A Visit with Aunt Sheila

Sheila came out to visit Aimee & us for her birthday for a couple days last week. Thursday night she bought tickets to the NHL hockey game out by Aimee's house for us girls. My amazing husband stayed at home with the girls while I went for a girl's night out to a hockey game...we got quite a chuckle out of that one. It was an interesting evening for me. I drove to Glendale (35 mi) during rush hour and I was going on an hour drive already when I heard a really loud noise, looking in my rear view mirror I saw a large truck so I didn't think much of it, until the truck passed me & the noise continued to get louder. I thought "I think that noise is me" so I pulled over. My tire was flat. For those of you who don't live here I was on the 101, the major highway for over 6 million people, and it was getting dark. Now, my father taught me how to change a tire but I didn't really want to do it myself because it has been 10 years since I've changed one & knew it would take me an eternity & I didn't want to run the risk of some creepy guy wanting to help me, only to take me hostage (I've watched to many 48 hours I know) so I called my sister and as she & Sheila were on their way the wonderful highway patrol stopped and changed my tire for me. He did it in like 3 mins and I was on my way to my sisters (3/4 of a mile from her exit this happened) so I called her & let her know I'd meet her at her apartment. I got there before her & got out of the Nissan, which does not have power locks....you all know where this is going....and I realized that I needed my jacket so I put my purse down on the seat & put my jacket on and shut the LOCKED door with my purse, keys and phone in the car!!!!!! Thank goodness my sister has Triple A. We sat outside and waited for them and got to the game after the first period. Despite a rough start we had a blast at the game (it got exciting with a huge fight & an overtime shoot out). Sheila and I had fun driving 50 miles an hour for 35 miles.....

The next day we made Sheila a birthday cake for her birthday & the girls loved helping. We enjoyed our time with her and can't wait until she comes back. Here are some pictures of the adventure.

Zhara's family picture

Zhara talked about families last week in school & this is her family drawing. She explained the picture to me as follows:

"This is daddy (the one in the middle) and this is you (the one with yellow hair), no wait this is you because you like purple....this is me (the one on the left side) and this is sissy (the one on the right). This one out here is Austin"

me: "Why is he outside the circle"

Zhara: "Because he doesn't live with us"

It is fun to see her thought process & to see how her drawings are evolving...

Alyssa

Here is our sweet Alyssa sleeping....a few hours before she was not so sweet. Tuesday night I heard someone talking & came out of my room to find Alyssa in the fridge getting a "drink". Keep in mind that I do not have my glasses on & it's 130 in the morning. I take her back to bed, telling her we don't get out of bed & get a drink from the kitchen. As I am walking back to her room I see all of her blankets & animals that she sleeps with on the couch....hmmmm. I then take her to the potty noticing that her closet light is on & so is the bathroom light. As I take her into the bathroom I notice that she is not wearing her pj's anymore but is dressed up in a ballerina skirt & a barbie top. Taking her back to bed I notice that she has a bunch of clothes laying on the closet floor & every door to their kitchen is open & stuff is everywhere. After this discovery it was on to the time out chair...although it was good for a laugh, a lesson had to be taught. Wed night at about 3 in the morning I suddenly woke up & went to check on her. There she was lights & fan on playing in her bed. I gave her the talk & then she laid back down & about every 20 min pulled every trick in the book to get me out of bed & her to not have to be in bed. It ended in a battle of wills that lasted until after 6. The above picture is her sleeping after the battle (thank goodness for her patient father because I would have wanted scream) and she looks like an angel.Needless to say she was wide awake when I went to get her this morning, but she was in her bed with the lights off & no extra toys in bed.

Valentine Part 2

Valentine's Day

The night before Valentine's day, David went to the store after the girls went to bed & on a very limited budget, bought things to make Valentine's day special for his girls. I had to go to bed before he could begin & when he got to bed it was after 2 in the morning. I could not imagine what he had been doing for 4 hours. The girls had been told not to get out of bed until we came to get them or they wouldn't get their surprise & even though they went to bed an hour past their bedtime they were up an hour before they usually wake up. You would have thought it was Christmas or something. When we went to get them up David had pink streamers hanging from their door & sat us all down to explain the "Treasure hunt". He read the first clue, that he had written on eatable hearts (this is what took so long because everyone of them rhymed) and we continued to follow those clues through the house:

Starting with a note on the door, then to the baby bed, to the coat closet to the shoe rack, the piano

into Austin's room

the bathroom
the TV

the fireplace

to the coloring table and then to the closet (a game with a silly name had the clue)

and ended at the washer/dryer with a vase of flowers for each of us girls

We got little goodies at each clue ( I would have taken pictures of the clues but Zhara them) and ended sitting by the fire making silly faces

while Daddy made
pink, butterscotch heart shaped pancakes

a movie by the fire with Daddy favorite Disney movie, Robin Hood
That afternoon we went to the park and flew kites

Alyssa flew her Dora kite

Zhara flew her Miss Spider

After flying kites (which was short lived because there is not much wind in AZ) Daddy taught his girls about his favorite sport....baseball
That evening we made some cookies to take out & ended up at a new yogurt place that was giving away free yogurt.
By the end Zhara had had enough & was out for the count.
I am so thankful for my valentine who not only made me, as his wife, feel special & loved, but also his girls. Even though I'm pretty sure I got the order of the hunt wrong, it was the best Valentine's I have had because we spent it together as a family & there is nothing that touches my heart more than to see my husband show his love for our girls. Thank you David for an amazing Valentine's day. I love you and I am so blessed that you are my valentine for all eternity!

Valentine Activities Part 1

Zhara's Valentine party

Thursday was Zhara's Valentine party. Daddy told her that Valentines is a day special for girls & that the men in their lives tell them how much they love them & so she has been so excited for Valentines. We made a box for the valentines the night before & Zhara signed all 21 of her Dora valentines.

At the party they did lots of crafts which included:

Decorating cupcakes

Making a necklace
Making a magnet




Passing out valentines
Even Alyssa got valentines (even though she was more excited about being able to play)Wearing masks & finishing up

That evening a store called Fry's (it's the Kroger store) was having a Valentine party for the kids where they could have a picture taken,make valentines & cookies so we had planned to pick up Daddy from work & do it as a family.....true to Gould luck it didn't quite work out that way. I had apparently sat my cell phone in like an inch of water (not sure how my cup holder in my car had so much water in it & even more so...HOW DID I NOT NOTICE????) so we picked up Daddy( the girls ate ice pops while we waited for him to finish his work)

and we went to the Verizon store...that wasn't as short of a trip as it was supposed to be because David's phone was acting up & then they told me my phone was wet (I didn't realize the water thing until I was driving home that night & noticed the light in my car reflecting off of the water in the cup holder) so I was out of luck. As we waited for them to fix David's phone the kids were starving and getting a little crazy. We drove around for 15 min trying to find a fast food place.....living in Scottsdale sometimes is annoying because there is NOT a McDonalds on every corner, or anything with a drive thru for that matter. We finally found an In and Out Bruger and I thought it would be fun to take a picture of us eating there, the kids, however, did not. So this picture was taken after trying 5 times to take picture of them & them not looking at the camera.... and after Daddy threatened to put them in time out if they didn't look at the camera. The night went downhill from there & sadly enough we did not get to go to Fry's due to some behavioral problems. I must say sometimes it hurts to be a parent who follows through with a threat.

Regardless of the end of the night it was a fun day. The party at school got the girls all excited for Valentines day. In fact Friday night daddy told the girls to not get out of bed until we come and get them in the morning (because he had a special surpirse for them for Valentines Day). I heard Zhara talking after she and Alyssa had gone to bed so I peeked in their room to see her leaning down to Alyssa saying "What do you think our surprise is going to be?" It was cute to see how excited they were for Valentines Day.... and they had good reason to be but that will be in another post since this one took me 40 min to do.

Train Park

The girls & I met Carrie & Addie at a train park in Scottsdale last Friday. It was a beautiful day so they played at the park for awhile & then we had lunch
went to the train museum

rode the mile long train



and walked the train track (of course my sweet Zhara fell at the end and got hurt)

We had a great time & enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Making Pizza

For Christmas the girls each got a cooking kit. Zhara got a cupcake one & Alyssa got a pizza one. The both got aprons & there were little chef hats....too cute!!!

One of my favorite things to do is to cook with the girls (it's finding the time that it takes that makes it hard) and the girls LOVED making the pizza. We made the dough,rolled it out

put on the cheese & pepperoni

cooked it

and ate it!