Bath Time!

The kids are loving their bath time together! Tobyn's enjoying the company, and of course the girls love to mother him! I know I'm biased, but they really are a cute bunch!

On the Go!

For the past couple of weeks we have been on the go, none stop. Our first trip was down to Prescott Heritage Zoological Sanctuary for a field trip to go along with our zoo animals that we learned about. Unfortunately, the Prescott Zoo did not have any of the animals we actually learned about (elephants, penguins, zebras, and kangaroos). However, it was a very quaint little place. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves:), the animals were very fat, but very active:), and it is very reasonably priced:)! I think that we will go back there again.

I believe the animals the kids are looking at here is deer.

Rayna is posing in front of the biggest black bear I've ever seen! (I have seen a lot of black bears in my life, consider that I've spent most of my summers as a kid in Montana.) This bear is the size of a big grizzly!

Even with all the animals showing off for them, the kids still had the best time in the sand box!


Our next trip was down to Sedona, to Red Rock State Park. We had a unit learning about rocks, and we figured the best learning environment for that was the outdoors! Which the kids just ate that up. They have been cooped up all winter in the snow, so a little bit of sun went a long way for them!

I'm not really sure at this moment what the stick is being used for by Taylin. There were times when it was simply a walking stick, then a magic wand, then a mixer, then a directing instrument, and a shovel. Who said we need to buy our kids toys? My girls fought over sticks today!

Here is a picture of the kids breaking rocks to see what was inside.

Rayna's on a hunt for finding the prettiest rock of them all!

Yes, Tobyn has been along for the ride the whole time. He has just been connected to me. This was my view of him, most of the time!

Our next stop was Anthem! Taylin has been working on quitting sucking her thumb! As a way to motivate her, I told her if she went two weeks without sucking her thumb, she could get a weekend by herself with her aunt and her cousins. After trying for three weeks, she finally got to go! My sister picked her up in Anthem on Friday (middle ground between Flag and Mesa) and then I went back down and picked her up on Sunday. The bummer for Taylin is, she got an ear infection when she was down there. Although, she still said she had fun. (Sorry, I don't have any pictures of that one. I wasn't really there.)

Our next stop was Phoenix again! This time it was a field trip to the Botanical Gardens to check out the Butterfly Exhibit. It was beautiful! The weather was awesome! I have such horrible spring fever right now, and am a little tired of the snow. So, 60 degree weather and sunshine was very welcomed! I think the kids enjoyed the weather just as much as I did. The butterflies weren't too bad either. Once they woke up from their day of rain yesterday, they were landing all over us!

Can you guess the name of this butterfly? (It's a zebra butterfly!)

My attempt at a posed pictured. I was not successful, if you couldn't tell.

Rayna loved the butterflies on her! Can you tell?

Here is a picture of Taylin while touring the rest of the Gardens. It's a monster saguaro!

Well, I am happy to say we are home now! At least for a while anyways! With all this traveling, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel in the middle of three snow storms (lucky me)! Although, I loved the sun, I wasn't crazy about driving in the snow. So, it's nice to be safe at home. Thank you God for safe travels!

There's a First for Everything!

It happened. It finally really happened. I had a child who was guilty of breaking something in the store! I don't remember it happening with Taylin or with Rayna, but Tobyn appears to be the lucky culprit! (Is this to warn me of what's to come!) So, yesterday while I was in Michael's, I had Tobyn on my hip facing out. I was looking at one side of the isle and he was looking at the other side. Without even realizing what he was doing, he grabbed a hold of a glass votive candle holder and let it go! There was no hiding it. There was a nice big crash that was heard through out the whole store! Fortunately, we didn't have to pay for it. Tobyn had already been flirting with the sales lady and she liked him! Quite embarrassing though!

Family Picnic

Tonight we had a family night and had a picnic dinner in the living room while we watched a movie. The girls think it is so fun! The first time we did this was actually by accident. We had been planning to take the girls to Movie's on the Square and have a picnic dinner with them there and one of them became sick. So, we decided not to go. (For those of you who don't know what "Movies on the Square" is, in downtown Flagstaff they stick up a movie screen and people come with their blankets and chairs and food and watch the movie.) The girls of course were devastated. In efforts to boost their spirits I came up with this idea. Although, the first time I had already packed our dinner in the cooler, so now, Taylin thinks I need to pack everything in the cooler instead of just bring it into the living room! Tonight we watched, "Penguin and the Pebble." Even Tobyn enjoyed himself. He used the time exercising and getting a little bit closer to crawling. He does the army crawl and throws a foot in there sometimes, but tonight he started getting up on all fours for a short period of time. He probably is still a week or so away from a full crawl!

Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's Day ended up being on Sunday, I thought it might be fun for the girls to make cupcakes for their Sunday school class (especially since we home school and there isn't really classmates to hand out Valentine's too:(). I figured the girls would enjoy making a lot of them and then eventually they would burn out, leaving me to finish them. Boy was I wrong! They were waiting on me for the next ones to come out of the oven. They decorated 47 cupcakes, and I decorated one of them just to show them how! They had a blast! Even more they were so excited to bring them to their Sunday school classes and share them. It was so apparent how happy they were to being giving them away. "Tis more blessed to give than to receive!" That one seemed to come natural to both of them on this occasion. Now if only that would carry over to each other and their toys!

Tobyn at 9 Months

I know that I am redundant, but it really does make me sad that I have to put up these posts of Tobyn getting older! He is so fun and snugly right now, and it is just going by way to fast! I really am trying my hardest to cherish every moment and just love on him as much as possible. Yet, it seems a little fruitless, because it's still is going by so fast! Although, I can remember the same feeling with the girls. I can remember sitting in the same rocking chair, in the same room with Rayna, nursing her and then snuggling with her until she would fall asleep, and thinking to myself how blessed I was to have her and wanting to hold on to every moment. Now she is 3 1/2 and barely fits on my lap! My point is, I do almost the very same thing with Tobyn, and then it makes me sad how fast it is going! Oh, well! Such is life, and I just need to deal! So, I will keep on cherishing every moment, and at least find contentment in the fact that I know I am cherishing every moment of him!

There is something different about having a boy. The bond is different than with the girls. I know this is terribly silly, but I have often thought how sad it will be when another woman captures his heart over mine and I have to let him go. (I can't say I've ever thought that I would have to let the girls go, although I do know plenty of Dads who have felt that way.) Anyways, enough of the sap! Here is my beautiful 9 month old boy! (Yes, I am a little biased!)

He's starting to be a champ at eating, although he does have areas where he's picky. He doesn't like to be rushed, or to eat on the go! (That's just great for the 3rd kid!)

He still loves nakey time most of all!

He also has just got his first two teeth! However, I have not been able to capture them!

More Snow Play!

Last weekend Daniel and I were able to escape for the day and get to go skiing/snowboarding. It was so much fun and such a beautiful day with all of our snow we've had. We would love to go again before all the snow melts away, but who knows if time and finances will really allow it! So, for know we will treasure the special time we had and maybe look forward to going next year!

On top of Snowbowl!