Lego guy

It all started with the 100th day of school. Tyler Had an assignment to do something with 100 of something. He decided he wanted to make something with 100 Legos. With Chad's help he made a head. He then decided to continue on and make the rest of the guy. He was so excited and had to take it in to school again to show his class the finished product. I remember when I was a kid my brother Nate made me a doll out of Legos. It was very much like what Tyler has done, if he grows up like my brother I would be very happy. Great minds think alike.

Don't mess with the two year old

Chad and Aiden were laying on the couch and Aiden was playing around and threw himself backward and hit Chad in the eye with the back of his head. It immediately started to swell and soon started to turn black. It got a bit worse than when this picture was taken. Chad had fun telling everyone I hit him! No one really believed him and besides that is only slightly less humiliating than "my two year old did it".

Daddy had a day off

Last Friday Chad had the day off, kind of a delayed Martin Luther King day since he had to work on the actual day. He spent two hours at the kids school having lunch and recess with each one of them. They loved it! He got to play football with Tyler but missed the chance to tell the kid that is "Mean" to Tyler to back off since said kid was sick. Court would apparently not let him put her down. He brought Casey's soccer ball and got to play with him.
So the next week he had Friday off because he was going to have to work Saturday because of inventory. I informed him it was my turn for lunch. I kept hearing commercials on the radio for "Pie Rush Wednesday" at Village Inn. You get a free slice of pie with a purchase of anything on the menu. I started craving Lemon Supreme Pie!
Adiden had fun, but was getting restless. He wasn't too bad though especially considering it was packet full and these around were pretty nice to him. It was crowded! We drove in and the parking lot was FULL. I said "wow, it's busy" and Chad looked at me like I was crazy and said "it free pie and we are right next to sun city!! Of course it's busy." My only defense was "i usually only come here at 9:00 at night. Oh well the wait was only 10 min.

I decide to try the chicken fried stake that me friends often get. It was good until Chad found a hair underneath it! They were very sorry and took it off the bill, but appetite ruined....no I did not want a replacement. But not too ruined for pie. I was so excited I forgot to take a picture before I dug in. so I got another picture with the flier from the table.

The pie was yummy and the company was great. Thanks babe for indulging me.

Rain Rain and more Rain

We had a great storm come through and it rained and was cloudy for a good week. It was one the top 5 storms in AZ history. With lots of rain there was lots of flooding. Our back yard was flooded
And all the washes (retention areas) were full. This picture was taken after the water had gone down a few feet. The night before the rocks next to the slope down were covered and water was running into the "lake" The kids were so excited and also worried that their school was going to flood! Their school field which is at least 5 feet lower than the building was full and ready to overflow. Chad had to explain to them that the ground is grated for the water to flow away from the school and that it was more likely to flow out the other side into the park before it would go toward the buildings.

Oranges!!

My aunt and uncle down in Mesa have a few orange trees in their yard and they let us come and pick some. She told my sister and I we could each have a tree. We had a great time picking for the next couple of hours. Our cousin Rochelle came with us to help out and in the end had her husband come with his ladder so that he could get higher than us. We/he picked those trees clean!

The kids were great helpers when it came to gathering and bagging the oranges. Aiden loves oranges and every other fruit so he was in heaven.

We each ended up with 14 bags each (Chelle) only wanted 6) we ate a lot of oranges and juiced the rest. There is nothing like fresh squeezed oranges. I especially love to pull a bag out of the freezer and let it mostly defrost and crush the rest of the frozen part so that is slushy.

Thanks Aunt Hedi and Uncle Phil they are super yummy!!!

Happy Birthday Daddy

Chad's birthday was Jan 16th and after he spent the day out at the RC Track the kids wanted to surprise him with a trip to Peter Piper Pizza to celebrate!

We had a great time and Aiden was the lucky duck of the day. He hit the jackpot on one of the games and won 500 tickets. He then hit again and won over 100.

When it was time to put our tickets in the counter we put Aidne's in first and he had a total of 660!! Good job Aiden!

Lucky for the other kids we always put all the tickets together and divide them evenly. At first Tyler was rather put out with this rule and wanted to keep his separate, but he was glad for it at the end of the night.

Our grand total of tickets was 1222, the most we have ever had.

They each got some pretty cool (cheep) prizes.

They were excited for Tyler to get a "farter" oh the joy of discovering whoopee cushions.

We got a desert pizza in lieu of a cake. Happy birthday Daddy !!! Thanks for spending the evening at Peter Piper with us.

New Years

Chad, court and Aiden were a bit sick for new years eve so I took Casey and Tyler and ditched them for some celebrating. We went over to some friends from church. The boys had a blast playing friends and some firecrackers. I had to drag them away complain when it was time to go home so that we could be with daddy at midnight.
the next night we had our family celebration and welcomed the new year with a wienie roast and then smores.

Chad formula for a perfect smore.... place your Graham cracker and chocolate under the fire pit to roast and melt...

While you prepare your marshmallow over the fire.

This makes for a perfectly melted sandwich of chocolate and goo.

We even found some old sparklers and let the kids play with them (over the rocks of course since our grass is nothing but dead)