st. patrick's day

March 17th is a day of celebration at our house - we love St. Patrick's Day.  In line with our family tradition, we wore lots of green, ate green food, had green drinks, and danced to Irish music excessively. This year we also hung out with the Carlin clan (for those of you who don't know - one of my besties since kindergarten also lives here - how cool is that?!). Hope you all took time out to celebrate as well!

Fishing fun

As you may remember, Spencer is an experienced fisherman. This past Christmas, after much anticiptation, Mason got his first fishing pole. A few weeks ago Micah took the boys on a fishing trip. It ended up being a slow day for catching fish - but they sure had fun trying!

A December to Remember

In early December Grandma and Zach came to visit and we had our traditional St. Nick's celebration. As you can see we had some fabulous gingerbread houses this year.

Mason/Spencer/Zach

Let's make some cookies!

The boys wrote some pretty specific letters to Mr. Claus - complete with drawings - they wanted to be sure Santa knew exactly what they wanted.

Spencer's Letter



Mason's letter



Even though this was not our first December in Arizona, it was our first Christmas here - we had traveled every year prior. Needless to say, we did not have a white Christmas. But it was still great. Spence and Mase must have been very good boys last year because they got everything they asked for! The favorites were Spencer's first 'real' bike and Mason's Spiderman (which I don't seem to have a picture of). Even though we were away from our loved ones, we had a wonderful holiday.

Still into 'worker trucks'

Riding a bike outside on Christmas morning - crazy!

best buddies

Who doesn't love...

the zoo. Well, I'm sure there are some people who don't, but it has quickly become one of our favorite places. Our recent hot spot has become 'Stingray Bay' where the boys can have a close encounter with the rays. We also make sure to ride the carousel every time we go - which Mason refused to exit during our last visit. Good times.

Mase doesn't look happy, but he loved the giraffes!

Feeding the giraffes

Ahhh, the carousel

We're still here

Have I neglected you? Silly question. Yes, I have. I admit it. I've been absent.

I keep thinking I should update the blog more often...and that's where it stops...as a thought. It's ironic - now more than ever IS the time to blog (since we are totally separated from all of our family and many friends... and given that I do not put any photos on facebook - as my fb friends may have noticed).

Truth be told, I blog as much for me and my three boys as I do for anyone else. Now that I've committed to posting this update, I am hoping there are many more to follow. I realize I have missed many a holiday - so be prepared. There may be a slew of photos coming (although I think I've said this before).

Where was I? Oh yeah, I wanted to let you all know that we are still here. Still alive and well. Hi!

It was bound to happen sometime...

Last week we were at one of our current hot spots: the Lego Store.  If you haven't been in one before, it's pretty cool.

One feature we really like is creating our own 'guys' to play with and/or later purchase. During our most recent visit we were building some guys. I notice Spence shoving something in his pocket. I said, 'what is that?' - he tried to act like he didn't hear me, or didn't know I was speaking to him, or I dunno what. I reached in his pocket and he had stashed a little Lego guy in there!

I explained that we couldn't just take him, that we would have to pay for him and we were only there to play that day - not to buy anything.

Fast forward 5 seconds....he has a little Lego guy head that he is trying to stash in the same pocket. Hello?! Didn't we just have this discussion?! I explained again and watched him like a hawk the remainder of our visit. And when we left, he had to apologize to the store - literally the store.

It seems as though everyone has a story of a time when they were little and they tried to take something - I guess this will be Spencer's :)