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?

Hannah's 1st Haircut!

Hannah reached another milestone today...her FIRST haircut! (I think Daddy is gonna need some counseling after this...it was very traumatic for him!) But Hannah did great! She got almost 2 inches cut off and was a perfect angel the entire time. Thank you Felicia for a job well done...you just added another client to your roster!



The "BEFORE" shot

The "AFTER" shot

The Autumn Leaves

I used to think that my hometown, Mascoutah, was pretty behind-the-times. But I guess Arizona is too! It's January 6 and Autumn has finally arrived! LOL The leaves in our neighborhood have turned brown & orange and have fallen to the ground...so we took a walk over to our park this morning to check it out! The kids loved rolling around in the big crunchy piles!

A million pictures

I took SOOOOO many pictures over the holidays...but I could never find the time to post a new blog about all the fun times. So here are all the misc pictures that are just too cute not to share!

Fun in the snow

On New Years Day, we headed up north to Heber, AZ for a little fun in the snow! Our friends, Joe & Julie, own a cabin there...and were nice enough to let us stay for a couple days! Hannah had so much fun sledding down the hill with her daddy...but Mason was more content to just hang out with mommy at the top! :) It was almost like he was in a "fat suit" with all the snow clothes he had on! Some nice fellow sledders offered my little man a cookie and then he was happier than a puppy with two peeters!

Our friends, Brian & Susan along with their girls Taryn and Tessa, also drove up for some snow time too! While we were all together, we celebrated Taryn's 12th birthday! The girls had fun decorating her cake...which I think was topped off with approx 3 cups of sprinkles! Happy Birthday Taryn!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009 everybody! We had a great New Year's Eve which we spent at our friends' house with our kids! We even got to listen to live music played by one of our friend's brothers all night...awesome! I can't believe both Hannah AND Mason stayed up and rang in the new year! They loved being able to bang pots and pans together in celebration!

Slurpies

Well, the hustle and bustle of the holidays is pretty much over. Back to the real world I guess!

So we're driving in the car yesterday while doing errands and I notice that Hannah SLURPED down the juice water in her sippy cup in no time flat. I usually get upset at her when she does this because (1) it means we'll have to find a restroom pretty quick and (2) she won't have anything else to drink the next time she asks.

She knows I'm peeved at her and I say, "Oh well! I guess you just won't have anything else to drink until we get home, huh? Why do you do this, Hannah? You know Mommy doesn't like when you drink your sippy cup all at once?"

Hannah's quiet for about a minute and then says,

"Hey Mommy. I have an idea!"

me: "Oh yeah? I can't WAIT to here it."

Hannah: "How about you put me in time out and then give me more juice?"

me: Laughing my butt off

Would you say that cracking up at the things your kids say to you only encourages smart ass remarks?