Sanborn Golf Tournament, Dinner and Auction

Way before Hayden ever even entered school, I knew I'd be an involved parent. I knew I'd be a member of the PTA...or PTO, as it is at our school. So when Kindergarten rolled around, I went to the first PTO mtg last August. I signed up to help with day-of set up on a few committees that night, but as the year rolled around, I changed my involvement a bit, and ended up on the planning committees. I helped in the execution of the first ever Holiday bazaar, which led me to help plan the Spring bazaar, and I helped with the final planning stages of the 4th annual golf tournament, dinner and auction, as I didn't push my way in until January! It was all a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I love planning, staging, executing events. It was fun to see how others manage them, but also hard not taking control!

Becky and MeConal, Paul (Brian's brother) and Brian

Still Celebrating

Tay's birthday celebrations spanned a weeks time! Memaw and Papa are now carrying on the traditions that both sets of our grandparents did. Shopping and dinner! I think sleepovers may come when they're older?!

So, in true birthday spirit, they let the birthday kid pick a restaurant and anything they want within their price range (although I'm not sure they've set one yet...that's sure to come when they hear Hayden's b'day list!), and they get to it!

Tay picked out a bunch of pink stuff..and chose ribs for dinner. DUH!...what else is new?!?!!

We also had a fun-tastic birthday party! Taylor invited all of her little friends...Cash and Cooper, Kadie and Carter, Kady, Courtney, Jax and Bella, Morgan and Melissa over for some good play time. They made cool necklaces and went home with takeout containers of CANDY!! Lots and lots of yummy candy!

Special birthDAY at Schnepf

On the morning of Taylor's birthday, Pam, Cash and Paisley met us at Schnepf Farms for a little playdate. I couldn't let a celebration on her actual birthday pass us by, especially since her birthday party was being held a whole week later!

We ate lunch at the cafe at Schnepf and let the kids play! They played on the sand toys, and the wooden train. They threw rocks into the koi pond, let me take a ton of pictures...Cash scouting photo ops for me! We went on a train ride around the orchard, and just really enjoyed the day.

A day without the older two commanding the show! Cash and Taylor just played and got to enjoy each other without interruption!

Taylor turns 4!

It is really hard to believe that my baby is four years old. As the cliche goes...I can't figure out where time has gone.

To think of all that's gone on in the last four years is just amazing to me. And exhausting! It's hard to imagine what life was like before Taylor came into our world. Well, hard for me...Conal swears it was ten octaves quieter!

Interview with my four year old pixie:

T- "Mommy, why we doing an interview, why"?

B- "Because Tay, I want to write down all the things that make you YOU"!

T- "Like my belly button"?

B- "Sure."

Stats: On April 9th, Taylor weighed 29.5 lbs.

She is 39 inches tall. Not quite tall enough to ride Space Mountain yet!

She wears a size 2t shorts and size 4 in dresses and shirts.

She prefers sparkly shoes...in an 8!

Favorite TV show: "My episodes?....Glee, Wizards"

Favorite Cartoon: "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Not Spongebob. It's for boys

cuz they say naughty words".

Favorite Book: "Pink delicious (Pinkalicious), and Horton Hears a Who and Tea with Ruby"

Favorite Color: "Mommeeeeeee.....PINK!"

Favorite Dinner: "Ribs and pasta"

Favorite Dessert: "Ice cream. Chocolate with green" (mint w/carob chips)

Favorite Place to Go: "Disneyland!"

Favorite Movie: "Tinkerbell movies, and High School Musical"

Favorite Song: "Don't Stop Believin' (Glee...Journey), Single Ladies (Beyonce)"

Taylor likes to play outside on the swings for a little while, but is more of a couch potato. She likes to roll on the carpet in her 'spot' and sing songs or watch movies. She can count to 30 and knows the ABC's orally and by sight. She likes to ride her scooter, but is not too fond of her bike. She plays with Barbies and purses and loves to dress up. She has a lot of dress up clothes and shoes, and preferes to wears dresses in real life too! Taylor loves to draw pictures with chalk, markers or ink pens, and her favorite game in Memory.

She's outgrowing her food challenges which has been a nice bonus at meal time! She has a dairy allergy, and is still intolerant of peanuts and tree nuts. But we've started allowing foods with egg and she's tolerating it well! She likes to eat out for lunch with Mommy, but not really for dinner. She's a mommy's girl, and doesn't like it when Hayden and/or Daddy crowd her territory! She completed her developmental preschool on March 13th and is now attending St. Tims, in the 3-4 year old class! Her best friends are Cash, Kadie, Kady and Jaxson, Cooper and her sister Hayden, too!

Taylor has a silly personality, is quite the actress and pretends to act shy when she wants to, or is being stubborn. Quite honestly, she doesn't have a shy bone in her body. She loves to be the center of attention and command an audience with anyone who will give her 1/2 a second! Our lives our complete with Taylor, we are so lucky to get to spend each day with her.

Happy 4th birthday Tay, we love you!

Mini golf with mini people

Conal's vacation overlapped Hayden's Spring break by one day. We wanted to do something fun with the girls, so we decided to try miniature golfing at Golfland. We hadn't been since Hayden was under 3 and Taylor was a newborn. This time was much, much more fun!
We are learning that neither of our girls have a competitive bone in their body. It's a bit sad to me! Conal, well, he doesn't get it...why it makes me sad! lol. He's not competitive, not really driven by the need to win. He doesn't care to put stakes on a game (unless it's for a head rub), and me....it's KILLING ME!!! I don't like to play for fun!

PS..... I WON!! heehee

NieNie Day

My sister and I don't get together too often. We both work from home, have kids that go in different directions, plus she has an infant. That being said, we wanted to try to get the kids together over Spring Break once, as they miss each other and often ask for playdates. With some calculated manipulation of the calendar, we marked in a date. Not to be changed unless someone was puking!

We wanted to take the kids...yah, the kids to Smeeks! Smeeks is a candy and novelty toy store located in central Phoenix. We've both read about it on the NieNie Dialogues, and have been awaiting the opportunity to get there! We planned our field trip about two weeks in advanced and hashed up a game plan. We knew the kids would want some treats at Smeeks, so we gave them a list of chores to complete, to earn money for their purchases. Her boys each earned $9, Hayden earned $10 and Taylor earned $2.

They picked us up and we trekked into "the City", as my girls so affectionately call Phoenix.

This is a big deal. It's like we're going on a trip, going to the City! We had a great time at the candy store, Hayden purchased some candy, Taylor purchased a lipstick lollipop, and I revelled in the photo booth pics I took with my girls!

On our way in, we decided to make it an entire NieNie Day and eat at one of NieNie's favorite lunch spots in Mesa...Sweetcakes. It was a beautiful day out, so we ate on the patio, and finished our lunch with some delicious cookies. A trip to the Glitter Box rack rounded out a completely successful, utterly fun NieNie day with my sister and all our kiddos! Sadly, we don't do that stuff too often, but I have to say I think it makes me appreciate the time so much more!

Kindergarten Spring Party

While Conal was on vacation, Hayden's class had their Spring (Easter) party. He helped in the classroom that day! Actually, the whole family did. Tay kinda thinks she's the class mascot, as she's in there a lot with me, and Hayden was THRILLED that her daddy came. It was also worldwide Austism Awareness day, so notice the blue we're sportin'!

Cathy's 75th Birthday!

My mother-in-law turned 75 years old in March. Meghan flew in for the celebration. Or, celebrations, maybe I should say! I think Nana had fun, but was a bit burned out from party, after party for a whole weekend! Needless to say, it was a fun few days!

A Marquette4 Update!

I'm grateful to have a job, and one I love at that. However, work is really cramping my personal life!
I'd have to say that I'm working full time these days. It's very rare that I work less than 40 hours in a week. Gotta get while the gettin's good in this industry, and in a couple of months it will quiet down. So even though I'm missing out on some fun stuff, not home at night too often, and can't keep my blog updated, I really can't complain!

Sooooo, what have we been up to, you wonder? Take a peak below :)

Zoo time!

We haven't been to the zoo since last Fall. That's a little unusual for us, considering we used to have a membership and would go at least twice a month! I let my membership lapse this year though. Now that Hayden's in school full time, and Tay is in preschool, I figured I wouldn't use it as much.

So last Thursday, on a whim, we hitched up with Becky, Kady, Faith and their grandma and went to the zoo. We enjoyed a picnic, soaked up some sun and let the girls overload on cotton candy and snow cones. I came home and had to go to work, so I let Conal deal with the repercussions of the sugar high! ;)

Taylor Update

Tay's about to turn 4 in just a few weeks. That meant that her IEP was due at her developmental preschool. I was pretty convinced that she wouldn't be approved for the program any longer, but wasn't quite sure if they'd keep her through her birthday, the end of the year, or what. The week before her IEP the school psych. told me that they would be releasing her on the last day before Spring break. That was music to my ears!!

On March 12, the last day before Spring break, I met with her teacher and the therapists at Erie school and we all signed off on Taylor's release from the developmental education program.

Taylor has done so well and is now mainstreamed! Her vocabulary, vocalization and socialization have exceeded far beyond the expectations and goals that were set for her a year ago. In fact, all of her educators and support staff involved recommended that I get her into a program or class that will allow her to express herself. They think a quiet dance class is too docile for her. She's been around quiet kids for awhile and they'd suggest I enroll her somewhere where talking, singing, and noise in encouraged. So, I did just that! I enrolled her in the summer Broadway Kids camp at the Chandler Center for the Arts. It's a bit pricey, but she's never done anything fun like that. By this age Hayden had participated in dance, gymnastics and soccer...now it's Tay's turn!

We also left her school that day after her IEP meeting, and went over to St. Tim's. I had spoken to Monica the week prior about enrolling her for next Fall. When we went in on Friday, Miss Terri took Tay into music class with the rest of the kids. Taylor had a ball! Miss Mary has a small class right now, only 6 kids in the afternoons, so they invited her to attend for the rest of the year. I'm not sending her until the week after Easter when they resume their schedule. I wanted her home while Hayden is off on Spring Break. Taylor is really excited to go to the "big kids school where Haynen went". She will only go for the remaining six weeks left in the school year, but will return in August.

Taylor is doing really well, it does my heart so good!

The social butterfly with Emme, Reagan and Jackson

Mary Poppins!

I found a bargain online the week before Mary Poppins rolled into town. Four tickets for forty dollars! I called my mom to see if she was available, knowing that even if she wasn't she'd probably clear her schedule for this! ;)

So, a few days later, on the Friday night before Valentine's day, we went on a girls date! Mom treated us to dinner at Cheesecake Factory, and we enjoyed an AMAZING production of Mary Poppins! We were in the upper level...but quite honestly, our seats were really good and I'd sit up there again! The bathrooms were not crowded (if you've been to Gammage, you know what I'm talking about!), and we had an unobstructed view!

The show, itself, went beyond anything I could imagine. The broadway producation of Mary Poppins was practically perfect in every way! Captivating, magical and totally imaginative! Hayden and Tay loved it so much that they watched Mary Poppins multiple times throughout that weekend, trying to re-live it!

Neighborhood fun!

I've been a slacker and haven't been carrying my camera with me too often. It's really too bad. We've been having so much fun with new friends in our neighborhood, and I'm missing out on a lot of photo ops.

Our neighborhood school has been more than just fun and new for Hayden. Living here as long as we have, we've always been a little down on our neighborhood. There's nobody fun, or even friendly on our street. Well, since Hayden has started school, and I gotten involved with the PTO, we've met so many nice families that live in our development, just blocks away! AND, this isn't a crappy development! There are actually friendly and social families around...they've just somehow skipped our street!

We've been to everything from a Mardi Gras party to a Sangria party. Dinner parties, lunches, and playdates. We've gone out to dinner and had friends over...it's been so much fun! And it's great, because the kids are included in most everything, we don't have to find a babysitter as often as we used to!

Hayden and Lauren at Lauren's House
Hayden and Lindsey at the Sun's game. It was a school sponsored event and so much fun. Their friend Ryan's mom is a local newscaster who had Media passes. So, she took Hayden, Lindsey and Ryan down courtside during the game and for a behind the scenes tour. These two crazy girls had a BLAST! They met cheerleaders and the Gorilla, and their friend Ryan even high fived Steve Nash!
I watched the Moore girls, Faith and Kady, last Friday while their mom worked. These girls all get along really well, and we see them often!Sitting in a bubble 'copter

The Haydens...aka H1H2End of season (2) soccer party. Hayden with Coach Randy and Coach Efren (who I actually went to highschool with). Crazy, small world!

New profession?

Should I send these two to beauty school now and get it out of the way? They both took up hairdressing in the same week.

Indoor Upgrades!

Living in one place for 9 years gets a little old. Would I like more space? Yep! Would I love a pool? Absolutely! BUT, the fact of the matter is that we're not going anywhere. For a while. Probably a long while. So, we've been freshening up the place a bit. Paint here and there, we're getting ready to put crown moulding up in the family room, and we trimmed out our windows in the family room. I've been refinishing furniture instead of buying new. It's actually been quite fun! (And cheap!)

I bought my very first power tool! All by myself. Home Depot has surpassed Target as my favorite store. In fact, one sales person laughed at me, as she saw me there three days in a row...asked "does your hubby know about your new love?" Apparently, we both must spend a bit of time there for her to know who my hubby was. Maybe I should be worried?!