lexie and grandma's birthday party

Since Grandma's birthday is just 4 days after Lexie's, we decided to do a joint party.  Uncle Adam and Auntie Janne came over to play in the afternoon!  The kids had fun running around the backyard and then Grandpa barbecued hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner!!

Lexie finally figured out how to go under the table!

The birthday girls!!  Lexie and Grandma!!

Auntie Janne and Uncle Adam rescued a beagle from the lady in Maricopa that runs their quasi-shelter (Maricopa isn't big enough for one yet).  He's a sweet puppy and loves chasing Belle around the backyard.  They kept his original name of Buster, although he has since been renamed Butter by Ben.  :)

Peter Butter the puppy.

Ben loves running around the backyard.

After dinner it was time for cake and presents!!  Lexie had a pretty cake with a princess on it and Grandma had a cheesecake!!  Yum-yum!!  Lexie enjoyed opening her presents, although her brothers ran off with all of her new toys: purse, tea set, "girly" cars.

"Girly" cars from Chris, Nick, and Ben

Helping Grandma blow out ALL the candles!!

Ben loves cake!!

And Lexie does too!!

Here Butter, you can try my cake!!

Now that the dog licked my hand, you can try too Grandpa!!

swimming

The kids were very excited to get the chance to swim at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  With the pool cover on a for a few weeks, it finally warmed up to 76 degrees!!  The boys even convinced Auntie Janne, Uncle Adam, and Grandpa to go swimming with them!

Christopher loves floating in his inner-tube.

Daredevil Nick is afraid of the water and won't go in unless he's in a "baby" inner-tube.  But he has lots of fun with Uncle Adam!!

Poor Belle!!  Christopher pulled her in the pool when he was jumping in with Auntie Janne.

Water baby Ben LOVES the pool!!

cleaning out the attic

While I was in Arizona, the kids and I had the pleasure of helping my parents clean out the attic.  My dad brought down EVERYTHING that had been put up there over the last 22 years.  Janne came over as well and we went to work sorting through everything.  The main goal was for Janne and I to take/donate/trash all of the toys/stuff that we were still storing in the attic.  We went through boxes of old Barbies, Little People, and other random junk for hours!!

Nick helped Grandpa bring things down from the attic.

Lexie's first Barbie experience!  :)

Christopher went through the Barbie box and found a few he "had" to have!

Then he and Nick found Barbie's van.

And Barbie's '57 Chevy!

The Barbie's were played with for a couple of hours while we went through the garage.  Eventually they were cast aside, although Christopher did want to bring the Barbie cars home.  I ended up with a couple of boxes to bring back to AZ, Janne left a few boxes to put back in the attic, and there were a TON of boxes to donate.

lexie's 1st birthday!!

The boys were very excited for Lexie's birthday.  At 7am they began asking if it was time to get her up yet!!  They were all convinced that since she turned one, she would be able to walk and talk.  After all, Ben is one, and he can do that!!  When she was finally ready to get up (closer to 9am) they all ran in her room and danced around the pack-n-play singing "Happy Birthday"!!  She loved being the center of attention!!

Happy Birthday Lexie!!

After lunch, we met Grandma, Uncle Abe, Auntie Beth, Uncle Wes, Tobey, Kaden, and Lucas at Desert Breeze park to play!!  It was great seeing everyone and the kids had fun running around together.

Nick loves the slides.

Ben found a new favorite park toy!

Auntie Beth and Lexie

Tobey and Christopher kept sliding down the climbing thing.

When everyone was worn out from running all over the park, we headed over to the carousel (or round-n-round as it's still called at our house!).  Uncle Wes was the lucky one that got to take ALL of the big boys!!

Tobey (4), Christopher (5), Uncle Wes, Ben (1), Kaden (2), Abe (4), and Nick (4)

Lucas (5m) and Lexie (1) watched the boys!

After our fun at the park, we went to Bethany and Wesley's apartment to celebrate Lexie's birthday!!  Bethany did a great job decorating!  As a mother to three boys, she was very excited to buy everything pink!!  :)  The kids had fun playing while the adults chatted.

Lexie loved bouncing Lucas in his bouncy seat!

Lexie's latest silly face!

She did not like her birthday headband!

But once we took it off and she had some pizza, she was a happy camper!

Christopher, Tobey, Kaden, Abraham, and Nicholas ate out on the patio.

And Ben ate inside with Lexie.

Ben's silly "cheese" face!  :)

After dinner it was time for dessert!!  Lexie had a really cute "My Little Pony" cake made out of cupcakes!  The boys were very excited!  They all sang "Happy Birthday" to Lexie, and she enjoyed being the center of attention, again!

Very unsure of what to do.

Oh!  This is yummy!!!

a trip to the park

On Thursday, Lexie and I met Lori for lunch at Applebees!  We had a great time catching up!  The boys stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa and walked over to the Islands Park to play.

Christopher had fun with the sand toys.

Ben liked riding on the car.

Nicholas worked on his math skills!

And Grandpa was on the phone "working" most of the time!

After a picnic lunch, Ben went down for a nap and Christopher and Nicholas painted birdhouses.  Christopher did his very carefully and even painted people on it; Nicholas had fun mixing the paint colors.  :)

Nick and Chris painting.

backyard fun

We have been playing outside a lot since we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The kids have really been enjoying the nice weather (although it is borderline HOT)!  Just about every morning Grandma and I take our coffee outside and let the kids play in the backyard.

The boys have picked all of the lemons and oranges off the trees in Grandma and Grandpa's yard and are now started on the neighbors' trees!

Lexie playing with Christopher's half eaten lemon.

Nicholas loves driving all over the yard.

Bubbles are a favorite outside toy

Lexie has been enjoying the swing more now that she is a little older!  And now that she's using the swing, Ben wants to "fwing" too!

Ben loves his little sister!!

on the road... again

On Saturday morning we packed up the van and said our goodbyes to Tulsa! We had a 9.5 hour drive to Albuquerque so we left as early as we could (almost 10am). The drive went surprisingly well and everyone slept on and off. We stopped for lunch in Shamrock, TX, at yet another McDonalds. I don't think I'll eat at McDonalds again for a VERY, VERY long time!! We made it to Albuquerque before dark, checked into our hotel, ordered a pizza, and went to bed early.

We made it out of Albuquerque at 8am and were off on our drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Gilbert!! It's only a 7 hour drive and one I've done MANY times, so at that point, everything seemed easy. Jacob was on his Sunday pass so he talked to me through most of the drive which made the time go so much quicker!! We pulled into the driveway at about 2:30pm and after saying hi to Grandma and Grandpa, the boys were all ready to go swimming.

The pool was about 75 degrees which isn't quite warm enough for most adults, but is apparently perfect for the five and under crowd. Instead of waiting for me to unpack swimsuits, they just went in their underwear!

Christopher, Benjamin, and Grandma

Christopher, Nicholas, Benjamin, Grandma

Ben LOVES the pool and would live in it if he could!!

Benjamin figured out how to get the strawberries when no one was looking.

Lexie ate most of Grandma's ice cream!! What special treatment you get when you're up later than your brothers!!

Uncle Adam was so happy to see that at least 1 person under the age of 25 still reads the newspaper!!

Lexie enjoyed hanging out with Uncle Adam