july

Woo Hoo! I’m almost all caught up!

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July started with these 3 getting to go to the Gilbert Temple to do Baptisms.

It’s pretty neat to see your children go off together to the Temple.

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It did take awhile to get a good picture of the 3 of them that I could actually post…

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It’s summer in AZ…

The dust. Most evenings we get dust. On a lucky evening we may get a few drops of rain with the dust. On a rare night we get lightening and torrential rain.

We could use less dust and more rain.

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We had the most laid-back 4th of July evah…and it was delightful.

We had all sorts of plans, but we just ended up hanging out together. We played a few games. There may have been coloring with crayons involved. Burgers were grilled.

But after dark we got crazy…

Sparklers!

Yep…we are seriously out of control crazy.

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As soon as the 4th of July weekend was over our summer break kind of ends. Drumline camp started bright and early for these guys.

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We also had our air conditioner go out twice this summer.

It was only the unit that cools the downstairs. At least our bedrooms stayed nice and cool.

The kitchen and living areas on the other hand were kind of unbearable.

It may have resulted in not cooking…and consuming ice cream for dinner.

It’s nutritious…right?

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And BOOM…just like that you are all up-to-date on the Chaos.

easter 2014

We had a fun Easter weekend.

I think this year I was finally able to admit out-loud that Easter is my favorite holiday. I think that Thanksgiving is way too much work for one meal. Christmas is just too much everything. Halloween…well it’s just Halloween. But Easter! It usually involves new clothes, chocolate and it’s just a weekend.

Perfect!

 

Our weekend started on Friday and since all the kids were out of school it was a great day to dye Easter eggs.

We had a bonus cousin to help dye eggs with us.

Can you tell LaLa and Chloe are related?

We usually make egg dying an outside activity, but I decided we would be doing it inside this year. Why?

About 5 seconds after taking this picture the red dye LaLa was using was the first cup to be spilled and the green was spilled about 2 seconds after that.

After a small cleaning break and maybe a couple bad words the egg dying continued.

And as always we had spectacular results…

well, as spectacular as a few dozen eggs and a cheap egg dying kit can be.

On Saturday morning we woke up and found the Easter Bunny had made a stop at our house.

It was very obvious that LaLa and Hammie quickly consumed way too much sugar…

We also spent part of Saturday taking care of a few girly details to get ready for Sunday.

The Boyz did a few manly things…like dancing with pretty girls at the stake dance.

Sunday morning we went to Church to learn and think about Christ.

Some of us did this whilst looking pretty spiffy…

After Church we have a tradition of going to the Mesa Temple to take pictures. We haven’t gone for the last couple of years because we were waiting to be able to go to our new Temple for Easter pictures.

I went back and found Easter pictures from the time Hammie was born and it is fun to see how quickly the kids are growing and changing.

And finally this years…

It was pretty warm and sunny at the Temple so after we went home and took a few in our shady yard.

Yep…it’s the standard pose.

And the kids were kind enough to cooperate and let me take a few more pictures…

I’ve had people comment that my kids are so good to just stand there while I take pictures. That isn’t always the case…

And there are times they just don’t know what to do with their hands…

After trying their patience with pictures I did feed them a delish Easter dinner.

It may be our new traditional Easter dinner. It was pecan-crusted pork chops, crash potatoes, spinach and strawberry salad and deviled eggs…oh and jello eggs, because it wouldn’t be Easter without those.

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

insta-friday 1.3.2014

Can you believe it’s already the first Friday of 2014?!? 2014! It’s crazy.

Here are a few of the pictures I’ve snapped with my phone over the last week.

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Can I tell you how much I love Famous Footwear? I loooove Famous Footwear. Like I want to sit in a tree with them.

The Man-Child needed/wanted some new shoes. The boy is seriously the roughest person on shoes ever. So he and I headed over to Famous Footwear to find some shoes for him. It wasn’t difficult since he already knew what he wanted. I pulled out my trusty little Famous Footwear app and realized I had a $20 reward certificate and they had a $10 coupon on their app. I can handle saving $30 on a $50 pair of Vans.

If you don’t have their app…get it!

And no they don’t pay me to say that…but they should!

Well I guess they kind of do with all the money they save me on shoes!

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The girlies wanted sparkly finger nails and I gave them very sparkly finger and toe nails!

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We have enjoyed some pretty amazing sunsets lately.

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We spent Sunday evening watching movies. I love, love, love that Hammie will still climb up on my lap and cuddle.

Such a sweet boy.

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And speaking of Hammie…

He finally had his last physical therapy appointment. It has been a really long 5 months and it’s nice to be done with all the mess with his leg.

He still has a little bit of a limpy run with that leg, but it hasn’t slowed him down in the slightest.

To get the full impact of this broken leg saga you have to go back to the beginning of the Chaos story. The leg he broke was the same one that had so many issues when he was little and had so many years of therapy already. The limpy is just another bump in the road that will be overcome in time. This boy is a serious miracle child!

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New Years Eve was spent with my Family. We had a great spread of food so it wasn’t a problem to stay awake and welcome in the New Year.

All the drinks from QT might have helped also…

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Well not all of us were together for New Years Eve. The Man-Child and Einstein went to the New Year Eve Dance with Cousin Emma. Aubrey stayed home with the rest of us and played games.

It’s nice to finally have cousins that are the same age as the kids living so close to us.

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On January 1st Christmas was cleaned up. I am usually ready to take the Christmas tree down the day after Christmas, but this year it took a little while longer to get the job done.

Plus my Christmas decorations had outgrown our totes and we had to add a new one this year. It drives me crazy that it’s red with a green lid and not green with a red lid… OCD much?

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By the time Christmas was cleaned up it was time for dinner and thankfully crappy pizzas hit the spot.

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I was pretty pathetic on my reading last year and this year I vow to get my reading mojo back.

This is the first book of the year…with a goal of reading 50.

I better get busy reading.

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Rainbow Loom…

Need I say more?

The girlies are getting really good and fast at cranking these bracelets out. I’m not quite sure I need 7 rubber band bracelets…and how long do they really expect me to keep wearing them?!?

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Find me on Instagram @embracethechaos