Summer days{3}

Its the last day in June. ITS THE LAST DAY IN JUNE?! How did this happen?

Good gravy Marie, do i have some catching up to do.

I'm going to keep this one mostly pics, cause its the last day of June and reading a bunch of words today is overrated. So here it goes.

The last two weeks in pictures.

 card games

 kitty cat, Buddha (who i haven't seen in days. not good)

 a little circus fun

 not fans of clowns

but fans of elephants 

 played with friends 

and played with puppies

and finally, listened to Ev talk about Pokemon for hours every day.

June was fun. We swam a lot too, just never remember to get pics of that time.  I hope June was awesome for you too! Have a great day and start July off with a bang. :)

Fact:We own a lot of movies

Its Friday! I'm not really sure why I'm excited but i am.

I'm way behind on summer days post. I know you are all squirming in your swivel chairs waiting for the next edition.  It will be up soon, cross my heart, stick a thousand needles in my eye, promise.

Okay so here is a fact: my husbands and i love movies. We have close to 700 in our house at this very moment.  Pretty cool huh.  You may think we're crazy, and to that i say, yes you are absolutely right! We are crazy.

There has been one movie in particular that i have been waiting and waiting and waiting for, pretty vocally waiting for, especially on twitter. Yesterday at 6:30pm my husband very casually brings up that this movie is now available for pre-order.  I just starred at him and said

You knew about this and haven't ordered it yet! Do you even know me?!

 I was pretty dramatic about it, but seriously he wouldn't need to ask to get it and he knew that! After he realized the error in his ways he ordered the movie and i am on cloud nine! I've been waiting YEARS for the release of this movie!! YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah that's right. We are are Disney movie club members and its the best ever! We love Disney movies and want them all!!  So what magical Disney movie is coming to my door on October 13th?!

A-freakin-laddin!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!

I know i have to wait a few months now to get it but just knowing i will finally have it makes me the happiest person ever right now! One more on the movies from our childhood to be crossed off the list.

Happy weekend to you folks!!

to dads

Fathers day was yesterday and we celebrated my husband with some gifts, homemade by the kids, and some bought.  We loved on him and made sure that he had a wonderful day.  I love my husband so much and am thankful he such a wonderful father to our children, but this post is about other dads.


I have some incredible men in my family. My dad, & my two brothers.

I'm lucky to have an older brother and a younger brother. I get to be the obnoxious younger sisters and the annoying older sister.  Its truly a blessing for me. 

Watching these two become dads has brought me so much joy i can't even understand it.  Their children love and adore them and they love and adore their children.  

They are truly wonderful men and dads and it makes my heart happy. 

Nate: 

Taylor:

I know they are great dads because they have the wonderful example of our dad.
He is beyond anything i could have ever dreamed of for a dad.  He's hardworking, honest, wise, funny, caring, giving and basically every good thing you can think of.

He is amazing, one of a kind, and i am so glad he's my dad.

Summer days{2}

Another week has come and gone.  These weeks are flying by and going so slow at the same time.  Its the weirdest thing.  

We kept this week pretty low key.  Okay it was only low key because i basically got summer brain. You know when your brain boils from the heat and you forget about basically everything you had planned. Yeah, so that happened. oops. 

We ate popsicles, made a sonic run, watched netlifx, and went to a movie.

So here are some pics of what i remembered to capture of our last week. Oh and just FYI my kids basically wear the same thing every day, its summer, whatevs. 

Camden always wants to be apart of everything the girls are up too. He had just woken up and plopped himself in between them. 

 Cam is a pro and blowing his nose, he sometimes uses a little too much tp though.  

Ev is obsessed with pokemon right now and carries her cards everywhere.  Almost every time i go upstairs shes organizing them. 

I decided to be a cool mom and take the kids to a movie. We went to the dollar theater. This is not something i usually do, cause squirmy kids and movie theaters usually don't mix. We went and saw Cinderella. The girls have been begging me to see it.  About 25 minutes in it basically turned for the worst.  Even though they were asking to go home, i wanted to watch the flippin movie.  It was, okay. I'm sure I'd like it more with no distractions. 

For family night we watched YouTube music videos and danced.  It was a lot of fun and entertaining.  Mia danced to every song and taught us some dance moves she made up. 

**10 cool points if you can tell me what YouTube video were watching in the picture above.**

Welp, that's basically the end. 

the end. 

I really am old now

We were at my parents house last week and I was in the back room and there on the  dresser next to the old tube VCR-TV combo were home videos on video tapes.

I looked at each one and read what was written on the front of each one.

Summer trip 93', kindergarten program, kid news (sisters news program, PRICELESS footage!!), summer crap (another priceless short film made by my sisters), and other amazing memories on tapes.

Evelyn starts yelling for me to see where i was I told her "I'm just in the bedroom looking at video tapes of home movies from when i was a kid."  She says "oh" and then starts walking away, then slows down a tad, turns back to me and says with a confused look across her face "mom? what are video tapes?"

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what i looked like in that moment...

I was not expecting that, so i was taken off guard a bit.  I never even considered that my kids wouldn't know what a video tape was.  

After i picked up my jaw from the floor i showed her one of the movies, and then EV said "oh yeah, i know what this is, i just didn't know what they were called."  and she skipped away merrily to go play. 

My kids are growing up with blue ray, 3-D TVs, tablets, android, & super awesome advanced technology that i never would have dreamed up when i was a kid.  

They'll never know what its like to get an extra long curly phone cord so you can walk halfway across the house while still on the phone.  They won't know the feeling up not seeing said stretched cord across the house and tripping over it. They don't know to be kind and rewind, or that blowing into a game cartridge will magically fix the game. 

That was my childhood, i'd love for my kids to have the same, but i guess that's just not going to happen.  

It will be great when my kids are older and they'll have memories of all the old and outdated technology from their childhood and will be shocked when their kids have no idea what they are talking about. 

Circle of life y'all! 

Summer days{1}

First week of summer is over and we survived! Yay!  I'm starting a summer days series to recap what we've been up to each week.

We ended the week with our weekend in the woods family get a way.

During the week was spent playing, cleaning, & swimming.  We normally start swimming in the beginning of May.  We say that after my niece Rylee's birthday we can swim.  Well it has been so freakishly cool this summer so far the water hasn't had a chance to warm up so we hadn't been swimming yet.  Last week was the first time to swim at my parents this summer. It was still freezing!!  It started to rain a bit later that day.

What is happening?!?  I mean don't get my wrong i am happy for the cooler temps, but i would like to swim and have it be just a littler warmer for that.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the week.

Its nice having three minions running around. They volunteered to clean the dishes. Ev washed, Mia rinsed & Cam put away.  They noticed i took a pic and asked why, and i told them it had to be documented, there were being great helpers, Ev just rolled her eyes.

My squad.

We ended up staying and making a whole day of fun at my parents.  My sisters came over with their kids, and the cousins all played and had a great time.

My mom introduced my sister Kim and I to a card game called Canasta (not sure the spelling) my sil Amy knew the game but it's called Hand & Foot. It took a while for me to figure it out, there are like 100 rules to the game!  I will play again, so don't worry mom! OH and i found out that Chris knows the game? What? I guess some are more educated in complicated card games then i am.

See that bird in the picture above?  Well Kim and i were talking and the kids were playing outside and all of a sudden she looks behind me and was like "uhhhh, Cam is about to grab that bird?!" I turn right as he is just an inch away from picking up this bird!  It flew away and startled him pretty good.  It didn't go far and Cam just followed this bird around for a good 10 minutes, just walking in circles.  It was so funny, and the weirdest! Always an adventure for Cam. :)

Hope you make this a great week!!

Weekend in the woods

We packed up and headed out Friday morning.  Drove a couple hours north to my parents cabin in Heber.  This crosses off visit the cabin in the kids summer bucket list! YAY!

The kids and i haven't been since last September, so its been awhile.  It rained almost the whole time we were there but we had the doors open and the kids ran around the porch, and we enjoyed the fresh cold air.  When the rain stopped for about an hour it dried up a bit and we went on a little walk around the property and picked up the perfect painting rocks.


We drank hot chocolate, played rummikub, watched movies, colored, and just relaxed.  We noticed a break in the rain and wanted to go to an antique shop in town, so we got in the van and headed out and within minutes it started pouring, LOL, oh well.  We still went and basically had a heart attack every time the kids breathed on the antiques. So many beautiful things in this shop! I wanted a picture of the outside, but you know cameras in rain don't usually end well.

I always plan to take a ton of pictures then i get home and i'm like, DOH!  Here are a few pics we managed to take while we were there.

We attempted to take a family picture, it took a few tries before getting a 'that's the best one we'll get' shot.

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2:

Attempt 3:

Money shot, attempt 4:

It rained, but we still had a great little getaway as a family. Until next time Heber house.

T.G.I.F

Congratulations!! You've made it to the weekend!

Its amazing weather this weekend in Arizona!

We have fun plans and i'll post all about it on Monday!! Its summer of fun and it crosses off a kids summer bucket list item!

Have a wonderful weekend and whatever you're doing, smile and make it great no matter what!!!

my excited face. :)

I work out, sometimes: Deck of cards workout

Yes, on occasion i do in fact work muscle groups for an extended period of time.

I'm posting a simple work out that i was introduced to last summer from friends during my "i work out all the time" phase, that I'm starting again, from home. I'd love for anyone to join me. :)

Its called "Deck of Cards workout" and yes its as easy as it sounds.

All you need is a standard deck of cards, something to write on, something to write with and hand weights (optional)

Here's how simple this work out it:

See easy!  What's great is you can modify the exercises how ever you want!

It doesn't take very long to get through a deck of cards, only about one episode of Property Brothers on netflix.  Yes, i will be doing this workout while watching netflix, i mean why not!? I'm starting off slow and simple, but as i need to i can add more reps, more weight, more time.

I have this workout in my calendar on Monday, Wednesday & Friday for the next 10 weeks.

So, what do you think? Have you done this work out before? Let me know!