These days

It's time for a catch up according to my iphone!

Layla got a crystal kit for her birthday and she loved watching this grow. 

The balloons from Layla's party provided a lot of entertainment. There was a balloon dragon that ran around our house attacking people.




Kyler bravely fought him off.

Once the balloon dragon went to sleep, Eric taught these guys how to play poker.

Layla has recently (and finally!) found a love of reading. I was so happy the day that she stopped fighting me and started reading for longer than her timer was set or without even setting a timer. Woohoo!

Little sneaky Layla set up a scary surprise for me and ERic one day while we were out on a date. We came home to a "beware of doom" on our door.

Yikes! We were spooked by a bear in underwear and a whole collection of stuffies that did not survive on our big chair.

We found some peace at this area labeled "beach."


And then found an entire collection of Brinna and Layla art on our bed.

Brinna loves to dress up now. She jumps between being Elsa and Ariel.


We got some pet goldfish. And we kept them alive for two whole days.

Brinn's face!

Layla got this cool hair color for her birthday and so I got a hair makeover.

She worked her magic on Eric, too. Ha! Best picture.

Oh so there is a story as to why we decided to get those goldfish (that didn't survive us). A friend asked Kacin to watch her fish why they were on vacation. Just before they got home, Kacin and Kyler broke into their house and placed cups with individual goldfish all over their kitchen. I think it was over 30 of them! When his friend got home, she facetimed the boys to "thank" them for multiplying their fish.

We ended up with A LOT of apples this summer. So we pulled the apple corer/peeler out and went to town. We baked apple muffins, apple cake, apple crisp, and fried apples and made it a four course apple breakfast.


If it had been a contest, this apple cake won the prize. Yum.

We play nerts all the time. We introduced Kacin to playing for chores. Eric and I used to do this when we were newlyweds. The loser of the hand would have to go into the kitchen and wash a pot by hand or wipe the counter or load a few dishes. With all the sarcasm in my voice, Kacin loves playing for chores. Between Eric and Kacin the kitchen looked spotless.

We use rook cards to play nerts. We just replaced our old decks with these decks.

The picture below was taken by Brinna when we were actually playing solitaire.


Yep, this little bug loooves to take pictures.

We had some fun with friends in the pool. We are pros at stacking three in the pool, but they got it in their head that they needed to stack four. We seriously spent at least a solid twenty minutes on this endeavor. It was a good show of teamwork, and we sort of, kind of did it (for like two seconds). 

There were a lot of splashes like this.

See, kind of sort of had it.

I'm not even sure what they are doing in this picture (my guess would be Perry is playing some sort of chase game), but I do know it has my dad in it and that is a rarity.


Brinn and Layla have developed a love for gymnastics thanks to their aunt Jacqui. I caught Brinna doing her forward rolls and trying headstands on her own. 

Seems like a perfect place for a nap.

My parents were in between homes and stayed with us for a few weeks and to say my kids were in heaven was an understatement. The kids would disappear here for hours. They would talk and discuss and play and hang out. They loved having Grammy and Papa around.

Cousin sleepover was complete when they rode mattresses down the stairs.

My girls were in heaven when Jacqui started teaching gymnastics classes to them. They love it so much.




Brinna also started swim lessons. This swim teacher in Mesa is AMAZING. Brinn cried through the entire first class, but now she loves it and has grown leaps and bounds in her swimming skills.


Always big smiles.

This is her favorite part of the swim class. While they wait to take their turn to dive in the water and swim across the pool they kick their feet in the water. She loves kicking with her friends.

Brinn told us to smile so she could take a picture.

It has been SO hot here. And we haven't had much of a monsoon season, but we have had a few days of wind and storm (minus the rain in our area). Eric and I sat with the three youngest on the back porch to watch the storm one evening and it felt like heaven. I love arizona storms.