What is up with this boy?!

One day I was watching my friends daughter. This particular little friend of Aiden's is, by her mothers description somewhat of a trouble maker. She gets into toothpaste tubes and squeezes the whole tube out, she colors on walls and gets into paint and such. As I was watching her she and Aiden went upstairs and after a time of quite I remembered she could get into trouble so I decided I should go looking for them. as I came to the top of stairs this is what I say in the wall and door in front of me.

What is this? Paint? no... as i proceeded into to Coutr's room I found not our little friend but Aiden with a ink pad for stamps smearing it all over!

He ran from me when I tried to get close

Sorry for assuming was you Tay (she was quietly playing with toys). Luckily it all washed up with out a problem...except a little on the carpet.

Aiden's new habit

If you were to wander around my house this is what you will find on random areas of wall, door frames, chairs... any flat surface. It started when I was really sick with two ear infections and I was not in any position to clean it up or stop him, and yet I still have not cleaned it up!
Mostly his medium of choice is crayon, I have a strict washable crayons only policy, but some how non washable ones make it through the door.

I'm hoping these are done with washable!

The other day he got bored with walls and flat surfaces and decided to expand his skills and try out a much more difficult surface. This time with a marker pen. I was not home this time and my wonderful husband thought to get a picture before he tried to clean him up. It was a washable pen, but I did notice Aiden had a rosy blush to his face when I got home.

While we were away

Me friend Michelle Thompson watched the kids for us while we were gone. They had so much fun, but then again they always do with Michele. She spoils them rotten! But that is OK she loves my kids more than anyone. She even loves their naughty sides, she always looks forward to good "story" of what they have done lately. She is also amazing with children. This happened to be conference weekend so Fri. night she taught them about King Benjamin and how the people all came to hear him speak and how they set up their tents all around facing him so they could hear what he had to teach them. Here are the kids in the tent they made on our bed, facing the TV so they could hear the prophet and other brethren teach them.
Shell also had the best dog in the world. Her name is Winnie and my kids adore her. Here they are taking a picture with Winnie. Yes they are on a mattress at the bottom of the stairs. That is because Shell let them slide down the stairs on the mattress. I understand it got pretty technical, with cardboard (snowboarding style). Oh well they would have figured it our one day :)

Thank you Shell for taking such great care of them. They had a blast!

My turn!!

Chad took me to Disneyland for MY birthday. Even though my b-day is not till the end of the month, this was the weekend Chad could get off work and we didn't have any conflicting things. We drove out to CA on Fri. and got there at about 3:00pm. We immediately took a nap. I got a little one in the car, but Chad was tired so we slept for about an hour and then headed over to the park. Fist we went to the Big Thunder BBQ for dinner. It was good and the atmosphere was nice. The weather was great and I was sad the kids were not with us because they kept inviting the kids up on to the stage to sing songs. After dinner we walked over to check out the line for the Haunted Mansion which was crazy busy so we looked around at shops till we decided to stake a place out for our seats to watch Fantasmic, one of my favorite shows. Chad went a bought us cards since we had about 2 hours to kill. We played war and gold fish. I beat Chad every time :). I couldn't remember how to play any other games :(
After Fantasmic we headed over toward the castle to check out the fireworks show, but it was crowded so we decided we would come back tomorrow night for that show and we continued on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. I killed Chad on this game too! It was night to win!

I wanted some Beignet (like a doughnut, fried dough covered in powdered sugar) so we headed over to down town Disney only to find they had closed minutes before we arrived.

The next day we headed over to CA Adventure and went straight to Toy Story Midway. Everyone headed straight there! I kid you not, everyone!

I was killing Chad again until we got to the end and I thought we were done so I went for my camera to get a pic of our scores and it was the last game, so he pulled ahead and won. I say by default!

We had 1:00 reservations to the Blue Bayou so we still had some hours to kill and the weather was warming up so Chad wanted to get a little wet on the Grizzly River ride. He got sprinkled on a bit and I got drenched! Notice how my shirt that is supposed to be flowy and light is now clinging to me. I literally had a puddle in my lap.

We headed back over to Disneyland and got to see one of my favorite characters!! Oh excitement!!

I was still pretty wet and was not sure I could sit through a lunch at the Blue Bayou without freezing. So with an hour to spare we walked back to our hotel did a quick change and walked back with perfect timing. We enjoyed a oh so yummy lunch of ck gumbo, rolls and split a Monte Cristo sandwich. We were so full! I saved room for my favorite dessert...Creme Brule, but it a huge disappointment. The restaurant had just reopened and was serving a new desert menu and the new Creme Brule was not cooked as it should have been. such disappointment :(

We had such a great time just the two of us. That night we sat for 3 hours to get good seats for the new spooky Halloween fireworks, but it was well worth it, great show. We went back to the park Sun. morning to buy gifts for the kids and do Midway one more time. Chad won again, oh well my winning streak was over. We headed home around noon. Thanks babe for taking me, I know you have had your fill of Disneyland and four trips in one year was a bit much for you.

On a nice Monday night

One Monday after school I let the kids go out and play in the water. While I went and picked up pizza for dinner (Chad was home)
Pizza from Hungry Howie's - $6.00

Swimming pool from Basha's on clearance - $3.00

Eating outside on a warm Monday evening - Priceless

look at that sky!!

I do have to admit that for all the terrible weather we suffer through here in Arizona we get some rather spectacular sunsets. These pictures don't really do it justice, but the sky was so cool this night. On one side was great clouds and lighting.....
On the other side, what looked like a great storm coming in.....

Here is where they met in the sky.

It's time to say good bye

Chad got hi truck in Aug of 2001. It has served him well these last 8 years, but alas the years were passing. In the last couple of years the heating and the AC have given out. The transmission appears to have something going wrong. Chad commutes an hour to work each way and with no AC this summer it has been brutal! He finally convinced me it was time for a new car for him. So it is time good bye truck!

Hello Scion! Here is Chad's new car. When he first started pointing these out to me on the road I did not like them. Now that he has it and I have had a chance to ride in it and drive it I have decided they are cute....oh wait I'm not supposed to call it cute. I have decided they are cool. The kids love the new car and want to take anywhere we go. sometimes it seems like they are more excited about it than he was. Chad loves having AC again!