All About 5 Year Old Aaron!

Here he is, our big birthday boy last week! It happened to take place a day he did not have preschool, so we had a day of fun!

First, it started with him letting him choose a box of cereal - Lucky Charms. We took brother to school and then headed to a park of his choosing - unfortunately Arizona has decided it is time to be in the
90's and 100 degrees already so we didn't stay too long. But, that was alright as we played some at home and before we knew it, it was time to pickup brother at school! (Shhh...I let big bro skip out early so he could join us in birthday fun). We had lunch together with Nana, Pap Pap and Aunt Kristen.

Picked this place purposely for dessert - one of Aaron's favorites is cotton candy!

To no big surprise, cars and Legos were received with glee

The boys had time to play with Aaron's new toys before it was time to join more family for dinner at the the birthday boy's choosing - good ol Chuck E Cheese.

Hot Wheels cake with the birthday dude's favorite, vanilla

We ate pizza in all its glory, played games, had cake for a few hours...we knew again we'd have to allow more time to play with the newest toys before bed. So, that was his day! He seemed pretty happy.

Just yesterday, we used Aunt Angie's gift - it's fun to do activities  than just receive presents and toys all the time I think - we got to do an animal interaction at the zoo!

We had a light breakfast followed by elephant related crafts, then we also got to go inside the elephants' enclosure and hide treats for them. Once we were done, they let the elephants inside so we could watch them find our goodies. Aaron also got a free carousel ride and a stuffed elephant as we left the zoo. Fun few hours in the morning before it got warm (again!)

The day after his birthday we celebrated in his preschool class.

First, he was read a birthday poem

Then, some birthday prizes

Lastly, some birthday treats! Two other girls were celebrating their birthday's too.

Now, some tidbits about our newly five year old!

--If it wasn't obvious before, he is still very much into cars and art. He's so predictable :)

--He's my definite bird eater. I can't really get him to eat any huge meal, it's more snack-y. He still is my boy with the wider "palette" I guess you could say. Meaning, he'll eat a wider range of vegetables and fruit! Other than pepperoni, bacon and hot dogs, I can't get him to eat any other meat still yet.

--His favorite drinks (I should say, that I allow) are milk and some tea. The boys have especially discovered soda in the last year but...special occasions :p Not too many juice boxes either.

--He is still my Cuddle Bug. Last week he said he would forever be that way. I sure hope so. Out of the blue he will give me hugs and snuggles. He prefers for me to tuck him in bed. He'll deliver me a kiss and hug before he enters his classroom at school. I'm taking it all in since I won't have him with me a majority of days starting the next school year :(

--And speaking of which, he'll be in Kindergarten next year when we begin the end of July! Which means in our district he will go all day just like big brother, from 8:35am- 3pm. Last week we had his Kindergarten Storytime. He's had a few instances now of starting to ease into what will go on next year.

Principal reading stories

Working with a buddy in a kinder class

--Still does do a good job of entertaining himself, but loves to play with brother and daddy especially. Mommy will do too if no one else is around.

--Starting to be more independent. Nathan warned him that he would need to start practicing how to dress himself, as mommy will be busy with baby brother in a few months ;)

--Still generally an outside boy. But, if inside is what we need to do he particularly enjoys going to the movie theater. He digs that whole experience!

--My left handed boy. I think that's so interesting! His teacher said he is definitely ready for kinder, that at his age/level he knows quite a bit, and that he has consistently been using his left hand to write, cut,etc.

--I would generally say both my boys are sweet and considerate.

--Aaron changes his mind on a daily basis on what his favorite color, food, anything is :) I couldn't say what his favorite show or movie is, game...other than I can officially say what his favorite toys are (above).

--To me he's just a lover of all things - playing with brother, swimming, museums, art time, we can even get his help with some baking. He's adventurous and pretty much up for anything I'd say.

Happy 5th Birthday sweet Aaron! And I hope you hold your Cuddle Bug promise!

It's A....

BOY! We found out almost two weeks ago the gender of our little one, when we got my 20 week ultrasound done. Baby boy is perfect, growing as he should, parts looking good. We had Nate and Aaron with us to find out.

Yes, everyone was a little disappointed at first, but, we sat down together and all pitched in and agreed  on a name for the newest brother - Preston. We're still working on a middle name.

We've already done some shopping (real surprise) for some new outfits for baby brother. Aaron is already giving baby brother hugs. Feels like now a huge burden has been lifted off our shoulders, now that we know :)

April Fun

April turned out to be a pretty  busy month! Showing our house was a part of it for sure but the boys had a lot of things going on this past month too.

We had a dance at school (sorry, pictures outside in the dark not so great!) which really got upped this year with food trucks, a game truck and other outside inflatable games. Fun evening.

The boys had Field Day! This was Aaron's first year getting to participate - there were hurdles, tug of war, an inflatable water slide, etc. Thank goodness the boys had it in the morning before it got too unbearable outside.

They also had their Spring Boy Scout campout! Perfect timing for them to be with dad in some cooler weather while we were still showing the house (and yes, mommy got to enjoy some quiet time! Sure was nice).

Campsite

Crawfish! The scouts collected eight pounds worth.

Having fun!

Fishing for crawfish

In their spare time the boys took advantage of all the open space to scoot around

The last week of the month Nathan was able to join daddy in Take Your Child to Work Day!

Kids have to be eight years old to partake. He got to have breakfast and lunch with Josh before joining the other kids in activities, such as being able to be driven around the race track! I think that was a highlight for him. It only lasted a half day.

The same day, that night, Nathan's grade level put on a play called "Bugz". He dressed up like a bumblebee. There was a little bit of speaking but it was mostly just songs, not any longer than a half hour or so, if that. I know the kids had been working hard memorizing all the songs and they created their backdrops. We went out for some frozen yogurt afterwards.

In the middle, under the "u" in Bugz

"Yeah, yeah mom, hurry up and take the picture"

Can't talk now but I think we're in for an even more exciting May! ; )

House for Sale!

Yippee! After almost 3.5 months of constant projects and cleaning, our house is now up for sale! Actually, it has been on sale now for a week. While we haven't received any offers yet, the good news is we are getting a fairly stream amount of traffic! We've had at least one showing a day, if not two. We're tentatively having our first Open House this upcoming weekend.

It has been somewhat difficult to keep the house tidy and as pretty as our pictures have looked, but as long as I'm sort of constantly staying on top of things it hasn't been too bad. We've also asked to have at least a two hour window of notice, which most realtors have been acceptable of, so that helps. The boys understand that the tidier the house looks, the better chances of selling, and the faster chance of us looking for our next home! Fingers crossed the right clients come along soon.

Pregnancy update : I am now 17 weeks along. Everything looked well at my visit two weeks ago. I am, however, waiting until the 20 week mark (the first week of May) until I see the OB again and we have our US for gender. It's probably a good thing we have this house selling going on right now to distract me a little bit, as I am sooooo anxious for the next appointment! I've been getting bummed seeing girl/boy items go on sale and I have to sort of sit on my hands, not buying anything since we don't know what we're having yet.

This year is full of waiting games - here's to hoping some will be over soon!

An Angel's Birthday

A few days ago was what would have been our darling Lily's 11th birthday. I think it goes without saying that it was a sad day for us, though we tried to smile and hope that maybe heaven had awesome things in store for her on her big day.

Of course leading up to this day, I began to think about what we could do to honor her. I always seem to go back to the idea of  animal shelters. I was able to find out who some of the long standing dogs were that are still waiting for new homes.

Jake and Neeterrman - one of which who has been waiting since November : (

We decided to sponsor (pay) their adoption fees, so whomever decides to adopt one of these two cute dogs will discover that they will get them for free. My heart in a way wishes we could do the ultimate great thing and just adopt a new pup, but I know we just aren't ultimately ready yet.

For awhile now I've been meaning to write how sweet and sensitive the boys continue to be. Our roses are growing like crazy now and anytime we begin to talk about that the boys mention we should cut some and take them to "Lily's spirit" . One day not too long ago we did.

About once a month I'd say, Nathan continues to remind me that we need to mark October 30 (the day Lily passed) on our calendar as being busy, calling it "Lily Remembrance Day".

We still reminisce a lot - "remember when...."  Or the boys will see other dogs and talk about looking forward to doing  "such and so" with our new dog.

Nathan has still been into magic some, and wishes his magic was strong enough to bring Lily back.

Besides Lily's birthday this month,  this month will also mark the six month anniversary of her passing. It's hard to believe it has already been half a year. I'm hoping the next six months somehow brings us more peace.

Easter Day

I didn't do too many fun Easter events leading up to the holiday this year. However, last year we went to a local restaurant that had brunch as well as a meet-and-greet with Mr E.B. so I decided to do that again this year. It's such a nice brunch and we don't have to wait in lines to meet the bunny. There's also a craft table usually and this year the fire department came with a truck for the kids to check out. Unfortunately daddy missed out on the fun this year since house duties called.

That same day we celebrated the holiday as well as our niece's birthday with Josh's side of the family.

On the actual day this year, we went to church --

And the boys proceeded to anxiously check out their baskets --

Not too much candy and their big gift was an activity pass to museums, a rock gym, bounce place, sports events, etc.

With there being a good chance this will be our last major holiday in our current home, I decided to host lunch for my family. 

Chocolate cake for the boys

Carrot for the girls

We did an inside egg hunt and otherwise had a nice day just relaxing and chatting. That night, my mom hosted us all for cheese fondue (yum!) and games.

As much as I'm going to miss our little home, I'm also looking forward to hosting more gatherings in a bigger home with a larger kitchen!

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!