Spring Break-ers

We just got back into school after another almost 2.5 weeks off. It was pretty awesome in particular to have lazy mornings - a lot of times we wouldn't do any activities until the afternoon so we could slack and stay in pajamas all morning long! I'd say I let myself slack some in general, as I also don't have too many pictures. Josh was in Japan one of the weeks the kids had off so there was some definite big time slacking then! ;)

We had a few playdates with friends at parks and a bouncing place. We went to Scottsdale one afternoon to visit a library we hadn't been to before that I heard was neat and then treated ourselves to dessert at a well known, tourist-y spot called Sugar Bowl.

Before daddy left out of town, he took off a few days of work to spend with us. The first day we went out to breakfast and then the zoo for almost five hours!

The day after that we went out to lunch, went to a play place called Makatu's Island and then we even took them to "the junk store" (as the boys call it) to pick out a few pieces of candy. It's just a large, candy filled warehouse essentially. That was the boys' ultimate idea of a perfect day!

I took them to the movie theater to see Zootopia - so cute! We went to the San Tan mall (outside shopping center)  so we could browse at books and puppies. We also went to our close mall nearby so we could use some money for the Cheesecake Factory, yum!

The boys also got to spend some time with both their Nana and Grandmother. They spent St Patrick's Day with Nana, so they got to do some St Patty's and Easter related fun!

Digging for gold in green shaving cream

Coloring eggs!

Much more to the boys' delight they got to spend the NIGHT at Nana's house too! (mommy was excited because I got to have a little night out) That evening they had a glow-in-the dark egg hunt. I'm glad my dudes got to have some of this Easter fun since our holiday stuff is buried! :(

We had breakfast at the Chandler airport (one of our favorites!) before meeting up with Grandmother, where they got to go to some outside event a museum was putting on.

Another day Grandmother watched the kiddos some for us while Josh and I took care of some house business. They went to one of their favorite parks.

Other than lots of free time playing at home some too, that about sums up our break! We're *thisclose* to having our house ready for market. Three months of continuous work later!

Pregnancy update : Just started the second trimester, yay! The "honeymoon" phase of pregnancy as I like to call it, at least most of the time. I'm starting to notice a little bit of increased energy and less nausea...but still having periods of some. Hopefully it will continue decreasing overall. Another appointment next week (I'll be 15 weeks) and then I should know when our "big" appointment will be (next ultrasound to see the gender). I CAN. NOT. WAIT. It has been difficult to be patient since with both boys I knew the gender already by this point. Most of those close to me know that patience is not my best quality ;) I may have even done a little begging with my OB office to see if they would let me do an US next week. Alas...no...The boys have just made it known that they would like to come along the next time I go so they can see baby and find out what we're having, too! One big family party.

BIGGER News!

No, no, we have not sold our house. We are still working on our house even, not up for sale yet (we hope it will be this time next month). Getting there.

No, this news I think is even better and bigger than that - we are expecting! Yes, we decided our lives weren't crazy enough yet, and that there was much more cuteness we could leave the world with.

Our public reveal - just to clarify, the last basket color is purple, not pink. We plan to find out the gender the end of April! Also, notice the Lily flowers?...that was done with full intent to keep her memory with us.

We have known since January, but only this week revealed the news to the boys and our families (this would make me almost twelve weeks along, just nearing the end of the first trimester). For whatever reason I was feeling a bit more anxious this time around, wanting to wait until closer the end of the first trimester to be sure things were going good with baby. Since that was clarified this week, and because I'm starting to show and for other reasons, we decided to make it public news. How liberating! It's nice for everyone to know....to understand if I'm not feeling well, to understand not further committing ourselves to responsibilities, etc. It feels as if a weight has been lifted!

The boys seem excited. Unanimously everyone hopes for a little girl, according to the boys, because, "we haven't had one of those before", Josh because he knows I've wanted to have a girl for so long and because he too is ready to dote on a little gal. Do I even need to discuss the girl reasons for wanting a girl? The adorableness, nails, tea parties, Barbies! Not to mention I'm the only one in a sea of boys, it'd be nice to have a buddy. Ultimately, of course, a healthy baby is what we desire. If we have another boy, well, I know how those work too :) And ours are undoubtedly cute. The end of April can't come soon enough to know. I happened to know with Aaron pretty early because we were unable to hear a heartbeat, so they had to do an US at 13 weeks. I'm being told I need to wait until around week 20 to know the sex of this one.

So, needless to say, another reason we're moving forward with getting a bigger house. We want each child to have their own room, I want a bigger kitchen, perhaps a swimming pool, and a 3 car garage would be nice so that Josh has his own space for his woodworking leaving room for him to also park in the garage. All of that and hopefully also in the same area as we currently live :) Too much to ask? I'm hoping not.

Ideally we knew we needed to get started right away in hopes that we can at least be in a new house by the time baby arrives (oh, which by the way, is estimated to be September 20th!)  It would be nice to be settled and everything too, but at least moved. I hope the process somehow doesn't take as long as what I'm afraid it will be. Guess everything will just work out as its  meant to!

Yeah, 2016 has proved to be a huge year for us already with new things on the horizon. In some ways daunting, but exciting too!

Nate is Eight!

Last week this guy turned eight years old! I woke bright and early to pickup donuts for his friends to celebrate at school and he happened to have a half day, so we had time to do other fun things that day. After school, I picked up some lunch from one of this favorite places to eat at home. Then, we were off to Flipside ( a bowling, arcade, bumper car, etc sort of place). The boys did games, played on a play structure and Nate and I did bumper cars.

Afterwards we went to his favorite pizza joint for dinner. He had a good day of his favorite things.

We're glad he had this fun day, as, since the beginning of last week our family had begun passing around a coughing/fever virus. Aaron began with it, then I got it (and literally had to drag myself to do things on Nathan's birthday, sadly) then quite unfortunately the morning of Nathan's birthday party he came down with it, within an hour before our guests were to arrive (we were just having it at our house).

So for the first time ever, I have a few pictures of what would have been Nathan's party - we were doing a Minecraft/Magic theme.

I also had shirts we were going to decorate Minecraft style as well as bead necklaces and Nate was going to some magic tricks from a box of magic he received as an early gift.

I know he's disappointed he didn't get to have his party, but as long as he still receives the presents (kids!) that seems to have lessened the blow. We thought about re-scheduling the party but ultimately decided against it, as sad as it seems. It's just too hard to find a weekend that works for everyone and with what we're trying to accomplish at our house, personally I would rather not mess with it. Especially now since we've been sick, we've fallen behind on work at the house. Too much going on sometimes.

So, some things about our new eight year old --

**Has still only lost two teeth. There are supposedly four loose teeth that he's had for months.

**He survives on chicken nuggets, pizza, macaroni and cheese and PBJ. I can get him to eat some fruit but hardly any vegetables. He's good about drinking water and milk. He's so timid about trying new food.

**Like any child, likes to play games on his tablet he got for Christmas. He looks forward to weekends when we allow that a bit more.

** His good pal this year is Ben, who is in his class. They're also in Running Club together.

**Strives to be a good boy at school. He doesn't like to disappoint his teacher. In general he's just a kind guy, unless he's around his brother sometimes.

** Speaking of little brother, it's cute to see sometimes how he helps me parent. I don't mind, I appreciate it. " Aaron, don't do that you could hurt yourself". " Aaron, you need to hurry and put on your shoes so we're not late". They're pretty good play buddies for the most part, which is pretty fun to watch.

**Wants to be an astronaut. I point this out a lot especially when we're doing math homework - I'm sure astronauts need to know how to do a lot of calculations, right? (well, let's hope so because that's how math gets done).

**Has gotten brave enough now that he can sleep without a lamp/nightlight on.

**Still thrives on routine. This day of the week he has school lunch, this day of the week is movie night, this day of the week we do something fun after school, etc. 

** Second year in Boy Scouts. For his birthday we bought a four day trip over the summer to go with daddy and fellow cub scouts to a camp - not an ordinary camping trip, but one that is full of horseback riding, archery, etc. He is looking forward to it and we continue to enjoy that this is something for the boys in our family to do together.

**Did I mention how the boys in general are excited about us moving? Their musts for the new house : stairs, and an added bonus would be a swimming pool. Oh and room for a new playhouse.

**Doesn't really have any particular favorite movie or show at the moment. Though he does like to play Angry Birds.

**Enjoys Sunday School at church. We're hoping our church doesn't get rid of it as they're beginning to go through changes and stages. 

It's been nice to see as each year goes on a more responsible, independent boy. Parenting gets easier in that way. I don't really have to nag on him too much since he aims to please for the most part.

Happy Birthday Nathan! We love you.

BIG News...

We're aiming, hoping, keeping our fingers crossed that the first part of 2016 will bring our family a new, bigger house! Ever since Aaron came along, we've had an inkling for more space. We've made do over the last almost five years (we've been in our house for ten!) but now that we've seen an opportunity where we could move forward with the idea, we're going to go for it.

All moved in - January 2006! Long gone is Josh's favorite sports car, the Nissan Z

We just met with our realtor this past week and got our list of "to-do's" of things needing to be done to the house in order to hopefully sell - replace some appliances, paint, etc. None of which was too surprising to us as unless things stopped working it was just a cost we decided to do without spending money on over the years. But now, of course, they must be done :) We are lucky to have support of family who are willing to come over and help us get this list accomplished on what we have in our mind as limited time, since we would like to list the house in March. In the perfect world, I'd love to sell, buy, move, all by summer, in order to be settled by the time the boys begin school again in late July. Cautiously optimistic...we really hope with all the work and money we're about to put in that we're able to sell, and for the general amount we'd like in order to afford a bigger home.

It's definitely a bittersweet time. While excited to have more roaming room, there's a lot of things I will miss about our house that has been an awesome starter home the last ten years. For starters, there's the obvious memories - bringing both the boys into the world here and where Lily spent most of her life.Being a block away from my best friend, walking distance to a great eating plaza, NO scorpions (huge plus!), nice neighbors....its really been a pleasant experience. I totally wouldn't move if we had an extra 1,000 feet :(

Fairly recently I bought plant seeds, as I thought I would finally break ground on something I've been wanting to do for a while, which is try my hand at gardening. In previous posts I mentioned that one of Lily's favorite places was our garden area, to lay under the shade of our rose bushes and drink from our fountain. I tied that memory in with making my flower/plant garden and bought a garden flag to place inside, in her memory -

We have it up for now, but it saddens me a bit that we'll have to take it down and wait until we get into our new house to start the garden process all over again. Depending of course on when that happens and how motivated we are, it could be awhile. I was looking forward to having a little blooming flower and plant oasis for  Lily, or at least try.

The boys are excited to move, always have been thrilled over the idea. To them, the most important part is having stairs. In that respect it's nice that they're anxious, because I hope that means they will actively help keep the house clean! Definitely one of the reasons I hope we're able to sell fast is so I don't have to worry about trying to keep the house tidy at all times while we still live in it.

I knew at the end of 2015 that this year was going to be big...I just felt it. How wonderful it would be if all goes our way!

New Year's Eve

We had a pretty relaxing NYE this year. Really, winter break. The boys have just played and played with all of their new Christmas toys and things. So, other than going out that evening for dinner, we spent the day just relaxing at home. Since the boys don't stay up until midnight, we celebrate by doing "NOON Year's Eve" with them. I think that's becoming a new tradition!

"Madagascar" Netflix countdown. So convenient to use it whenever we want!

Woohoo! Daddy getting ready to do our balloon drop.

Cheers to 2016! They both got white grape sparkling juice. Neither cared for it too much. And yes, they've been living in pajamas quite a bit :)

That night we ventured out to Scottsdale for dinner. Trying to visit new places we haven't been before. It's sort of a NYE tradition I like to do, too.

Heard good reviews from a trusted friend

 We had an enjoyable evening  - great service despite being busy and yummy food. We started with a pear/brie/arugula bruschetta concoction, followed by Josh getting a lamb dish while I had sea bass, followed by a delicious chocolate/peanut butter molten cake. Oh so good. Josh and I managed to actually stay up until midnight, which is something we haven't done the last few years. Yay us!

Bittersweet seeing 2015 go....here's to a hopefully sweet 2016!

Santa & Eddie the Elf

The boys were excited to see Santa a few different times this season. First, at our annual trip to Zoolights -

 

Then, one night a local restaurant had a night where you could eat french toast with Santa -

 

There was also a time at the mall, probably some others I just can't remember at the moment... ;) It seemed like we saw him once a week, to be sure he didn't forget what the boys wanted for Christmas!

At first we didn't do Elf on the Shelf this season, but, all it took was a good friend of Nathan's to tell him about his magical elf, and suddenly it became a big deal. So, Eddie the Elf became magical one night!

Yucky pasta, marshmallows, M & M's, chocolate and maple syrup...based off of the Elf movie

Hangin' with Jesus

After some not very good days, Eddie had "naughty" reports for both Nathan and Aaron. Did the trick!

Playing with Aaron's cars

Hanging over the fireplace

Lookin' over everyone

Another look from up high

These are only some of the things he did that I thought to take pictures of.

I was bad with Christmas this year, not getting pictures. We spent Christmas Eve with Josh's family, went to church and then spent Christmas Day opening our presents from Santa and then with my family. Blink and you miss the holiday I tell ya.

The boys got everything they wanted (and then some!) Winter Break is always nice, then, as it gives Josh and I a bit of time to get some deep cleaning and house chores done while the boys play with their new toys. In fact you almost wouldn't know Christmas came as our decorations are already down. I always like to start the New Year feeling caught up around here...

And on that note, I can't believe the New Year is only a few days away! :o

Gingerbread House Party

For some reason I felt like trying to make our own gingerbread houses this year, something I've never done before (note : it is very tedious! I think for now on I will leave the house making to the pros) Then I bought various candy and such to decorate with.

Holiday flowers from the Farmer's Market

Little elves

Table of goodies

Glasses and cups for the house makers

...and some gingerbread coffee and mini houses for the moms!

Aaron's house

Our friend's house, so cute

Our fun little party took a few hours. Then, the boys like to do something we call "the station game", where they go to different "stations" for bits of time. Since we were in the Christmas spirit I made the stations Christmas themed - Christmas book reading, Christmas movie, etc.

Christmas playdough

Christmas worksheets

Little hard to see, but we finished the Christmas craft we started then today

We  continued with the Christmas theme the next day -

That evening, I took the kids to a local park with a small train and carousel - around the holidays it is decorated with lights.

Like many kiddos, December is one of the boys' favorite months!

One Month Gone

I promise, some more uplifting posts are coming...

But for now, it's still reminiscing time with Lily. We just had the one month mark of her passing go by this week. We literally go from Halloween to almost Christmas in a blink of an eye. I can't believe our sweet pup has been gone that long already.

We've continued with our Random Acts of Kindness in her memory - first, by buying and distributing new dog toys to some pups at a dog park one afternoon -

then, on the anniversary of her passing, we donated money to The Humane Society. Also on that day, I took some roses from our garden and some of Liy's ashes and brought them to the neighborhood lake we visited with her on her last day of life.

Now, she will always be there.

I feel like I'm stuck in a hard, muddy place. The last almost eight years I have been a SAHM, so I have been around Lily constantly, on an everyday, mostly all day, basis. So you can imagine the void that there's been this last month. There hasn't been a day that has gone by where I haven't been upset, yet. A lot of it does have to deal with guilt and regret, sure. As much as we try not to have any of that.

There's truth to a statement I've heard before, where the grief and sadness don't ever go away, we just learn to manage it better. I wouldn't say I've improved all that much in my sadness lessening, but perhaps learning more to get on with it.

Josh is leaving on a business trip soon, and I'm just dreading it. Just as much as he is. Bummed of course that he will be gone and there will be some tiring days with taking care of the boys full time, but also as I mentioned before...because of Lily. I mentioned how she was our 'guard dog'. Not just that, but she was the only company I had after the boys were in bed when Josh is away. And now...complete silence. Complete non-existence of dog beds and head nudges under my elbow when I look sad...there's going to be some rough evenings.

The time of year we're at doesn't help things much. For starters, pulling out winter clothes I've found a pair of sweatpants with Lily's hair on them. Haven't worn them. We've pulled out her stocking, her tree ornament...

I'm fairly certain at some point in time we want to get another dog, but it's a hard thing to think about right now.  Right now, I just want Lily back. Right now, I don't see how any other dog would measure up to how wonderful she was. Right now, I think getting a dog any too soon would be a slap in the face to her. She deserves respect and to be grieved over, not replaceable.

So, we'll just continue to try trudging on. Honoring our girl. Remembering our girl and how wonderful she was.