Zoo

Last year for Christmas, Ty's mom got everyone memberships to the Phoenix Zoo. We have been trying to put ours to good use before the summer temps hit us in the face like some brass knuckles. Bennett is finally old enough to enjoy looking at the animals and can even point at them! So cute! I'm a crazy nazi when it comes to sun protection so this kid is always covered head to toe in sunscreen and we never forget his hat and glasses! Pretty adorable if you ask me...

Having a membership is SO NICE because we don't feel like we have to walk the WHOLE zoo every time we go to get our money's worth. We usually spend 1-2 hours there and by the time my feet hurt, Bennett is about to pass out anyway so we make our way to the car. Sweet boy, falls asleep in his stroller without a peep most of the time! (and I get Five Guys Burgers & Fries on the way home!! Craving: Satisfied.)

So far, Bennett's favorite animals are the giraffes. We've been lucky the last few times we go and can see them eating really close to the looking area. Ty lets Bennett stand on the rail (with help of course) and B jumps and jumps when he notices the giraffes so close to him.

We love this little monkey and we are grateful for his thoughtful grandma for giving us such a great gift!

Art Masterpiece

Several of the zillion pictures I took as Bennett created an art masterpiece for Tyson's Father's Day gift...

Finger painting!!

So Bennett is almost one, and I teach preschool, and yet this was our first venture into the joys of painting with our hands. What does that make me?

I wasn't sure how much Bennett would enjoy finger painting, so my original idea consisted of ONE sheet of finger-painted paper and some cutting to spell the word DAD. Once we got started though, he wouldn't stop! I am so glad he got into it because our end-product looks WONDERFUL!

Since he was literally up to his armpits in paint (see above), bath time was in order. And it was almost as fun!! 

The finished product? An Eric Carle-esque art piece to display here in our nest. It looks lovely!

Happy Father's Day!

A little late, but this post is dedicated to a super dad!

This is Ty's first Father's Day as an official father, and boy, has he turned out to be a great one! A friend of mine recently posted a blog about how you can't really tell what kind of a parent your spouse is going to be until you actually have kids. Ty was really excited to become a dad and I knew he would be a great one, but I had no idea what kind of dad he would be. Turns out, he is one of those super involved, Mr. Mom, keep-playing-until-you-throw-up kinds. Bennett (and I) totally LOVE it!

Some things he and Bennett like to do together:
*Play "throw me into the air until I am as high as the loft"
*Watch football. Seriously, Bennett will sit still for football with Ty as long as he can curl up under Ty's arm.
*Share Otter Pops. Anyone who knows Ty knows that this is one of his main food groups. He shares this love with our son.
*Look at the animals at the zoo.
*Wrestle on the carpet
*Play chase. Or catch. Or silly faces.
*Snuggle

To show our love for this amazing dad, Bennett and I put together an art masterpiece. I will post that separately since I took a zillion pictures of the process. It turned out real cute! 

We love you, Tyson!

Sugar and Spice

Found out on Monday... It's a girl!!


The appointment itself was a little anti-climatic though. A month ago the Dr. told us "oh it's probably a girl, but don't go buying anything yet... we'll check again in a month."

Really? Why even say that if I can't go shopping??

Little baby had the cord tangled between its legs, so no money shot... So I decided to scope out Craigslist for independent ultrasound techs and see if I could get a second look before my appointment with the Dr. Sure enough, an ultrasound school in Phoenix had posted an ad asking for volunteers to come in and get scanned by the students for practice.

I made my appointment and Ty got the day off work. I told the instructor about my appointment with the Dr. and that I was really hoping he could tell us the big news. But guess what he said?? "My guess is a girl, but don't go shopping or anything yet... Wait for one more ultrasound."

WHATTTTT????

When my Dr. finally told us that it was for SURE a girl, I could have cried. Just because I have been wanting to know a DEFINITE answer for SO LONG! Thankfully Ty was able to make it to this appointment as well. I think his first words after the big announcement were "well, I guess we are going to be poor now!" (I think he has scoped my 'favorites' list on Etsy...)

We are honestly SOOO excited! Ty keeps saying he is nervous and that he has no idea what to do with a girl, but I think we felt that even more so with Bennett. We didn't know what to do with babies, period! Now that we have Bennett and we are completely in LOVE with him, I feel a lot more at ease about having more babies.

No belly shots yet, but not because I'm not growing! I've busted out the maternity clothes (although I can still wear button jeans most days) and I love feeling Baby Girl moving around like a miniature acrobat.


Baby Bennett is soon to be Boy Bennett since his birthday is NEXT WEEK. I don't know how I'm handling that... He still seems like this tiny little dude even though he is getting closer to walking and talking every day.

Everyone is invited to his birthday bash! July 2nd, 5:30pm at our place. Dinner and water play!

Oh, and free hugs from this handsome guy!

New Crayons

I am not crafty. I have come to terms with the fact that I have many talents, craftiness is NOT one of them. I do plenty of arts&crafts type activities with the preschoolers, but I have to find all of the ideas online and would never use any of our creations to decorate my home. (Oh yeah, decorating is not one of my talents either...)

Anyway- this is the extent of my "hey, what a cute idea- I can do that!" skills. Preschool has officially ended for summer, at least for the next two weeks, so I decided to use all the broken and flat-tipped crayons that have been well used and repurpose them for some easy-grip crayons for Bennett. Success!

Step One- take off all the paper. 

Step Two- break into small pieces and place in cupcake liners

I grouped color families together, but didn't want them mixing too much.

Step Three- Bake at 200* for about 15 minutes. Easy. 

Step Four- Put them in the fridge to cool and then peel off the wrapper! How fun do these look??

I did read online that Crayola brand are the best kind to use and boy, was that right! A few RoseArt brand snuck into the yellow/orange crayon and left a layer of yucky wax at the top of the crayon. It looked like I spilled bacon grease on it or something. That one doesn't work very well, but all the rest are great!

Did Bennett enjoy them? Oh, sure. He put them right here...

Time for some R&R

My first year of teaching preschool from home is officially O-V-E-R!!! And I seriously can't believe it.

And now, it's time to relax...

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Gyoza

If you call these 'pot stickers', I forgive you, but you have NOT had the real thing!

My dad served his mission for the church in Japan a really long time ago. Okay, like thirty years ago. (okay, really I don't have any idea what years he served his mission and don't feel like doing math...). There was a little restaurant that served the best gyoza and even had an eating challenge- eat fifty in fifteen minutes or something- and the meal was free! Of course this had a big draw for the starving missionaries =) 

When he and my mom got married, he wanted her to learn how to make these, but couldn't find quite the right recipe. I don't know the rest of the story, but it ends with my mom following a tiny Japanese lady (who doesn't speak English) around a tiny kitchen. My mom had to make notes and sketch pictures of the bottles and packages that she was using and then try to find the matching ingredients at the Asian market. The recipe is flawless (of course it is, have you met my mother??) and we LOVE this food!

It's not easy to make though, so we only get it twice a year- February (my brother's birthday) and March (my birthday). The women in the family usually sit around the table hand-pleating each 'skin' while my mom fries and steams batches and batches and batches. I make the infamous gyoza sauce because I always tweek the recipe and no one else knows how =) It's a little trick I use to ensure they always invite me for gyoza night!!

I am so hungry right now. Haha

Oh- and this is what Bennett was doing while we made dinner...