Festival of Lights

Saturday evening we rode the lightrail to Tempe to watch the Festival of Lights parade. The kids thought it was so great to be able to ride the train. It was the first time for Cadence (that she remembers) and Isabelle both. On the ride there, Cadence kept looking every direction...it was like she was a little bobble head. :)

It was pretty cold out once the sun went down, so we were all bundled up.

The parade itself isn't all that great. But the kids had so much fun and they loved seeing what was coming next.

We were right next to the road where the parade goes by so the kids were up close and waving to all the people on the floats & the cheerleaders as they did their dances.

It was our start to the Christmas season. I think this year is going to be lots of fun with the kids all getting older!

sweetness to my ears...

Tonights prayer from Dylan:

God thank you that you keep Lincoln safe.
Thank you that you made me special and other people special.

Amen.

Giving Thanks

Every year we celebrate Thanksgiving at Mark's parents house and my side of the family comes over as well. I forgot to take a picture of the meal with everyone but the below pictures are of the kids saying what they are thankful for and then picking out a price for each item. It has been something my mom has done since I was a little kid.

Michelle was helping Cadence with writing the things down on her paper that she was thankful for. Every time Cadence would come back and sit on Michelle's lap and either play with hair or rub her face or give her kisses. It was so cute to see her be so affectionate.

Dylan worked hard on his Turkey that showed what he was thankful for. He wanted to make sure everything was spelled correctly as he was writing. :)

Dylans list:

Teacher, School, Jake, Fruit, Michelle, Grandma R, House, Cabin, Grandma B, Flower (the fish), Grandpa, World, Mom, God, Daddy, Lincoln, Animals, Janae, Friends, Cadence, Isabelle, Christmas and Food!

Cadence List:

Jett, Spiderman, Grnadma B, Mom, Janae, Isabelle, Grnadpa, Daddy, Trampoline, House, Jake, TV, Maggie, Uncle Jon, Michelle

Just the 2 of us

Mark's mom watches the kids for us overnight one night a month and it is always so nice to have a full night and not have to worry about being done by a certain time to go pick up the kids. We decided to do a lot of hiking while we didn't have the kids. :)

On Friday night we hiked Squaw Peak. We got to the top just as the sun was setting, it was beautiful! Mark actually ran almost the whole way to the mountain before we hiked (his longest run so far). He was a beast...I definatly couldn't have done it!

We went out to dinner that evening and then the next morning we got up early and hiked Camelback Mountain. I don't think I have ever hiked to the top and it is much harder than Squaw Peak. The clouds were beautiful in with the morning sun.

I had kind of remembered that there was railing on one part of the mountain but when I got to here and looked up it looks so intimidating. But I pulled myself along and made it through.

I think we did great...no stopping on either mountain!

It was great to be outside and enjoying creation!

Great Conversations

Me: (riding in the car) "Dylan, sit correctly in your seat. If we got into a car accident your seat belt wouldn't work correctly"

Cadence: "God doesn't do that"

Me: "What do you mean?"

Cadence: "God drives a car."

Dylan: "No Cadence, God doesn't need to drive a car!"

Cadence: "Yes He does, it's blue with stripes".

Life

I'm not sure if Isabelle is understanding & having independence all of a sudden or I am just feeling it more because she started walking. But she is so aware of her surroundings now, able to do things on her own and is definatly voicing her opinion about things with a high pitch squeel.

Her new thing is climbing up in the regular chair at the table and eating her snack from there. She is taking things to the trash on her own & will go get something if we as her to. She has been a lot of fun lately!

Now that the mornings are cold, Cadence likes to get ready to take Dylan to school. This was a picture from one of the first mornings it started being cold...complete with teddy bear slippers. All this and we don't even get out of the car :)

This is the kids creative way of being able to walk on the floor while it is still wet from mopping. It is a limbo game piece, but the kids have realized they can walk on them kinda like stilts to get around...creative.


Dylan loves banana bread! We put bananas in the freezer when they have gone bad and wait for enough to make bread. This time he made it all by himself...of course with a little bit of help.

Birthday Party for Royalty

This Saturdy we celebrated our friend Ava's 2nd Birthday. It was a dress up party of princes & princess'. The kids were so excited about getting ready for the party.

Cadence has a princess dress that she loves to borrow from Maggie, I told her that she had to ask permission from Maggie if she could wear it to the party. The video is of their phone conversation. They are so cute!

Even Isabelle dressed up for the first time. :)

Here are all the kids at the party.

Ava's grandma made the adorable barbie cake.

Of course what is a prince to do but...sword fight!

Carnival Season

Dylan's school had a fundraiser carnival this week. They had homemade games & food goodies. Israel, Kati, Maggie & Eli all came out for the fun. This picture is of the kids being in jail, they had to wait 5 minutes to get out or pay 2 more tickets. :)

Trailer ride

Both the girls had their faces painted and their nails polished in the "beauty salon".

Last weekend our neighborhood had a block party. They actually block off Indian School road from 32nd st to38th St and they have people with booths set up, food, band playing & some performances. We went with our neighbor Ali and her kids, Ana & Emerson.

It was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect! The picture below is of all of us.

I think this was the first time (at least that I can remember) that Isabelle played with a balloon. She loved it, she would jerk the string all around to make it fly around all over the place.

It was great to do something different and enjoy our neighborhood. I love where we live!

Playground in the Bedroom??

I knew that the day would someday come that I would want to get bunkbeds for the girls' room. Last week I was watching Craigslist for a new dresser and came across a bed for super cheap ($30), so we got a new bed for the girls a little earlier than expected. The picture below is of the girls watching me put it together and loving on each other. :)

The bed is actually a loft bed so it is a little shorter than a normal bunkbed and it has a slide attached. The kids now call the girls' room the playground. It has been hours of fun for them already!


Isabelle looks like she is scared but she actually loves going down. :)

Isabelle is still in her crib for now...She actually loves hanging out in her bed even when she is awake. I plan on taking advantage of her being content in her crib...knowing she can't get out. :)

Tumbling Recital

Last friday Cadence had her tumbling recital. I was really proud of her for always participating in class, I was a bit worried when we started because she is usually on the shy side.

She had a audience of daddy, both grandma's, Aunt Jolene & cousin Janae!

Picture below is of the warm up stretching.

Somersaults!
Balance beam. Her teacher had to remind her to look down instead of at us. :)


Handstands

Graduating certificate!

Happy Birthday Grandpa R

We celebrated Mark's dad's 64th birthday over the weekend.

The kids are checking out his gifts...and wanting some of the See's candy. :)

It is a tradition to have icecream cake for birthdays. Of course the kids love this...even Isabelle had a whole piece to herself (she moaned in delight after each bite :)).

More painting projects

This is my most recent dresser redo. I really like the lines on this dresser and it turned out wonderful...my favorite so far. I distressed the edges with sandpaper & spray painted the handles from a bronze color to silver. I forgot to take a before picture, but it was actually in excellent condition and a nice looking dresser before I painted it (just a bit dated). The best part is I only paid $35 for it!

The two pictures below is dresser #2. It ended up being a bit of work because the drawer slides were in terrible condition...I guess I'm learning what to look for when buying a cheap dresser as I do these projects. :) It was my first try at glazing. It is painted red with a black glaze overlay. I really liked using the glaze (thank you drea for your leftovers :)) and I am sure I'll use it in the future. This one took a bit to sell...but it did eventually sell and the person who bought it thought it was perfect and was so excited about the color. :)

Last is a file cabinet that my parents were getting rid of. I've been wanting one at our house, so I gave it a makeover as well.

Just a simple black with distressed edging & new handles. It works great and looks sooooo different!

Weekend of Candy...

Mark's work had a dress up and bring the kids in to play little games & get candy on Friday. The employees could dress up as well...and as you can see from the picture below, Mark went all out on his "coach" outfit. Complete with shaving his head into a "cul de sac" and a fake mustache! Most people when first looking at him didn't even realize it was him. Needless to say he won 1st place at the work competition ($100 gift card!) :)

Sunday night we stayed home and passed out candy. The picture below is Dylan in the Superman/Ninga outfit and our next door neighbor Emerson. They had so much fun running around and passing out the candy


Maggie came over on Sunday night also. She isn't a princess as you might think...she is Queen Esther, that she made very clear when asked. :)

Isabelle even helped with handing out candy, or at least digging in the bowl and carrying it around with her.

We set up a projector and had a movie showing on the garage door. It was fun entertainment for the kids, some kids that came would get so distracted watching the movie they would forget to pick up the candy :)

We have so many people come to the neighborhood, at one point I looked up and I think there were probably around 30 people in our driveway...no exaggeration!

These two pictures are from Mark's work party on Friday. Maggie came (that day as a princess) and we also ran into our other friends Noah & Ava.

The kids have had their fill of candy and keep wanting more!