6!

My first baby is 6 years old.

That is two hands now! Man it has gone by fast. I remember when she was 5 1/2 lbs heavy and her favorite hobby was to cry hysterically for hours like it was yesterday!

For her birthday, we decided to go to a place called "girly girlz." It was a fantastic idea because THEY supplied the venue, THEY decorated it to the nines, and THEY provided the entertainment, ya know, as long as I provided the dinero. Which was OK by me!, I probably would have spent the same amount of money on all the Pinterest fails doing my own birthday party. 

This is how it went down...

First off, the guests:

Brooklyn, Anabelle, Elyse and Avery

If the girls weren't already excited about the party, walking in the actual place amplified it to the point of giggles and a lot of jumping

The teenage girls got working right away on hair and makeup

I've never seen Avery sit so still! 

The next step was accessories. 

I've never seen Brooklyn's eyes so big!

Then the tea party began

 And then the birthday song

And just like that, the party was over... well that is until we realized that the little cookies and crackers weren't enough food. So then the royal party shifted to fast food. 

McDonald's didn't even know what hit them.

This was Avery's actual birthday

Her Kindergarten class sang to her and asked her questions and then ate doughnuts. She was the most popular girl in school that day.

And then our little home celebration

Happy birthday Avery!!!

You are skinny and stringy

You have lost 5 teeth

You love the monkey bars, you have callused hands because of them

You are a very deep thinker and you ask a million questions. Usually by 6 pm I ban all questions because I don't have the energy

You are always up for doing anything

You are very independent. At school, you don't just have one best friend, you sort of float around from friend to friend (mostly you play with whoever is around the monkey bars).

You are really getting into reading

You love when I read you chapter books, you are currently really interested in the Titanic

You are so loud

You still sing all the time, and you have a mean vibrato

You are sweet and sensitive, sometimes you let Brooklyn walk all over you and sometimes I want to tell you to just sock her because you are the oldest and she needs to respect you... but I don't

You love having friends over

You love sugar

You love watching movies

You are becoming a little bit of a Daddy's girl, but when it comes down to it, I can always get you to team up with me and wrestle against him

You are the only 6 year old girl on the planet who doesn't like Frozen (although sometimes I catch you singing the songs and playing with the dolls)

You are becoming very responsible

You are gaining a testimony of Jesus and Heavenly Father

You still can't ride a bike, but you can scale a wall

You don't dress up in princess dresses very much anymore

You are the best older sister to Isla

You have the best toothless smile, and I love when your nose crinkles up

I love you Avery Grace and I think you are the best 6 year old around!!!

Seestors

We live an hour and fifteen minutes away from the my sister. While its not ideal to just hang out whenever or have lunch dates, its a heck of a lot better than the 20 hours away we were in Kansas City.

 Every so often Tice and I will have a sisters night.

 Usually we look on Pinterest, pick out a craft to make, bite off way more than we can chew, and finish our projects in the wee hours of the morning. This was our last project

We made really scary Halloween wreaths with real live witches inside. 

I already told you we work late, so sometimes we get a little silly. 

We ended up Face timing our parents at midnight and they actually answered and saw our masterpieces. 

I love these nights.

Globe Tigers for Life

There is not a lot to do here in Globe. 

We go to the park.

We go to the library.

Sometimes we go to Walmart and play in the toy section.

Well, in the Fall, there is always something to do on a Friday night. 

No, not clubbing, but going to the local high school football games.

The yelling of the crowd, the cheering of the cheerleaders, the grunts of the football players. It makes for an exciting evening.

See...

Go Globe Tigers

San Diego

The reason we went to San Diego was because I was running in my first Spartan race. 

After looking at pictures though, it would seem we went there to go to Sea World and the beach. 

So I guess I will tell you about those "other" things first.

Sea World:

I know, I know. We supported the very organization that captures innocent whales and forces them in tiny aquariums. Then their fins start to curve; which, we all learned from the documentary "Blackfish," is a sign of depression.  The depressed whales are then forced to perform every day for hours on end. Oh and they are also forced to breed, creating more and more captured, depressed whales. Yeah, we went there.  

I'm sort of a sell out and just had to take my kids once. Never again! Well for a little while at least. We had a good time.

That is, till we went to the Shamu show. 

Brilliant Travis decided to sit on the 4th row, which is the splash zone.

Brooklyn is not a fan of getting splashed.

When it was time for Shamu to start splashing, Brooklyn dropped to the ground and started army crawling in attempt to get away from the splash. Well, the very spot she was shooting to escape to was the only spot that Shamu splashed. 

She wasn't very happy.

Shamu then came back and splashed the whole crowd again, so Brooklyn, you can imagine, was just thrilled!

Again, I was a sell out, because as soon as I saw the whale coming, I grabbed the baby and booked it to the dry zone leaving my three year old to the wolves... or whales I guess.

It was fun, but I think the kids favorite part was the jungle gym. So next time we decide we want to go on an awesome adventure, we are going to McDonald's play place.

The beach:

I wasn't there, but I heard it was fun. We went on this trip with our neighbors, the Bruce's. Half of us went to the race that day, and half of us went to the beach. Travis went to the beach with the girls.

Don't let Brooklyn's smile fool you. She was again traumatized, no not by a whale in the ocean, but by the showers at the beach.
 This girl REALLY does not like getting splashed!

The race

Have you heard of the Spartan race? Well it is a mud run with various obstacles. We were supposed to run 12 miles plus the obstacles. It didn't happen. The temp was 105 degrees so the smart race directors decided to cut it down to 5 miles. I was sort of happy because 1) I didn't really train for the race and 2) Our start time wasn't till 2 pm. I know I would have puked! 

The 5 miles we did was pretty fun. I got to jump in a huge mud pool, army crawl under barbed wire in the mud, climb ropes, etc. I think I will want to finish the race for real though in the future.

Brian, Jerika and me

The next day, we decided to head on home, but before that, we stopped in Coronado Island. This is where Trav's dad grew up.

 This is where he went to church many many years ago

Its a neat little place and I'm thinking that maybe we should do a Charles reunion there one day. Hint hint, wink wink?

I love that California is so close to us and that the beach is only 7 hours away. I'm sure there will be many more trips to come!

Field trip

When I was in school, my mom came to most of my field trips. I thought it was cool. I also thought it was cool that when the field trip was over, she took me home early.

 Now that Avery is in school, I find myself wanting to be how my mom was. But its hard, because growing up, I never wanted to be the teacher's pet. Since I'm volunteering for everything and trying to help, I do feel like the teacher's pet, and its an inward battle that I really need to get figured out. Until then, I will just tell you about Avery's first field trip.

We were pumped to go. I drove with some other cool moms.

This is our before picture

We went to the Gila County Fair!

We saw:

Pigs, check

cows, check

lambs, check

rabbits, check

chickens, check

Prize winning artwork, check

Prize winning baking, check

We saw it all and it was pretty awesome

 Avery was so cute and excited to show me her friends, she was a little on the hyper end!

It got really hot

There were a lot of kids

It was time to go

and this is our after picture

I'm glad I was able to go, but dang, I don't know how teacher's do it all day long!

Until next trip Avery

Yoga is awesome

I started a new hobby. 

Yoga. 

Trendy. Yes. 

But I truly am starting to love it. 

I even kind of feel like I'm getting weird. 

Because lets be honest, yoga people are a little weird. 

Nice? Totally. 

Creepy? Sometimes. 

Some of the teachers are just a little out there. 

But I also listen to them and they make me feel like a million bucks. 

I also feel more in tune with my mind and body. 

So yeah, I might be getting a little bit weird, OK. 

Cheryl, my friend invited me to do yoga... on a paddle board... on a lake... at 6 in the morning. Yes please.

So I did it and it was AMAZING!!! 

I told Travis, that to me, doing yoga on a paddle board on a lake is just like going to Chucky Cheese for a kid. It truly made me happy!

It was in the valley, so I made my friend Raquelle go with me. We had to leave at 4:30 am.

I did fall in. But not a big deal. It felt good!

Man that was fun. If you are ever wondering how to entertain me, well, just do paddle board yoga.

Labor day

I kind of feel like every time we have the opportunity to leave Globe, we do. Bless your heart Globe, but there just isn't much to do. Four day weekend? Yes. Stay in Globe? No thanks.

We went to the mountains and stayed in a place called Show Low. We stayed in a cabin with two other families. The Richards and the Stoddards.

It was super chill and basically we ate lots of junk and played games. We actually had injuries due to the games. And when I say games I mean cards. We got injured from playing cards. You heard me correctly. You just had to be there. It was a really fun crowd!

Oh and we also found a lake of course

Good times

Preschool

Brooklyn is starting preschool! What? Isn't she still a baby? Man, they grow up fast!!!

I love that she has a girl named Gladys in her class, that is my grandma's name! Love it.

Her bestie Jocy, is in her class

 If you can't tell, they have a love/hate relationship!

And here are Brooklyn's yearly interview quesions

1. Name and Age? Brooklyn age 3

2. Grade Level? preschool

3. My school? Arizona

4. Teacher's name? Ms. Rachael

5. Best Friend? Jocy

6. Favorite Color? Purple

7. When I grow up, I want to be? Butterfly

8. Favorite snack? Salad

9. Favorite cereal? Lucky Charms

10. Favorite book? The seed book

11. Favorite holiday? Christmas

12. Favorite food? Mac and Cheese

13. Least favorite food? Salad

14. Favorite game? Rock paper scissors

15. Favorite Summer memory? Go to Utah

16. Three words that describe Brooklyn? Mae Mae