Halloween

For Halloween my son decided to be stubborn and refused to wear any of the costumes my sister had ready.  He cried and cried so I took them all off.  Then he saw my niece's hairbow and decided to wear that instead.  He wore it forever and wouldn't take it off.  Too cute.  Oh yeah, and here's a recent picture of me.  I went as a mom who does her hair and makeup every morning, because that is definitely not me.  Apparently I need to learn how to do my makeup better.  Yikes.

Snowflake Trip

I have a whole bunch a places I want to visit in AZ before Stephen graduates in May.  There aren't any job openings here and so chances are we'll be living somewhere else once he gets a job.  So I wanted to explore Arizona while we still have the chance.  Still left on my list are Tombstone/Bisbee...we did a quick trip there already and I'm dying to go back, also Prescott/Jerome.  I've been to Prescott, but never Jerome.  

It's also one of my goals to see as many temples as I can.  Already this year my mom and sister went with me out to the Gila Temple in Safford, I was married in the Mesa Temple, and I've been to both the supposed Phoenix Temple site and the Gilbert Temple site.  All that was left in Arizona was to see the Snowflake Temple.  So up we went.  

While on the drive I had to change my son's diaper.  I've always struggled doing this in the car but this time I got smart and changed him in the trunk where there's tons of room!   I was pretty proud of this genius move.

Here we are at the front waterfall of the Temple.

I was testing out my ISO and I LOVE this shot of my cutie.

I would love to have huge pictures of the Temples in our home, but I'm not about to pay ridiculous prices for them, so I'm taking my own shots to later edit and frame.  I like the way these turned out.

On the way back we stopped in Show Low because my mom had never been before.  While eating lunch this older gentleman came in and was telling the craziest, loudest story I've ever heard before.  We quickly made our escape and found his beaten-up truck.  It seriously looks like Mater from Cars.  My mom stealthily took these pictures from the inside of our car.  

We're talking same color(s) and it was crazy to see the aging on this vehicle.

The tires were sooo bald.  The tread was literally worn off.  

As we were pulling away I saw that the back of the truck was held together with rope.  We had already put away the camera so I didn't get a picture, but this will live on in my memory as the Mater truck.  What it lacked in safety it certainly made up for in personality.

My Son - The Artist

My son LOVES to color.  On the floor, on the table, on our doors.  So finally I bought a Color Wonder set and Stephen likes it.  I had to capture these pictures because he looks so stinkin' big!  He isn't my baby anymore!  

See his coloring?  He's quite the artist.

Too Cute!

Asian Market

Right around the corner from our apartment is this huge Asian Market.  It's really like a shopping mall.  There's all these fun stores on the outside and then in the middle is their grocery store.  We decided to take a look and got all touristy taking pictures of the weird/interesting items we saw.  First up, Squid and Octopus.  Yum.

Next we've got cooked blood, and heart of animals and other unusual body parts I would rather never ingest.  

Here's a fruit (or is it a vegetable?) that we can't even identify.  These were quite large.

The melon named after my niece...surely.  When I told her about the Winter Melon she HAD to see it and was super excited.   

Banana Blossoms.  I don't even know how you would attempt to eat this.

Mint.  I've seen various recipes call for mint but I can never seem to find any sort of a variety in the local groceries.  Here there's more than I could ever need.  

I can't wait to go back and buy some of the interesting things to try...like the fruits and vegetables, not the cooked blood.  I'm a little closed-minded like that.

P.S.  some of my pictures are portrait and blogger wouldn't upload them correctly, so you missed the pictures of the pigs ears, and chicken feet...boneless and bone-in.  There was also a picture of dragon fruit and korean melon.  But you'll just have to take my word for it.

My Crazy Bathroom

Be kind to me as I'm about to show you the awkwardness that is our 1 3/4 bathroom.  I took the pictures before I had organized it better.

I am standing in our son's bathtub to take this picture.  His bathroom has two doors, a sink and bathtub/shower and mirrors.  The bathroom through the door has two doors, a sink, a bathtub/shower, a tri-fold mirror and the toilet.  It's just awkward.

Here's a nice shot of the three bathroom doors.  IV will come and knock on one of the doors and then run to the other one and knock on that too.  It's pretty cute.

Funnies

Last night as Stephen and I were talking to each other we had a conversation that went a little something like this:

Me: What can goats be used for?
Stephen:  Human lawn-mowers.

Haha.  I was laughing so hard at that one.

So I am a grammar/spelling nazi.  It bothers me when people misuse our language.  Here's some that I've seen lately.

Talking about the natural environment ..."natural train"  It's supposed to be "terrain".  This one might be my favorite.

In reference to parents..."I was a loud to go ..."  hahaha.

And for those of you over-achievers I'm sure you were involved in many "extra circular activates".  Man oh man, spell check can't fix everything people!

And the one that bothers me the most...a "collage" is an arts and crafts project.  "College" is a form of higher learning.  Sometimes when I see people who don't know which is which I wonder if they should even BE in college.  But then I realize even I make spelling and grammar mistakes and I let it slide. 

P.S. On a non-funny note, I've only got 10 pounds to lose!  Yipee!  I've lost a total of 47 pounds since giving birth.  That's quite impressive!

IV Summer Catch-Up

At my parents' house IV loved to look out the front window by the door.  Not too long ago he had to tippy-toe to see over the ledge.  Now he's tall enough that he doesn't need it.  He would HAVE to watch anytime someone left.

He caught me spying on him!  

Cutie pie loves to have his picture taken, although he has to get right up next to the camera.

Adorable.  Excuse my feet.

This was back when he would take a bottle after he woke up.  I had just brought him downstairs and set him on the couch and apparently I was too slow in getting him something to eat.  I was so surprised that he just dug right in!

Love him.

Over the Summer we went to the Aquarium with the family and had a blast.

Afterwards we went to eat at the Rainforest Cafe and IV was so tired and cranky and needed a nap.  He will only fall asleep on my sister and she wouldn't give him up for the world, so we just put a napkin over his head so she could keep eating.  Ha!

While Anjeanette was here, she graciously agreed to cut his hair.  And I cried.  It made him look so grown up!

Meteor Crater

Over the summer we went up to Meteor Crater.  On the way up our son decided to play peek-a-boo.

Too stinkin' cute!! 

Here's the drive up to the crater.  I imagined it to look taller from the outside.

My Stephens at the top of the crater.  It was soo windy.

In the lower left you can see the bottom of the crater where they did experiments and set up a mine for a short while.  Pretty cool.

Jean Quilt

I had made it a goal to finish piecing together the top of this jean quilt before we moved and I DID IT!  This blasted thing took MONTHS.  Not because I'm super slow and procrastinated it (which certain didn't help) but because these pieces all came from old jeans.  I had to cut the seams off these old jeans, then cut the squares out of the leftover pant material.  My mom had been saving jeans for YEARS and I cut ALL of the jeans up.  I could made many more quilts out of the cut material but this one is for my family.  I'm so proud of it!  Now I just need to figure out what to do with it.

Pretty isn't it?  And even though this one's fuzzy, my son was being adorable so I had to include it anyway.

IV Recently

This is from my niece's party.  While everyone was enjoying themselves, my son found entertainment pushing this child's chair around my sister's house.  Too cute.

This is his typical ,"I'm-Concentrating-And-Having-So-Much-Fun-Face"

Here he is reading books at our apartment.  Although he couldn't look at the camera which of course distracted him from what he was doing.  He loves to read and I love endlessly reading him books.

Evidence that there is a toddler in our place.  He loves to get my cans out of the pantry and play with them on the floor.

He would put two kinda close together and then would walk sideways through them.  Too cute.  Then he started to stack them.  We don't have any blocks for him and it looks like we might need some.  I love coming into different rooms and seeing that he was there having fun.

This one is super fuzzy, but he was making the cheesiest face ever.  Too cute.

Catching Up - Garden Edition

I have soo much catching up to do.  These next few posts might be a hodge-podge of things that have happened this past summer.  Hope you enjoy the pictures and stories.

Right before we moved in August I noticed that our squash plants in our garden had become infested with squash bugs.  Nasty critters.  Can you see them?  They've sucked out the water from the squash plants, so they are mostly along the main stalk of the plant.  They are lightly colored with black legs.

Yuck!  My sister had them years ago and got rid of them by picking them off individually.  That was too gross for me and as the season was getting too hot and the squash plants were already dying we decided to yank the plants out and BURN the suckers!  

Stephen wielded the torch, my mom had the hose and I had the lighter fluid.  So we tore out the plants, soaked em and lit em up.  This picture show all the bugs on the garden boxes after we pulled the squash plants out.

We then control-burned the garden itself trying to rid it of all unwelcome visitors.  And it worked!

Gross.

On a better topic, our cucumbers are still doing really well.  My family had never seen Armenian cucumbers before, so here's two from our garden.  I love them.