Phoenix Children's Museum

We were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago because I was coaching my club team in the Volleyball Festival.  We were there for one very long HOT week and were looking for something that we could do with the kids indoors on my day off.  We discovered the Phoenix Children's Museum downtown and the kids loved it!  When you first walk in there is this huge jungle gym.  Russell took the girls up and they spent a good 20 minutes climbing around in that thing

You can't tell from the picture, but they were like 50 feet up when they finally reached the top

The hard part for Russell was coming down.  The workers didn't thing he'd make it.  There were a lot of tight spaces the way he chose to come down, but he did emerge (only a little battered and bruised!)

This table was really neat.  It was lit from below and had fine sand on top that the kids could draw in and just feel and squish to their heart's content.

The girls really liked this "noodle jungle."  They took off in it a couple of times and we had to chase them down in that crazy maze.  They had a ball.

Just outside the jungle was a table with different kinds of rocks that the kids could paint with water and brushes.  We kept running into this other set of twin girls that are 1 year younger than mine and I had a nice time talking to their mom.

There was a little grocery store with shopping carts and bags and checkout stands and Madylin went to town (Pay no attention to the tea that my daughter is stuffing into her bag- we're trying to kick the habit ; )

Hands down the favorite part of the whole museum was the kitchen area.  The girls spent at least a half an hour in here making pizzas and salads and whatever else they wanted to make!

Morgan is such a little homemaker.

Madylin spent most her time making pizza in the brick oven with Granna.

and then watching her enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Nathan loved the "Ballroom"  where he just threw balls and chased them or played catch with his daddy.

If you're ever in Phoenix with your kids, I'd recommend the place.  There were always areas for little babies to play and lots of comfy places for parents to sit and watch!

Summatime!

Loving Summer already.  I have so much more energy and I have time to do stuff with my family at night like walk to the park because it stays light out for so long.  We've already been swimming at my parents house a couple of times in San Diego and a couple of times we've gone to the Fisher's house for some fun on their huge blow up water slide.

Nathan LOVES the water!  I'm so excited to have a water baby because the girls were never that way!

Madylin is the only one that likes to climb up to the top of the slide and go down (with someone to catch her at the bottom of course).  Most the other kids are a little scared to do it, but Madylin is a little daredevil.  This is the same kid that tries to walk down slides instead of slide on her bum like a regular kid.

We may or may not have forced Morgan to go down a couple of times.  Hey it's good for her!  She's got to toughen up!  And after a couple of times she started smiling at the bottom instead of crying.

We were at my parents a couple of weeks ago and went swimming in their pool for the first time.  Nathan's first swim!

And he loved it, of course, even though it was freezing!

Madylin and Morgan mostly hung out on the steps shooting people in the face with water guns

or hanging out with the adults, like Uncle Matt.

The point is . . . we LOVE Summer!

This face: "Mom, seriously, why have we never done this before? And I hate when you do my hair like this"

Nathan, Meet Mason

This is my best friend Melody.  This picture was taken when we were just barely 18 (our birthdays are 3 days apart) at a young women's retreat in Big Bear in front of the fireplace.  One of my favorite pics of us.

And here we are in front of my parents' fireplace 7 years, 2 weddings, and 4 kids later.  She looks the same (brat).  I look significantly more tired.  And pale.  And round.  But mostly just tired.

She now lives in Fresno and I very rarely see her. Anyways, the really cool thing is that we had baby boys 3 weeks apart (If Nathan wasn't in such a big hurry to come out they could have had the same birthday, because Mason was born on Nathan's due date). Mel was in San Diego for her sister's wedding a couple of weeks ago so we decided we had to go stay at my parents house so we could see her and her family.  It had been about 2.5 years since we'd seen them!

Here are our little guys getting to know each other.  Nathan was a bit of a bully and kept taking the toys away from Mason and poor Mason just let him.

Hopefully someday we will live close enough to Melody that Nathan and Mason can become best friends like their mommies.

Lately . . .

Well since slacker mama hasn't blogged in a while, we thought we'd catch you up on what's been going on around here lately . . .

There has been a lot of "dress-up" happening of late.

Especially when cousin Riley comes to visit.  A favorite lately is dressing up as "hallerinas!"

Aren't we so cute with our little "hallerina buns?"

Nathan's getting so big and now likes doing whatever we do.  We can make him laugh whenever we want! He likes to head upstairs when mom's not looking to play in our kitchen with us. (He's figured out how to get through the barrier she puts up at the bottom of the stairs- isn't that so funny?!) Here we are eating our cereal together one morning at our table.

We've been able to spend some time with mommy's very good friends Brie and Cat lately!  They came and spent a whole day with us- reading us books and playing "Ring Around the Rosie"

We slept REALLY good that night!  Mommy says they need to come more often to "wear us out" or something like that.

You know what's really cool?  We have 3 birds nests with babies in them just outside our back door!

We love to watch the mommy bird come feed these babies.  There are 4 of them in this nest!

We wish mommy would get closer to take better pictures, but she doesn't like birds.  We don't understand what she's talking about, but she uses the words "swoop," "attack," and "Hitchcock" a lot.  Mommy's kind of a 'fraidy cat, but don't tell her we told you.

We've been having so much fun together lately and we love being twins and always having someone to play with (mommy likes that part too).  One morning we sat and watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse like this . . .

We keep ourselves busy all day making messes together so mommy has something to do. We spend a lot of time lately caring for our babies together.  We each have babies named "Tigger" and "Boy" and we have to put them on time out a lot.  We are also working on potty training them in the big toilet (but only when mommy's not looking)

Well now you know what we've been up to lately.  Mommy should be back to blog about some adventures later this week!

-Madylin & Morgan

My Girls are 3!!

The morning after the party was the girls' actual birthday.  Their main presents from Russell and I were the Disneyland trip and the party, but we did have one small thing for them to open that we got back in December when we got them their play kitchen for Christmas.

It's a play stand mixer & cookie making set!  I got a KitchenAid stand mixer for my birthday/Mother's Day/every other special occasion of 2010, so the girls have seen me use it lots of times and knew what to do!

Time to take the cookies out of the oven!

Madylin and her first batch of cookies.

Morgan was savvy enough to use the hot pads to take the cookies out.

The 1st sunday of every month we get together with my mother-in-law's extended family to have dinner and celebrate the month's birthdays.  The girls' birthday just happened to fall on that day, so they got to have the whole family sing to them and blow out more candles.  Here is Morgan sitting on Grandpa's lap.  This picture cracks me up because of Aunt Paula on the left.  She is making this face because Morgan was spitting on the cake a bit as she blew out her candles.

Madylin started out singing happy birthday to herself with everyone, but when she realized she wasn't supposed to she just made shy-eyes at everyone while they sang- so cute!

Can't believe that 3 years ago they were in the hospital and we were not sure if they were both going to thrive or even survive.

We are so blessed to have them! Happy 3rd Birthday Madylin and Morgan!

M&M's 3rd Birthday Party!

The day before the twins' 3rd birthday we had a little birthday party with some of their cousins and friends that are their age.  It was a lot of fun.  We had mini pizzas and mini pigs-in-a-blanket with pasta salad, grape salad and carrots with dip. Outside we had bubbles and my cousin Jessica was nice enough to bring over Riley's mini bounce house for the kids to play in, too.

(Madylin, Riley, Morgan, Scarlett, and Luke in the bounce house)

Inside the kids played with toys and homemade play-dough.  I LOVE this stuff.  It is so easy to make and it has a great texture.  You dye it with kool-aid so it smells fruity.

(Christy, Bayer, and Riley)

We did a Cinderella pinata (indoors because by this time it had gotten cold outside).  I have lots of not-so-great photos of all the kids taking a wack at Cinderella with my rolling pin, but this one is the funniest.  This is Russell's nephew, Isaac.  He took at the pinata tomahawk-style and almost knocked into some kids behind him with his back swing, so you can see someone had to grab the pin behind him to stop him from hitting anyone.  The pinata was fun, but of course the kids needed a LOT of help to break it open.  I was worried my girls would be traumatized by all the people beating up Cinderella, but they didn't care one bit.  When it broke open the kids didn't quite know what to do.  They all just looked at the candy and some of them picked up a piece or two.  It wasn't until the parents started yelling "hurry get as much as you can"  and making requests for which candy they wanted their kids to load up on (Uncle Aaron was telling his boys to grab all the airheads haha) that the kids started to get excited and pick it all up.

The girls got to open presents from their generous friends and family.  They got bathing suits and clothes, princess jammies, a small curling iron for their hair, crowns and dress up shoes, necklaces and princess figures.  Thank you everyone!

My mom was here the day before the party and helped me make the birthday cakes.  I decided to do 2 butterfly cakes with different colors for each one.  Here is Madylin with her cake.

Morgan with her cake.

It was such a fun little party and I think all of Morgan and Madylin's little friends had a good time, too.

I was a little anxious about the whole day so I was so relieved it went over smoothly.