Our fun, fun, fun filled week!

First things first, I just can't get enough of this face! I love his happy smile, with his sharp teeth and his giant eyeballs and his foofy hair. He just makes me laugh, and I love this picture!
Okay, now on with the fun...
So, last Monday Stanton and Noelle were so excited to finish the gajillion Valentine's they made and to deliver them to the nursing homes. The kids worked really hard the week leading up to Valentine's Day, coloring lots of pictures. Luckily they both LOVE coloring though, so they had fun doing it.
Grandma Mary came with us to the first nursing home, and took them to get happy meals afterwards, which seemed to be like the highlight of the century for them.
The highlight of the century for me was at the second nursing home when one lady handed the colorful heart back to us and said, "I don't want your Valentine. I wanna use the toilet." I could not even stop laughing!
All the rest of the Grandmas and Grandpas were much more excited to be our Valentine! We had a really wonderful time! Noelle even said, "It was the best day ever!"
The next day we had a Valentine's party with all of our new ward friends! It was tons of fun!
That night we had a special family Valentine's dinner, with heart shaped ice cubes, heart shaped pancakes, sparkling cider and rose petals and candles on the table.
One of the rose petals caught on fire, and my heart shaped pancakes didn't quite turn out as hearts (or pancakes,) but we still had a good time together eating our gross food.
On Wednesday we went to the zoo with friends, and we fed the ducks two bags of bread, after finally convincing Stanton that the signs were just teasing and we really can feed them.
He kept insisting that the sign with the giant picture of a duck and food with a slash through it meant that we couldn't share our bread crusts with them. Silly boy.
On Thursday we went to Peter Piper Pizza to use up the rest of our free summer reading program coupons.
As I was watching them go on the merry-go-round 10 times I got to thinking that I'd gotten so wrapped up in Valentine's Day, that I forgot that my heart also belonged to Arizona's centennial, and I realized I had totally missed an opportunity to celebrate my favorite state's 100th birthday!
So I decided that night we would throw Arizona a belated birthday party!
The kids were instantly on board, and then they asked if we could go to Target to buy Arizona a present.
I suggested that maybe we could plant a tree or something instead, and then Stanton suggested that we pick up all of the trash on Arizona's beaches???
So I took a little break from party planning to explain that Arizona is a beachless desert, but that picking up trash was a good idea.
So, happy belated Birthday Arizona! We picked up 4 pieces of trash, kind of a cheap gift, I know.
Then we went on a little hike.
We even woke Daddy up to hike with us cause a party's not a party without Daddy!
He was more thrilled than you might think, although he did gently remind me that 3:30pm to him is like 4:30 am to me.
Then we ate Mexican chili and jello with 100 candles in it. (I didn't make Arizona a cake cause I had been contemplating starting a diet. 5 days later, I'm still contemplating it.)
We actually only got about 40 of the candles lit before wax started melting all over the jello. Sorry Arizona.
Then we painted wooden snakes and scorpions and made cactus out of bananas that we painted green and toothpicks that we colored with a black Sharpie. They looked exactly like real cactus!!!! I was pretty proud of how they turned out!
We also did some Arizona trivia (Daddy got 100%) and we planned a family trip to the Grand Canyon for the distant future. I also tried to get everyone to call me by my Arizona name, which I had found out previously would be "Grapefruit Haboob," but it never really caught on.
By the end of the party, Winston was wearing his jello bowl as hat. Robert said that's the sign of a good party.
It was a lot of fun! I love my family, and I love Arizona, and I love throwing parties, so how could it be anything but a good time!
On Friday we went to Bass Pro Shop with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan and Landon and Cameron. Bass Pro Shop is always a good time!
Saturday, Daddy got us free tickets to see the Harlem Globe Trotters. I think Winsotn liked it the best out of everyone! He was so smiley and pointed at stuff the entire time.
We even got to go down to the court to meet HAcksaw, one of the players.
I just had to get a picture of this.
On Monday after Winston and Noelle's shots, we wanted to do something more fun than just going to the doctor's office, so we went to the park with some friends, and afterwads the four of us moms were brave enough to take 13 kids to Costco. Everyone in the tiny, crowded Costco food court was starring. It was a little chaotic, but they were all really well behaved, if I do say so myself. We even got one compliment on what fine mothers we must be to have so many good kids. Agreed! (:
And today, we went to the library and checked out the book "Frybread Man," which is an Arizona version of the Gingerbread Man. It's a really cute book.
There was a recipie for fry bread in the back, so we tried to make gingerbread man shaped fry bread.
They ended up looking more like burnt turtles than gingerbread men and tasting more like garbage than fry bread, but it was fun trying, and stinking up the house in the process. Robert told me that even our bed smells like burnt oil, which he says is really impressive because our room is upstairs, on the other side of the house.
Hats off to the Hopis because making fry bread is a serious talent! It is way harder than it seems! I think I will just stick to making toast.