February Stuff

A random photo shoot at McDonalds. "Take a picture, Mom!"

 

 Jesse took a spill on his scooter and we ended up in the urgent care. Luckily his wrist wasn't broken, just a sprain. He was a little disappointed that he didn't get a cast, but he did get a cool splint and a sling. I think the coolness of a cast would've worn off quickly. He's doing just fine now and is not even wearing the splint anymore. Thank goodness! Here's a picture of him waiting at the urgent care.

We took advantage of the 75 degree weather and headed out for a little hike in the San Tan Mtns. Beautiful day and beautiful scenery. The also had a little demonstration on panning for gold and the kids got to try their hands. They each ended up with several nuggets of "San Tan gold" (gold-painted rocks!) That was much more fun than trying for the real gold flakes! It was a fun way to spend half the day.

 

A Valentine's dinner for all my little (and 1 big) Valentines. Heart-shaped pizza, red jello, chocolate-dipped strawberries, sparkling cider, balloons and candlelight were all on the menu. The kids loved the "fancy" dinner. I love my cute, funny Valentines!

10 and 3

The end of January brings a couple of birthdays to the Thatcher Clan, which culminates in a few days worth of celebrations. This year was no different.
Jesse turned the big 1-0! I cannot believe that I have a kid in double digits...I guess it's all down hill from here! Soon we will be spiraling headlong into the teen years. Heaven help us!

For his birthday he wanted waffles for dinner and we opened his presents. He also was "turned" 10 by his dad.

James turned in his "Terrible 2's" for the "Thrilling 3's"...one can hope anyway!

To celebrate both birthdays, we went to an indoor playground called Makutu's Island...always good for a fun time.

And we finished off the weekend with cake and presents for James. Jesse requested a "desert island" cake and James was just along for the ride. I think this may be the last year that I can get away with just one cake between the two of them, I'm sure James will have his own opinion by next year!

And just so I can toot my own horn a bit, here's a close up of the cake, I think it turned out pretty cute!

Don't mind the messy desk in the background!

I love my two sweet birthday boys...life just wouldn't be as much fun without them!

My Good Citizen

Grace earned a Character Counts: Citizenship Award at her school. Grace is always so kind and helpful to her teacher and classmates. We are so proud of our good citizen!

A Bear no more!

Jesse earned his Bear in Cub Scouts and has now graduated to Webelos.

 

Despite his serious face, he is very excited to begin Webelos. Although I am sad that he is leaving my Bear den, I am excited for him because he has some awesome new den leaders that are way more fun than his old mom! Good job, Jess!

To finish off the year...

We wanted to take advantage of the 70+ degree weather, so we headed out to this cool train park in Scottsdale. It was a lot of fun, but I apparently didn't get any pictures of any trains...we did see some! But there were some really fun playgrounds as well and that's where we spent most of our time! I'm loving this Arizona winter so far! Can you believe that this was the day after Christmas and we were in shorts??

 

We were also lucky to have our good friends, The Widdisons, come visit us from UT. We headed over to the Natural History Museum...

And took a trip to the zoo on New Year's eve.

We love playing with the Widdisons and are glad they made time for us!

Christmas Low Down!

We had a surprise visit from Ol' St. Nick on Christmas Eve. It was so nice of him to make an appearance knowing how busy he is! Thanks, Santa!

The bounty

The unwrapping

We gave in this Christmas and got the kids a Wii. Well, we were the best parents ever and it was the best Christmas ever! This year will be hard to top! It was a lot of fun and they were completely surprised...which is the best fun for us parents. Grandparents, aunts and uncles were all so very generous as well. Thanks, everyone...a great Christmas was had by all.

And here's a picture just for Grandma Cindy!

 Thanks for the cute hat!

9 Months

Milly turned 9 months a few days before Christmas and we took a few pictures of her while we were waiting for the Dr. at her check up...not the best lighting, but I thought these were pretty funny anyway. And you can see just how chunky she is! And, of course, James had to get in on the fun, too!

 9 Month stats

19 lbs, 13 oz (75%)

27 1/2" (50%)

Head 17 1/4 cm (50%)

She seems to be keeping more on track with Dylan's size (he's more on the normal scale instead of the smaller scale the other three are on!) It has been a busy month for our little Milly-moo! She began sitting up, crawling and cut her first 2 teeth (bottom ones). She loves to eat food and is especially interested in whatever her mom or dad are eating at the time! She is a still a happy-go-lucky kiddo and we are just getting used to having another kid on the move. She can usually be found with some paper or other small object in her mouth, she is very adept at finding things to suck on and it is hard to keep the floor free of debris with all these kids around! We find we are vacuuming more often, but the 5 kids are still winning on that front! Milly still loves blowing raspberries and is getting good at mocking us, much to the kids' delight. They all love taking turns shaking their heads, blowing raspberries, and growling at her so she will do it in return. She's not being a very good sleeper these days. She is getting up 2-3 times a night still and is very stubborn when we try to let her "cry it out" for a little while. It's getting really old and I don't know how to fix this...and I'm too tired to try! Besides that, she is just so much fun and we couldn't imagine life without her!

Here are a couple of other photo shoots for your viewing pleasure.

Tub Time

Growing tired of the paparazzi mom! She would hardly give me the time of day!