This Sweet Little Girl Recently had a birthday!!

On March fourth Belle turned two years old! She loved opening her presents and being the center of attention!

 

 On Saturday we went with Hunter's preschool on a family field trip to the Arizona Museum of Natural History. It was a fun museum with lots of dinosaurs to see and a lot of other cool things to see and do.

 

Supposed to be uncovering dinosaur bones but instead Belle is painting the pole.

 Panning for gold. The kids all got super wet but they really loved this!

 

Dinosaur rocking horse!

                              Acting like dinosaurs outside the museum!

 This month Nena is student of the month for her school!! They had a little award assembly with a special breakfast so that was fun! We are so proud of her and the great job she is doing in school! Way to go Nena!!!

My Sweet Kindergarten Girl

At the beginning of August, Nena started kindergarten!! She loves it and loves her teacher and everything they do at school!! It has taken a little while to get into the routine with school every day and shifting everyone's schedules to be earlier but I think we've got it down now. Her school starts at 7:30 AM so we all have to do everything a lot earlier than we used to. The kids eat breakfast earlier now so the first day of school I was surprised when Hunter came asking for a snack at 9:30 and then remembered that he hadn't eaten for a while so he probably was hungry. That means lunch is earlier too, and dinner and of course bed time. Belle has to take her nap earlier now so she can get a good enough nap for me to be able to wake her up at 2 PM to go pick Nena up from school. That means when we leave the house, we have to be back quite a bit earlier than before so she is able to go to sleep early enough so I guess it's a good thing we are able to leave the house earlier now. Nena is doing really well in school though and I am so proud of her!! She has already learned so much and has made new friends and looks forward to going to school every day!! I am so glad that she has a great teacher and that she is able to do so many fun things there!! She has been waiting for a long time to be able to go to the "big school" and is so excited to finally be able to go to school there!!

Summer

I Finally Updated!! Hopefully too much time doesn't pass before I update this again!! No promises but I will try!

This summer has been pretty busy. We have gone camping a few times, gone up to the mountains a few times, the kids have done swimming lessons, we have celebrated two birthdays, celebrated holidays, and lots more! I didn't take pictures of everything but here are some of the things I did get pictures of.

Going canoeing! We went to my Uncle's cabin in June and while we were there, we went to a nearby lake and went canoeing! Nena went with my sister and cousins in a canoe and didn't really like it but she loved sitting in the canoe close to the shore with the other kids!

 

Playing in the lake! Nena loved playing in the lake and played for most of the time we were there!

 Singing Happy Birthday to Hunter while we were camping for a family reunion on his birthday! It was a fun reunion but I didn't get any pictures except some of Hunter's birthday cake! The kids love camping and playing with cousins and getting dirty! It was too hard to keep them clean so they were so filthy the whole time! Hunter looked like he had a black eye for most of a day because he got dirt around his eye! It was a fun reunion though and we are glad we were able to go!

  Celebrating Hunter's 3rd birthday when we got back from camping! The reunion ended on his birthday and we got home that afternoon and went swimming at our neighbor's pool and then went to Burger King for dinner and came home for cake and ice cream and presents! It was a fun day!

Belle at our Fourth of July Celebration BBQ in Heber, AZ! We go up there every year to visit Clar's brother and his family that live there and to attend their Fourth of July Celebration! They have a fun parade and some amazing fireworks that night and we have a really good BBQ with the family!

 Playing at cousins house while waiting for the fireworks to start at the Fourth Of July Celebration in Heber! My Aunt and Uncle live in Heber right by where they shoot the fireworks off so this year we went to their house and ate dinner and played and then watched the fireworks from their yard! The fireworks are amazing to watch from their house and it was fun to be there while waiting for them to start!

Singing Happy Birthday to Nena and Grandpa Reynolds in Heber! Their birthdays are a day apart and were right around the Fourth of July Celebration so we had a little birthday party for them and had cake and ice cream and pie!

 Playing at the splash pad at the park by our house! We usually go there a few times a week, it is so nice to be able to just let the kids run around and play and not have to worry about them in a pool and to still be able to cool off from the heat!

 Eating pizza! We have started to make homemade pizza about once a month, it is so yummy and the kids love to help put the toppings on it!

 Celebrating Nena's 5th birthday! For her birthday we made a nice breakfast of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream, went to the splash park, watched a movie, opened her presents, made pizza for dinner and had cake and ice cream!

 Belle loves ice cream and it is a nice treat for when it is so hot outside!

 Nena and Belle helped me vacuum out the car one day! That might not happen again until it is cooler outside, it was way too hot even with the car's ac on!

 Helping out in the kitchen! The kids love to help us cook, every time either me or Clar is making something, the kids always run and grab a stool to stand on and come help us!

 Playing games! The kids love to play games now and ask almost daily to play a game, it is fun!

This summer has been fun so far but I think I am ready for it to be over and for it to cool off. The downside of that though is that Nena's going to kindergarten in August so I know that before it cools down, she will be off to school and our whole world will change. I am excited for this new opportunity for her but it is also a little sad to think about. She is excited though and I know she will do well but for now I am trying to soak up these last few weeks I have with her home and enjoy not having to get up and get going first thing in the morning to get Nena off to school!

Birthdays

Hunter turned two years old on June 23rd and on July 9th, Nena turned four. It's always a fun time because it feels like we just party and party for a few weeks straight! Needless to say, it is always a relief when both their birthday's are over because then we can get back to normal life and don't have to worry about any more birthdays for a few months. It was a lot of fun to celebrate these two cuties birthdays though. On Hunter's birthday we went to the Phoenix Zoo and rode the merry-go-round and rode their safari train around to see some of the animals because it was too hot to just walk around. After that, we went to the splash park at Tempe Town Lake! The kids loved it and had a lot of fun! For Nena's birthday she wanted to go back to the Tempe splash park so we went there and then we went to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to get the free birthday doughnuts! We wanted to go to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner that night but we were too tired so we went there a few days later instead! We also held our first real birthday party for any of our kids which was pretty exhausting but it was fun and I think everyone enjoyed it! Nena wanted to have a princess party so we had a princess pinata, princess decorations, and princess games and invited some princess friends and cousins and had a big princess birthday bash! It was a lot of fun celebrating the kids birthdays, we love them lots and are so grateful for them!!