I am the luckiest

I love photos of my little family. These are some recent favorites.

We love matching clothes. Miriam is very particular about her clothes and very rarely agrees to match, so it feels like a win when she is compliant or even happy to match.

Playing baby!

 I love this photo of John reading to Eliza. He is such an amazing dad!

 Date night on South Mountain!

 Whew...my husband is hot!!!

 Ellie wanted to dress up like a queen. I love it!

 Sisters and best friends...frenemies...friends!

From my journal:

One day when I wasn't feeling well because of a UTI, Eliza told me to go take a nap, and she would be okay while Miriam was napping. While I was sleeping (about an hour) she picked up the entire front room!!! She cleared the table and counters of dishes. She picked up all of the toys. She put things in front of the doors to the rooms where they go. (She didn't want to go in and wake up me or Miriam.) She even got out the broom and tried to sweep because, "It looked like it really needed to be swept." What a little sweetheart!!

One thing that she said that was funny recently was, "I wonder how they made this watermelon." Me: "It just grew on the plant that way." Ellie: "Mom, fruit doesn't grow on plants." Me: "Yes it does. It grows on trees and plants." Ellie: "Really?!"

Miriam just said a funny thing a few minutes ago. "I don't like bugs on my body. I only like people on my body. Daddy, you only like people on your body too, huh?” It was pretty cute!

I feel like I always write this but Eliza's reading is really taking off. She tries to read chapter books to herself now, and she is always reading things. For example she was reading aloud this journal entry while I was typing it for a little while. Crazy!

Eliza: Okay. Whats your phone number?

Miriam: Mmmm... Four?

Eliza: And whats next?

Miriam: Mmmmm... Five?

Eliza: No, they can't be in number order.

Miriam: Okay. Mmmm... 30?

Eliza: Okay, good.

Easter Festivities

 Easter dresses! (Yes this is year two of them. They're still cute!)

So leading up to Easter was really the first time that homesickness really hit me. Well, maybe on Thanksgiving too. Holidays just remind me of home and family. John was supposed to go to a YM campout that weekend, but thoughtfully he backed out so I wouldn't spend it alone with the kids. That is when we went to the Science Center. We also dyed eggs with the kids, had an Easter egg hunt, and made Easter smoothies. The kids really enjoyed it all and despite not looking like it, we had a nice experience with them talking about the real meaning of Easter.

 Hunting for the eggs in all of the tricky places.

 Ellie loves eggs!!! This was her kind of party!

Poor Miriam really only liked the cuties in her basket. I should probably have just got her some chocolate and candy. :)

The kids really loved these smoothies. It was so fun to see their reaction to the hunny bunny smoothies.

 Holding their hunny bunnies!

 We share germs at this house. 

 Miriam loves the 'lellow one.'

From my journal:

With Easter this year, I felt a pretty good bout of homesickness. I really missed my family. It sure seemed like they were doing so many fun things together, and I really wanted to be there, with them. John decided to not go on a scout trip because I was having a hard time, which I really appreciated. So instead of spending his day off with the scouts (it happened to fall on a company holiday) we went to the science center and a had a fun Easter weekend just our little family. The science center was super fun, and although it seemed to be geared towards older kids, our kids had a blast. We also dyed eggs. The kids really enjoyed that too! I love these traditions. The kids were so cute with their egg hunt. We just did it in the front room. And just hid mostly healthy treats around. Ellie liked everything, but Miri only liked the little oranges. Well, at least it was the most healthy option. :) We had also prefaced this with an FHE about the resurrection, which was great.  We made bunny smoothies, but gluing bunny faces to clear cups and making a corresponding color of smoothie. It was really cute. We started off the whole weekend with a fun date hiking up on South Mountain again and watching the sunset. I love him!

Earlier in the month we went hiking the first time up telegraph pass. It was a fun little hike and Eliza did great hiking. Miriam had a harder time, shocker, but it was still a really fun family activity. We also went swimming when Eliza gained a lot of confidence being in the swimming pool with her life jacket. She wanted to float around by herself with just her life jacket.

Science Center

The science center was a fun activity that we actually did with John instead of my mom. Most of it was a little too old for my kids, but some was really fun.

 Pattern blocks and big blocks. We really like blocks.

Both kids really wanted to do this, but were pretty nervous. Cute girls! 

There were a bunch of different rooms with different themes: construction, physics, technology, weather, etc. It was fun. We liked the physics room the best. I am looking forward to occasionally visiting the science center as my kids get older.

Creative Play at the Children's Museum

I feel like I am about to write an advertisement for the Children's Museum of Phoenix, but I can't help it. It was so perfect for my children! I couldn't have been happier with the variety of things to do and exhibits. Of course we went while my mom was here visiting. It turns out that we are pretty boring when it is just us.

I thought this massive climbing structure was so cool! People are so creative. Seriously I am pretty sure I am the least creative person I know. Except maybe my husband. ;) We are good for each other.

The fort building room was awesome and a great place to hide from all of the field trip kids. Miriam really enjoyed this item (I am really not sure what to call it) She put the disc at the top and changed slopes which changed the way it fell down.

Of course, crafts are always a big hit with my kids, even though they never quite seems to make it home in one piece. That is the trickiest part.

This play ice cream cart was adorable and really had me craving ice cream. Although I have bad associations with it because while I was taking a picture of Eliza, Miriam wandered off. We searched everywhere. The workers thought they found her on the floor below us, but it wasn't her. Then one of the field trip kids brought her up to a worker saying she was lost. Thank heavens! So scary! I didn't take my eye off Miriam for the rest of the visit.

Miriam played in these lentils pretending she was making a cupcake. She did this for a shocking amount of time. maybe 15 minutes? They also really enjoyed the pretend store where they went shopping and also stocked shelves. Eliza really liked pretending to check people out.

Then on to the the restaurant. I loved watching them pretend to make pizzas.

I am not sure what the message was behind the fan hitting owls off the cactus, but they really loved it.

The toothpaste and the pickle car! I think different kids would have enjoyed the cars and truck parts more, but it was still fun.

This is as close as they will ever get to being allowed to ride on a motorcycle. I hope you enjoyed it, girls!

From my journal:

We went to the Children's Museum again. It was really fun, but I lost Miriam at one part. Scared me to death. I am not sure why I always lose her places. Bad mom! We also went swimming with my mom and got some plants for our house. We got a couple of nice pots and picked out plants. We even got a tomato plant. Fingers crossed we get something from it!

We played games via the webcam with the Jacobsons the night that my mom left. We really appreciate their friendship.

Blooming Cacti

The Desert Botanical Garden is so cool! Especially because they have a free day every month. I mean, who wants to pay nearly $80 for my family of four to visit this? Not me. Love free stuff. And cacti blooming--they're so pretty. The butterfly garden was really fun! Especially because two butterflies landed on Ellie's brightly colored hat.

The world's largest asparagus!

From my journal:

The next we saw even more cactuses blooming as we went to the free day at the botanical gardens. I really enjoyed it! Cactus blossoms are beautiful! We were able to go in the butterfly house too, which was fun. Eliza had two land on her head. Lucky girl. :) Miriam had a harder time that day (really the whole week) saying that she wanted to go home.