Nathan's Birthday

On Nathan's actual birthday we played it pretty low key.  My friend Randi took him and his BFF Brenna to a movie in the morning while I worked on decorations for his party that was going to be two days later (I will post about the party after this.)  During that time Randi's husband finished setting up the swing set that we had unexpectedly decided to buy two days earlier.  Curtis put together as much as he could in between working and sleeping but wasn't able to finish it before Nath's birthday.  Brent came to our rescue and spent a couple hours finishing the job while Nathan was at the movie.  

Best Friends

After lunch and naps it was time to open presents!  I have been hoarding gifts for Nathan for about 8 months, most of which were purchased on Black Friday...what can I say, I'm cheap!  The swing set was a super awesome deal that we manged to score (thanks to Randi) right around his birthday, so we included it as one of "his" gifts.

 (I must remember to put together toys BEFORE he opens them, fortunately Curtis and Brent worked fast putting together his new "lawn mower" from Grandma Merrill.

This video cracks me up.  We took went out to the yard to let Nathan try out his new lawn mower and surprise him with the swing set.  This video is his first look at the swing set...

Playing on the new swing set:

I forgot to switch the camera from video mode to picture taking mode, but had to keep filming because it was too darn cute.

While Brenna is Nathan's best friend, I think his heart lies with her little sister Harlow.  His first crush perhaps? :)

After opening presents we went to his second favorite place in the world, McDonalds, for dinner.  All his buddies were there to celebrate with him, and of course they had a blast.

Ashley, Avery and Brody

Randi, Brent, and baby Harlow

This goofy guy

(How on Earth did Kaylee get big enough to play at the McDonalds playplace?????)

 Oh wait...Curtis had to go up and rescue her once, but that was only because a bigger girl decided to "help" Kaylee up to a spot that she couldn't get down from.  

After dinner all the kiddos got ice cream cones.

 Well...almost all of them, poor Harlow has a severe milk allergy so she missed out

Not a bad birthday :)

Pictures

My cute kids and their cute friends

I am determined to get a really good picture of these two.  If only they would both cooperate at the same time!

Jumpin' Jacks

Oops....found this too, from a looooooooooooong time ago.  Like October 2009 maybe??? Fun with my nephews and baby Nathan at Jumpin' Jacks.

4th of July

Wow.  So I just found this draft sitting in my account.  As you can probably quickly tell, it was from the 4th of July...2011.  Oops!  Well here are some pictures from the last 4th of July, we invited 3 families over for some BBQ and backyard fun.

 

The Bartletts!

My sister Julianne and her fam came to visit in March!  We were super excited because it was their first time visiting us here in Arizona.  Originally they were going to fly into Phoenix and then drive to Mexico and party there for a few days before making their way to our neck of the woods, but fortunately for us their Mexico trip got canceled at the last minute. So instead, we drove to Phoenix to pick them up and got to spend an extra 4 days with them!  Woo hoo!  Julianne called me on Wednesday morning to tell me that they were no longer going to Mexico, so Curtis and I packed up the kids Wednesday evening and traveled to Phoenix and stayed the night there so that we could be there to pick them up from the airport bright and early Thursday morning.  We figured that we would spend a day or two in Phoenix before heading back to Sierra Vista, but plans quickly changed.  When the Bartletts got into the car the first thing out of Julianne's mouth was "how far away is the Grand Canyon?"  Without much thought we decided to take the 3 1/2 hour drive to the Grand Canyon.  Curtis was the only one of us who had been (or at least who had been since they had been old enough to really remember) so it was pretty exciting.  We stayed for a few hours before making the 3 1/2 hour trip back to Phoenix.  Julianne took all of the pictures at the Grand Canyon, so hopefully I can persuade her to send them my way at some point and then I will post them here.

The next day we went to a really fun little place in Phoenix called Makutu's Island.  The kids absolutely loved it, and to be honest, so did the adults (at least Julianne and I did, I can't speak for the guys.)  After that we decided to head home.

On Saturday we spent the day touring Tombstone.  Ethan seemed to have a blast, especially when we visited Boothill Graveyard.  I think he was amazed at the caused of death of most of the men there (most of them of course were shot or hanged).  I think his favorite was the man who was "wrongfully hanged" whose epitaph had a nice poem that went something like "he was right and we were wrong, we strung him up and now he's gone"...or something to that effect.

On Sunday we rested and played around the house and Nathan introduced Ethan to Just Dance Kids on the wii.

Monday we had big plans to go hiking and visit the Saguaro National Park, but ODDLY enough it snowed!!!  That's right, the only day of snow all winter and it was at the end of March while we had visitors coming to escape the cold!  Instead we drove to the border so the Bartletts could see the border fence and we drove around to show them where Curtis works.  They got a pretty awesome picture of them, at the AZ/Mexico border standing in the snow!!  That has to be a rare sight!

When it was time to take Bryce to the airport we decided to add in another touristy stop along the way, so we stopped by the Titan Missile Museum where we were able to tour the underground missile complex and see the actual missile (or "rocket" according to Nathan.)  

The rest of the week we just chilled, worked on some jewelry orders, and had a grand ol time.

Saturday Julianne and I suited up and headed to Tucson for the "Kiss Me Dirty" 5k mud run.  I forced everyone in our group to come to my house and make tutus for the event, just because you are getting dirty it doesn't mean you can't still be cute! Haha...Here we are before...

And here we are after!

It was a pretty fun race with several different obstacles along the way.

Overall a fun time!

It was great having the Bartletts here, and we were quite sad to see them go. Nathan just loved having Ethan around.  At one point the two of them created a real life version of angry birds.  Ethan surrounded himself with a fortress of couch cushions while Nathan came charging at him in an attempt to knock him and the fortress over.  Pretty funny.  I wish I had taken more pictures!!!!!