Independence Day 2009!

This year for the 4th of July we decided to host a family barbecue. It was pretty low-key which I loved, because I have a tendency to get all stressed out over hosting events!

My BIL said this pictures had better not end up on Facebook, so I am respecting his wishes and blogging them instead. :)

We played some Rockband....


Joshua and Taisei sung back-up.


This picture cracked me up because it was a picture of Joshua and Tai looking at pictures of themselves on the computer.

These cuties are two of my other nephews, Kazuma and Asher. (So technically Kazuma is my second cousin-in-law, but that is just a mouthful.) They are about 6 weeks apart and are just cute as can be.

Dragon Party

Joshua's friend, Josh, turned 3 and had an awesome Dragon Party. Holly did such a fantastic job with swords and shields for the kids to paint, a Dragon egg hunt, pin the tail on the dragon, and a fantastic Dragon cake.

You couldn't hardly pull Joshua out of the playhouse in their backyard. He loved that thing! If ever he decides to run away, I will know where he went.

Joshua and Josh

Morgan thought that painting her sword was the coolest thing ever. We let her go until she decided it would be more fun to just stick her fingers in the paint.



Here is the awesome cake Holly made. The wings and fire are fruit roll-ups. I just can't get over how adorable it was.


Thanks for inviting us, we had a great time!

Culture Pass Tips

I was going to post a response to Missy's comment about tips for obtaining a Culture Pass, but I figured it would be valuable information for everyone.

I don't recommend trying to get the passes from the Tempe library. They put the passes for the day out at random times to avoid mobbing. (Yes, I'm serious.) Therefore you have to just be very lucky to get passes for the hot ticket places(Zoo, Children's museum, science center, AZ museum for youth).

Each library branch has 5 tickets to each place, so I recommend trying a smaller branch of the Mesa or Phoenix libraries.

The tickets are "checked out" for a seven day period. It doesn't matter when you use the pass in the seven day period, it won't be available at the library again until it has come due on your card. Therefore each library might not even have all the different passes available every day of the week.

You might want to make friendly with the librarians to find out when different passes will be coming available. From my observations they don't appreciate people that are too pushy or try to get around the guidelines. On the day I got the passes to the Children's museum a woman and each of her kids checked out Phoenix zoo passes. So this one family had 3 of the 5 passes for the zoo. The librarian wasn't too keen on it, but they can't really refuse it.

Some of the museums have different times where admission is free. For example the zoo is free for kids all summer. Phoenix Children's museum is free the First Friday of the month from 6-10pm.

Check out the website for additional information http://www.showup.com/culturepass

If you have any tips or important info, please comment. I like to do things with military like precision and knowledge is power. (Yes, I'm that much of a control freak)

Phoenix Children's Museum

On July 1st, I finally made it to the Phoenix Children's Museum with my SIL Tiffany, and my Cousin-in-Law(CIL) Nanna, whom I really sort of feel more like is a Sister in law, but I think now we are just getting confusing . We were able to use Culture Passes to get in for free!! I love free. It was so much fun. It was a lot of work chasing down Morgan and trying to keep Joshua from being too shy, but once they both got into it, it was a total blast.
I hope to make it back several times while the culture Pass program is still going on, but I'm not sure I'm ready to fork over the $135 it would be for myself and the 2 kids for a membership.

I took so many pictures, so I've done more collages to get as much bang for the buck. It seems like collages are the only way I'm ever going to get caught up on all the fun activities we have been doing. On to the pictures!! (Click for bigger)



Joshua's favorite part was probably the car race track or all the different "ball drops" they had. They best way I could describe it is like a big game of mousetrap, except you can just keep dropping these balls and watch them follow this big track.

Morgan's favorite part was the grocery store area. She LOVED scooping up the beans over and over again.

My favorite part was the toddler area where kids over 3 weren't supposed to be. It was an enclosed area so Morgan couldn't escape and it was just so nice and mellow there.

After a few hours there we stopped at the slowest Burger King in existence and got some lunch. We came back to the house and let the boys play while we ate and relaxed. It was such a blast!

The Many Faces of Morgan

I think the pictures say it all!


Click for larger image.

Father's Day weekend!

So besides enjoying our new TV we had a pretty fun Father's Day weekend. Saturday morning we got up and took the kids to the two-story carousel at Superstition Springs Mall. Joshua was brave and rode on the top level because Daddy was with him.

After that we met up with Ryan's Dad at Fuddrucker's for a delicious lunch. The kids loved all the games to play, and I really enjoyed the stuffed animal, claw game. I decided to make all the Dad's in my life Giant cookies. Yum! There's a picture in the collage of my FIL with his cookie and his card, it sang "Lean on Me."



On Sunday, Ryan got to prove what a good Dad he was and stay home with two sick kids. That night for dinner we went over to my parents house to celebrate with a nice Prime Rib dinner. Yummy again!

Father's Day Finally!

I've been holding off on my blogging because I really wanted to get our Father's Day project finished. It finally is done!

For Father's Day Ryan got a new flat panel TV. Yippee! Only problem is that it wasn't going to fit in our old entertainment center. We decided to get creative with the Expedit bookcase that we already had for my craft supplies. With a lot of playing and a little bit of helping from the kids,



we turned this...

into this . . .


I love it and I'm pretty sure Ryan does too! Happy Father's Day Ryan! You totally deserve a nice place to kick up your feet and relax sometimes! We love you!