Life Recently

Our family has really enjoyed hiking and have gone out quite a few times. We found some really awesome pamphlets that help you identify cactus, birds, and butterflies which makes it fun too. Easton is doing better but still gets distracted by rocks, holes, dirt,..... But he carries backpack pretty much the whole time.

Sophie is loving school and is doing really well. Ben's Bells is doing a tile mural at her school and one student from each class gets to help make the tiles. Sophie was picked and she was so excited. We took her to the Ben's Bells workshop to paint and Lydia and Easton enjoyed the rain.

Sophie is getting really good and reading and loves to read on her own. She is also extremely excited to have 4 loose teeth (All four front teeth).

Lydia has become obsessed with playing card games. We play for hours while Sophie is at school. Easton and her have become little best buddies and their favorite game is one they made up. The falling game consists of them both sitting side by side on the arm of the couch and then falling. The downside is that Easton has discovered their is an arm to the bench at church.

Easton would love to live in the garage. Every time I go out to change laundry he is right behind me. He walks around and sits on Eleanor happily.

The other day I went back inside to sit the basket down and then went back out to get Easton and found him all relaxed.

He has started talking a lot recently and putting several words together. He has also decided that he is going to call Dad "Pop" we have no idea where he got it from but Chad is now Pop.

For Valentines Day Chad took us all out in Eleanor. The kids were so excited to go for a ride.

We went to Sonic for dinner and enjoyed eating on the tailgate.

Aunt Sarah was awesome and took them for a sleep over Friday night. They had so much fun and Chad and I had a fun date mini golfing!

Happy New Years

On New Years Day we woke up to a little bit of snow!

We thought about taking the kids up the mountain to play in the snow but decided it would probably be crazy so we went on a hike instead. Easton would stop at every single patch of snow.

The kids had fun making as many snowballs as they could in the little patches of snow around.

Then we made it to a point on the trail with a tall cliff...and there was a bunch of snow! The kids were so excited and we had to have a snowball fight! Easton picked up on this game quickly and would get two inches from you before throwing it at your legs.

We had to tear Easton away from the snow. His hands were bright red but he didn't care.

A few days later we took the kids to Home Depot to build little wooden sleds.

We hung out at the store for a bit until it warmed up a little and then went on another hike! The girls loved finding baby saguaros under trees and looking for wildlife through their binoculars.  We love our new family hobby!

Hiking and a Little Drive

The day after Christmas we had to try out the kid's new awesome backpacks. We headed over to Saguaro National Park West and enjoyed hiking a trail there.

The girls did awesome! We went further then we have ever gotten with them before. Apparently they just needed their own backpacks with water they can dink whenever they wanted. New family hobby found!

Easton loved every minute of the hike. He did slow us down a bit as he wanted to throw every rock in sight and play in the dirt.

Chad would keep him going though by chasing him until he found another pile of rocks and dirt to explore.

Sophie, Easton and I hiked about a mile and a half while Lydia wanted to continue with Chad. They hiked over 2 miles and we met them in the car at the end of the trail. I know this doesn't sound very far but with our girls this was a feat indeed.

The next day we headed to the East part of Saguaro National Park this time with Eleanor. We found a 8 mile driving loop through the park. We got all bundled up for the cold ride over.

It ended up being a fun little road to drive with some awesome sights of the desert.

There was a stop where you could climb these large rocks which the kids loved.

Who knew the Saguaro National Park was so cool? We have been driving past a gem all these years. They have a ton of hiking trails we are going to try out too!

We also wanted to try out our new dutch ovens! We invited Sarah over for dinner and cooked both dinner and desert outside.

Apparently rice was a bad idea. Dinner turned out okay but a little crunchy with the not totally done rice. Haha You live and learn. Poor Sarah was probably regretting her decision to come over. But we redeemed ourselves with a yummy pumpkin dump cake. Guess we need to practice some more!

Merry Christmas

About a week ago we heard about the Tucson light parade in town and decided to go check it out. We packed up some hot chocolate and found a spot.

It was a little cold but the parade was awesome! Easton couldn't get enough of all of the trucks pulling the floats and especially liked the race cars that raced down the street. he got really excited over Mater!

The girls loved all the lights and there were some princess floats that they loved too. It was a lot of fun and it ended with an awesome Firetruck that has a driver in the front and back. Chad has always wanted one of these and I'll admit it was pretty cool.

I have lived here 11 years and had no clue this awesome parade happens every year!

On Christmas Eve we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Miller's house and had our traditional dinner on our fancy china. We played a game and heard "Santa's" bells outside and then looked to find surprises on the front porch.

Chad and I got an awesome large enamel teapot for camping! Santa knows us so well!  Chad put together an awesome nativity video for us to watch. He did a great job.

We let the kids open their jammies from Grandma and Grandpa Clayton.

They were excited to wear them for Christmas morning and quickly went to bed. They were excited to wake up to new sleeping bags and hiking backpacks from Santa!

They loved passing out the presents and digging in.

After we met my family for fishing. The kids had to bring their favorite toys with them.

Lydia and Chad were hanging out with their pole in the water when.....she caught the only fish of the day! A rainbow trout.

Uncle Craig helped her release the fish back into the water.

Brianna brought her kayak and gave the girls rides around the lake. They loved it.

Merry Christmas!