure it is a girl. Yeah!!! The heartrate was 156 and the baby measured one week ahead at 18 weeks 3 days. She seems to be healthy so that is wonderful. I have only gained 8lbs so far as well. I was kind of shocked because I am feeling pretty large. I gained 55lbs with each of the boys so maybe with this one I won't weigh as much, that would be nice!!!

Clearing Out

I think the nesting bug has all ready hit me! Today I started organizing and getting quite a pile ready for goodwill. My house is totally overrun right now with toys, stuffed animals and just kid stuff. I do feel guilty about getting rid of their stuff, but they just have way too much of it. I’m hoping that they will not notice if I take it away a little at a time when they aren't looking:) We have had an extra bedroom for toys so the amount hasn’t been an issue, but since I’m going to need the room for the baby we have to find somewhere else for all of the crap to go. My hubby has no sympathy; he basically wants to get rid of all of their toys, yikes! I’m a little more giving. Tonight I even dismantled my desk to make room for their train table and some other toys in the family room. It was probably a good thing though, because I kept way more papers and junk than we needed. So hopefully not having a desk will make me be a little more organized. (One more day!!)

2 More Days...

Only 2 more days until we find out what we are having (hopefully!) We aren't excited at all:) The hubby is convinced it is a girl, I had thought it was a girl but now am leaning toward a boy. I have spent all evening looking at bedding sets for girls since I have 2 different ones all ready for a boy. If it is a girl we are definitely in trouble because I am going to be doing some major shopping. And probably on Saturday too because I am not patient and the hubby is going to be working the afternoon and evening, so why not go shopping:)

The Messier The Better...Right???

I let the kids have some fun today with glue and colored sand. It took all of about 30 seconds for all of the sand to be in the same bowl, so most of the pictures look brown instead of the bright pretty colors! Oh well, next time I think I will just give them 2 colors at a time to work with. I was definitely glad I had thought to put down an old table cloth because they did make such a mess, but they had a lot of fun in the process!
Here is their beautiful artwork:)

Hello, Is Anyone In There???

Today Big Man decided he needed to see if he could hear anything inside his tummy with the doppler. He listened for a minute and then got all excited and said I felt a little kick! He then told Daddy tonight that he felt a kitten kicking him:)

Slot Car Racing

Keeps them busy for hours!

16 Week Picture

Sometimes I feel big, sometimes I feel small. I'm just at the point where I really want to pop out though so I feel like I look pregnant and not just fat! One more week and if the baby cooperates we find out what it is:)

Our Day At The Children's Museum

Today Big Man and I went to the new Children's Museum in Phoenix. After my friend Xandie's glowing report I just knew it would be a lot of fun! When we first arrived it took him a little while to get into everything and to have fun, but once he got going he did not want to leave.

He made some bean art and a headband/hat thing first.
There were some fun motorcycles and race cars to sit on and play with.
He had a lot of fun in this room where it is all about balls and mazes you put them through.
There was also a fun kitchen set up that he had a blast in. He was so excited in there he was running and skipping back and forth as he put the pizza's into the brick oven!
He also made me some spaghetti and kept bringing me drinks.

More At The Museum

There was a big playhouse to paint in the art room, he kept getting mad at all the little kids who kept painting his hair, though!
He would not leave this market either. He would get his cart full of groceries, go check them out and then be the bag boy for a while for other shoppers and then would help restock the shelves over and over.
All in All this was a really neat place. Today was very crowded so we will definitely be waiting until school is back in session before going back. They have several more exhibits planned for the end of the year that sound really fun as well.