Our little Sun Devils

We have a few Sun Devils outfits for Ryder to wear when he gets a little bigger.  The girls found them and squeezed into them.  They're about two sizes too small, but they wore them all day long and it was pretty cute.  Check out the bellies below, hanging out in the pint size outfits.

 

These are the types of shenanigans that go on when I'm doing something in the other room and they think I'm not watching.  Sometimes they just can resist a good jump off the ottoman.

Pampering

I'm so lucky to have an aunt that does facials and microdermabrasions.  She is moving out of her Chandler home soon and moving to east Mesa :(.  We went to her house for a last hoorah and enjoy some pampering before she's out.  Auntie M gave the girls facials and put some lip gloss on them.  They were SO excited!  Then the girls decided they wanted to give me a facial.  What a crackup!  They were massaging my face and washing it with sponges.  Then Reese was putting bronzer and blush on my eyelids.  We had a few good laughs that night.


This is kind of macabre, but don't I kinda look like a corpse on the table with my eyes shut and hands folded on my chest?  My mom pointed that out to me.  What the heck!

Here are some really cute shots of the girls getting pampered by Auntie Emmie.  They were in hog heaven.

17 months

Ryder is 17 months old.  Today I saw a photo of him a year ago on my screen saver and couldn't believe how much he has changed.  He has totally lost his baby look and is such a lean, strong little toddler.  I love our little monkey so much and he is SO much fun right now.  Here are some highlights of him at 17 months:

•  Running everywhere, and I do mean running.  He tries to keep up with his sisters and he's pretty fast, but when he gets going really fast he loses his balance and bumps into walls.  It's pretty comical.

• He's using utensils on his own and doing really well.  He's never enjoyed being fed, so it's nice that he can really do it on his own with a fork and spoon.
• Still breastfeeding. Some days it's only 2x a day, other times it's more.  No signs of weaning any time soon.
• Talking more and understanding everything.  You ask him questions and he says no or nods.  He's saying a lot more animal sounds this month and loves to grab a fake phone and say 'Hi Dada'.  He leaves out the 'h' sound so it sounds like, "I Dada".  So cute.
• Loves drinking spinach juice smoothies, yogurt smoothies, & water.  I still have to force the whole milk a bit.
• Climbed out of his crib three nights in a row so we dropped the mattress to the floor.  It seems to be working and I don't think we're breaking any safety regulations.
• He really wants to sleep with his sisters and when it's bed time he points to their room and yells out Ryan's name.  I'm starting to look for bunk beds that they can all share next year when he's ready for a bed.
• He is obsessed with cars and really enjoys anything with wheels, but the Disney Cars characters have a special place in his heart.  He has 6 Lightning McQueen cars and carries them around everywhere.  If he was older and we took our kids to the movies, then we'd be going to see it when it comes out in 2 weeks.  Instead, we've just watched the trailer on YouTube about 100 times.
• I'm not sure how tall he is but I think he's gained a couple pounds, maybe at 22 pounds now.  He's got such a skinny waist that I can put him in 6-12 month shorts and he's wearing 18 month t-shirts.
• He just started swim lessons and seems to be going good so far.  A few tears in the beginning but he's a champ at going under water.
• His hair is L-O-N-G.  Cory wants it to keep growing so we'll see how long it gets :)

• 

Children's museum

We visited the Phoenix Children's Museum this weekend, just the five of us, and had such a fun outing.  It's rare that Cory and I both have a Saturday off, so when his morning appointment canceled we jumped at the opportunity to do something together as a family.

 The girls loved playing puzzles and LOVED the grocery store.  They played checkout together and it was so sweet.

 Ryder got in on the action too.

 There was a motorcycle and car section that Ryder was really diggin'.  The girls had fun climbing on the big motorcycle and pretending.

 Beep beep!

Chops

I've been waiting for the day when one of our girls gets adventurous and decides to cut her own hair.  Well, wait no longer because it happened today.  Ryan said her hair was bugging her and was in her face, so she decided that cutting it would be the way to go.  It would have been waaaay too easy to ask mom or dad for help and put the hair in a ponytail.  Funny part of the whole scenario is that her hair isn't that bad.  She did cut some wicked sideburns and some chunky layers that I could have lived without, but it's actually a pretty good cut job.  She now has some wispy bangs and a few face framing layers.  I'm laughing out loud as I type this because I was pretty mad when I found out she cut her hair.  Take a look at the damage and tell me what you think:

 Awesome sideburns!

The pile on the dining room floor.

 Wispy layers and bangs.  Oh yeah!

Al fresco

I love our outdoor picnic table.  It keeps the mess outside and the kids love dining outside.  Today we enjoyed blueberry pancakes al fresco.  The mornings are SO beautiful right now and we are soaking it up.

 Ryder boy is getting really good using his utensils.  He loves feeding himself.

Rut roh

It happened and we knew it was coming any day now.  Ryder boy climbed out of his crib.  It was actually quite scary because he's such a peanut and could really hurt himself.  I put him to bed last night around 7:30 and he should have been quite tired after the busy day we've had, not feeling 100%, and only sleeping 2 hours during nap time.  I thought he would fall asleep within 5 minutes.  Not so much.  He cried and fussed for a bit and I was dealing with Reese, who wanted water, medicine for her cough, and was begging to sleep in our bed.  Cory had just left to help his parents with their new house, so I was alone dealing with the chaos.  I was trying to get Reese to sleep and I could hear him still crying and it wasn't his usual fussy "I don't want to go to sleep cry".  It was a bit more frantic and my gut reaction was that something wasn't right.  I ran down the hallway and when I opened his door I saw him on the outside of his crib hanging onto the rails.  His feet were in between the bars standing on the mattress and he was hanging onto the side.  I think he had been hanging on for a few minutes and I felt SO bad.  I'm a bit frazzled trying to figure out what to do.  We turned his crib around last night because the back side of it is much higher so now he won't be able to climb out that side.  I might be buying a crib tent from Amazon today.  Wish me luck and say a prayer that our little baby boy doesn't do this again and hurt himself.

We're not tired...

We don't need a nap.  We're not tired.  This was their mantra today.....and then they caved in and fell asleep on the floor.

Patriotic Salute

I've been a little emotional lately, that's no secret, but I was surprised how emotional I was on the last day of school.  The kids did a Patriotic program where they wore red, white, & blue and sang songs.  I started getting choked up when they walked in the room wearing their big Uncle Sam hats they'd made and singing "You're a grand old flag".  There's just something too cute about a bunch of 4 year olds singing songs and doing hand motions, especially when it's a patriotic song talking about how much we love our country.

This has been a huge year of growth for Reese & Ryan, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Ms. Nancy gave us a book of all their artwork and schoolwork.  It was so amazing to look back at the things they drew at the beginning of the school year.  They could barely write their names and at the end of the year they were drawing pictures of the whole family and writing their names perfectly.  Each child received an award tailored to their personality. Ryan received the Kung Fu Panda Award because she loved karate and always reminded Ms. Nancy that Tuesday was karate day.  Reese received the Crayola Award because she was always drawing, writing, or coloring, and she would bring blank color pages to school for the other kids to color.  They were both SO excited when their names were announced with their awards.  I'm really going to miss Ms. Nancy and Ms. Randi.  They were wonderful teachers and I am so grateful for the love, care, and education they gave to Reese & Ryan this past year.  I really hope that Pre-K is just as good.

Not sure where I fit in

This is a totally random post but I feel the need to blog about it.  I went to Nordstrom on today because their Womens & Kids Sale started and I thought I could find some great deals for myself.  Not so much.  I went to Brass Plum because that's where I feel comfortable most of the time.  While I was shopping I was surrounded by teenage girls that were yelling out things like OMG and LOL.  Shoot me now.  I felt like I was too old to be shopping in that section.  I checked out a few tops in the TBD  dept. and the cheapest thing I could find was $60.  No thanks.  Too frugal to shop in that dept.  Someone told me I should shop in the Point of View section of the store.  Cute but kind of mom-ish.  I guess that's where I'm at.  The kind of mom-ish dept.  I would really love to find a personal shopper/stylist that can go shopping with me and help me put a few outfits together.  I feel like I should be able to find some great stuff at Nordstrom, but don't know where to start.  Help!  I need a style makeover.

Buddies

 These 4 are buddies.  Rome & Haley have been staying with us a lot lately and we love having them.  It's crazy with 5 kids in the house but they all play so well together and have tons of fun.  It's always hilarious when we try to get everyone to sleep.  It's like one big party every night.

Birthday zoo

We had a crazy weekend of birthdays, four to be exact, but I have to say that the petting zoo party was the creme de la creme for our kids.  Reese, Ryan, & Ryder were all so brave and went right up to the animals.  There were chickens and ducks in the animal pen so I tried to stay outside as much as possible and take photos, but I did have to step in a few times to keep Ryder from drinking the goat's water.  Here are some fun highlights of our day:

Everyone wanted a piece of the baby bunny that was swaddled in a blanket.

Ryder L-O-V-E-D the animals and was all up in the mix.

 This was insane to me.  The girls wanted the rooster to sit on their shoulders!  Creeped me out but Reese was a pro and then she tried to help Ryan.  Such a thoughtful big sister.