New blogger

Written by Rachel:

I am being promoted to blog. Mom says maybe I will be the new blogger. We need a blogger so we won't have to play catch up once a month. 😊

 We found a wash nearby and we loved it.(above)

We had a picnic lunch & bike ride.

Annie went on a field trip to the zoo. She was finally where she belonged. :)

 How many pictures do we have of this elephant?

 Then then Annie's class played on the playground.

 My 3rd grade concert was a success!

Megan got bored somewhere in there, so she had fun taking selfies.

 Mom had a fun time at the youth camp out.

 They went to Cochise Stronghold and had fun climbing on huge boulders.

 P.S.this is Rachel typing. 😜

February fun

Looks like we may be down to a once a month blog to recap everything that happened during the month. Unless Jacob decides he loves blogging and takes up the slack. :) So once a month it is...

We've been keeping busy this month, but have managed to squeeze in some fun activities. Annie has been doing gymnastics for a while now. Probably 3 years off and on. They have a gymnastics showcase twice a year and Annie (and Rachel when she was still doing gymnastics) were never interested in participating. I thought it was time for Annie to push past her comfort zone and perform in front of people, so I encouraged her to participate this time and after talking it over a little she agreed to it. She was super nervous beforehand, but afterwards told me, "This was the best day ever! It wasn't even scary once it got started."

They did a floor routine, vault, bars, and beam.

 She did a great job and got a medal she was so excited about. Peyton and McKenzie had gotten to have a sleepover the night before, so they came to see Annie, too, as did Grandma and Grandpa Knight. We all went out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate her great performance.

Every year the Vail School District puts on Vail Pride Day at the fairgrounds, where the kids all show off their hard work that they do. The elementary kids all have some artwork/school work on display, and the older grades have clubs and stuff set up displays and booths to showcase what they do. We've never been, but decided it was probably time to go check it out this year. It was a very windy day, so we didn't wander the different halls at all, but the one we went to had a STEM exhibit that had some cool stuff. There was a chemistry magic show going on, robots that the high school kids had built that the each of the kids took a turn driving, straw rocket shooting, binary code bracelets, and polyurethane foam insulation they made themselves. They also got to hold a tarantula and pet a snake. At first Ryan wasn't interested in the tarantula, but after he saw his sisters hold it he was eager to join in. And then, of course, Megan had to have a turn.

 She thought it was pretty cool.

Ryan and Megan also really liked this dune buggy that was built by students and run completely on solar power.

 We stopped by to see Annie and Rachel's class displays, then headed home through the blustery weather.

The last week of February La Fiesta de los Vaqueros rodeo comes to town. We get Thursday and Friday off of school so someone somewhere can go to the rodeo (though I've never actually heard of anyone that went to the rodeo on Rodeo Break). Anyway, the kids were all invited to dress as cowboys/cowgirls at school the last day before break.

Ryan made a great cowboy for preschool:

Megan thought it was pretty fun to dress up, too, so she joined Ryan while he roped the dog.

 The girls had to split the hat, since we only have one cowboy hat. Luckily it was my day to volunteer at school, so Annie wore it for the first part of school, then after I was finished volunteering in her class I took the hat with me to Rachel's class so she could have it for the remainder of the day. It worked out fine. :) But I probably ought to get more hats before next year's Rodeo Break.

Yeehaw!

Instead of going to the rodeo on Rodeo Break, Jacob took off Friday and after we cleaned the house, we went on a nice bike ride along the Julian Wash trail and had a picnic at the turn around point. The kids love their bike rides, but they're all getting too tall for their bikes. We also got the whole house cleaned and vacuumed and the backyard cleaned up, lawn aerated, and half the garden cleaned up. Jacob says I'm a slave driver. But he was the one making the kids do all the work, I just spent the whole time outside picking tomatoes and trying to trim the tomato bushes back into tomato plants. :)

Rocks

The world famous Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is in town right now. Annie looks forward to it every year since she is quite the rock hound and has a decent rock collection. When she heard it was in town she begged for her allowance and for me to take her. Rachel wasn't interested, so we went while she was still in school.
They had cool stuff there. Lots of fossils, some were enormous. And some other random stuff, like a knight's armor.

 These trees the kids are standing in front of were so cool. The foliage is all made of gems. They were beautiful in person.

 And amethyst cut in heart shapes.

 A HUGE rock.

 Since the kids are so darn cute, they had people giving them free stuff right and left. They got a couple cool polished rocks, 2 shark teeth each, and a clear prism. And Annie and Ryan found a few more treasures to spend their money on.

Saturday we went to look at some other rocks. We headed about an hour and a half away to the Dragoon Mountains, aka Cochise Stronghold, where the Apaches fought and defended. The best part of that area is the awesome HUGE boulders. But the fact that it was a beautiful day, and water was flowing down the "river" (my kids are such Arizona kids to call the trickle of water a river), was a bonus.

 We had lots of fun exploring and climbing all over (and under) the boulders, then went on a nature hike before having a picnic and heading home.

 Apparently stacking all your smarties in a tower is more fun than actually eating them.

 It was super fun and we're all wanting to go back and play some more. If only our kids were better car travelers. An hour in the car and they are SO done, and make it known. So while it was fun, we won't be going back next weekend. Maybe in the fall when the memory of the drive has dimmed, and the weather is cool enough to play outside again. :)

January

January was a bit of a blur. There was cousin fun, back to school and regular routines, and a new calling at church. I got called to be the Young Women President, after having been serving as the first counselor since last May. It was a bit overwhelming, and trying to sort through my new responsibilities and preparing for New Beginnings kind of took up a good bit of my time. Our house wasn't the cleanest, but it survived. And thanks to Fry's Clicklist grocery pick up my kids had food to eat, since I didn't actually have to make time to go grocery shopping, just to put together an order online and go pick it up after dropping Ryan off at preschool. We survived the month and things are feeling a bit calmer now.
Here are a few pictures of the kids' shenanigans while I was busy doing who knows what:

 Kind of creepy and funny...

 We did make it to the library once and Annie checked out a kid's cookbook and came home so excited to cook from it. She made dinner that night of a delicious apple curry and was really excited to use their suggestion of putting rice in a cookie cutter to make it more fun.

 For a fun family outing one Saturday we headed to Eegees for fries and Eegees drinks. Who doesn't love Eegees?

Another Saturday Rachel and I went to the stake Activity Days activity. It was really cool, all about family history. The girls chose what to pack on a handcart, made their own corn husk doll, and made a mini rag rug about the size of a coaster.

 Annie is all about "Mommy-Daughter time." I guess she is the stereotypical middle child begging for more attention. Every day. Repeatedly. And while we're playing a game "just me and you" she is planning the next thing we can do "just me and you." No matter how much one-on-one time we have, she just can't get enough. But we keep trying.

 Playing Kerplunk in a fort, just me and her, was pretty fun. Until she heard Dad turn on Penguins of Madagascar to keep Ryan and Megan from wandering in and interrupting our one-on-one time. Then she was done. Nothing is better than one-on-one time. Except staring mindlessly at a screen. ;)

Some of my Mia Maids:

  We went on a shopping adventure to a thrift store and talked about what colors look good on each of them and how to find quality stuff at the thrift store and what is and is not worth buying there, then they were set loose to find an outfit that would look good on their partner. Most succeeded. :)

The theme for New Beginnings was ASK: Acquire Spiritual Knowledge. I made these blocks for some of the decorations.

 Jacob hasn't had to travel for work in about 5 years. We knew this year he'd have to start traveling a bit more. Coincidentally he got to travel the week we had New Beginnings scheduled. In fact, we moved New Beginnings to a new date and the next day he came home and said he'd be out of town that week. How convenient. Luckily my parents are saints and took the kids for the whole day and evening so I could go set up, and run last minute errands I hadn't gotten to, and be gone late into the evening all without worrying about the kids. The night turned out great.

I came home and breathed a big sigh of relief and realized that I had 2 days with hardly anything on the schedule, which was much needed after the craziness of the first half of the week.