Fourth of July

The fourth was a fun day! We went to our community celebration during the day. We went with a friend and her kids. They had face painting, a bounce house, a train ride, and a live band.


Jonah got a red spider painted on his hand.

They rode the train 2 times.

The only downfalls is that it was really hot and Jonathan couldn't go because he worked the night before. But we had lots of fun regardless!

That night we made hamburgers and watched movies. Overall it was a great day!

Never My Friend

There are some things about Arizona I will never get used to.

This for example:

It is called a Sun Spider. Not venomous but I am told is aggressive and hurts if you get bit because it has a big mouth. We have found 3 in our house now. 1 in the kitchen and 2 in the garage.

When we first moved to Arizona we had one at our apartment that was huge! We had only been in Arizona for like 2 days and I freaked! We took pictures.

If anyone named Nathan Call reads this he might think me to be silly because he grew up in the area. But I cannot help it. I am creaped out!

Friend For a Day

We went to a friend's house for dinner. When we came home this was waiting by the garage. It is hard to tell in the picture but the toad is big.

What did we do with him? The obvious thing- we put him in the dog cage and kept him for the night. We made the dogs sleep outside.

We showed Jonah in the morning. He called the toad his FRIEND.

The Sun

I have to write this before I forget. In Indiana, driving back from my grandparents. Miriam was driving. I was passenger. Victoria smashed in the back with the babies. We were on the interstate when Jonah started to complain about the sun. He hates the sun in his eyes.
Jonah's line:

"Mom, the sun won't stop chasing me!"

Trip to Indiana- Part 2

STOP! Read Part 1 first.


More pictures. This trip was 2 1/2 weeks long so lots of pictures.

We spent a fun day at Grandma and Grandpa Weber's. We had TONS of fun. We went to the park.

Grandpa was super cute with Jonah. They started outside and ended in the basement watching TV together. Jonah informed me he was with his GREAT grandpa.
I fell asleep on their bed. I don't know what my arm is doing....

We went to Heidi's house for Mason's birthday. We started at the park.
We ended at Heidi's house with tons of yummy food:)

So keep in mind this is my way of also doing a journal. I apologize for SO many pictures.

Trip to Indiana- Part 1

Mostly we just hung out going from one house to the other. The highlight of the trip for me was my sister Anna having her baby. Sad part is that I did not get pictures of the baby because my camera was full by that point. I am depending on Miriam to send me pictures (hint, hint...). Here are pictures from our trip.

Grandma bought them matching shirts.


The boys swam almost everyday. Usually in their underwear.

Ryan and Sarah spent lots of time with us even though they are both very busy people. We really appreciated them taking the time. We went to their apartment (cute!), went bowling with them, and dinner a couple times.

They brought their dog (or shall we say horse- he is big). He ate the kids food a couple times but that just made us laugh.

Anna was SO pregnant. I think she was like 6 days overdue before her water broke. We all cheered(literally) when that happened.

Grandpa taught Isaac how to light a match. He will never live that one down!My sisters and I hung out a lot. My mom was usually there but somehow managed to dodge the camera. As you can tell we had lots of fun!

We got together with the Carlson's a couple of times. I have awesome laws.

OK funny (or not so funny) story. Every year the Carlson's do scrapbook pages of each family for Christmas. I am a little behind! I brought them to give to the Carlson's. Well to make this short we will just say I had them printed with the word MUSEUM spelled wrong. In my world is is MUSEAM. Man I suck at spelling!

I Loved It

OK so I did the triathlon. It was lots of fun! The air was full of energy and smiling faces. Hard at parts but definitely worth it. I thought I would finish feeling like I was hit by a car but I did not feel like that at all. In fact I felt really good! I have learned my body is capable of doing a lot more than I ever gave it credit. I definitely was not close to being the fastest, but I also wasn't the slowest. So I am satisfied. Now I just need to keep up the training. That is the hard part. I am thinking I need to sign up to do something else just to keep me motivated. We'll see.

Can I Do It?

The Sahuarita Lake Triathlon

presented by Rancho Sahuarita

Distances: 1k lake swim (3/4 mile), 25k bike (16 mile), 5k run (3 mile)

May 26, 2008 6:30 am

Ok, so I am NOT going for fast. I am going for FINISH!

Popcorn and Potty Training!

Keeps Me Moving!

We found out she can reach the stuff on Jonah's table now. Hope it was good...off the floor!

The MOM Job

In light of Mother's Day I just wanted to note that I am so grateful for my mother. What a wonderful mother she is! From baby to adult she has been a rock in my life. I know she will always be there!
Sometimes I think moms in general are critical of the job they did and are still doing. They say they maybe should have done things different. The job of mom is not easy. Now that I have children of my own I fight this battle already with questioning my decisions and frowning on my action (or reactions....ha!). I am comforted though because as I think back on my childhood I do not even remember hard times as much as I remember the love, laughs, hugs, and friendships. What a great childhood I had! I know the job my mom did (and is still doing) was not easy. But she did a good job! I heard on the radio today that the average # of hours a stay at home mom works per week is 56. If a stay at home mom were paid a salary she would make $117,000. Who knows how they came up with those numbers or if they just made them up. But I believe it! High five to all the moms!

On that note, I am so grateful to my grandmas. I love them to death! I miss them all the time! I have so many wonderful memories of going to grandma's house. I remember as a child going to one grandma's house and getting spoiled rotten and then leaving and going to the other grandma's house and getting spoiled rotten all over again. Now that I am older I still get spoiled rotten!

I am also so grateful to Jonathan's mom. What a huge impact she has had on my life! Everything wonderful about Jonathan I owe to her. He doesn't have to be a good guy, but he is and I know it is because his parents taught him to be good. They formed him and molded him. They did a good job!

Being a mom is not easy, but I think the rewards are far greater than the challenges.

This is TRUE!

I took one of those silly tests that came across facebook. How much am I like my mom?

You Are Totally Like Your Mom

"You and your mom are practically clones.You think alike, and you even seem to read each other's minds.You're definitely you're mother's child... and that's just fine with you."

Don't Scream!

Jonah has been pretending to be a dog lately. He thought it would be fun to go get the newspaper and bring it to me just like a dog does (not like our dogs, but somewhere in this world there is an amazing dog that bring people their paper...gets them coffee....makes them breakfast...but not our dogs) Because Jonah was being so cute getting the newspaper I thought, "lets do something fun with it". So I got this WONDERFUL idea that we would make a collage out of the pictures in newspaper. Not wonderful. NOT wonderful at all! Jonah took the lid off the glue bottle and rubbed glue all over his skin like it was sunscreen. Then he put it all over the table. Then he took it to the beanbags. Let me not forget to mention it was on the carpet. Where was mom while all of this was happening? In the next room over on the computer. Sometimes I have to learn my lessons the hard way.

Its From Grandma!

Jonah got mail! He was so excited. It was all I could do to get him to hold the package long enough to take a picture.

5 minutes later......

Sorry mom if you pictured him being a little more thoughtful in his sticker placement. He loved it though!

IT HAS BEGUN!!!

Kayla is getting around a little better every day. I just sat and watched to see how far she would go. Then I had to grab my camera.

Look at her pose!

What does Jonah think Jonathan does at work?

I am big into writing Jonah's funny prayers down. So here is another one...and there WILL be more. I have never talked to Jonah about what daddy does at work.
At dinner he prayed that Daddy would be safe at work from the monsters. At bedtime he prayed that Daddy would "save the day".
Can you do it Dad?

Chase the Dog!

There is a sidewalk that runs behind our house that I really like. Why do I like it? It is wide and far from the street (which can get busy). It has become almost a daily event that we go on a walk on this sidewalk. Yesterday we took the two dogs. I let Jonah walk Duke (not the best idea I have ever had) and I walked Fidget. We were doing so good until Jonah dropped Duke's leash. Duke ran...then Jonah ran (crying after the dog)....then I ran with the stroller and Fidget. A block later I caught the dog. When the whole dog chasing event was over I laughed. How funny we must have looked to all the passing cars!

Another Funny Prayer

A couple nights ago Jonah prayed a really LONG prayer. He would almost wrap it up.....and then he wouldn't. He basically gave the same prayer like 5 times. Finally we told him he needed to say Amen. One of the funny things he prayed for over and over was that mommy would go get him water. Anyone that knows me really well knows I have a hard time not laughing when I am not supposed to. So as anyone can imagine I was trying really hard. BUT I failed.

Funny Old Man

We went to the store and I got 4 comments on how cute my BOYS are. I never get offended when people think Kayla is a boy because I know she is bald and her car seat is blue. I don't even correct anyone unless I know I am going to see them again soon. There was an old man at the store that reminded me of my grandfather Griesemer. Had a sense of humor. I laughed pretty hard when he said with a serious face, "Your boys are cute but you need to feed them more. They look scrawny". And yet I knew he was kidding. Sometimes being a Griesemer comes in handy!

Easter

Before Easter was even here my Grandma Weber sent Jonah some candy and lots of fun toys. My mother also sent him some fun books. How badly we miss everyone at home. I feel home sick a little more when the holidays are around because I know everyone is getting together. But getting things in the mail are wonderful too. We are still included.

Jonah got lots of fun things from the Easter Bunny. Of course candy! A dinosaur and a dinosaur coloring book, paint and a Dora paint book, and a Go Fish game. All his Easter eggs looked like balls.

Kayla got a teething ring because she has lots of teeth now. Outside of that Kalya didn't care too much about Easter.

Later that night Jonah and I decorated eggs together. We got a kit that had egg tattoos. Jonathan then hid them and we had an Easter egg hunt in the house. Jonah wanted to do it over and over and over. It was fun!