Just hangin' with Mommy

Just some pictures of my little guy today...he's just not that LITTLE anymore! :( Hannah spent most of the day running around with Daddy...so Mason and I had some quality mommy-son time together!


Practicing his "downward dog" pose from Yoga.


Mason HATES when his hands get dirty!

Baby Bumps

My friend Cari came over today while her husband (aka my hero) worked on my computer. She let me take some preggo pics of her since she'll probably only be pregnant for a few more days! Her due date is just one week away. I feel so lucky to have taken these shots for her...as getting and STAYING pregnant has been an uphill battle for her and her hubby. But any day now, Jax will be joining us in person (and then I'll be bugging Cari to take pictures of her baby instead of her belly!)

Best Buds

Do they look comfortable, or what?

Jaxson & Madison...say cheeeeeze!

Yesterday, my friend Katie came over with her two kids for a little "photo shoot". I'm enjoying all the practice I can get before my first photography class next month! Jaxson and Madison were both in fun moods...especially Jaxson! He was so "kissy" that he was even smooching on Hannah! The kids all had fun running and playing at the park together.

Four Peaks

This afternoon, we took the kids out to the desert near Four Peaks to ride their electric jeep around. It was such a gorgeous day...we all wanted to be outside! Our friends, Jeff & Tracy and their 4 boys were camping out there too...so we met up with them for the afternoon! The kids had a lot of fun playing with the boys and just gettin' dirty! Mason threw such a fit when it was time to go home. There's nothin' like good, cheap entertainment!

A kiss from her prince

How sweet are THEY??? Hannah is finally feeling better...the 2nd kind of antibiotics is WORKING! Yesterday morning, she fell asleep on the couch while watching cartoons. I kept trying to keep Mason quiet since I figured the more sleep she was getting, the better. He just can't stay away from his sister though. I grabbed my camera just in time to catch him trying to kiss her. Oh, melt my heart!

Batter up!

My poor Hannah Banana! She's been sick for FOUR days now...and no light at the end of the tunnel! :( It started with a fever on Monday morning...and then she told me she had a sore throat. The next day, her dr couldn't get her in for an appt until 4pm so I decided to take her to urgent care instead. They swabbed her throat and the culture came back negative for strep...but they were gonna send it off for further testing. In the meantime, they put her on an antibiotic. Her mood has been up and down...but for the most part, I have never seen a more hopeless, pathetic, dramatic little girl who's sick. (i.e. "Mama, I'm soooooo sick. Mason, turn the light off cuz I'm sick. I don't want any grapes cuz I'm sooooo sick!") She milks out an illness more than her own father when he has a runny nose!

Yesterday, she was feeling okay enough to go outside for a bit. She and Mason were taking turns playing T-ball with an orange in the back yard. I don't see any MLB in either of their futures!

In the meantime, Mason and I have MAJOR cabin fever. We hope Hannah starts feeling better soon, not only because we feel so bad for her...but also for our OWN sanity! She saw her own dr today and they switched her to a different antibiotic. If she doesn't start to get better by tomorrow morning, they're going to test her for mono. YIKES!

Picasso in the making

For Hannah's birthday, she received a new art easel from Nana. And then for Christmas, Nana also bought the kids their own personalized smocks to wear while painting! I've only been allowing Hannah to paint while Mason's napping (otherwise disaster would ensue). But the other day, they both got "smocked up" (in the opposite named smocks) and headed outside for some Picasso time! They played pretty well together...sharing most of the time. Until a little while into their fun and Hannah started throwing elbows (as seen in the second photo). Sigh.

Design on a Dime...or $15.

This is kind of a dumb post, but hey...it was a slow news day. Anyway, we have H.A.T.E.D. our 4th bedroom/office/guest room/every random piece of crap gets thrown in there room for a LONG time. But budgets are tight nowadays so I tried to let one of my favorite shows, Design on a Dime, be of inspiration to me. I literally spent $15 on a new lamp, rearranged the furniture, stole some decorations from other places in the house and BAM! It's a whole new room! The headboard for the bed is actually Hannah's footboard (once her bed is converted from a toddler bed to a full bed). The shelves on the wall were buried in a closet that I could never find a use for in the past. The Family picture frame was also in the closet for the same reason. Tomorrow, I'm gonna use some Christmas gift cards we received to *hopefully* purchase some new bedding (the ugly palm trees HAVE to go!) Anyway, just patting my cheap ass self on the back tonight...that's all! :)

A very natural day

Believe it or not, we actually DID have some cold(er) weather over the past few weeks. But it was a nice winter AZ day today...a high of 60 something. So the kids and I decided to explore a little bit in the back yard and BOY did we find some cool stuff!

First, Hannah wanted to pick one flower of every color that she could find in the yard. So she lined them up, side by side, and asked me to take a picture of them! Normally I HATE taking pictures, but I obliged anyway. ;)


Then, Hannah discovered that our fruit trees had some ripe lemons and ONE beautiful tangelo that were dying to be plucked from the branches! So we plucked! We had so many lemons...so we brought some to both of our neighbors and STILL had plenty left over!






Just as we were about to call it a day and head inside the house, Hannah and Mason heard a, "Whooo Whooo Who Who Who Whooooooo". They got really excited because they realized our friendly owl who makes his home in one of our trees was back! (I guess he's a "snow bird" too!) ha ha ha Anyway, I snapped some pictures of our winter visitor...and he never took his eyes off me the whole time! Normally you wouldn't want a picture with "red eye"...but I intentionally took this shot to show his spooky peepers watching the whole neighborhood from high up in the trees.

Nature's fun...who knew?