I DID IT! plus "WINTER" wonderland FUN

I did it! I did it! I finally tackled my closet.  Phew!  Feels so good to walk in there and not have 2 huge boxes with hangers and clothes i never wear draping all over the boxes lol.  Also cleaned the bathroom tub and counters, sink, etc.  Found a spider in the process of putting clothes away.  Those that know me, know i HATE spiders with a passion.  It boarders on arachnophobia but not quite so bad.  Since Aubrey was napping in her crib and Ella was napping in her room, which is on the other side of my closet wall, i had to be quiet.  And i was :)  I calmly walked my shirt over to the tub where i turned on the faucet and rinsed it down the drain.  Which of course i then closed to make sure it didnt crawl back out! lol  The spiders here have different markings than the spiders im used to back home, so they creep me out a little more than usual.  Anyways...mission accomplished!!  Closet and bathroom FINALLY organized.  Now its time for a ton of laundry.  Bleh.

Last saturday we attended the winter wonderland thing that Intel put on at one of the farms out here.  It was a lot of fun!  We spent 3 hours there and that was plenty! lol  Free food, but of course all the food lines were always crazy long, and since this is Arizona, it was hot standing in the sun.  Good thing we got there when it opened, and lunch was the first we got.  Barely had to wait in line for that and most of the stuff the kids went on were short lines too.  As we walked around and more people showed up, the lines were ridiculous!  The whole 'eat as much as you want thing' went out the window because there was no way either of us was going to go through a line like that more than once with 4 kids.  

After lunch the first thing the girls wanted to do, was ride a pony.  No problem, short line and it was right next to the lunch area.  SWEET! :) 

Then off we went to see and do everything there was to offer.  There was a few little kid rides like you would find at a fair.  Julia willingly went on these, but did NOT like how high they went.  Madie of course, loved it!  They got to control if it went up or down, and madie is smiling and making it go up.  And we see Julia, with huge eyes and yelling at madie that they are high enough and to make it go down!  We couldnt help but laugh.  These are rides are for 5 and under!  But she got to go on anyways lol.  

Then we spot the roller coaster.  I was sure Julia did not want to ride that!  It reminded me of the one at Oaks Park in Portland, but this shorter in height and was made of metal.  Thank goodness, that wooden one scares me! lol  Jeremy convinces the girls to sit in front, i did not think this was such a good idea, knowing how Julia feels about rides and heights and everything.  So of course after the roller coaster goes up, it must go down.  It starts it decent and i hear Julia screaming, not from excitement or joy, but from pure horror.  Then i see her face as they go around and she is balling her eyes out and her face is all red and i feel awful!  I should have told them not to sit in the front.  At this point i realize she has to go around two more times.  Here comes round two, she screams again and is kinda crying this time when i see them go around.  Im almost in tears now knowing she has to go around again.  She doesnt seem as bad as they start the 3rd go around.  Still, I hear her scream as they start to decent but this time no tears and actually as smile on her face as it comes to a stop.  She said she had fun, so i guess i can feel a little bit better about her being scared to death for the first half of it lol.  She points to the swings that a fair would have, and says i am NOT riding those.  Too bad, the swings were always one of my favorite rides!  Oh well.  As for Madie and the roller coaster... she was stoked to get on, she was happy riding it, and would definitely do it again.  Thats my girl! :)

Thumbs UP!  We did it!

Next was a petting zoo, some huge ground pillows to jump on, watched some pig races, got a tiny scoop of ice cream, but passed on the corn maze.  We were going to ride the train but the line was long, as well as the line for the hayride.  I didnt want to leave the stroller, and by this time we had already been there over 2.5 hours and it was getting pretty warm out.  

Had a baby chicken using this pig as a pillow lol

They started head butting after i took this

Started to relieve its massive bladder while i was taking this picture..haha

These things were awesome!

I wanted to go on it too!

The pig race was adorable! :)

Before we headed home, we had to make sure and stop at the pumpkin patch!!  They tried to make it like you were walking around where the pumpkins grew, but there were no vines attached to them and the small field was a little to perfect to have grown pumpkins in it.  No biggie, still had some pumpkins and the girls liked walking around and picking them up.   At least we didnt have to worry about tripping over a vine or stepping on a rotting pumpkin!  Although i do still love the Oregon pumpkin patches better :) 

Madisen

pretty empty pumpkin patch

Julia 

One more stop before it was time to leave.  The big tube slides!  The girls walked the mini hike to get up to these things while we waited at the bottom to take pictures and stay with the stroller full of sleeping kids lol

Yay for free Intel activities!  The girls had a blast!!!  

The girls loved the pumpkin ice cream! :)

The train we never rode but wanted to!

Until next time...

Pumpkins, paint, stickers and the zoo!

Walking Julia to school

Been pretty busy since my last post.  Which is good, i like being busy.  You'd think having 4 kids would keep me busy enough, and it does.  But for some reason i like having other things to do, places to go, people to see...sometimes :).  Anyways, let the kids go swimming the other day.  Its been getting kinda cold over night here now, so the temperature of the water has cooled off some.  Its not horribly cold to get into, but still that shock for a min. when it goes above your belly button, and you suck it in and hold your breath because its cold haha.  The girls didnt mind, of course.  Even Ella wanted to go in.  My husband was in with the girls while i stayed inside with the baby.  I didnt feel like getting in anyways.  If it was an in ground pool, i would get in more.  The ladder into the pool freaks me out, and its so much work trying to get dry when you have to get a baby and a toddler dry first and deal with all the soaking wet suits and towels.  And when i go swimming, i like to swim, not just stand there and walk around.  The girls like to chase me and splash and thats fine, but not when i just straightened my hair, i dont want to have to re-do it.  So i let their dad go in, its easier for guys.  About 30 min. later, he is calling for me to come get ella.  She didnt care she was getting out, but she also hadnt complained to get out.  She LOVES the water!  She didnt seem to care that the water was so cold, her legs had turned to a bright red.  She could barely walk when i got her inside because her poor little legs were so cold :(  I spent some time warming her up and getting her into dry clothes.  She thought it was funny i was rubbing her legs lol.  Her normal skin color took 3 hours to return!  

Double french braided the girls hair monday night :)

We also went and checked out Phoenix zoo this past saturday.  Ended up getting a membership because the entry fee to get in ONCE was going to cost us $60!  And thats with the 2 youngest being free.  So it made sense to just get the membership because it was cheaper than 2 visits there.  The girls had fun!  The place is great!  And we only saw half of it lol.  You can rent paddle boats!  Madie was tired of walking and was ready to leave.  We figured we might as well go, we had already spent almost 2 hours there and since we had a membership now and all year round weather to come back, we could do just that.

The girls are so excited for Halloween.  We went to Julia's Monster Mash/fall ball thing at her school on friday, after she had a fun girl scout meeting.  We showed up for the ball only to find out they required tickets.  Tickets that apparently were on sale all week.  Well i had gotten NO INFO on this, i kept waiting for something to be sent home.  I finally asked a teacher on friday, about the ball and she never mentioned needing tickets.  Im so glad we decided to not walk to the school for the ball or we would have had to walk home, to then get in the car and go to an ATM to get the cash to buy the tickets at the door.  The things we do to make our kids happy! :) The girls had fun dancing at the ball.  Madisen of course got tired and didnt feel like dancing anymore.  You'd never know with Julia and Ella that we had past their normal bedtime, they were dancing like crazy!!  Julia saw some friends there, and ran around a little bit them, but for the most part, stayed in a little circle with us and danced.  Boy does she get REALLY into it.  Its hilarious!!  I wish i could have gotten a video! 

 

The girls all ready for the Monster Mash/ Fall Costume Ball

Not sure if i mentioned before that we showed up to Chick-fil-a on daddy daughter date night.  I kinda laughed because it reminded me of the nasty White Castle having reservations for valentines day....Um gross lol.  But this was actually really cute!!  They had half the restaurant closed off for reservations only.  The food came with dessert and a little gift for the kids, plus they had a horse drawn carriage ride!  That was for anyone, so after we ate ( i got a salad, trying to lose weight!) we all rode the carriage.  The girls were so EXCITED!!  It just went around the parking lot, but it was soooooo cute!  Made me miss horse back riding even more.  I should find a place by me that does that, there is definitely enough horses around here :) 

 Since tomorrow is Halloween, and we have not carved our pumpkins yet...i know i know :(  I decided to let Madie paint hers while Julia was at school and Ella was napping.  Doing it in groups is far less stressful.  When we get home from picking up Julia, i will let her paint her pumpkin, and also let ella paint one of the small ones.  I painted the other small one that is Aubrey's since she cant do it herself this year :)  

Finished results-green dots are cheeks :)

My pumpkin of course :)

 After Madisen was done painted her pumpkin, i let her paint some pictures and then do a sticker project.  Shes had a fun day!  

PAINT

STICKERS!

 Ella and Aubrey have been asleep for over an hour now, so any min. one of them will wake up lol.  Probably the baby since Ella at least takes 2 hours naps during the day.  Also took some great pictures of Aubrey this morning.  She is such a happy baby, just melts my heart!  I love my girls so much!!

Last nights bath

From this morning

Until next time...