Snow Day In Arizona!

Believe it or not we had a SNOW DAY in Arizona on the 20th of February! It was AWESOME! 

Here is a picture of the cute snowman our neighbors made.

 

The news had said a snow storm was coming in but I wasn't going to get my hopes up. When it began snowing at around 11:00 am I thought it was fun, since it snowed last February for a little while. Jordan and I kept watching it... and it began sticking. That's when I got excited.

 

The snow kept coming down and kept sticking. By the time Preston got home from work it was amazing to see the transformation the landscape had made. It went from dry brown desert to wet white wonderland. The best part was watching Jordan's excitement. He loved playing in the snow!

 

Here's a picture of Jordan trying to scoop the snow up from a ledge on the house. He had so much fun playing with the snow. The other picture is of a desert plant that was covered in snow. I thought it looked so funny with snow all over it. 

 

Our neighbors were nice enough to take a family photo of us in the snow. (Natalie had to play inside, sorry little lady... when you're older you can join in the snow fun.) Jordan had fun playing together with the kids in the neighborhood and enjoying this unique desert snow fall. 

Jordan couldn't wait to play in the snow with his Daddy. Preston introduced him to throwing snow balls and he quickly caught on to how fun it is. We had a great family snowball fight. He wouldn't come inside until we said we'd go have some hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

It was a magical experience to play in the snow in Arizona. We loved this special day.

Natalie 4 months old

Natalie is four months old.

Here are her stats from her check up: 

Length 24.25 in. 50th percentile

Head Circumference 42.5 cm 75th-90th percentile 

Weight 15 lbs. 4 oz. 75th-90th percentile

Natalie has learned to do a lot lately. She has found her feet and loves to grab them. They are a toy that is always available to her. Since her checkup two months ago she has learned how to push with her feet and scoot around on her back. I have found her in the corner of her crib still trying to scoot farther. (I am grateful she has bumpers in her crib to protect her head for moments like these.)

Natalie is getting really good at tummy time. She works hard to look around and with those cute feet of hers she is learning to scoot herself around as far as 180 degrees. Also, just a few days ago she was on her tummy and then a minute later Preston and I look over and she had rolled over onto her back! We've got to keep a close eye on this little lady. She's learning things faster then we expect her to. 

Natalie is also a very good sleeper. She is sleeping through the night already! She goes to bed at about 10:00 pm and wakes up at about 7:00 am. Natalie is also such a happy baby. She smiles all the time and Preston has even gotten her to laugh a time or two. She is our adorable little girl. We love having her as a part of our family!

Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day! 

We hope that this day was spent with the ones you love. 

We were invited to a little Valentines party. It was a fun get together with friends and goodies. Here is a picture of Jordan (bottom left) hanging out with some friends. 

They had an awesome blow up toy at the party. All of the kids loved it! 

I told Jordan I wanted a picture of him and I said, "smile." What I got was a half smile and a smooshed face. What a funny boy. 

They had a doll stroller there and I thought it would be funny to put Natalie in it. I think it's really cute that she fits in it and funny how it makes her look so big. 

Here is a little something I made for Preston for Valentines day. I gave him chocolate and he gave me...

..flowers. We are pretty traditional as you can tell. We also went out to eat at my favorite restaurant, the Olive Garden. It was nice to take a little break from the focus on the kids and to the focus on each other. We had a great day.

Mommy Thoughts

Here are some Mommy thoughts I wanted to share before I forget them. At this stage in our family it is so neat to see the sibling fun beginning between Jordan and Natalie. Though all Natalie can do is grab and chew on things, she and Jordan interact already... as you can see by the photo above.

Jordan loves his little sister and wants to be where she is. Natalie smiles at Jordan whenever he is around and she is always interested to see what he is doing. Watching the two of them together has brought me to reflect on my own childhood and my own siblings. I remember the fun times, the annoying times, and the fighting times of siblings. But overall what I remember is what a blast it was to always have someone to play with. Friends just can't beat the availability of siblings. 

Jordan is so sweet to Natalie. When she cries Jordan tries to make her feel better; whether it's giving her a kiss, turning on some music, or telling her, "it's ok Natalie." I love this picture of him giving her a kiss when she is crying. I know they'll have their fights and sharing issues as they get older, but that's a part of family life... learning to live together... for eternity.

I have thought a lot about how it feels to be a family of four now and the best way I can describe it is... it feels more complete. Sure it's a little bit more crazy and busy, but it also feels great at the same time. I am grateful to be a mother and to have such a wonderful husband and such sweet children. 

I never want to be one of those Moms that looks back and says, "I wish I had slowed down and just enjoyed them" or "I wish I had written down all of the cute things they did and said" or any other regrets. I want to try to have as many non-regrets as possible.

It is hard to keep the right perspective on how important the day to day life is for your children's future. I've come to realize the reason for this is because we are in the middle of it. It is hard to see how important something is when you do it every day, all day, over and over again.

So I try my best each day to read something or do something that reminds me of how special this time is. Like reading an article from the Ensign about children, working on Natalie's baby book, or just taking pictures of my cute kids. I know that someday I will miss these days of playing with airplanes and pirate ships, of reading Dr. Seuss and Little Critter stories, of holding my little girl as she falls asleep. I want to cherish this season of life that I am in. I hope that all parents want to as well. 

Parenthood is the hardest, most important, and most rewarding thing we will ever do. Make the most of each moment, the future is soon the past, the more I tell myself this, the more I enjoy the now. I am having joy now in the blessed life I am living being a mother.

Desert Museum

For my birthday this year we went to the Desert Museum here in Tucson. I like to think of it as a desert zoo. Instead of elephants and zebras we saw desert animals like coyotes and bobcats. It was a really neat place to explore.

We started out with seeing some raptors take flight. We saw hawks, falcons, and owls. Jordan was totally focused on where the birds where. It's hard to tell, but there is a falcon perched on top of this canopy that Jordan and Preston are looking at.

They even got out the binoculars to check out the raptors. Jordan loves Daddy's binoculars and will always look for animals with them... at a zoo or in his bedroom. He is developing quite the imagination, he has even found deer in his room before with Daddy's binoculars. It's really cute.

Here is a view of what the desert looks like here in Tucson. Going left to right: Prickly Pear Cactus, Palo Verde (the tree), Barrel Cactus, Ocotillo Cactus. If you look hard you can see a coyote on the right side of this photo.

Here is a collage of some of the many animals we saw at the desert zoo. Left to right starting from the top: Gray Wolf, Javelina, Turkey, White Tale Deer, and a Black Bear. It was pretty awesome to see all of these animals so close up. 

Here is Jordan sitting on a little coyote statue. He thought it was so fun!

There were some sweet elderly folks at the zoo who said that our little girl was the cutest thing there. I have to agree... She's pretty darn adorable. 

More animals... Left to right starting from the top: Bobcat, Bobcat (again), Ocelot, Red Fox, and Desert Big Horn Sheep. In case you were wondering, yes the Fox sleeping on a blanket. We all need our blank'eys when we sleep. 

Preston and Jordan checking out the Ocelot.

Jordan is riding a big horn sheep statue... Mommy's just making sure he doesn't fall off. What a happy boy! He was loving the zoo. 

We saw a little shop in the zoo that had ice cream and we couldn't walk by without getting some. It was cold and yummy. 

Jordan is very much like his Dad in that he LOVES ice cream. 

A desert view. This is one of the tallest Saguaro cactus I've ever seen. 

When we came home after the fun time at the Desert Museum/Zoo it was time for some dinner. I wanted homemade pizza for dinner. Preston cooked the pizza's on the grill out back. They were delicious. Later we had my traditional Cherry Chip birthday cake with Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. It was a wonderful birthday spent making new memories with my sweet family. What a great day!