J&A + fun!

On the Road and Fun in Phoenix

Posted by Alex on April 19, 2012 No comments

: Since when does it snow this much in April?

: Emmy and Kaylee play at an outdoor Mall near Mesa, AZ

: They play pretty well together.

: Mayzie and Minnie

: Leah and Mayzie did great on the drive!

: Emmy was an awesome golfer – four holes in one (out of 17 holes)!

: Kaylee did great at miniature golf. The small clubs helped a lot!

(To see these pictures larger, click on the image. You can use the arrow keys to navigate).

For Emmy’s Spring Break, we decided to take a trip to Arizona so that the twins could meet their Great-Grandma Conquer. They got to meet my grandma last summer while we were evacuated during the fire, so if we can fit in a trip to Oregon they will have met all of their living great-grandparents.

As you see in the first picture, Los Alamos had got quite a bit of snow on Sunday night, so we were eager to get to Arizona with some warmer weather. I’ve never visited Arizona in the summer (except just driving through), and I’m not sure I could handle all that heat, but the weather was great the whole time we were there. The girls did great on our drive! Julia and I think they’re spoiled, of course, considering that they got to watch movies on the DVD player. We both remember riding in the car on many vacations with no such luxuries.

Happy Birthday, Grandma Cathie!

Posted by Alex on April 14, 2012 1 comment

(Click on a picture to enlarge, then use the arrow keys to navigate between pictures)

Grandma Cathie and Uncle Christian visited us during their Spring Break. We had a lot of fun, and even got to celebrate Grandma’s birthday! As you can see from the pictures above, the girls are all very excited to celebrate birthdays. First, they got themselves all cleaned up in the tub, then they decorated the house! I’m not sure anyone has ever talked Grandma into wearing a tiara or having a “My Little Pony” theme at her party, but her granddaughters sure can do that!

Grandpa Bruce had arranged for a bunch of people to call on the phone or by Skype. It was a great surprise and a lot of fun! Each person that called shared a few stories about Cathie, but since we’ve embarrassed her enough with these pictures we’ll keep those off the blog

Happy Birthday, Grandma! We were happy to share a great party with you!

Bouncy House!

Posted by Alex on April 14, 2012 No comments

(Click on a picture to see it larger, then use your arrow keys to see all of the pictures)

Emmy had an extra day off for Spring Break, so we decided to take a day and go down to Albuquerque. The best part was the bouncy house at Hoot’s Party Zone, which we had been to last October with Kaylee when we were in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. After Emmy saw the pictures from that trip, she requested to go to the “bouncy house” pretty much every day after that! They have parties there almost every weekend, so when Emmy finally got a day off during the week we made sure to go!

Emmy and Kaylee and the twins had a blast at Hoot’s with Grandpa Bruce, Grandma Cathie, and Christian. We loved the “climbing maze”, which is a multi-level connected maze that you can crawl all around, and the best part was that not only were adults allowed in all of the bouncy houses and climbing structures (to help their kids, of course), but they are free! Julia, Christian, and I had a blast chasing Kaylee and Emmy all around, and the twins got to bounce around a little with Grandpa and Grandma, too.

After we wore ourselves out, we headed over to Golden Corral, which is one of Emmy and Kaylee’s favorite places to eat. Again, we had gone their on our Albuquerque visit last October, so Emmy wanted to relive every moment of that trip! Emmy and Kaylee had more desserts than actual food, but that’s what Spring Break is for, right?

But Spring Break wasn’t over there! To be continued…

While Mommy’s Away…

Posted by Alex on March 23, 2012 1 comment

Last weekend, Julia went to Time Out for Women, a conference where women talk about womanly stuff. And while Mommy was away, the rest of us had a party! Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day, so Julia made us a fancy St. Patrick’s Day fruit plate – a little rainbow with a pot of gold coming out of it for some of the festivities. Very nice. The pot of gold did not survive long, and the rainbow was eaten right along with it, because we got to watch movies (Emmy was somewhat obsessed with Steve Martin’s version of Cheaper By the Dozen that weekend) and play all weekend long!

Julia is not a fan of sloppy joes, but I think they are delicious, so the twins and I cooked some up while Grandpa Bruce came and watched the girls while they rode bikes. I figured that since Julia likes food when you take fancy pictures of it, I would do the same when I cook. What do you think? Here, have some more sloppy joes. I made ‘em extra sloppy for youse! I know youse kids like ‘em sloppy!

The girls got to sleep in their sleeping bags in a play tent I set up for them in their room. The tent had a tunnel in and out of it, which they made sure to use each time they wanted to get out. The girls decided to wear some of their swimming gear to bed instead of actual pajamas, but isn’t that what parties are for?

When we got up the next morning (which was way too early, by the way… when do kids start wanting to sleep in?) we had green pancakes for St. Patrick’s Day!

We even ate in the living room, but don’t tell mommy! Here they are on their second watching of Cheaper By the Dozen. Also note that Emmy was sure to wear her green pants, at least until later, when she decided she wanted to get pinched.

Mayzie (on the left) and Leah played obstacle course in the tent. Apologies for the cell phone pics. Emmy and Kaylee made sure they had fun going through the tunnel a bunch of times…

And they even set up a path for the twins to crawl along before they came into the tunnel. These sisters had a lot of fun playing together.

And when all the fun was over, they all hopped in the bath to get cleaned up so that we looked a little more presentable for when Mommy came home! Leah definitely enjoyed the bath with all her sisters, and Emmy did a great job as the woman of the house to make sure everyone was safe.

First Annual Interviews with Emmy and Kaylee

Posted by Alex on October 4, 2011 6 comments

On Sunday after we watched General Conference, we decided that it would be a good time to start a new annual tradition. I had been thinking about General Conference and traditions for a while. Since General Conference comes at a regular time each year (the first Sunday and preceding Saturday in both April and October) and it’s also a time that’s not quite as busy as New Year’s, we thought it would be a good time for a tradition that we had wanted to start for a while but hadn’t got around to yet. But that’s not why you’re here, you’re here to see a couple of cute girls!