Here is Ms. Emma’s 1st grade photo…            Here’s her mama in 1st grade…

                        

 

Here she was last year…

 

We threatened to chop her hair and chubby up her cheeks to have our Kindergarten baby back :)

Man I LOVE the little bob on her….but nooo she wants looong hair.

Hopefully she won’t look back and say “Why did my mom dress me like that!?!?”  or “Why did my mom let me sport a mullet??” oh.  wait.  it’s me asking that!?!?! MOOOOM?????

or at least how to prepare to kill a dragon. Aidan style. 

The lid shield he has stuffed/suctioned to his mouth is “a shield to keep the fire from the dragon outta my moufh”

The “sword” is actually a purple and pink rhinestone princess wand held backwards.

I just noticed he’s ironically wearing a dragon shirt he’s convinced his Mimi made him.

(She didn’t, but I didn’t correct him…as she is pretty talented :))

He’s mean.  He tough and he means business.

Dragons (and some dinosaurs) better watch out.

Especially when he has his hunting buddy…

I’m the best wiper.  According to Aidan the non-poopy trained 3 yr old. I gladly accept that honor and think it should help me in my future.

The above compliment can be the best thing you’ve heard all week b/c said non-poopy trained child was such a pain all week.

There is one, and only ONE advantage to Aidan having the terrible week full of biting and hitting punching he had this week.  While sitting on his bed “turning his fit off” and screaming “Moooooooommy, Moooooooooommmmmmmmy, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY” Guess what Isaac can say now?  “Mama” I’d like to think it’s b/c he loves his mama so, but probably more to do with listening to his brother.

AZ eats car batteries.

Dreaming about 5 visitors from KS and a tornado hitting must mean I’m missin’ KS!

I’ve finally decided done is better than love.  I’ve had some scrapbook pages that I’m not loving, but in recent weeks decided to just get them done.  Several are done.  I don’t love them.  They are not my favorite,but done non the less.

We have started watching The Colony.  You would never catch me on that show.  Although it might be a good diet plan.

To strive for a clean one year old is pointless.  In the attempt to clean child by bathing results in 3 poos during and after bath.  Waste of time. :)

Cleaning your car is also pointless.  Have truck cleaned only to then need a new battery and new windshield.  What’s the point of a clean vehicle unable to move.  Bathing people and cars lead to more mess and trouble.

We have the cutest little shark…

A certain way for 2 kids to pee their beds the same night is to brag that you have laundry caught up.

Shopping with the 3 Sprouts in ToysRUs for birthday gifts can actually be enjoyable, but the 15 min. after shopping that you spend searching the store for Aidan’s favorite, lost security blanket toy airplane is NO fun.

Visiting with Emma’s teacher at his open house provided great insight into what they are doing in school, however I’m afraid his “differentiated” classroom he believes in is not fitting to Emma’s leaning style.  Could be a long year. Yet she adores the teacher himself.

Emma loves hates spelling as much as her daddy and I.  She didn’t stand a chance with the genetics she was dealt.  Of course the 25 words per week list isn’t helping.  Especially when the majority are sight words in which phonetic rules do not apply. They only take one test per week.  A verbal spelling bee prior to test.  Winner doesn’t have to take the test.  Emma will never be happy until she is the winner…good luck honey.  Mommy probably couldn’t win. :)

I did learn that using a dry erase board really to practice words helps.  A bit less “permanent” I suppose.  She had been stressing with pen & paper b/c her paper was messy from scratching out her mistakes.

The website spellingcity.com might be our saving grace in working on spelling with Emma.

Finding a church is difficult.  It is another example, like moving here, where God seems to be specifically directing me EXACTLY where I didn’t plan to go.  The move, a church and one other thing I feel he’s been directing me in ways opposite of where my head tells me to go.  Just FYI God…the 3rd issue…I will need much more specific directions and signs for me to fully listen.

Aidan is doing GREAT at story time.  He’s listening and attentive.  We worked on one thing at a time.  Sitting up close.  Sitting. Not playing with carpet square.  Staying out of teachers personal space.  Participating in songs.  NOT running under the parachute until the teacher says.  He did it all great this week!

Once settled in I took Isaac in for his 12 month pics.  Luckily there’s a J.C.Penny’s everywhere. At each milestone I did a 10x10 collage print…they will fit handy dandy in his scrapbook!

Here’s Isaac:

 

Just for kicks here’s Frankenstein Aidan:

 

And Emma’s:

 

While in for Isaac’s pics Aidan saw their Harley Davidson event props.  He’s been in love with that motorcycle for a long time, so I decided to schedule a session. He was soooo excited! I never really had his 3 year pics taken.  Some beautiful pics by a friend and these kinda serve as his late 3 Yr. pics.

He was so happy about these pictures.  He especially loved the tattoo.

Despite my blog records Isaac did turn 10 months and even 11 months, although you wouldn’t know based on my posts. 

10 month pic slipped away b/c we were in AZ house hunting.  Whoops.  Totally ruins the future scrapbook collage w/each months photo. Mother of the Year right here.

11 months I actually took this pic, however no record of the “stats”.  Don’t worry I plan on helping pay for his therapy later in life when he’s trying to work through not knowing his likes, dislikes and milestones between 10 & 12 months of age.

A bit of OCD (actually C.D.O- I like my disorders in ABC order) chaps me with his one year bear photo…the background is different…obviously…it was taken here in the new house, but not so noticeable. It was also sooo hard to take cause he did NOT want to sit still.

  

Size: 27 lbs, 33 in.

What You’re Wearing: 24 months, mostly 2T, size 5 double wide shoes, size 4 diaper

Firsts: end of June started walking and quickly moved to running, says dada part of the time babbling, part of the time to daddy, stacked a 3 & 5 block tower at a year, surgery, move, hair cut,

Head to Toe: tubes in ears mid July, 1st 2 teeth the beginning to middle of July, first top tooth first days in AZ and second top tooth on bday.

Loves: stacking blocks, see N’ say, light up noisy toyes, shoes, forks, swimming, dancing, playing on stairs, skyping, playing with the swiffer duster, helping mommy do dishes & “clean” the stainless steel appliances :)

Dislikes:  not having pacci, not getting to be a part of what the older 2 are doing, not having mama, brushing teeth,

Eating: nothing with texture.  Still wants baby food. (except green beans- don’t blame ya)  Will eat crackers, cheerios, bananas, anything off mommy’s fork but if mommy puts her food cut up on a plate for you- no way.  Won’t eat it. Loooves milk and easily transitioned off it right after your birthday. Insists on using a fork when eating the little table food you like.

Sleeping: sleeping has been a pain.  Did try making you cry it out for a week and it went BAAAD. A few days later learn you have an ear infection.  Can’t get it under control so at night I’d feel bad and not let you cry.  Then after tubes there was build up that was causing you problems, it was close to the move with lots of hotel stays and the new house.  Decided to wait until settled in. Then right after your first bday you all of a sudden started sleeping 7:50 pm till morning.  All I had to do was threaten one day that I was going to make you start crying it out.  Whala that night you slept through! Because of sissy’s school schedule you only get one nap.  Morning nap of about 1 1/2 hours.  Makes the evening rough, but creates the early bed time.

Here’s a comparison of my big boy!

It was probably a good thing that we were so busy at the time of his first birthday b/c it’s just now hitting me that it was our last first birthday. 

Of course then I think back not so long ago when we learned Isaac would be a big brother at 15 months.  Crazy idea I began to love.

But now it makes me ache.  In my heart I wish it were still so.  Not just b/c it would mean we would still be in KS, but b/c I think I kinda thought 4 was a good number.  Crazy some would say.

Matt says I’ve got it bad…baby fever that is.  I think it’s just a dreamy thought of holding a new tightly wrapped baby burrito…like real new…like those few short days where you’re livin’ on adrinilne and the sleepless nights and exhaustion haven’t set in yet. :)

More randomness from my exciting life in the desert:

- Witnessed something crazy and awkward today.  I had been in town.  About an 1/8 of a mile from the entrance to our development I see a man on the side of the road standing on the passenger side of his SUV.  I assume flat tire.  That seems to happen here A LOT.  As I pass I check my rearview window to see him tucking “something” in and ziiiiiipping.

Oh. No. Can’t be.  A grown man standing peeing (very un-shyly) on the side of the road. Daylight.  Fairly busy 4 lane road as school is letting out.  No door open to block the view of anything.

I proceed to the circle drive at the school to pick Emma up.  Bet you can’t guess who pulled in a parked right behind me. Nice.  Luckily he didn’t come up and want to introduce himself and shake my hand. Yuck.

 

- God is teaching me patience.  It’s everywhere.  The sermon Sunday touched on it.  Then growing frustration with Emma’s school made it very evident this week.  I was sooo irritated with NOT knowing what was going on and what we were to be helping her with that I was ready to go speak to the teacher. She has brought home NOTHING in 6 weeks.  Not one bit of homework, no work sheets, nada.  Tuesday I hit my limit.  However, on the way home from work Monday the car broke down.  So in the heat of my frustration I was carless.  Lucky teacher.

Matt comes home Tuesday night to tear in to fix the car.  It works.  Just fine.  Like nothing was ever wrong. Nice.

Irritation grows.  Emma comes home telling me that bad people come in schools and shoot kids. (they had practiced their “lock-down” maybe a little TMI to tell a first grader the full details of why a lock down is necessary IMO) I vent to a friend Thursday…poor girl having to listen to me yammer on.  Friday- letter comes home from the teacher.  Spells out what is coming up, homework procedures, instructions what he wants done with the 500+ word list he’s sent home, a drop in conference time with him next week. (official conferences end of next month). 

Glad timing didn’t work out for me to go be a blubbering fool.  Amazing what a few days and some actually communication can do! :)

 

- Why do some people seem to be tested so much more than others?  I think wow…that’s enough to happen in a person’s life.  Then something else happens to them again, and again.  Know 2 people right now that seems to be facing yet another tough spot in life.  Not sure if it would mean much to them to know, but I’ve learned more from the 2 of them than probably anyone else in my 32 years.

 

- So the excuses stop in about a week.  My treadmill arrives.  Wonder how long it will take to “walk” the distance from AZ to Kansas on it?

- We have spent a small fortune on pacifiers for Isaac.  More than with the other 2 combined.  I’m sure of it.  Why??? I guess we’re more distracted thus don’t notice that he dropped one in every store and parking lot we’ve stepped foot in. Clip thing was a joke and fell apart in a couple weeks. Bought more today.  Not the exact ones he likes, but fairly close.  The little stinker could tell the difference, but was desperate enough he used it anyway. :) And don’t tell me kids shouldn’t have them past a year or it effects their speech.  #1 he’s my baby.  #2 Emma had one until 18 months and let.me.tell.you she speaks juuuust fine. Maybe even too fine. You can borrow her if you don’t believe me.

- A little more scrappin’ and it will be 2008 in scrapbook years.  Yeah!

- Score: Scorpion: 2, Me: 4  Yeah!!! I’m winning!!

- I’m in love with our bug guy.  See previous item.

That’s bout all here…

Here’s the next room in the house “tour”.  I’m a bit late getting this up.  I’ve learned with the flu & the scorpion sting that when a mom is down & out for a day it takes 3-4 days to get the house back in order! :)

This is our room.  Sits at the back of the house.  The stairs come up the middle of the house.  Our room & zebra room are toward the back.  Boys room & guest room toward the front. Sorry in advance for the too dark or over bright photos.

From the door: our massive bed and curtains from KS house fit perfectly!

View from our bedroom windows. I frequently see this view about 5:45 AM when Aidan is pulling me out of bed, to show me it is a “sunny day” thus time to get up. Lovely.

       

From my side of the bed looking back toward the door & the bathroom entry.

   

Bathroom w/dbl vanity to left, tub & shower straight ahead, potty room & closet to the right (see pics below).

      

From the tub the other direction looking back toward the bedroom.  Matt’s throne room & the walk in closet scene of scorpion attack.

    

Shelving behind the closet door that my FIL built on his first visit here.  Still needs a bit of painting attention from me!  Hard to tell in these pics, but Matt takes most of the closet space!!!

View from shower.  Aidan loves to climb up on the edge of the tub and spot the cacti. His favorite one is the quite tall one pictured on the right. Kinda looks like a pitchfork.

His other favorite view.  Aidan has a never ending love of the scenery here.  Every time we “go to town” (oh my…did I just say that?) he gets so excited, points and screams repeats himself until I look.

This what really gets the kids going.  If you stick your head/neck in just the right way you can see the neighbors pool w/ rock waterfall/diving “cliff” and in pool table.  See our poor children only have a pool w/neglected landscaping.  Sad huh? Pretty sure Matt is has a mission to do something similar in some way once we get the drip system figured out & purchase some new plants/trees.  This should soothe his need to manicure a lawn. :)

    

So that’s it.  Our Master “retreat”. that gets infiltrated nightly or in the wee hours of the AM by 3 different munchkins.

Hmm…up next…well - we’ll see what rooms I get ready. :) Still got some unfinished projects going on in some other rooms!

when you are scared to do laundry.  Like really scared to touch it.
The time it takes to do laundry has just multiplied greatly.  Shaking out each item before touching it is a compulsive and time consuming job.
**I do want to give a disclaimer.  In Sunflower State laundry frequently looked this way all over the sectional in the basement.  Back then I deserved to be stung, bit or attacked by any varmint living in the heap of clothing. HOWEVER, since moving to Scorpion Cactus Country, with assistance from my new front loaders, I have diligently kept my laundry up…until the events of last Wednesday that is.
I’m feeling better after Wednesday’s run in with a scorpion that called my laundry basket home.  My joints still hurt a bit.  He got me on my arm about 3-4 in. above my wrist and a 2nd time right above my knee.  With each passing day the pain radiated further away from the site of the sting into my hand, ankle & foot.  Then Saturday the spots where he got me swelled and itched. Weird.
Mr. Bug Guy, my new best friend, came Saturday and doused the house with insane amounts of chemicals in an attempt to kill the laundry lurking demons and their food source.  Mr. Bug Guy will be returning monthly!! And the best news…found this…
DEAD Monday AM before I could even get this posted!! YIPPIE!!!!
He was found in front of the pantry.  That’s the 2nd one found near pantry.  So, if you’re keeping track…snake gets me outta doing trash duty, one scorpion keeps me from laundry, and with 2 found in the kitchen I best stop cooking.  What will I do with all my free time!?!?!? :)
Everyone at work tells Matt they’ve lived here for years and never witnessed all of these creatures.  They said all we had left to experience was a camel spider.   “What’s that?”he asks.  They start to describe it and tell the nasty things it does to animals.  Matt comes home and informs me by their description he thinks it is what we killed Monday, in the dining room, a couple hours after killing the snake!!!  It took me several days to get the nerve to search for a picture on the internet.   Grrrrrrrrrrrreat.  We’re so lucky. 
You can read about it here if you wish.  He looked like the top 2 pics. He was not as big as these pictures show!!  He was the size of a normal…fatter spider…yet they are odd looking and don’t look like your typical long legged spider.  If you do some nosing around on the site you can see a camel spider eating a scorpion.  I like that, yet don’t want the darn spider in my house either!! 
Killer bees, snakes, scorpions & spiders OH MY!
Have I mentioned- I.love.me.some.Arizona.varmints. Ha!
Perhaps this mountain view, reserve lot, outside of town was NOT a good idea!!

We last minute canceled our last minute trip to CA for the long weekend and opted to venture out closer to home.

After a nice bfast at Cracker Barrel we went to the Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium in Litchfield.  

A short 25 minute drive and we were there.  The kids had a great time and complained very little considering the weather.  I’ll admit there were several times I daydreamed of the 70 degrees going on in CA!!

Aidan was so excited about the curvy palm trees out front of the zoo.

The Baby Animal Nursery was probably Emma’s favorite attraction. The nursery houses the newest babies at the zoo.  Saturday there were 3 different animals.

Baby Tortoise.  He was the size of a piece of broccoli yet his mother is one of the largest breeds of tortoise there is!!

Sweet cuddly baby porcupines.

Baby Tigers that are 3 months old.

Hands down the favorite for Aidan was the stingray exhibit where you are able to pet stingrays.

  

After a bit Aidan gave it a try and loved it.  If you ask him he’ll tell you ALL about it.  Do not touch their eyes or tummy.  Two fingers down the head and back.  Their stingers have been cut off.  We were there long enough he could repeat  everything the worker was announcing to all the visitors :)

Here’s video of Aidan…

I even gave it a try.  Ewe.

Isaac was very interested too!

Lunch was pretty cool.  There was an on site restaurant where you could eat next to the shark tank!  It was a neat environment, and well…the food…um….was… kid friendly.

 

We fed giraffes.

Emma & I rode the SkyLine ride to get a aerial view of some animals.

From above we could see the train we later rode.

            

These birds were funny.  They followed along the train as it took us through the Africa exhibit.

Caught two deer type animals fighting as the train went by.

My sweet baby!  He’s such a trooper on our all day adventures where he sees very little.

He did LOVE the penguins!!

Some unique animals to this zoo:

White Tiger

Albino Alligator

Emma petting a Star Fish

Could get very close to these very large porcupines

Feeding the ducks by one monkey exhibit.

Aidan hiding behind daddy in the aviary.  He wasn’t sure about all those birds!

Ride home…sooo tired!

Home to enjoy the best way to cool off after a hot, dusty, ruining my pretty feet kind of day! :)

            

Overall the zoo was ok.  Kinda pricy in our opinion.  They “brag” about their variety of animals…which they do have a gazillion kinds of deer & birds.  Their tigers & lion had very overgrown exhibits making it hard to see.  In the small mammal building they had some of the same monkeys on display outdoors as well as hamsters, genuine pigs, mice and other basic animals.

Sunday we took it easy.  Attended CCV church north of Phoenix.  Great church, but quite a drive for us to do weekly!  The minister did a great message on Moses…something about how he listened to God’s calling and moved to the desert for 40 years.  Blah.  Blah. Well…I listened to the call, I am here, but certainly hoping I’m called back “home” before 40 yrs!! :)  

Monday Matt started the finishing of our dining room table.  It had seen 9 years of use and was needing refinished.  While preparing to sand in the side yard he found this:

It was in one piece before Matt introduced his shovel to the snake. :)  Any good snake is in two pieces in my opinion. :)

I took advantage of some down moments while Matt & Aidan were sanding & staining to do some scrapping :)  I must admit I’m lovin’ the house layout in regards to my scrap/sewing room!!

Hope you had a great vacation weekend!  We certainly missed our traditional Atlanta Labor Day celebration, but the kids were very pleasantly surprised today when they received a bag of goodies from Gma fulllll of parade candy!!