Outdoors

Well it's still hot, but my kids were tired of being cooped up all summer. I think a typical conversation went something like this: (kids) "Mom can we go outside?" (me) "No I'm sorry it waaayy to hot to be outside." (kids) "PPPPPLLLLEEEEAAAASSSSEEE!"
(me) "(Sigh) I'm sorry but no." (kids pouting as they slump off).
So at the first break in the heat, out we went. The mornings are not terribly bad now, so we took full advantage this week, and spent one day at the park and one at the zoo. The zoo was especially nice because when it did warm up the kids were ready to get wet. LOL Tim cracks me up. He found these pictures carved in the rocks, and told me he wanted to read me the story on the rock. So then we got to discussing hieroglyphics and all that. Hey we are homeschooling after all. :)

I actually will admit to forgetting to take Erika's 10 month picture with the bear. This one was taken a day late. This was another time when she pretty much refused to straighten out... LOL It's cute anyway. We have entered a new phase with Erika... she is now cruising around the furniture. It won't be long now I don't think for her to start walking. I am ambivalent, as I want her to grow up... but some days I really miss her being a baby. She is also starting to get her own mind about things... food she does not like ends up on the floor, toys she does not like are tossed aside, and when she is excited about something you know it. She still only has the two teeth, but the top ones are poking through a little, so she has been a little grumpy this past week.

Oh and speaking of teeth. Tim's two bottom teeth are loose. He is excited about getting a visit from the tooth fairy. I am sure it will be pretty funny if he looses both of them about the same time. I will post pics once they come out.

Well, in other news things are progressing nicely on our big news... we are hoping to have something to post in the near future (wink).

So for now, I leave you all with a nice picture of Tim and Lex and we hope you enjoyed the update. Thanks for stopping by.

Zoo

We took advantage of the wonderful desert weather and spent the day at the zoo with some friends.
I have noticed several things when you go to the zoo with more than one child:
1. Be prepared for complaining from at least one of them.
2. The things you really want to see or do are not the things your kids want to see or do.
3. Something that usually takes an hour will now take at least 3 (or one extra hour per extra child, which ever is greater).
4. If and when you get around to actually seeing the animals, they will be sleeping in weird positions and your kids will crack up and wonder why you dragged them to the zoo for this "learning opportunity".
Anyway, it was fun and it was a great opportunity for me to catch up with a friend I had not seen since high school.


I will now take some time to brag about the weather here in the desert: It's been in the lower 80's all week and is supposed to "cool" off to the mid 70's by this weekend. :) Hopefully we will be able to take advantage of this and get lots of pictures in the process over the next few weeks. (I am sure this will come back to bite me in the middle of summer when we are in the middle of a heat wave.)
Anyway, hope you like the pics and thanks for stopping by!

Quiet

So Mike and I have this debate about who talks more in our house... Tim or Lex. I used to truly believe it was Tim. Until last night.
Lex had her first slumber party, so she was gone all afternoon. I was absolutely amazed at how quiet the house was. (Sigh, I guess that means Mike was right, I will never live this down now.)
Anyway, the family she "slumbered" (although I know for a fact there was not much sleeping going on) with posted some pictures. They spent the afternoon at a pizza/amusement type place and here are the photos: In this next one you cannot see her face, but I think you could still pick her out fairly easily: (Sorry about the small photo, it's a mobile one and I cannot figure out how to change the size... but you get the idea that she is the smallest one there... lol)
It sounds like they had a good time. So for the moment Mike and I are spending some quiet time with Tim and Erika... and bracing for impact when Lex gets back.

Zoo news

On Friday we spent most of the day at our local zoo. We had a great time. It was so much fun to get together with friends and see all the animals and exhibits. (And yes we even did a bit of learning too! LOL) This was Erika's first time to the zoo. She slept through most of it, but it was fun none the less :) She was wide awake here, and she looked so cute in her outfit and hat.

Busy day

Well we had a good and busy day yesterday.
We started out the day by going to the Space center and learning some more about the planets. The kids all had a great time, and did actually manage to get some learning in as well. There is a whole series of photos at my other web site, so make sure to check them out.
After doing all that learning everyone was hungry, so we spent some time at McDonald's eating. Then the fun really started as we spent the rest of the afternoon at the train park. The weather is finally getting nice enough for us to be outside for longer than a minute at time, so we took full advantage of it yesterday!
Needless to say with the weather turning nice, a new baby due soon and the holidays looming in the near future, there will be plenty of pics and blogs to keep everyone updated! So make sure to check back often, and I hope you enjoy hearing about our days!

Peach picking

We had the wonderful opportunity to go and pick some peaches yesterday at a local farm. The kids even got to ride on a little train they had. We all had a blast! I thought I'd post some of the pictures from our outing. Hope you enjoy them.