31 beautiful years!

(wow Ryan, I think that short haircut is making you look really old! I think its time you grew it out!)

Happy Birthday to our wonderful husband and daddy! I hope your day is full of finals and studying. Oh wait, it is going to be. I hope your day with finals and studying is also good! We'll celebrate when you're done!

We Love You!

we love our tucson zoo!

today we went to the zoo with my friend and former coworker Kelley and her sons Trey (here with Kate, he was a good fence climber!)and Talan (oh my goodness, is he not just SQUEEZEABLE!!)





this was their first time to the zoo and I thought they would probably think it was fun to feed the giraffes. but I started to get a little panicky just thinking about it! we have been several times and fed the giraffes, but I have always been the photographer. I don't do animals.

{quick childhood story} when I was little growing up in ohio, everyone would go chase lightning bugs and catch them and put them in a jar. I was the kid chasing and then saying "look, there is one over here!" (pointing)

I don't like bugs. I've never owned a dog. I will pet someone elses, but I don't like them licking. I really really don't do animals. but then I was thinking....kate never really likes feeding the giraffes when we have done it before, so we'll just watch trey. trey went first and I thought he was so brave!





look at that tongue!!! am I the only one who would be afraid of that tongue?!?!





but we got up there and kate said she wanted to do it so we paid the money for the giraffe cookies and went in. of course, as soon as we got in Kate started panicking and trying desperately to give me the giraffe cookie. (where could she get that from?) I tried to get brave. I tried to have kate hold the cookie with me so we could both do it together. then I tried to do it all by myself





I posted that picture despite the fact that I have 3 chins because I think it shows the fear perfectly. by the way, I think this picture was taken right after I dropped the cookie. Trey picked it up and fed it to the giraffe for me! thanks Trey!





as soon as the cookie was gone kate said "I want to do it again!" ummm......sorry



a few times we have been to this zoo they have had facepainting that kate loved, so as we neared the learning center building she started talking about wanting to get her face painted. but when we went in they had a snake and a skink out that you could pet. guess who was afraid? yes that would be both me and Kate (don't get me wrong, I can't say that I blame her! I just thought it was funny) guess who was brave

when we got home I told kate to tell grammie what was in the facepainting room and she said "a skink!" and then I said "that you could touch!" and she said "no, I was scared!"

she did, however, enjoy the coloring

sawyer enjoyed the carrier that kelley let me borrow....along with a stroller for kate.....we came here very unprepared for zoo visits!
sawyer slept very well in it!

and look at this picture of sawyer that kelley took (I swiped it from your blog, kelley!)

sheesh, put that kid on a jar of baby food! he is too perfect!

It was such a fun day at the zoo! we love and miss our little tucson zoo, but even more so, I love and miss my Kelley! thanks for hanging out with me and being awesome!

and if anyone is reading this who lives in tucson and thinks they would like to go feed the giraffes, you totally should! its really fun! I would totally be there too.....taking your picture from a safe distance!!

also...

Kate's new favorite thing is playing games with papa when he gets home. She likes uno, don't spill to beans (which she thinks means "spill the beans as soon as you put one bean on and then laugh hysterically) and don't break the ice (which is basically played the same as the beans game)
everytime she builds something tall with her blocks she says she's building a temple.
posing with papa
getting tickled
and one out of focus picture of sawyer before he went to bed tonight just because I think he's adoreable

2 teething babies...and cake

(these pictures are all not really blog worthy, but at my poor husband's request, I'm trying to get him as many pictures of his kids as possible.)

yesterday we went to one of the cake places that dani had tried when she was here to pick out wedding cakes. this is a french bakery around the corner. aren't those little cakes just delicious looking?

Kate thought so. we went into the bakery and she was saying "I want chocolate!" "I want that one!" (pointing to cakes in the case.) we had her box them up so we could take them home and when we got in the car Kate said "I want to eat cake!" I told her we would wait until we got home and she said "I want to eat in the car!" she was dying for some cake!

we thought they were very yummy! one was chocolate creme brule, one was chocolate raspberry (my favorite) and one was lemon.

big cake tummy afterwards

my sister jen has video of her son, ethan, sitting up on her blog. I decided to see if sawyer had any sitting up skills yet. (he is far advanced in rolling over, doing it from front to back and from back to frong already!)

his sitting up outfit. very gangsta. I set pillows up all around him but he was never up long enough to get a focused picture of him!

mom thinks its because he's so wiggley and squirmy. kate thought it was just plain hilarious. eventually he gave up

but sister still loves him anyway. a lot.
he was giving her a little taste of her own medicine, though. he was grabbing her hair.
this morning I thought kate looked really cute eating her breakfast so I took a picture
and then here are some pictures of my 2 teething cuties.

kate didn't even notice hers (she's getting her 2 year molars on the top) until I got excited one night when I was brushing her teeth. now she talks about them all the time. they looked red to me but she isn't saying they bother her.

sawyer, on the other hand, is having a rough time. I just feel the bumps of his 2 first teeth coming in, but he is letting me know that they are coming. my normally calm and happy baby is turning into quite the crier and is having a really hard time going to sleep. first a hurricane to mess up his schedule and now this! sheesh!
sawyer is now sleeping, after about a half hour of crying in my arms. I had better take advantage of it and shower!

out of my blogging comfort zone

here in tucson I'm out of my blogging element. I don't have my own camera, my own card reader, my own computer or programs....nothing. and that makes blogging a lot harder. but since my poor, l0nely husband requested pictures, here you go!

on saturday we went to the park for a picnic and it was beautiful!

tucson sunset
sawyer chillin
papa and kate

swinging


KFC picnic for dinner
Kate's first time eating a chicken leg

mom was outside rocking with sawyer and kate ran in and said something about a rocking chair. I thought she was talking about the one she had out there but we took to houston and so I said "sorry! we took it to houston!" and then she said, slowly so I could understand, "in...the....garage!" mom had told her to tell me to get this one out of the garage

but its kinda broken so kate got her hammer out to fix it



she was very serious about it

and here is grammie with the kids.

really, we've just done a lot of running errands, wedding planning, and lounging around the house so we haven't taken too many pictures.

I just let kate run around and enjoy grammie time (and papa time when he is home). last night dad got home from work and went straight to a service project. he got home at about 7 and then needed to go home teaching. he is companionless at the moment (since devin left for byu) so he asked if kate could be his companion. she thought that was very fun.

we're all staying up way too late and totally out of our routines. but thats what impromtu vacations are for, right?

and you thought Ike was a disaster

I got my hair cut....



ugh. I hate getting my hair cut. Ever since the mushroom hair disaster of 7th grade I've hated it. But my hair was too long and it was time. I decided to take advantage of having someone to take care of my kids and take the plunge while I was here.

I always try and give conservative estimates on how much I want taken off. I usually give a number of inches well under the amount I really want. I know these people supposedly went to hair school, but all of them seem to have missed the chapter of curly hair shrinkage. So I gave this lady "4 inches off" and "I want it to still be considered long" and the classic "I want to still be able to put it in a ponytail." Before she cut she made a line with her finger on my back of how long it would be.

None of my demands were met. I hate it. Serves me right for getting my haircut by strangers twice a year for $11.

My hair is now under strict demand to grow.

movie night

last night mom and I put the kids to bed and dad stayed home with them while we went and saw this movie:

I know, we're quite behind utah movie goers, but they were showing it a few monday nights in our cheap theatre down here. I thought it was such an amazing movie. I've always loved reading historical fiction books (mainly when I was younger and had more time to read). I remember reading one where the girl went back in time and saw her ancestors and I remember making a mental note of all the things I would have to do to fit in if that happened to me. (I don't remember the name of the book....has anyone else read it?) anyways, I've always fancied myself living back then...but then after seeing this movie I was thinking....

children dying, leaky roofed log cabins, malaria carrying mosquitos, leaving loved ones behind and never seeing them again, lots of hard work, and then there were the mobs....

WOW, those ladies were strong. And Emma Smith probably one of the strongest. It was a really really good movie!

We are refugees!

Here is our Hurricane Ike story. As you saw in a previous post, we got ready for it the best we could. And then we just waited. Friday night we watched Monk and Psych just like we always do and then went to bed. Kate and Sawyer were in their own rooms. The wind was picking up by then. At 12:30 we saw a transformer blow and the power went out. Gradually I brought both of the babies into my room. Kate was really confused but slept okay. Ryan didn't sleep hardly at all, he stayed up listening to the radio. I think he thought it was a little bit fun. Then the morning came. Inside our house we had a few leaks but everything was okay....unless you count the no air conditioning, and then it was starting to get HOT. These pictures are out of order, but essentially they are all of our morning after Hurricane Ike

Poor mustang

Kate thought it was so fun to cook out on the balcony
Hurricane eggs (notice Kate's crazy hurricane humidity hair)
Ryan loving his pancakes
Kate looked outside her window and said "Hurricane Bike made a pool!" (thats what she called it)
Our real pool full of debris
YIKES

the reason for the leaks
Sawyer looking cute in Mommy's interpretation of a rain jacket
Kate and Daddy splashing in puddles
Kate loves it
Again, notice the hair!
This was one deep puddle. Right after I took this picture I thought "that water is going to get over the top of her boots." Next thing I know she's screaming like a water moccasin has bitten her....seriously, screaming bloody murder, because there was water in her boots. I had to pick her up and dump them out....they were FULL!
I call this Hurricane Ike hair. Do you see the eye?
Saywer looking cute
From our porch

Whenever you would talk about the hurricane after the walk Kate would start going on and on about how all the trees fell down. So we were living with no air conditioning. Neither of the kids had slept great that night and neither were napping well. Over our random clean out the freezer dinner we started talking about what we should do. Ryan's school wasn't saying when he would have to go back so we didn't think we could go far, but we knew we didn't want our kids living like this forever. So at about 6 we packed our bags and got in the car and left. We thought we might drive all the way to Tucson but then decided to call Ryan's cousin Nick in San Antonio and see if we could stay there. We called them at like 10 pm and they were so nice to just let us show up and stay! Seriously, I can't believe how awesome they were to let us do that. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! The next morning (Sunday) we had not brought any church clothes so we couldn't go to church but we wanted to get out of the house so we went downtown. We didn't bring a stroller with us when we left so I devised a baby carrier out of my undershirt. It worked surprisingly well

just call me McGuiver

Here is the Alamo. You may be surprised that it doesn't have a basement

a bridge over the riverwalk

More riverwalk

Then we headed back to Nick and Trish's to spend some time with them. Kate LOVED Nick's rocket launcher thing.

We woke up Monday morning again having no idea what we were doing. We decided to get out of the house again and check out the San Antonio zoo.

Kate really loved the Komodo dragon
so much so that she gave him a kiss
again, we had no stroller so we rented one for more money than it even cost to get in. Sawyer was so exhausted and not sleeping well at Nick's or anywhere else so we were glad to have it in case he wanted to nap at the zoo
doesn't it make him look so grown up sitting next to his sister?
FINALLY!!!


And then when we were at the zoo we got the message that school wasn't back in for Ryan until Monday the 22nd. so we saw a few more animals, went and said goodbye to Nick and Trish, and then got on the road for Tucson.

Oh wait, before we did that, I went to go pick up a few groceries that we had cleaned them out of. I bought cheerios, milk, ice cream and popcorn. The cashier was making conversation and said "you have breakfast and dessert, where is the rest of it?" I explained we were from Houston and we were just refilling our cousin's fridge before we left. The lady behind me looked really concerned and starting asking how I was and how things were there and then she said "we're all with you guys!" and gave me a big hug.....kinda strange, but made me feel good.

We drove all night long and got in to Tucson at about 6 am here (8 am Houston time). Ryan is seriously amazing. I drove from 2:30 to about 5:30 and I was done. But, then again, I am Pavlovianly trained to sleep as soon as I get in the car. Thanks for getting us here in one piece, Ryan!! As we drove down Houghton at sunrise he was saying how pretty Tucson is. I agree! I grew to love it so much in our years living here!

I woke Kate up when we were pulling into Mom's house. I was anxious to see how she was going to react, being tired and all. She was pleasantly calm and happy and then I carried her in and Mom walked up to us and I said "who is that?" Kate just reached out for her and practically jumped into her arms and gave her a huge hug. She didn't say anything, she just hugged her with a big smile on her face. It is so fun to see how much she loves Grammie!

So now we are in Tucson as Hurricane refugees...it feels weird to think of myself as that because I don't feel like its that serious....but I did show up with a very stinky and tired family and Kate with no shoes....so we might have looked a little refugee-ish! We spent Tuesday resting and then Ryan got an email that his final schedule was all changed around and the books he had brought for the finals he thought were first are now last and so he didn't have any to study for his test on Tuesday. So we had to get him back to Houston. It worked out best that he would drive back home by himself and the rest of us would fly back as soon as the tickets were cheap (2 weeks). So Ryan spent Wednesday "studying"....he took a walk down to the lake and sunburned himself on the dock. I think we are all just LOVING the Tucson weather. 94 with no humidity feels like heaven! He left today and we're going to miss him, but he probably will be better off studying for finals without us. So now we're in Tucson. We haven't taken many pictures but here is one of Kate. She wrote her name in sidewalk chalk

the T and the E are there....hopefully the K and A come soon!

Being in Tucson is wonderful. Seriously wonderful. Beautiful!! I LOVE TUCSON! And I have my MOM!! But its strange, though. I seriously feel like I've never left. Its home and I love it. But then I think about my Houston life and the friends I've made there already and really I'm happy there too. (well....except for maybe the hurricanes!) Its weird to think that 3 months ago I was here in Tucson and scared/seriously depressed about moving and now I'm back and thinking about Houston is different and happy. Thanks to everyone in Houston who is making me feel like it is my home!


And everyone in Tucson.....Let's party!!!