Arizona Museum for Youth

While Lisa was here we took the girls to the Arizona Museum for Youth here in Mesa. It was awesome! It's an actual art museum and all throughout the exhibits they have tables with activities for the kids to do, all relating to the exhibit.

The first area was Arizona art and they had these really cool water color crayons and little stencils to use. Eva drooled on hers and turned blue.

One of the exhibits was about table manners and they had a full kitchen for them to play in. Mallina pouring us some hot chocolate.

Eva found some asparagus and a glass that she wouldn't let go of.


They also had a Japanese table with chop sticks and plastic sushi. They had "training " chopsticks and Mallina actually picked up some sushi!

Lisa demonstrating how to eat the sushi :)

Eva thought her hands worked much better than the chopsticks.


After we went through the exhibits we went to Artville, an area for little kids to play and run around in. Mallina found a light box with transparent legos and shapes.

Eva liked these plastic cupcakes. She kept putting things in her mouth - GROSS!



Eva running up to the slideAnd running down from the slide. It took her a while to actually go down the slide.
Mallina playing with the cash register.


We had such a good time. Being an art lover myself I think this is my favorite place to take the girls. I may just buy a membership!

Happy Birthday to me (last month lol!)...gee I'm old.

It has been brought to my attention, by many people, that I suck at keeping my blog updated. I am sorry. At every event (or impulse to take pictures) I take several hundred pictures and the thought of editing them all then choosing just a few to post overwhelms me. It takes a long time (for me at least) and my children get bored and make huge messes. Blah blah blah. Yada yada yada. So there you go.

At the beginning of June my bestest friend of all time, the fabulous Lisa, came to visit us. My most favoritest band of all time was here in Phoenix and we HAD to go. We screamed like teenagers and I started to cry. It was AMAZING. Something I will NEVER forget. The pictures we took with my little point and shoot were laughable, and we didn't even get a picture of us together. I took one of myself after I got home though! Ha! But the memories are there! So here are some lame pictures of one the best nights of my life. :) THE CURE!!!!!!!!!!

This is an image of them from the internet, however I don't think these guys are all on the tour. I don't see the bass player who looked a lot younger, or the guitar player who was wearing a trench coat, a skirt, leather pants and some monster platform heels :)

The stage
Robert Smith is singing! SO COOL!
Even though when I got home at 12:30 Eva was crying, wandering around the house, Ieli was grumpily awake, and Mallina was rolling around on the bed awake, I was one happy girl :) As far as birthday's go I would say 32 wasn't too bad thanks to Lisa and The Cure. (FYI many of the songs on the playlist to the right are Cure songs, if you are interested)

Another video...

Ok, so I got a video of Eva saying more of her words. She looks like a crazy woman because she just woke up from a nap. And she has her first ear infection :( but she has been such a good girl about it, I didn't even know! So, enjoy some more extreme cuteness!

Cute girls talking

I love the way kids learn to talk. Eva actually uses so many words now, I need to get more of them on camera!

Oompa Loompa

The other day we made some pizza. Mallina loves to help me cook since she has now become obsessed with Ratatouille . Even Eva put some cheese on the top. So, as we were eating I look over at Eva and realize that with her funky hair and orange face she looked like an oompa loompa! It made me laugh.




Mallina actually ate dinner! She is so picky, but since she helped make the pizza, she was excited.

Then the next day, Eva got a hold of a ding dong. I just let her go for it, and this is what the aftermath looked like.



I don't think I even have any pictures of Mallina that look like this because I am usually such a freak about kids making a mess with food. Not sure why. Even looking at these pictures I cringe and think about cleaning up the slimy mess! Hopefully by the time the last kid comes along I won't care as much!

Wildlife World Zoo

So we went on an adventure to the Wildlife World Zoo. We've been to the Phoenix Zoo, very cool, the girls loved it. Then we heard about the Wildlife World Zoo. It's a little different than the Phoenix Zoo, the animals are actually much closer to you, you can see them very well, and you can even take a train ride through the "African Safari" where the animals walk around. (No freaky animals, just birds and those cow/deer like one's). It was a lot of fun, although I will never wear slippers there again, walking around on dirt in slippers sucks. It was out in the middle of nowhere so it took a while to get there, but we are used to driving long distances to get anywhere. So here are some pictures from our day!


Baby Jaguar and Bageera. See how close they are!The King of the forest, the Lion.
Mallina and Pongo. She was more excited about this fake dog than the real animals.

This bird was huge and really cool and had the thickest eye lashes!


This next sequence of shots makes me laugh. Do you think I have a spirited toddler? :)



Watching the Swans, one got out of the water right in front of us, then tried to bite me! It was stinky!

They like to move it move it!

Happy Mom's Day!

Sometimes I am just blown away by the fact that I have two children. That I am a mother. Seriously. ME. So weird. I have the two most beautiful children (ok, so maybe I am biased) that crack me up, drive me insane and melt my heart every day. I am so happy to be at home with them every day, even though it has been a huge and really hard adjustment to make, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I have so many wonderful motherly role models in my life. I am the youngest of 5 girls and four of us are moms. Julie has somehow raised two of the sweetest boys you could ever meet. She manages to be a big time lawyer and an amazing mom every day. Kristie has been a mom almost my whole life and has 5 great kids who I feel like are my friends, and are so much fun. That is Kristie in one word FUN. We can’t help but laugh and talk talk talk when we are together. Alyson has worked so hard to do whatever she has to to take care of Jaxson. I feel like he is my little boy too, I spent a year with them and loved every minute of it. Jennifer isn’t a momma yet but has acted like a mother to most of our children. She travels to dance recitals, sports events, graduations, birthday parties, everything. I love that I live close enough for my girls to know Aunt Jenny like they do. And I MUST give a shout out to my niece Nichole. She has three gorgeous daughters that are so incredibly sweet, and are so good to my girls. Her oldest are twins and she is currently pregnant with her second set of twins! She is amazing and I know she is going to just as an amazing job with these twins as she did with her first set. My own mother has done so much for me, I can’t ever begin to repay her, except to do the same for my girls. She doesn’t let anyone feel like they aren’t special. I am always getting packages filled with decorating magazines, clothes for my girls, items to decorate my house, and sweet notes and cards. She taught me the importance of the gospel in my life, and that I can do whatever I want to do in my life. The sky is the limits. She has also taught me the importance of being educated no matter how that education is attained. I also have friends who are moms who work so hard to give their kids the best, and offer so much support when I think I am going insane. So, here is to all of these mammas, may we all get the appreciation we deserve :)

Here's my family: Daddy, Jen, Mommy, Eva, Aly, Kristie, Julie and me.

This is how we usually act :)