your never to young to have a starbucks.

Just kidding, it's chocolate milk people.
The boys have to have their Saturday dose of chocolate milk and sometimes, even a muffin!
Last Saturday while I was at work, Jim had to do some errands for Britton and took all the boys to Starbucks for a special treat. As soon as they pulled into the drive through Jack said "Is mommy here!"
Hee hee. Of course that's silly right? I mean obviously I was at the coffee bean & tea leaf and NOT a Starbucks (corporate mongrels :-).
Now I know there have been studies about how if you put healthy food in a McDonalds wrapper that kids will gladly eat it where as they wouldn't before. Well the same goes for Starbucks cups with my kids, they will eagerly suck down water or carrot juice & beet juice if it is in a coffee cup with a straw!
You just have to be tricky sometimes. I have also been know to "sneak" spinach, kale, broccoli and a bunch of other veggies into anything I can think of. The boys are going to be very confused if anyone ever makes them Kraft Mac & Cheese and it isn't green!

Egg Carton Critters

The boys have so much fun using their artistic genius to create artful expressions of their world.... o.k. they like to make a big mess. Anyway, it is fun and takes up at least 15 minutes out of the day where no one is screaming, kicking or pushing each other.
We decided to put our used egg cartons to use by making bugs, sharks turtles and robots! The boys love to show off their project of the day when daddy gets home. It is worth all of the mess to hear the excitement in their little voices when they say "Daddy, come see what I made, it's a cattapiwer!"

climb to conquer cancer

Jim and Britton went up to Flagstaff last weekend to do a 7 mile walk/hike up the mountain to raise $$ for the fight against cancer. Jim works for APS and they are very involved in the community. They sponsor several different organizations and are actively involved in donating time and $ to the red cross, schools etc. Jim writes communications for APS and did interviews while on the hike and wrote a column about the event. Britton raised $ to donate.

no autographs please!

My baby is getting so big! He is keeping up with his big brother Jack and copies EVERYTHING he does. Nolan's vocabulary amazes me! It is limitless.
He is becoming quite the little daredevil I'm afraid. He climbs up onto counters and tables and into the toilets and sinks. Child proof locks don't even slow him down at all! We had to turn Britton's and the bathroom door knobs around so we can keep them locked from the inside. He has been getting into Britton's room were the 2 guinea pigs are and climbing into the cage and trying to catch them. I hear the poor things squealing from across the house and have to come to the rescue (about 72 times a day until we turned the locks inside out). Britton has a loft bed 8 feet high which Jack has already fallen off of and landed on his head sending us on a very scary ambulance ride to the hospital. Nolan threw the worlds biggest fit when he couldn't get in the room anymore. He says "I want the bibby pibs, peeeesss mommeeee peeeeesss!" so sad. half of my day has been spent taking them out into the front room so Nolan and Jack can feed them carrots.

Children's museum of Phoenix

This place is amazing! We went twice last week. Well the first time we went the air conditioning was broken so they gave us all free passes to come back. Hot as we were we still had a blast.
There is so much for little guys to do there it can't all be done in a day. This little grocery store was a huge hit for all the kids. Miniature shelves were stocked with groceries & produce complete with scales for weighing. Jack & Nolan loved pushing their little carts around and loading them up. It is so awesome to watch them imagining and pretending. Jack was looking at the canned goods and saying things like "hmmmm, what should we have for dinner mommy?" and "Do we need cereal?" All the kids there were pretending to be different employees of the store; cashier, restocking the shelves, sweeping up.



Jack got to make his very own pizza then bake it in the brick oven. Then he made some soup in the completely stocked and decked out kitchen.




The museum is very hands on, however I was awed by the creative displays of art all throughout. These pictures don't do it justice, it is pretty impressive and everything from the light fixtures to the stair railings has an artistic element. There was a two story high wall of CD's hanging and glimmering in the sun coming in from the two story high windows. Huge origami birds & bugs dangled from the ceiling. You have to see the giant wall of shoes that spans down one hallway. In the "kitchen" there were several really neat sculptures made from hundreds of twisted and tangled silverware, and chandeliers made of cups and cookware were hanging from the ceiling.



Nolan LOVED the ball room. There were so many different things they could put balls in and watch them roll, plop and hit a Levy and go through a funnel and come out a tunnel, too cool. Even the hallways were filled with things to do.

Happy birthday to me...

My new D&B bag.
Jim & I were out having lunch & shopping around at westgate last week and we went into my favorite store, Apricot Lane. It's the coolest little boutique with really unique clothing and accessories. I saw a giraffe purse there that I fell in love with. It was only like $50. I gathered up every last bit of my self restraint and didn't get it. Then yesterday, I came home from work and we celebrated my birthday a week early so my mom could be there and made me a yummy lemon cake. Jim brought home dinner from Babbos and I got to open my birthday presents too! I was completely surprised by this Dooney & Bourke bag! Jim had gone back to Apricot lane to get my bag but it was gone. He spent all day searching for a giraffe bag and luckily for me found this one, I LOVE it! I also got a really pretty wallet from Fossil and a Sirius radio for my car and the house. What a spoiled girl I am! We are going out to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant with several friends next week for my official birthday :-)

thought for the week

Bee part of the solution...

not the problem!

Did you know that Americans buy more than 25 Billion single water bottles every year, and believe it or not, 2.5 million of them get thrown away every hour! A water bottle takes more than 1,000 years to break down in a landfill!!! Don't BEE a water snob, use a reusable glass or sports bottle & drink filtered water out of your fridge or from a filter system like Brita. Landfills are overflowing and at their limits. Where will we dump all of our unnecessary trash next? Don't leave it for our children to figure out. Start making more environmentally friendly choices when you shop, not convenience based ones.

Yummy Vegetables

O.K. this post was supposed to be about something funny Jack said about eating his veggies, but the picture is pretty interesting all by itself. Jack is a man of a million expressions. He was just making one of his usual silly faces when I snapped this and the dot was on my camera lens. It looks like he is being attacked by a large bug or something, he just so happens to be looking that way.

Anyway, back to the point... Jack now asks me what is for dinner. In my best attempt to make it sound interesting I say " noodles and yummy yummy vegetables!" In the same excited tone he says "well I do not like yummy yummy vegetables and your driving me crazy!" Oh well I tried. They were blended up and snuck into his noodles anyway with a few on the side to "instill healthy eating habits".

Any ideas on how to get awnry 3 year olds to eat their veggies I'm all ears. Nolan is a great healthy eater. He will eat just about anything we put in front of him! Even gazpacho (tomato juice & blended onions & veggies) and salad, most veggies, tofu and pickled beets. If you think that's odd, the only thing he refuses to eat is chicken nuggets of all things! Go figure!

MUSIC STIMULATES THE MIND...

We had a musical play date at our house today. It was very fun, in a loud crazy way. There were about 15 little musical masterminds here all displaying there unique musical talent. Jack found that he has a gift at the harmonica, and everyone enjoyed his songs the ENTIRE time.

All the kids got to customize their very own tambourines. The little maestros chimed in with maracas. We had a lot of fun playing with all of our friends! Creativity is good for the mind (not to mention nap time!)


Nolan discovered an African Drum was the instrument he loved. He was marching to the beat until he discovered the top came off and then he was occupied only in putting small things in and out of the drum for the rest of the day.

This is starting to be a regular thing.

This kid is going to give me a heart attack. At the very least he is giving me wrinkles at an early age. I don't consider myself to be unnecessarily or overly dramatic when it comes to "normal" bumps, bruises or minor catastrophes. With 3 boys, one must remain calm and not get worked up every time there is an accident. Jack however is making sure that the Surprise Fire Department knows us well enough to remember our names and chit chat with us when we run into them at the grocery store. Slightly embarrassing.
In short, Jack got into something in our bathroom, I can't for the life of me figure out what exactly, and ate/ inhaled it. He started having a very hard time breathing, coughing non stop and gagging so I tried to take him to the hospital but he was making scary gasping noises and choking so I had to call 911. After a couple of X-Rays they decided to keep us overnight. He was scheduled to have an endoscopy surgery to look into his lungs but thank God got much better after a few breathing treatments!