Peyton's birthday at school

Peyton got to celebrate her birthday a little early. Because she has a summer birthday her teacher let her (and all the other summer birthdays) bring treats to school during the last two weeks of the year. This is her 2nd grade class.
This is our favorite teacher ever!!!! Mrs. Thomas has been so great this year.

Katelyn and Peyton. She is one of Peyton's best friends. She also moved to our new area and will be going to Peyton's new elementary in the fall. We are so excited that she'll already know someone.

Sydnie got to come along and share in the birthday treats. MMMM, chocolate cupcakes!

The birthday girl in her very large birthday crown. Of course we had to have pink cupcakes to bring to school for the girls and white ones for the boys, and half had to be chocolate and half were vanilla so everyone could choose which they liked best. Lucky for me Sam's Club had just what we needed. All treats entering the schools these days must be store bought which takes all the pressure off of me! :-)

Our new pool

Grandpa Dan and Grandma Dorothy came to visit in May. After spending a few hours at our community pool, they decided to buy the girls their own private pool. The girls have had a lot of fun playing in the pool on the back patio which is shaded most of the day. Here are a few pictures of their fun new way to stay cool. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!!

Coyotes, lizards and scorpions... Oh My!!!

It was a day of firsts for us in AZ a couple of weeks ago. While Jeff was driving Peyton to school, they saw a coyote cross the road. Then when Jeff came home that evening and moved the garbage can to take it from the garage to the curb, he found two new creatures that had come to visit.

This first blurry picture is a tail-less lizard. He was a little slow and we were able to catch him, which was a first for us. However, I think our next visitor below had been munching on him for dinner and that's why he was so slow..... We did let him escape and are hoping he is sprouting a new tail somewhere out in the wild.

This was the other visitor we had. I guess I should feel lucky since we've been here for 8 months and this was our first experience with a scorpion, but man it gave me the creepy, crawlies!!! GROSS!

Jeff let him run so I could see what it looked like when it moved and he went into the crack of the garage floor and was sticking up it's pincers and trying to scare us away. It worked on me, but Jeff had to get him to come out so he could kill it.

See what a brave man I'm married too! He's trying to get it out from under the car.

We thought it was dead and Jeff put it on top of the garbage can to inspect, and it started moving again. YIKES!!!!

Overall, the best and creepiest picture just before Jeff smashed it!

This was Peyton hiding in the back of the truck until we were sure it was DEAD. I'm sure the neighbors got a great show of me chasing it around with a camera, Peyton jumping in the back of the truck and Jeff whacking it with a shovel. I guess we haven't quite settled in as locals yet.

Easter package from Grandma Judy

We love packages from Grandma Judy. This one was a belated Easter package.
It came with chocolate bugs....

lady bug towels.....

bag full of goodies....

an Easter chic....

books to read....

Thank you Grandma!!!!!! Her favorite was the M&M filled eggs.

Those were her favorite too!!! She has them all spread out in front of her ready to eat them.

Sydnie with a mouth full of M&M's. MMMMMM......

Once the sugar kicked in, they wrapped their towels around their heads and ran around the house for about 40 minutes. I'm still not sure what they were pretending to be, but they sure had fun!

SUPER SYDNIE!!!!

Easter continued......

As promised, here are the rest of the Easter pictures.



Hunting for eggs. Yes, that is Peyton's tattered old blanket from Grandma Edwards.


Sydnie found one in the plant!

Ummm..... Can someone help me get this one???

Reading clues from the Easter Bunny to find our baskets.

That tricky rabbit left Peyton's basket in the front seat of the Volvo.

And Sydnie found hers in the dryer. I wish the Easter Bunny would have cleaned up while he was here.

Peyton's goods. She's trying to figure out how much she can eat at 7:00 am.

The girls insisted on having their pinwheels in the picture with their Easter dresses.

I asked them to put the pinwheels down for just one picture. Notice that Peyton still found a way to sneak hers into the shot, along with a little shoulder.... :-)

Easter wouldn't be complete without bubbles and Sydnie just couldn't wait to blow them. She had to come straight home from church and head outside in her Easter dress. Good thing both Sydnie and the dress are washable!

Coloring Easter eggs

We have a family tradition of coloring Easter eggs the Saturday before Easter. Well, this year with moving and trying to get organized I was not as prepared as I usually am. I had to go to three stores that morning to find dye for the eggs. Luckily Safeway still had some and they saved the day!!!

We love coloring eggs, but what do we do with them after? Well, Jeff and I had several egg sandwiches over the next week. :-)

As you can see, Sydnie was a little quicker than her sister.


Peyton likes to take her time and make sure her eggs are perfect.

Oh man, she just dropped one, KERPLUNK into the purple!!

Sydnie drawing designs on her eggs.

Sydnie's finished project all nice and neat in the egg tray Grandma Judy brought in March (or was it the Spring Fairy??).

Peyton adding the finishing touches, a few little stickers.

We've recently moved into a new community and every year they hold a big Easter egg hunt for the kids. This year it rained and rained the whole night before the hunt, so it had to be moved inside the gym. There were also lots of inflatable bounce houses and slides. The girls loved this!!

This was Peyton's age group having their hunt or "dive" for the eggs. That's Peyton's little red head and brown jacket on the bottom of the picture.

This is what it looked like before we turned the kids loose.

This was Sydnie's age group. It was a little more chaotic. I'm not sure where she ended up in the crowd, but she came back with lots of eggs!

Setting up for the 3-5 year old hunt.