My Baby is 1

I can't believe Clarissa turned one (last month!!) Where has time gone? She's growing up way too fast and I hate it. She's the cutest, sweetest little girl. We just love her to pieces. We celebrated her birthday with 2 parties while we were in Brazil (more on that trip later).

First party in Sao Paulo with my family. Grandparents and great grandparents

 Big brothers helped blow out the candles.

 My best friend, Marina, and her mother

 Cousins

 Second party in Natal

 This party was a lot more kid friendly and it was on her actual birthday. These are some of the friends we made while there. (There were several boys there too, including the brothers, but for some reason they didn't get in any picture)

 My little cake queen!! She LOVED being able to eat the cake all by herself.

Clarissa started walking 1 week after her birthday. She's my little wonderer. She just loves to walk all over the house. She plays better with cars than with dolls (hum, I wonder why? I doesn't help that we have a gazillion cars and only 2 dolls). She likes to chase the boys around. Her newest thing is to "play" hide and seek with them. She totally thinks she knows what she is doing. She puts her ears up to a wall and starts "counting". After about 3 babbles she runs around the living room. It's super cute.
She's thinning out a lot (another thing I'm not happy about. She could stay chubby for a little longer). She's now in the 95% for weight (25 lbs) and 97% for height (31.5 in). It's the first time in her life that height has been greater that weight.
Clarissa LOVES to play with water (any kind, including the toilet). She's fearless in the pool, and I'm sure she will be swimming real quick (well, once we start her in swim lessons, which will be around her 3rd birthday).
She's my best vegetable eater EVER!! Even at this young age my boys weren't big fans of veggies, but she loves them. She's my only child that I've been able to hand her a green been or carrot and she eats it all gone.
We love you Baby Bel and hope you had a great birthday!!!

Drew is 3!!

Our little guy turned 3 in July and we celebrated with a fun robot party. We invited some friends and family to party with us at our favorite splash park. Drew had a great time and felt very loved by his guests.

 

Here are some of Drew's favorite things:
Movie: Ben 10, Avengers (anything that involves fighting)
Food: Pizza
Drink: Milk (he could have it all day if I let him)
Friends: Jacob, Christopher and Micah
Place: My sister's house (and the water park by her place)
Toys: Robots, Ironman and Hulk figurines
Game/Play: Tickle (he's super ticklish)
He is a cuddle bug (although when I call him my cuddle bug he says, "No, I'm just a bug").
He loves playing with his cousins.
Drew started preschool this semester and to my surprise he hasn't been too fond of it. He has fun at school, but doesn't really like getting there.
We love having this little guy in our family and couldn't imagine our lives without him!

Christopher is 4

I can't believe my "little" guy has turned 4 this month. We celebrated with a fun ice cream party at a splash park. Christopher loved having all his friends come and the attention he received. He's such a little social guy.

Happy Birthday Big Guy!!!

Splash Pads

It has been SO HOT around here, the only way to survive is to get in the water. We've been swimming and playing at splash parks A LOT this summer. We've been to a few different ones. We recently went to a really fun park up in Anthem and the kids loved it. The splash area was a little lame (for my liking), but the park was amazing. It had lakes for fishing, a HUGE play area for the kids, and a choo choo train ride. We had a great time.

Speaking of swimming, my sister moved down here this month and we've been loving swimming with the cousins. They have a really fun community pool near their house and we've been there a couple times. Yesterday Christopher said he wanted to jump from the diving board, and we let him. We were all amazed at how gutsy this little guy is. He jumped several times and swam to the side of the pool all alone. We were a little concerned at first because we couldn't be in the pool to help him to the side, but he did it by himself. He's also been going down the big slide and swimming out of the pool alone. I guess all those years of swim school have finally paid off.

Mother's Day

We had a low key mother day, but it was just perfect. Cory let me sleep in and made me breakfast. Later that night we went to my in-laws and celebrated mother's-day and Cory's birthday all at once. (Cory turned 28 the day before). This is me and the kids right before we left to church.

 Clarissa is our little princess!! She is so fun to have around.

Preschool Graduation

Christopher had his preschool graduation back in May. Since he's going to preschool next year again it wasn't a big deal for us, but he LOVED all the attention. Drew is actually going to school with him this year too. Oh, I can't wait until Fall comes around!! (Summers are just too long, specially if you live in Arizona).

This is Christopher an his AWESOME teacher. This poor women has no idea what's coming her way this fall.