The Day My Kids Forgot How To Smile

Another disasterous day at the JCPenney Portrait Studio. I have to lay part of the blame on the photographer. She was just awful. But as you can see from these shots, she didn't really have much to work with. We tried and tried to get a normal smile from Jared and Hayden. And Allison just didn't want to be there. It was next to impossible to get all of them looking at the camera at the same time. Usually we'll at least get one decent shot that we can put up on our wall, but not this time..

San Diego!

We took a road trip to San Diego last week to get out of the Arizona heat. After dealing with a dead battery as we were trying to leave the house, we were on the road!

The weather was beautiful and it never got above 73 degrees. That sure beats the 115 degrees back at home. On our first day there, we decided to take a tour of the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier that was retired in 1991 and is now a museum.

They give you headsets to wear and as you walk around the ship there are numbers you enter on your keypad and you can hear descriptions and stories of the rooms you are in. The boys thought it was so cool. The only disappointing part was later finding out William Shatner flew in on a helicopter the day after we were there. Bummer!Not surprisingly, our kids got locked in the brig. Uh-oh, looks like we've got one escaping! The next day (after Clint spent three hours and an obscene amount of money getting our brakes fixed...grrrr!) we went to the beach to play. It wasn't very warm outside and the water was pretty cold, but we still had a great time.

We worked hard on building a sand castle, equipped with bridge and moat and invading alligator heads.And in about 3 seconds, the Koberzillas had it completely destroyedTo celebrate Pioneer Day we went to the recently renovated Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town. It was actually more impressive than I expected it to be. After an interactive tour which includes an entertaining movie about the history of the battalion, you make your way out back where you can pan for gold...

Wash laundry...Build with bricks...Strike a cute pose...Pump some water...Play the fiddle...

Or give your camera to your 3 year old and get pictures like these...

We also drove by the convention center and saw the crazy people at Comic-Con, swam in the pool at the condo, and the kids still got plenty of time to watch the Spongebob marathon on TV and I got to watch HGTV until my head hurt (which is exactly why we don't have cable TV at home!) Now we've just got two more weeks to play until school starts again.

Highlights of Hayden's Parties

Originally Hayden wanted to have a Super Mario (and friends) party. So he asked Deedum to make him a Yoshi cake, but he wanted him to be yellow instead of green. But we couldn't find any Mario decorations so we had to switch our plans and had his friends come over for a Pirate Party instead. Since we needed to save the cake until Sunday for the family party, I made some "mushroom" cupcakes for his friends to eat. Here are all the little mateys in the middle of their treasure hunt. I made clues that took them all around the inside and outside of the house that finally led them to their treasure (their treat bags). They had a good time with that and the other piratey things we did. And I had to include this picture cause she's just so darn cute. On Sunday Clint took the kids to his mom's house for more presents and cake and ice cream. I had to work that night so I had to miss the festivities.Hayden's All-Time-Favorite-Present: a Lady Bug Pillow Pet. He's been asking for one since he first saw the commercial. He took it everywhere and had to show everyone! Hayden isn't very fond of being the center of attention.Happy 6th Birthday Hayden! Your future's so bright, you gotta wear shades! Although these are super spy shades that let you watch the people behind you, so what does that say about your life? :-) Hmmmmm...