What did I do to deserve this? It's 5 o'clock and the girls are playing nicely, the music is bumpin, fritatta is in the oven, and I have a gin and tonic in hand. I even went through the trouble of adding a twist of lime.

School is awesome. in NTR 142 we we made froccocia bread. Other groups made: snicker doodles, cornbread, cream puffs, Indian flat bread, apple muffins, and biscuits. There went my carb intake for the day! Hence the crustless fritatta that's in the oven. I took pictures, because it's rather pretty, but of course I don't have the camera or lighting to make it look as good as it does in person.

Anyways... My other class, NTR 300 is going well too. I hope to be done with my website by Monday. Here is the link. http://www.public.asu.edu/~eacorn/. I've really enjoyed doing this. Meal planning is my favorite!

As I write this, I am being treated to a play Junie B. Jones style. Zoe is being a good sport and I'm glad they have stopped terrorizing Jax long enough to play something else.

I'm going to get this lapotop off my lap so I can clap. These girls are fantastic actresses ;o)

Family Vaction to Greer, AZ

 Last weekend we made good on a groupon that we were supposed to use this summer, but couldn't due to wildfires in the area. Greer, AZ is really on the road to no where. The population is only 177! But I'm sure the population can more than double in the summer and during ski season.

 We stayed at the Greer Lodge Resort in the Log motel rooms. Their amenities were included in the price and included: kayaking, fly fishing, mountain bikes, telescopes, games, DVD's, and a nightly camp fire.  

 We really enjoyed the two hikes we went on (except Zoe got tired at the end of the first). The first one was by a creek where we met a few people with lots of fish!

 The girls loved the dandelions and the wildflowers. They spent lots of time picking, collecting, and blowing. It was getting to be a bit overwhelming when they wanted to pick every flower they saw so we had to explain to them that we should leave some in the ground because they are living things and other people may want to look at them... Anyways... it was really cute and I was happy to see them running freely and enjoying nature.

 We brought the rain boots just in case, but we didn't find any puddles.

 This was my first time in a kayak. I prefer a canoe.

 The second hike was a bit more challenging. It was lovely to smell the pine and listen to the wind blow through the aspen (reminded me of cottonwood trees at clear lake), and hear the creek in the background.

 Yes, we were so happy to see ponds that we took our picture by every one we saw!

 And what they don't tell you in the brochure is that it's so nice to sit out on the porch drinking beer and wine while the kids can move freely from the room to the outside. Also there is a bar on the property right next door to the hotel rooms with cheap drinks and a patio where you can look at the ponds, mountains, and your kids playing.

Gosh, I, we had such a nice time. I want to go back with my Dad and Katie sometime because they would love it as much as we did. I loved it as much as I love going to back to SD/ND/MN. It made my soul happy.

2011 Warrior Dash in Florence, Arizona

Woohoo! I'm a 2011 Warrior Dash Survivor! The whole experience of the race day was energetic. There were hundreds of people there. And some really awesome costumes. Our matching outfits were pretty lame in comparison, but we looked cute and stuck together the entire 3.4 miles and all 12 obstacles.

Dave sported a mohawk for the race. He pulled away from Shana and I early on.
He finished about 10 minutes before we did. And apparently he dove right into the mud pit!

We crawled under barbed wire, over steep mounds of dirt, ran over cars and through tires, scaled and repelled walls, ran though mud, climbed cargo netting and hay bales, walked planks, and ran over fire, jumped in a mud pit and crawled under barbed wire to get out.

I felt like a rockstar. HAHA!

Dave was so sweet to wait for Shana and I with my camera. Here we are with our medals and bananas before we were sprayed with fire hoses to clean off all the mud.

Our next step was to cash in on our free beer we earned. I gave mine to Dave...

My cousins ran an hour after us. So, this is our "team" photo.

At the event there is live music, turkey legs and stuff like that, beer, and lots of people just hanging out. If you are even thinking about participating in a Warrior Dash, do it! And dress as crazy as possible. And the more you have in your group the merrier. We all agreed that next year we will have to put much more thought into our costumes.

Happiness is...

... slowing down and taking the long way home because a good song comes on the radio and you don't want to turn down the volume or stop singing at the top of your lungs.


Happiness is the car behind you getting pulled over in a school zone.

Happiness is achieving a personal best. 40 minute 5K! :)

Happiness is a Mom who loves your children.


Happiness is enjoying this beautiful spring day.

Can I do it by myself?

Can I do it by myself and I can do it! Are phrases that we hear quite often around our house. Usually they come from Zj and usually the requests refer to scissors and glue. Tonight it was K's turn to "Can I do it by myself?"
By the way Z was watching K make her lunch I'm sure Z will want to make her own lunch tomorrow. And yes, given the choice, Kayleigh would wear spaghetti straps and skirts 24/7. Boy, I can't wait until the Summer. Everyday it's: Can I wear short sleeves, are those capris, where's my skirt, can we go swimming? She is in so many ways her father's daughter.

She was pretty proud of herself and so were we!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know what it looks like. That I bought special dishes for Valentines day. They are actually Christmas plates that I picked up for 25 cents each and the ramikens were around the same price.

I love Valentine's day! It's a great excuse to shower the people you love with extra love and eat decadent foods!

It's also a day that my husband really out does himself with gifts. He's a great gift giver. This year my gift was a bright red (my favorite color) dutch oven! I'm over the moon about it! I've wanted one for years.

Our little darlings were tickled pink when I told them we would be dressing up for dinner- even daddy.

Look! Zoe made it through dinner and got dessert. I guess we have to have rib-eye and asparagus every night so she will eat. That kid loves herself some asparagus.

Cheers to Kayleigh! She is so sweet. At dinner she said, "Next year, I don't want to celebrate Valentine's Day with everyone that I know. Just you guys that I know." Meaning her family. After, she quickly added, "I wish Grandma was here celebrating her birthday with us." Little did she know that Gma and Pa were comming after dinner :)

Kayleigh Michelle

My little Kayleigh Bear. She truly is amazing. I'm just in love with her. I love how she cares about people and animals and how everything she learns at school is so cool and important. She likes words and she often uses big ones. Aside from people and animals, she also shows interest in the Earth, eating healthy, and being a teenager :/ I also admire how patient she is with her sister and how she tries to teach Zoe the things she learns. When in a good mood, she'll praise her sister's coloring or when Z uses a new word she gets excited. SOMETIMES she'll even pretend to run slow and tell Zoe how fast she is and that she could never catch up.

She is also fortunate to get Dave's sense of humor and his artistic abilities. She says the craziest things. One day, K was trying to pin Dave down to tickle him but Dave prevailed. She responded by saying, "Well played Daddy."

At the end of the day, while Dave is reading Zoe her book, Kayleigh comes to the living room to tell me how much she loves me. She'll say things like: Mommy, I love you. I just think about you all day when I'm at school and wonder what you are doing. You are just so beautiful and I love you.

It only seems fitting that I end this post with this: Kayleigh, I love you. You are beautiful on the inside and out. You are smart and caring. You have the best smile. I love everything about you from your head to your toes. I'm proud to be your Mommy.

around the house

I'm totally in love with the weather (except today, it's supposed to be 99). The mornings and evenings are beautiful. And I do believe our complex courtyard was made perfectly to keep you cooler longer. Part of the draw to this place was the fully grown trees. I come from South Dakota... I'm a sucker for trees and grass. Miss Z has been practicing her scooting skills. She does a little ballet on her scooter. As a part of her "routine" she does the standard put your leg up in the air, but she also adds a little get off the scooter, a plie, a spin, then gets on and continues on her way. It's very cute.

We can't wait for Kayleigh to come home so they can have snacks under the canopy of trees.Namaste from Zoe!

me and my babes

Miss Z was super stoked to have her hair in two(!) french braids. She kept saying, "I look like Kayleigh!"

Sometimes we go to the gym after school so Kayleigh can play with her cousins at the daycare. We have time to kill in the mean time so once in a while I take the girls to McDonalds where they enjoy ice cream. We get homework out of the way too! Here we are one Saturday morning. We were having such a nice morning family and weather wise I opted to stay home instead of my usual gym time. :)

I've been keeping up with my workouts and suprise myself at all I can do. It's only been a few months! I'm happy to say that my longest time jogging/walking on the treadmill is 32 minutes. One day I'm going to run a 5K!!!

Keeping Busy

Holy busy! We've been keeping quite busy these last few weeks and there is no sign of slowing down. Well, at least not for me anyways :) Dave and I snuck in a date night. It was perfect. A 3 course meal, Jerame and Danielle, an after dinner stroll in Old Town, and a super cool wine bar.

The girls have been keeping me really busy. Zoe has just been hard to handle. I think she has OCD, but I'm sure it's just her age?!? She seems to need constant attention. Hence, the lack of blogging. Even now, after setting her up with a snack and a craft, she is still hungry and wants to do something else....

Kayleigh is really enjoying school. The biggest change I see in her is that she is trying to read- finally! She has never liked me trying to teach her things, so it's good that someone else can. We went to the bookstore the other day and she picked out a Barbie vet book and she reads it at least twice a day. Typical Kayleigh... Pretty+Girly+Animals = Kayleigh I think one day she will own a blinged out vet clinic. :) Zoe stayed with my parents for a few days (THANK YOU MOM AND DAD) so to welcome her home we decorated around her bed. She was quite pleased with it :)

And in case you were wondering what K is doing in the above picture, she is giving her sister a tattoo. When she was done she even covered it in plastic. LOL!

keeping busy

We have been keeping ourselves busy these past few weeks. Which has been nice, but it's also nice to play too.
painting feet and letting them run on a expanse of paper seemed to be a big hit.

ha- it rained... for like 90 seconds. Very exciting for people here in the Valley of the Sun.

We hooked Kayleigh up with a computer and games. She's a quick learner. We have never really let Kayleigh play on the computer. She's 5 for goodness sakes! She's supposed to be using that thing us grown-ups forget about... Imagination! Touchy subject I guess.... Anyways. She has computer lab in school so we didn't want her to be left behind.

I promised the girls if they learned to swim we would take them to the aquarium. Kayleigh was so excited to be there. She is such an animal lover. She kept picking out a fish in each tank and saying it was her friend.

more condo

This is taken from the master looking towards the kid's wing. ;o) To the left is the bathroom and play room and to the right is their bedroom.

Bedroom video:

Our first meal was on the 4th of July and consisted of hot dogs, corn, and watermelon.

the new pad

It's been fun getting settled into our little condo. We love the character of place. It's old and has lots of quirks. Here is the walkway to our place... the pool is behind the bushes. I'm so happy to have a yard and pool (that I don't have to care for)! Here is the front. We are on the bottom, tucked away in a corner. The trees are amazing. There are orange trees all over the property. Yay!Here is what you see when you enter. The lighting/fan situation has been interesting. We have it all figured out now... I know for a fact that the next house we have will be flooded with natural light.This is the view if you look left from the entry way. The wetbar and kitchen got cropped out. I'll take a picture of the area later. It's strange. Although down-sizing has been a challenge, I think it will suit us just fine.

More to come...

Before and After

we put a lot of love into this house. i'm really going to miss it.

that horrible fan is going to haunt my dreams though ;o)

i don't have a picture handy, but my favorite part of the house is my red walls and white cabinets in the kitchen.