Company!

We were so lucky last week--Katie came to stay with us for the entire week and Spencer and Janelle came for a few days. We have always loved having people stay over, and it doesn't happen as often for us now, so we loved this! We enjoyed gorgeous weather and took advantage of it to hike at Papago park. The kids loved it and came away unscathed by any cactus encounters.

The day Katie came, we went to Chuck E. Cheese because Eric had earned it on his rewards chart. I think the last time I was there was when I was five years old myself--I remember it being a lot bigger, but the decor was exactly the same. The kids had a great time, as did Katie--we couldn't get her off of the 'Flaming Finger.'


Thanks for coming to see us! And for anyone else out there who wants to get away from cold, unfriendly temperatures, you know where to find us. In the Valley of the Sun. Strange how the same title can be so appealing and repulsing, depending on the time of year.

Thank you, CVS

So, I was intrigued by all of the CVS pharmacy posting I saw out there in the blogging universe and I asked my cousin Emily to give me the scoop. She told me about moneysavingmom.com, which is a blog dedicated to helping you find great deals every week. They always do a CVS post so that you can see what the best deals/coupons are. It takes a little bit of time to start amassing the Extra Care Bucks, but then it is so worth it. I snagged all of the pictured items for a mere $4.28 out of pocket! Thanks, Emily.

Princess Wars

We were visiting Grandma and Grandpa awhile back and the kids pulled out Spencer's old Star Wars toys. Our kids haven't seen the movies yet (some people may consider this a serious offense), but it didn't take the boys long to figure out how to use the guns. Lily, on the other hand, didn't know quite what to do with the toys at first. She settled right in; however, when we explained that the figure wearing white with her hair done up in buns was a princess. What ensued was a rather original remake of the Star Wars series, although I'm not sure that Comic-Con attendees would approve of Lily's interpretation.

Scene 1:

Princess Lea dons a disguise and then confronts a devious robot masquerading as a princess. She disposes of the impostor in a not-so-princess-like fashion. (It sounds like some people haven't been able to tell what Lily says at the end of this clip. What she says is, "You not a Princess. I shoot you!")

Scene 2:

The Emperor's twin sister, who just happens to be Snow White's evil step-mother, is up to her poison apple shenanigans again. But she finds that Princess Lea is not quite the fainting flower that Snow White is. She fakes her death, then jumps up and blasts the evil witch with her laser gun.

Having vanquished two foes, Princess Lea heads off to turbo kickboxing class and Jamba Juice.

We've only scratched the surface here, Mr. Lucas, give us a call when you are ready to film #7-9.

Christmas in Pictures

The Train Table

Would you pay $500 for this train table? We weren't even willing to fork out 120 bucks for a generic train table at Target. Instead we thought we would be economical and make our own train table, after all Eric has been coveting one for at least two years now.

Roughly 21 man hours later we had the beautiful final product. And then I started doing a little bit of math,

21 x (average hourly wages) = YIKES! A lot more than 120 bucks.

Here's to hoping that Eric appreciates the sentimentality of the final product.

P.S. It might not be worth $500, but it turned out pretty well I think. Thanks so much to Dad, Mom, Spencer, and Isaac who all helped so much.

Success!

We did it! This is actually a post that I should have done in November. Eric and I finally finished 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons', so he got to have a funfetti cake as a reward. To anyone out there looking for a methodical, research-based way to teach your child to read, this is highly recommended. I have also found that it is transitioning well with the Spalding reading program he is doing in Kindergarten. It feels a little strange at first because everything is scripted, but it makes it nice to know that it is fairly error-proof. Good job, Eric!