A little bit of everything post.

We have had a lot going on this past month.  Here is just a little of what has been going on around here.  

At our local and closest mall to us they have a splash pad and two play areas.  We spent the Saturday relaxing and come 5pm we were bored.  So we decided to take the kids to play in the splash park.  We got there at 5:30pm and the kids who take a while to warm up, ended up not playing in the water cause at 6pm is when they turn the splash pad off!  So we ended up playing on the little kids area.  Joshua just so happened to take this picture of Me while I was teaching the kids to be cow-boys/cow-girls.  

Theodore has FINALLY showed interest in reading books.  He has taken over Charlene chair and I have caught him reading in it many times.  He will get a red chair for his birthday this year.  :)

Theodore has also finally showed interest in coloring!  We have found crayons on our walls.  So therefore the craft area no longer as free range of coloring.  :)  

This past month has also brought us a couple surprises.  LOL  In the mornings I usually let Theodore run butt naked to air dry from his wet diaper until bath time at 10am.  Well in one week alone, there were two incidents like this picture below where Theodore "cooked" us up a storm while playing in the kitchen.  YUK!    This picture was of the second time, but the first time was hilarious!  Joshua was on the phone with his boss when all of a sudden He see's Theodore grabbing at something below him.  He starts yelling for me to help from the kitchen and his boss is laughing on the other line.  :)  and then this kitchen incident, He was standings and realized what happened and it freaked Theodore out.  I think He thought it was a bug or something cause he was really terrified....of his own poop.  LOL 

Theodore no longer says "whats that" his new word is "this" as he points.  We think switched words cause we would use "this" to see if that is something He was pointing or talking about.  This picture below he was doing "this" and then was signing the word for "want" which was hilarious.  at a hot babe off a magazine.  :)

Our closest friends got a little Lab Puppy named Oreo.  He is so cute, but with puppies, they have razor teeth AND are still learning not to bite, so now every time we go over there I have screaming kids cause they are afraid of Oreo.  :(

Theodore had his first swing ride!  Charlene pushed him and He liked it at first, but then got bored of it after MAYBE 2 minutes.  

For mother's day Joshua bought me two new purses.  Well...the pink is the new diaper bag and the blue is for when I go childless shopping. :)   He got them cause they had scottie dogs on them which is thoughtful since Shelby is a scottie dog.  Only problem is....Charlene wants my purses!  

oh...and do you see what Theodore is grabbing at on the bookcase??  Well guess who is off of pacifiers?  your right!  Theodore!  This past month Theodore was so fussy with teething I caved in and gave them to him outside of nap/bedtime.  After a week and realizing he was "depending" on them too much, I decided to cut him COLD TURKEY!!!  Yeah...I didn't think he would do so well since he was relying on them so much...I think I was more afraid for myself.  LOL  But we did the same routine as Charlene and he was fine.  :)  We did the final pacifier round up, put them in a baggie, put them in the cubbard (not the garbage in case I needed sanity, luckily all went well)  and that night before bed we showed him the empty pacifier bowl (candy bowl of pacifiers) and he went down fine.  :)  Only thing is....since then...He HATES to go to bed now.  So its a battle of screaming as we lay him down.  :(

Oh, and on days I NEED to get things done in the kitchen I have resorted from the kids screaming at my feet to this!  In this one shot, Theodore decided to jump into the water with clothes on!  Theodore isn't anything like Charlene who used to like to help me in the kitchen when I had to cook.  Theodore likes to throw stuff off the counter and watch Shelby jump for it which he thinks is funny.  So either he screams at my feet (driving me crazy) or now plays in the kitchen sink for cooking.  :) 

Of course the aftermath is always fun to clean up.  

Oh, and every Wednesday our new thing is taking the wave runner up to the lake.  :)  Its so nice being a stay at home Mommie sometimes.  :)  We head out at 7am and are home by 2pm.  We take the sand toys for the kids on the little beach and with all us ladies we rotate going out in 2's.  Its a lot of fun.  

The only bad part about wave running is throwing people off the back, if they drag you into the water also...you end up with bruises!  I had 5 just on my right arm from last week.  and from yesterday...I haven't even counted yet!  LOL

That is about it for the month of May, nothing new.  Charlene's birthday is coming up in July so the month of June I will be party planning a "scottie dog" party upon her request.  :)

Peach Picking

Yesterday my friends and I took the kids to the farm up the street to pick peaches.  Charlene was super excited to pick them.  The trees were just her size.  :)     

Theodore, even though showing him the peaches on the trees, He kept picking them off the ground so therefore, He would pick up the old and mushy moldy ones!  ewwww!!!  

Because it was a tad bit warm out at 9am in the morning AND the peaches weren't ripe, we decided to just get a couple and call it a day so we can go home and play in the pool.  :)

Charlene kept picking "baby" peaches and petting them like a animal.  LOL  She would hold it oh so carefully like it was so delicate also.  

Of course my tom boy girl found a stick to play with to pick peaches with also.  :)

After we paid for our expensive peaches we took a couple cute pictures in front of some flowers.

Angel Moroni

Last year when we moved to Arizona, we just happened to move here the day of the ground breaking of the Gilbert temple.  Therefore when we moved in, we had 3 people from the new ward, my 9th month pregnancy body and my parents to unload the 27' moving van, the mustang, unload the wave runner and the car.  Wow...talk about a move!  Well beyond that, this past year we have watched the temple be built from ground up, which alone...is pretty amazing.  For months Joshua and I have been talking about the day Moroni would go up and how that would be a great memory for the kids.  Well Monday I happened to have my CTscan up the street from the temple.  With my "drunk" little eyes from the medication they gave me (wasn't suppose to be driving but Joshua was out of town) I noticed the two big cranes like a X atop the temple.  But I didn't see Moroni.  So the instant I got home, I googled and looked at Facebook and what do you know...the next day Angel Morni was scheduled to go up.  :)  Joshua was a little bumbed since He would be missing it, but what a exciting event to get the kids excited about.  :) 

They had the temple grounds blocked off so we parked across the street at a lovely GREEN park.  Notice I said green??  yeah...probably one of the only green parks in AZ which therefore...allergies!  Besides the eyes itchy, it was 105 out also, luckily in the shade it isn't too bad, but still pretty warm out considering we were there for 4 hours waiting! The wind was extreme that day also which didn't help with putting up the 13' statue.  Around 3pm they finally got started.  

How many men does it take to put up Angel Moroni??  ha-ha

   

 Charlene & Theodore were really cute and Charlene was jumping up and down yelling "I see him, I see him"  In the meantime I had to keep an eye on Theodore pacing back and forth among the hundreds of people.

  
  

Was it worth the 4 hours in 105 degree weather?  heck yes!  This is my first and possibly my last but hopefully just the first of many for my kids. :)  What a great memory to have.  

A surgery & Tucson

Ok...I know its been a while.  Not much has happen around here until this past couple weeks.  First off, about a month ago my pelvis/back pain started to get really bad to a point I was cranky EVERYDAY and couldn't get up that much.  So I went to go get some serious pain killers from my Doc. until I have the Endometriosis surgery.  Well, since she didn't know why the pain got so bad so fast, she decided to do a ultrasound.  WA-LA, the ultra sound turned out I didn't have endometriosis but I have Pelvis Congestion Sysdrom which would cause lower back and pelvis pain due to a varicose vein in the pelvis.  With that, she stated I had to have a histerectomy which I didn't want to have but when I frowned she said she would go ask her fellow co-workers to see if there was another option.  Sure enough there was...but there is only 1 Dr.  in the whole Phoenix valley that does it, so now I have to get a referral which means...serious pain meds until I get my surgery.  Anyways - when the new dr. called, I told him I had 2 kids at home and in charge of things at church and I can't be laying around in pain all the time.  SO...the next day, I had an MRI/MRA & a MRV (have no clue what all those stand for!) anyways - spent 2 hours in the tube and that Friday I was in for surgery.  BUT  here is the catch.  While they were in there, they found that vein so engorged that it spread to ALL my other veins.  :(  So because of that, they had to cut all those other ones and apparently you can be under for only 6 hours at a time, so they only got the right side done instead of both.  :(   So my couple hour procedure turned into a all day thing and I didn't get home until 9:30pm that night since I didn't want to stay over night in a hospital.  After two days, my right side of my back felt 100% better.  When living with pain so long, you forget what its like to not have pain.  I noticed I could stand more than 10 minutes at a time now!  woot woot!!!  Anyways - on a downside, of course recovery sucked when your a parent.  Joshua was scheduled out of town therefore, I was the single parent and also in recovery, therefore...it was a cartoon week considering the high pain meds would knock me out cold for hours at a time. and when I was up, it was for getting the kids food and I could barely walk since they went in through the main vein in my pelvis (if you tear a barbie leg off...its right where that leg attaches to the body, I know...random description but that is the only way I can describe it) So being all bruised up on both sides and having a area open that gets torn open every time you walk...was not fun.  Anyways - its been a week now and though my left side of the back feels like a train hit it, my right back is good.  My next scheduled surgery is June 1st and considering how well this one went...I am kind of excited! 

Anyways - a week after surgery we had planned a trip to Tucson with our friends so they could watch our kids for a quick date night.  So we booked the condos and away we went!  

First up...swimming!  

What do you think of Theodore's hat?  cool eh? 

By far...this was the deepest kiddy pool I have seen.  It said 1.5 ft, but it was really 2ft.  Therefore, since Charlene weighs hardly anything any slight wave would fling her around and she was scared if she didn't hang onto us. 

Charlene's friend Mylie came along, and she was a water LOVER!  She would come up from below and scare Theodore and he would laugh so hard at her.  :) 

Then we turned around and Mr. Theodore Shark chased her.  :)

This is outside the clubhouse.  Which on our way in...found a pretty large bird dead.  Looks like it hit the side of the building and died.  Charlene of course was deathly afraid and did the bloody murder scream so we had to carry her into the club house.

The next morning Joshua and I got up and headed to the Biosphere 2.  Funny part is...Joshua had a list of things to see in Tucson and I saw this on a groupon a while ago so I bought it thinking it was the Missile Silo that he REALLY wanted to go to.  Joshua of course knew what this was, but when we showed up and I saw plants and not Missiles I was bummed.  LOL  Should have looked it up before purchasing!  ha-ha

After our couple hour date day, we got back, picked everybody up, and drove to the Pima air museum since kids were free and Theodore LOVES airplanes. 

Theodore hitting the "bad" airplane.  LOL

Charlene found this cute little bumboo bee airplane.  

This next picture cracks me up.  So Roxeanne was on the outside of the window and as the kids were playing with the buttons she said "oh, you guys are taking off"  Both Charlene & Mylie freaked out.  Charlene trampled down Theodore screaming and Mylie wasn't too happy either.  LOL  It was pretty funny. 

Roxeanne gave the kids each pennies and they had races down the penny bank. 

They each got a smashed penny also.   

We are big toy addicts when it comes to taking things to the park.  So we bought a wooden helicopter.  Here Joshua is teaching Charlene how to do it.   

On the way down to the air museum we passed a housing development that when I saw this door, I knew on the way back we had to stop at.  :)  

Here is Mr. Theodore!  16 months!   

This was the door I saw as we passed.  awesome looking!  :)  Anyways - I only got a couple shots because apparently Joshua had a pacifier in his hand and Theodore spotted it.  :(

Then all the photos turned out like this!  ha-ha, so yeah...guess its time to wing him off that thing.  and I have a feeling its going to be harder than Charlene.  :(