Dad's Day

I'm a stickler for the family calendar.  If it doesn't make it onto the calendar, then, in my mind, it really truly isn't important or exist.  Unfortunately, I have had this conversation with Brandon several times with his meetings or whatnot.  "I don't see it on the calendar!"  Well, to my surprise, when I turned the page on the calendar to October, there on October 6th, in all caps and rather large font was "DAD'S DAY" written over the entire box.  I had a good chuckle.  Brandon has been working so hard and so much lately, that he does deserve a "Dad's Day".  I asked him what he had planned... and it was this:

 

Dad and the girls went 4-wheeling for a few hours on Saturday.  It was a lot of fun for all of them. 



And the came home covered in dirt, just in time to watch conference.

Happy Dad's Day, Brandon!  We Love You!

Science Center

My beautiful cousin, Liz, is having a baby later this month, so we thought a trip to the Science Center would be nice to do now, before her new little man enters the family.  It was a really crazy day at the Science Center, but we still had a very enjoyable time.

 Ironically, we never made it off the first floor.  All the fun stuff the kids wanted to explore that say was on ground level.  The Lego's and the Water exhibits were the two favorites.

 Poor Oliver was so tired.  As I'm sure you can tell from this photo.

We had so much fun!  Thank you Liz, Morgan, and Ethan for coming and playing with us.  We can wait to meet the baby brother!

Guys Day

Saturday morning was "Guys Day" with Brandon, Grandpa Smithson, and Oliver!  They went to a truck show!  Apparently what happens at the truck show, stays at the truck show, because I didn't get many details, but I did get some pictures.

 Brandon said that Oliver loved this chair so much, he through a mini fit when they peeled him off of it.

I think it's good to be a boy!  They definitely had fun!

Poisened Apples

The Hale Theater is currently showing Snow White.  I knew that they were coming and got tickets for Melanie, Noelle, My mother and me way in advance.  This was Noelle's first theater experience and I was really looking forward to this play and surprising the girls (they had no idea).

The morning of Brandon took Oliver on a "guy's day" adventure with Grandpa Smithson (more on that later).  The girls told me that they wanted to do a "woman's day" (their words) and I asked what they wanted to do.  "Dress up like Princesses" they said.  How convenient, that was already part of my plan.  I did their hair all special and gave them both a Snow White dress.  Clever Melanie figured it out.  The excitement escalated.

I couldn't resist a little photo opportunity.

 When I bought the seats, I was the first one to pick any seats in the theater (for this showing).  I thought the front row would be fun because then Noelle could see.  What I didn't know was I picked the only row that was literally *on* the stage (off to the side, but flush).  All the other sections started up a level.  To say we were close to the action would be an understatement.  In fact, when frightened by the unknown Snow White, one of the dwarfs actually picked up Melanie, sat in her seat, and put her on his lap to "hide" from Snow White.  Let me tell you something about Melanie... having a strange man pick her up and put her on his lap without asking does not sit well with her.  She didn't cry, but she quickly climbed off his lap and on to my mom's (then hid her face).  The dwarf then tried to convince Noelle to hide him.  This also did not work as he had hoped, because she just leaned towards me.  He ended up trying to hide himself in the fetal position on the chair.  So yeah, we were really close to the action.  I'm thinking next time I'd like to be up a level.  I felt like I was going to have a toe stepped on if I weren't careful.

Here we are waiting for the play to begin.

 I think they did a wonderful job.  Of all the children's plays we have been to, this was definitely my favorite.  The evil queen was wickedly good.  There were two actresses that played her.  One played the queen as herself and the other played the queen as the young girl and the old hag (this queen transformed herself twice!)

 The picture of the girls with the royal couple didn't turn out the best, but I had to include it.  Snow White actually reminded me of the charactor from the Disney movie.  She did a great job.  And the prince was very charming!

 Here are the girls with two of the dwarfs.  The one holding Noelle's hand up to wave was the one that picked Melanie up during the show.  The dwarfs were very entertaining!

 After the show, we walked to Oreganos and met up with Papa Terry for lunch.  The girls were completely spoiled by grandpa! 

Seriously spoiled!  I mean... have you ever seen anyone enjoy dessert as much as this:

 Here's the whole group at lunch.

After lunch, I drove us home as fast as was legal and safe, because there was a little man there waiting for his mommy.  Noelle feel asleep in the car and was out.  It took a handsome prince to give her kisses to wake her up!  They spent the rest of the day (and most of the rest of the weekend) wearing their Snow White dresses.  They even watched the movie Snow White that night.  I think the day was a success!

Night with the Stars

Saturday night, the Museum of Natural History had their annual "Night with the Stars".  We went to the event last year and loved it, so of course we had to go this year.  It was so fun.  They have the entire museum open to the public (this is a night event).  There were booths set up with hands on learning (building the planets relative to each other, create a constellation, solar system puzzles, holding/touching rocks, etc)  In the Exploration Station, they had a craft (and I finally got the camera out.)

And last (but not least) we went to the roof of the neighboring parking structure where they had telescopes set up to view the moon.  It was a cloudy night, so the moon was probably much all they could show us, but it was really cool!  The girls really loved looking through the telescopes at the moon.  Thank you Museum of Natural History!

Sunshine and Smiles

I hate Arizona heat... but I love it when the heat starts to give way to cool nights and mornings.  Then it seems like it is doable again.  All of the sudden the idea of going outside isn't as bad. 

Another thing I love are these kids.  There are times when I am a crazy mom, feeling like I am messing this whole thing up... but then I look back at the pictures I took a week ago  (or whenever I finally get to downloading the pictures off my camera) and I can't help but smile.  We had fun, and perhaps I'm not doing so bad, after all.

 I love it when I catch my kids doing sweet things for each other... even if technically I don't want him to eat a Popsicle yet (Because I'm typically a Nazi about sweets)...  instead of a lecture, I just took a picture and decided it was really nice of her, so I'd let it be.

 

 We finally got a toy room set up.  I'm so happy.  Seriously, there really is no way to describe the enormity of my happiness...  After I took this picture, we invested in a little table for the room.  They can color without laying on the floor.  It's really so nice to have a toy room.  (Have I mentioned that I'm happy?)

 I love my life.

Things they Say...

Melanie

Thanks to the wonderful world of Barbie entertainment (i.e. movies), Melanie was trying to turn into a princess by balancing a book on her head. I decided to give it a go and put a big copy of "Jane Eyre" on my head and proceeded to walk across the room. She was in awe, and then says to me. "Mom, you are the queen. Queens can walk with books on their head too, you know".

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Melanie: "I'm a maid. Maids help the princesses"

Me: "Maids clean up, are you going to clean?"

Melanie: "I changed into a princess... sorry".

****

Noelle

Me: "Is it Thanksgiving?"

Noelle: "No"

Me: "Then how come I have a little turkey in my house?"

Noelle: "I'm not a turkey. See, I have blonde hair, I'm a Noelle!"

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Noelle: "Mom, do you want to go to Hawaii?"

Me: "No, I'm making lunch, maybe later"

Noelle: "Okay, I'm going on this horse" (she sits on a rocking horse) "It's a flying horse and it will get me to Hawaii!"

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Before breakfast, Noelle askes me if she can have a cookie.  When I said no, she says "but they are going to go yucky if we don't eat them, so I am being a good helper.  Please, ma ma."