Enjoying the Sunshine

We wanted to make the most of our guests' last few days of sunshine and warmer weather so we headed outside.

We made a trip to the Desert Botanical Garden to look at the cacti and Arizona plants. It was a beautiful day and nice to just be outside. There sure are a lot of cacti in AZ. 

The next day we walked around Midwestern and showed them were Shawn spends all his time. We took a little break by the ponds to soak in the sunshine. Charlie couldn't get enough of our visitors. He is a snuggler. 

Grammie disappeared outside to take naps in the grass by the volleyball court a few times. Her goal for the ten days was to soak up as much sunshine and warmth as possible. We hope she met her goal. 

And if not, no worries... They will be back in less than a month and we can try again. And boy oh boy are we excited. Iva has been asking for Boppa, Egg, and Papa all day. It can't come soon enough. 

Santa Was a Little Late

Santa was a few days late making it to our house. He didn't know where to find us at Disneyland. So he found us when we got home on December 27th.

We had a nice quiet morning opening presents and playing with new toys. Christmas was good to us this year- both sets of grand parents spoiled us. We are so blessed and well taken care of. 

Iva loved helping Charlie open presents. Charlie just wanted to play with his toys so it worked out perfectly. 

Three Santa Sightings

And nonstop parties! We sure love to party and have gotten to party a lot this Holiday season. 

Our first party (and first Santa sighting) was at our apartment complex. They had a great party with an awesome raffle and Santa Claus. We struck out at the raffle and one out of two kiddos struck out at Santa. Iva was too scared so only Charlie got his picture taken with Santa.  

Our second party (and second Santa sighting) was at Midwestern University- they really know how to party. They had an awesome party with arts n crafts, treats, games, and Santa Claus. Iva loved the crafts and games. She still wasn't so sure of Santa, but we had our family picture taken with Santa. 

Our third party (and third Santa sighting) was at the ward Christmas party. We made snowman out of construction paper and no scissors. It was a lot of fun and I was amazed at how creative everyone was. Shawn totally pulled a Buddy the Elf and made snowflakes and people chains. After a delicious dinner and music, Santa came to meet the children. Santa knew Iva and Charlie's name and Iva even sat on Santa's lap. Talk about shocker- I had given up on getting a picture with Santa this year. 

Our last party was the playgroup Christmas party. We have come to really love playgroup and all of our friends- we look forward to Tuesday mornings. One of the moms organized it and made crafts for the little ones to do. Iva loved it because it was play doh- her all time favorite. We had a potluck lunch and just played. 

We had a great Christmas season and really enjoyed being together as our little family and with our friends. We were able to keep things simple and didn't get overwhelmed with all the hustle and bustle. I hope as our family grows and gets older we will be able to do the same. 

Grammie, Papa, and Meg Visit AZ

Grammie, Papa, and Meg decided to come visit for Christmas and we are so glad they did. We have a had blast the last 10 days... they might have been the fastest days ever. I can't believe it is already over.

We crammed a lot into 10 days and ran out of time and didn't get everything done on our list... (Good thing grammie and papa come back in less than a month.) We swam, played at the park, visited the library, made a trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens, celebrated Christmas, went to the Mesa Temple Lights, toured campus, made a quick trip to Disneyland, and more.

On to the pictures...

Enjoying the sunshine and soaking in the vitamin D. Iva was the only one brave enough to swim in the pool- everyone else stuck to the hot tub.

We love the Sunrise Library. There is so much to see and do there. It is completely different than I remember the library being when I was a kid. Iva and Charlie love our trips to the library.

On Monday night, we decided to head to Mesa to check out the temple lights. It was different than I had imagined- not quite as quiet and peaceful as I had imagined. But it was beautiful and will definitely be a family tradition while we live here. We found a Chinese buffet to eat at before and it was surprisingly delicious!

We are always up for a trip to the park. Iva loves dirt and being outside and Charlie likes wandering. Iva lucked out this trip and had people to push her in the swing. She was in heaven!

Both Charlie and Iva had colds and had a couple miserable feeling days, but they were great sports and just kept going. Charlie has become a little boy the last few weeks and is WILD. We hope he didn't scare away our visitors.

Iva has loved having friends here. She loves her Boppa (Grammie), Egg (Meg), and Papa. She cried and cried today when we dropped Eg and Boppa off at the store today to go shopping. She is going to be pretty sad when she wakes up tomorrow morning and they are gone. 

Glendale Glitters

We had a blast at Glendale Glitters- it is basically a fair without any fair rides and lots of Christmas lights. They decorate downtown Glendale and close the roads to cars. We went with our friends, Abby, Eric and baby Clara.

The lights were beautiful- lots of palm trees with lights. And the fair food was awesome! Shawn got a bacon wrapped sausage and I got sweet potato chips. So bad, but so so good! Iva convinced Shawn to pay a dollar so Iva could do a blow up course and she loved it. She climbed, crawled and ran like a wild child.

We are continuing to love AZ and all our new adventures.

Challenger Space Center

The Challenger Space Center was different than I had pictured- it was small and set up for school field trips, but not so much the random drop in person. That being said we still had a lot of fun.

The blue foam building blocks/ ramps were definitely the biggest hit for Iva and Charlie. They had a blast building and knocking them over. 

The play motion catching the planets was a close second for Iva- it was definitely my favorite part. When you caught the planets, a random fact about the planet would pop up. And it was a lot harder to catch the planets than you would imagine. 

I thought Iva might be bored and it might be too old for her, but she is so curious. She had to look at and explore everything. There was lots of "look mama!" being yelled. (And half of the time, I have no idea what I was supposed to be looking at?) 

It's the Little Things...

Awhile ago, we had a Relief Society Super Saturday on Tuesday. Our Relief Society picked awesome crafts and one of them had been on my to do list for a long time. I have wanted a height board to track Iva's height since she was born and finally made one at the activity.

I absolutely love it! I rushed home to hang it up and instantly went to my blog to find Iva's old stats from her wellness checks. I blog everything and somehow hadn't blogged any of her stats for 1 year or 2 years. I was pretty bummed out and was sad that I didn't have them. I don't even know how that happened?

Well, today I was cleaning out the back bedroom getting ready for Grammie and Grampie to visit and found Iva's 2 year wellness check paper with all her stats from 3 days old and on! I know it is a little thing, but it seriously made me so happy and I might have cried a little. Plus now little Iva won't be missing from our Stand Tall board.

And just in case I lose the paper again...

Iva's Stats: 

12 months: 20.9 lbs and 30 in.

18 months: 24.9 lbs and 32 in

24 months: 27 lbs and 36.5 in

Thanksgiving Break: Thanksgiving Week

We spent the week of Thanksgiving at home. We decided it would be nice to have a week a home to relax and get back into a routine before Shawn started school again. 

We spent the next few days just enjoying each other and our down time. Shawn took Iva to the park one day so Charlie and I could stay home and take naps- that was awesome! We went to the park as a family quite a few times- it is the end of Nov and we are still in shorts. We ran errands- grocery shopping is so much better with a helper. We watched movies. We played. We did nothing and enjoyed it. 

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving. We had never done Thanksgiving dinner as our little family so it was a whole new experience for us. I learned that you should probably have a meat thermometer when cooking turkey even if you are just cooking it in the crockpot. But surprisingly everything turned out and we had a yummy feast. We enjoyed a nice day at home watching the Macy's Day Parade and The National Dog Show. I think the Dog Show was a bigger hit in our house. 

I can't believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone. This year sure is flying by... We have so much to be grateful for and have been so blessed this last year. We are thankful.