Labor Day Weekend!

I invited Megan and Mitch Jones to come visit us for Labor Day weekend as a late birthday surprise for Lee, and what a weekend it was! Lee was pretty shocked to see his niece Aubrie show up at a restaurant where he thought we were meeting friends. After a delicious lunch, we took the kiddos to the children's museum.

On school days the place is practically empty, so Paul and Aubrie had no competition for the most fun exhibits.

Paul loved to tickle Kaden and give him kisses.

 We were very fortunate to have a rainy Saturday. It kept things cool enough for us to do some hiking and a picnic at Madera Canyon.

We threw rocks in the river. Paul tipped in head first while trying to get a particular pebble, so we took off his wet shirt and soothed his wounded ego.

We played lots of games and had all kinds of fun, indoor and out, and ate great food. The kids exhausted each other, and us, and by Monday morning we were not at all ready to say good-bye. We can't wait to visit them and for them to visit us again.

Home Improvement: Seuss Edition

It only took me a year, but here is Paul's nursery! Fully decorated and whimsical enough to make Pintrest puke.

Welcome to Paul's Room!

Stylish, safe, and colorful crib.

I think the next step is to learn the Alphabet Song.

Fun photos hanging on the closet door.

Dresser decked with craftified lamp, favorite books, and some fuzzy friends.`

Homemade curtains styled after the head gear of a certain cat.

Green Eggs and Ham quilt By: Grandma Jamie ABC Pillow By: Me.

There you go! The only room in our house that deserves this many photos. I am very proud of how it turned out, I assume Paul will never notice how cute it is, but I will notice.

We did stuff again.

Every once and a while we do stuff. Sometimes we bring a camera with us to the stuff. Yesterday, we did a whole day of stuff and took some pictures of it.

Morning Stuff: Tucson Children's Museum

We got wise and got an annual pass to the Children's Museum. Now we can go somewhere that is fun for Paul and out of the heat, we even figured out where the free parking is!

Paul is a serious chef.

Paul would usually have to fight off a crowd to drive the fire truck.

After that fun (Paul really didn't want to leave) we had lunch with our awesome cousins, the Websters, and we all went up to Mount Lemmon to hike. It has become a favorite haven from summer. Near the peak, the aptly named town of Summerhaven sits at about 8000 ft above sea level, and about 50 degrees below Tucson's temperatures (assuming you go the same days we do.)

Paul pretends he is going to walk the whole way.

We got treated to a really foggy day. Don't see much fog in Tucson!

I pretend to be a good photographer.

Paul kept pointing the binoculars at things and saying "cheese!"

Our little family stares into the foggy abyss.

I thought a hiking photo would look more artsy than this. Oh well.

As we neared the end of our hike, Paul started thinking it was funny to run the wrong direction down the trail. We had to bribe him to come back.

Family Reunion

We had a great family reunion last month. I am going to share some photos and videos from our trip. Hope you enjoy them!

Weston and Cooper Johnston posed with me at Thanksgiving Point.

A whole gaggle of Burnett family at the Rose Garden.

Lee and Paul in the Italian Garden.

Paul and Liam (Sanderson) are kindred spirits. They both love dinosaurs, fruit snacks, and chasing geese.

Here's Lee at the grill, making Sonoran Hot Dogs for everyone!

At This is the Place State Park, we tried to walk on stilts. Contrary to what Garrett says, we were not born to do this. Lee, on the other hand, was basically a champ at it!

Paul just wanted to ride this train. Over and over and over again.

Up at Mirror Lake, we had a great time fishing and kayaking and getting sun burned. Paul is really into throwing rocks in water, so it was right up his alley.

Stella Burnett is so proud of catching a fish!

And now to share Paul's new tricks! I couldn't be prouder of the following two accomplishments:

An Interesting Holiday.

Memorial Day happened to coincide with our 4th anniversary. There are some really great things about celebrating an anniversary on a national holiday, like having the day off from work and crazy sales on grills. There are a few downsides too. We realized that a lot of places close on such occasions and the ones that don't are extra crowded because everyone else has the day off as well. These draw backs did not stop our fun! My nasty cold slowed us down significantly, but we still managed to go for lunch and enjoy the outdoors.

Our original plan of getting a babysitter and going hiking go replaced with no hiking and no sitter when I was clearly still sick. We went to Sabino Canyon and did some light walking and moderate bus riding to see the sights.

We splashed in the river and explored upstream, which was lovely, until a spider bigger than my hand crawled out to play. I decided I'd had enough of nature and it was time to leave.

This will always be remembered as the anniversary where we saw our first Gila Monster (I didn't have the camera out, sorry), we got a free awesome blossom, and our car got totally wrecked the next day! We're all fine (except the Corolla, she won't recover) and we've welcomed a new tenant into our garage: Hugo the Pretentious Prius.

"Welcome to your fourth year of marriage and be grateful you have insurance!" --The World

Take me out the the Ball Game!

Now I shall tell briefly of last weekend's family outing. We went to a U of A baseball game with a group of Lee's co-workers on Friday night. I had my concerns about how Paul would enjoy the outing, but my worries were unfounded. He LOVED it. There were other kids, and music, and popcorn, and moths fluttering in the lights. Paul fist-bumped everyone there we knew (and a few we didn't). Lee just barely missed catching a fly ball, but he did manage to catch a free t-shirt.

We didn't stay for the whole game, we left around 10 pm. It was way passed Paul's bedtime and he was getting a serious case of the sillies. Until our next adventure!

Easter Weekend

What a fun Easter! We sent Paul on a little egg hunt around the house. He figured out that he was meant to gather the eggs and put them in the basket, but he liked to "slam dunk" the eggs in. There was no surprise when one burst open, but I was surprised by his reaction.

Paul had never seen a jelly bean. He didn't know what to do with one, so he just put them back in the egg. I showed him they were edible, and he has been desperately begging for them every day since.

We did an evening hot dog roast, it was a little tricky to keep Paul away from the fire pit, though.

 Between Conference sessions on Saturday, we went to a local Spring Fest, where Paul played outside and we enjoyed a bit of sunshine.

 

 Easter morning, Paul got to see his basket full of toys and goodies, he recognized the candy this time and we eventually had to hide the baskets so he would stop begging for candy bars. I guess he inherited my love of sweets!