Yearly Archives: 2012

Great Grandma Conquer

All About Emmy

We got to see Great Grandma Maevon Conquer a couple of times during spring break! We had initially thought we’d just get to see her once, but with an extra day we made sure to visit with her again. Cindy and Julia went and picked her up while they ran errands and she came and visited with us. The twins were so excited to see her! Emeline was named after Maevon’s mother, so Grandma made sure to tell Emmy all about her name.

The girls had a lot of fun at Grandma’s house, too. They didn’t want to leave! First, we got a tour of the house and all of the pictures and lots of stories about relatives. We only wish we had more time to hear more stories since we don’t get to go out to Arizona very often. The twins had a lot of fun with their grandma, too, and they laughed every time she joked around with them.

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Fun with Family for Spring Break

All About Emmy

We got to see lots of family in Mesa! Most of Julia’s relatives on her mom’s side live in Mesa, so we got in a lot of quick visits with family. Most of the Tawzer clan (including plenty we didn’t manage to get pictures of) went to Lynn and Dixie’s house where we got to talk a bit while Emmy and Kaylee rode bikes outside with their second cousins. It’s fun to have so many cousins!

While we were in Mesa we stayed at Cindy and Lee’s casita, which Emmy and Kaylee claimed as their own house by the end of the trip. 🙂 We got to see a lot more family at Cindy and Lee’s house, including their son Shawn, Kasey and Denise and a few of their kids (who got to hear Kaylee tell all about our trip to the zoo), and Great Grandma Maevon. We’re sad we didn’t take more pictures.

We got talked into staying an extra day so that we could see Julia’s cousin Mandy perform as part of an improv comedy group called Jesterz. What a lot of fun! Mandy’s sister Calli and her friend Fiona even babysat the girls for us that night, which was awesome. The girls rode bikes all evening and generally had lots of fun staying up past their bedtimes.

We’re really glad we could come visit!

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On the Road and Fun in Phoenix

Out and About

(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. 🙂

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Happy Birthday, Grandma Cathie!

All About Emmy

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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!

All About Emmy

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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…

Out and About

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.