Art Museum, Disney Store Haircut, Ballet Under the Stars, Constitution Day and More!

We got lucky with a culture pass to the Phoenix Art Museum. Every time we go the kids (Winston included) have so much fun, and so do I, and we end up staying for hours. Winston forgot to wear shoes to the museum so we had guards swarming us every time he got out of the stroller for a picture.

I thought this one piece was funny. They thought it was kinda weird.

This painting was actually really called, "Noelle on a horse under a cloud." It's like it was painted just for her.

They liked the room where they could make their own art. It's different every time we go, but always just as exciting!

This one was our unanimous favorite! It's made from the wood from a church that burned down in Texas.

And this was our least favorite. That was unanimous too. Stanton and Noelle thought it was "super creepy" and even Winston kept saying, "No me."

And we ended our art museum day frolicking in the famous dinosaur cage outside. I can't wait to go back!
That week we also went to Peter Piper with our buddies Hannah and Claire and Max.

The day after that we met our friends Parker and Dallen at Scottsdale Mall for some kid play and mommy shopping. Noelle got her hair completely tangled in a little spinning fan at the Disney Store, and the lady who worked there actually had to cut her hair cause it was so stuck in the blades. Never a dull moment.

That night Robert got stung by a scorpion. he was so brave and didn't even wince in pain at all, and I was so brave I smashed the crap out of it for messing with my man!

The next day we went to the Tempe library, which usually isn't something I take a picture of, but Stanton and Noelle yelled across the whole library, "Mommy you have got to come see this. We are doing something so cute you'll wanna take a picture." They were right. They're so cute!

That night we went to Ballet under the Stars outside of the Tempe Art's Center. Noelle and I had both been really looking forward to it for a few weeks, and the boys had kinda been dreading it.
Noelle and I ended up getting bored first though, like 30 minutes in. Stanton told us he was just pretending all of the boy ballerinas were ninjas so he didn't mind if we stayed, and Robert said it wasn't so bad either.
 I usually like ballets, but there was a troop of noisy girl scouts who ate jumping beans sitting right in front of me, someone smoking a few yards away from me, and tons of mosquitoes biting every inch of my body, so I was having a hard time appreciating the pirouettes and plies.

We ended up letting the kids just roll down the hill a little while longer and then called it a night before we all ended up with Lung Cancer and West Nile Virus.

The next morning Stanton had his very first basketball game. His team is called the "Rim Rockers, and he shot the ball twice...in the other teams basket (:

That night we went to the Constitution Day celebration in Gilbert. It was a Blast!
There were also bounce houses, face painting, games and prizes, derby racing, car rides, free personalized dog tags made by real Army men, and dunk tanks. Stanton dunked the girl twice!

You could also pretend to shoot guns in front of a helicopter with your eyes closed!  

There was also Yankee Doodle and an inflatable Washington Monument.

Noelle wasn't too pleased with all of my picture taking messing up her signature on the inflatable Constitution. I didn't blame her. I can appreciate wanting to use your best handwriting on such an important document.

I also got to meet cardboard Mitt.

Stanton and I got our picture with Lady Liberty. I kept trying to get him to dare me to tickle her, but he said he didn't dare me.

Sunday night we made the most awesome marble run! We've been saving our recyclables for a while now, and all of our hard work paid off because this marble run did not disappoint! Noelle said it looked junkier than she thought it would, but that she still loved it and couldn't stop thinking about it. Stanton woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me how excited he was to play with it again tomorrow, and Winston played with it every waking moment. Mission accomplished!

And today we had our bi-monthly Chick-fil-a lunch date with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan. It always starts with nuggets and play and ends with ice cream cones...good times!

Homemade Blood, Macaronni Men, Caterpillars and Fire Trucks!

We've had lots of themed weeks, but Body Week was pretty awesome...we made blood! It started out as plasma (water dyed with yellow food coloring.) Then we added the red blood cells (cheerios dyed red.) After that the white blood cell marshmallows and then the chocolate chip platelets. Stanton and Noelle thought it was so cool, and I thought it was so cute listening to them talk about their own interpretation of what each thing does. For example, "The red selves make your blood breathe and the white ones punch the germs and fight the sickness."

Then we did some tests on our 5 senses. The first one was with our sense of smell. They got most of them right, except for molasses, which we all agree stinks anyway.

Then we did blind taste tests. They thought yogurt was ice cream and bbq sauce was ketchup, pretty close. Stanton was gagging so hard on the mustard he couldn't even spit out the word. He drooled it out all over the table. We also did touch, hearing and vision tests. If we gave them a score for their sense of sight test, they would both need bifocals because they couldn't see a crouton from two feet away. The 5 senses tests turned out to be pretty fun. There was lots of giggling between all of us.

The best part of body week was our homemade digestive system. We stuck bread down a paper esophagus a which ended up in our ziplock bag stomach, where we squeezed it so it could churn with the stomach acids. By that time dinner just happened to be ready, even though I'd pretty much lost my appetite, but we took a break to stuff things down our own esophagus.

Then we poked a whole in the bag and attached out small and large straw intestines that led to our colon cup. It was both entertaining and educational. Then we finished up by reading the "Everyone Poops" book.

Our last Body Week activity was making Macaronni Men. They turned out pretty well, but I had to buy a lot of different types of pasta, so it looks like we'll be eating spaghetti forever.

The next day it was really rainy, so while Stanton was at Kindergarten and Noelle was at her preschool class, Winston and Ifound caterpillars at the park. We even stopped traffic in the parking lot to save one. It thanked us by gooing us with it's green juicy liquid.

While Winston was at home napping with Daddy, i took Stanton and Noelle to the September 11th Memorial at Tempe Town Lake. It was really beautiful, and we spent a lot of time reading about some of the people on the cards. Soon after we got there, they started picking up litter. I was so proud of them because I didn't even think to do that. They told me there shouldn't be garbage at special places. They are right, and once again, the young shall lead the old.

A couple days later after meeting Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan for lunch, we drove by The Stuffington Bear Factory in Phoenix, so we stopped in for a tour. It was kinda funny seeing piles and piles of stuffed animal skins. It was like a scary old, less brightly lit version of Build-a-Bear Workshop at the mall.

Let's just say these are the kind of bears that you dream about coming alive while you sleep, and not in a cute "Toy Story" way. It was a memorable experience though, and the kids were happy to get to sit on a 500lb bear.

The next day we went to The Hall of Flame museum. It's the tiniest little place, but we were there for over 2 hours. They loved it!

It was really sweet watching them play "rescue the person on the 500th floor of the Empire State Building." They were throwing babies, and diving to catch them and save them.

Then they colored badges, slid down the pole a billion times and hugged smokey the bear a bunch. Winston played with the toy ambulances and fire trucks and stayed far away from Smokey the Bear.

We ended our weekend by making snow angels in a living room full of packing peanuts. I didn't think about the mess before I made it snow on them, but it was worth cleaning up the styrofoam blizard to see them having so much fun! I love my family!

Hide and Go Seek in the Dark, Police Museum and Chubby Thor!

Even with school starting, we've still been managing to find lots of fun! At first I thought Kindergarten would cramp our style, but it's only half day. So far Stanton loves it, but he also loves coming home to party with us at 10:40am. We went to the Science Center with friends and fell in love with the new Lego exhibit! It's the best one they've ever had!

The rock wall was a big hit too.

Michael and Tessa were in town for their open house, and it was such a good time to get to hang out with them. On their last night here we played hide and go seek in the dark with them. It's our family favorite! Even Winston has become an expert hider in the pitch black corners and closets! Noelle followed Tessa around everywhere, and Michael and Stanton won for the best spot. We checked that closet like 3 times, but in the dark, we never suspected them to be on the shelves. We were all so sad to see them go.

We went to the wave pool to cheer the kids up after having to part with Michael and Tessa. It worked. They ended up having a great time splashing around with their buddy Max.

The next morning Noelle announced, "I thought this was just a dirty old piece of toast, but then I actually realized (she likes to try to use big words like Fancy Nancy) that I could bite it into the shape of a dinosaur." And that's exactly what she did. I told her that she was a very talented "arTOAST." She said I was a very funny joke maker. It was a lovely exchange of compliments.

The next day we went to the Phoenix Police Museum. It was a fun little adventure getting lost and running around in the rain, but it was definitely worth it when we finally got there. Winston just wanted to sit in the back seat of the cop car the whole entire time. I said, "I hope that's not foreshadowing of things to come." the retired police man who volunteered there thought I was hilarious. So I kept right on talking, and I told them how I was so confused by the one way streets on the way there that I accidentally ran a red light and almost hit a Corvette. They no longer thought I was hilarious. I stopped talking.

Noelle was so impressed with the place that she decided she wants to be a police girl now and a mom.

Stanton liked the motorcycle, but he said he wouldn't want to ride a motorcycle or be a police man because it's too dangerous. I love my Safety Stan (:

Winston was not so pleased to be taken out of his comfy backseat to get a picture in front of the helicopter. He warmed up to the idea once we all made the "ticka-ticka" helicopter noise for him.

The next day Robert took Stanton to his first ASU game. I love that Robert was just as excited to take him as Stanton was to go! He bought them matching ASU shirts, and they both wore their matching plaid shorts. So darling!

Winston and Noelle and I went to As You Wish to paint pottery. Wintson tried picking up every ceramic piece they had on display. It was seriously like a game of hot potato with me trying to catch every piece he touched, picked up or bumped into. I was doubly nervous because he had just accidentally knocked over a mannequin at Down East Basics right before, and it's hands fell completely off. Luckily they thought he was cute so we didn't get in any trouble.

Noelle took 45 minutes deciding what to paint. I didn't rush her cause I can totally relate. I have the hardest time making decisions too. She finally ended up choosing an Ariel jewelery box, and Winston picked a tiny dog magnet for himself and a football magnet for Stanton. They both had a lot of fun painting with every single color in the place.

After that we hung out at Barnes and Noble. We read some books, and Winston was in heaven playing with their train set. Noelle started her own secret hideout underneath it and invited kids who walked by to join. Nobody did, but she still had fun playing animal shelter-babysitting-school all on her own.

And to end our weekend Daddy tried on Stanton's new Thor costume. When I showed him the picture he said he looked like a chubby Thor who just lost some money on the stock markets. I love Chubby Thor! (Even though I do not think he is chubby at all. I think he's hot stuff!)