Flagstaff Arboretum

Aleecia invited Ember and I to join them for a morning at the Flagstaff Arboretum. We had never been and didn't have anything going on so we accepted!

(As a side note from the Arboretum's website - "At 7,150 feet in elevation, The Arboretum at Flagstaff is a unique destination, specializing in plants native to the high elevation habitat of northern Arizona." )

We started off by just walking around and exploring things!

We ate lunch at a cute little picnic table and then got some picture of the kiddos with the gorgeous view of the San Francisco Peaks behind them!

Then, we went to the Flying Raptor bird show where we saw wild birds and they flew right over out heads!

Luke volunteered and was chosen to play the "game show"

Our "selfies" with the owl!

It was alot of fun! Ember and I were both very glad that we accepted the invite! And we left right as the monsoon rolled in and it started pouring! 

My Birthday Weekend

I am 29!!! Only one more year left in my 20's..... eek! :/ 

It was one of my best birthdays yet! Here is a quick overview!

We had an early celebration at Mima and Pappy's house with a delicious dinner and an ice cream cake with candles for me to blow out.

I worked out on the morning of my actual birthday and was surprised with a coconut milk pumpkin spice latte and a gift card to a local spa. Then I came home to find this....

...and my wonderful husband telling me not to cook because he got a babysitter and we were going out to eat to celebrate! My day was filled with kind texts and cards and gifts. I had lunch with a close friend and just felt special! 

That night, we went to a restaurant called Josephine's that neither of us had been to. It was delicious and the atmosphere was GREAT! We split a calamari appetizer, crab cakes with tomatillo avocado sauce for dinner, and a bourbon pecan pie with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. So so good!

The following weekend, my parents came up for a great weekend of catching up and hanging out! We hiked the Kachina Trail and the weather was just perfect! 

It truly was a great birthday week and I am excited to see what God has in store for me to finish off this decade of my life! So thankful for all the great family and friends currently a part of my life. I am blessed beyond what I deserve!

Orange (Gold) Fish

Our last week of this "Brown Bear" unit :(

I decided to call it an ORANGE fish instead of a goldfish since orange is a little more common. We ended this unit well! There were a lot of really fun activities this "week". Here is what we did:

Read "Brown Bear" every day. Daddy even got to read it once to Ember and hear her "say" all the animal names and colors

Explored the color orange

Colored a picture of a fish orange

Watched videos/songs on the computer about fish

I even found a DVD about fish at the library for this week that we watched on the TV

Read some other books about ORANGE and FISH

""Orange" - Schuette

"Rainbow Fish" - Pfister

"10 Little Fish" - Wood

We used half of an orange to paint on paper with orange paint

Ate a snack of the other half of the orange and some goldfish with water in an orange sippy :)

Paint swatch fish collage

We were supposed to go to the pet store and look at fish but it just didn't happen this week.

I made a magnetic fishing game out of foam and magnets that works on hand and eye coordination along with colors! We fished inside and outside.

Then... my FAVORITE! We made a sensory bin of water beads. These things are cool! For adults! For kids! For anyone! Get some and try them out if you have not :) I bought a package of dehydrated "water jewels" at Michael's in the flower/vase decorating aisle. They look like tiny beads. I put about 1/8 of the package in water 4-6 hours before I wanted to use them and this is what they did!! (And of course I made the water they were in orange)

Looks like just a tub of orange water, but.....

WATER BEADS!

They are so so cool to feel with your hands! They bounce! And they don't pop but you can squish them. And supposedly they would not be harmful if a child got too curious and ate one! But, we tried to avoid that :)

And I guess it feels cool to put your feet in them as well! But seriously... all that to say - GET SOME WATER BEADS and try them out! You can also buy them already hydrated but I figured the dehydrated ones would be easy to store for another day of fun later on!

Well, that is it! "Brown Bear" is done! We are going to do a little two week unit on Rainbows and review colors and then move on to some more easy books before getting into the actual BFIAR book list! It has been lots of fun for both of us! 

Anthem Weekend!

Last year for the first time we went to Sedona over Labor Day weekend with Joey and Rachael and Ryan and Kristin - some of our closest, dear friends! We had so much fun that we decided to all take a trip together each year. And since Ben, Juliann, and Emmerson recently moved back to Flagstaff we included them in the fun. This year instead of Sedona, we went to Anthem and rented out a 5 bedroom house with a pool! It was so fantastic! It was like a 4 day hangout time. We all bought groceries for and cooked two meals each. The rest of the time we could relax and hang out! I didn't take too many pictures but here are a few! 

We played some volleyball and passed the football back and forth in the pool

This was the first time that Ember has ABSOLUTELY LOVED being in a pool. That was all she wanted to do when she was awake and she would constantly say "Ember so happy!" while she was in it! 

Kristin R.  and Emmerson

Dustin with the little girls

Kristin R brought supplies to do French tip manicures for all of us girls! And she was kind enough to paint Ember's nails for the first time with sparkly glitter! Ember loved looking at them the rest of the weekend.

Every morning, we would see hot air balloons as we were enjoying our coffee in the early morning! 

This weekend went by so fast and was such a blast! We all said we could live there for a whole lot longer together! Can't wait till next year!