Hotel Weekend

This past weekend we got to stay in a really nice hotel for FREE! Yeah pretty crazy. Curtis' job had an awards dinner on Saturday and offered their employees a night stay in the Arizona Grand Hotel or $100 gift card. Curtis wasn't able to get the gift card since they only had a limited amount, so instead we got the night stay. We arranged to have the kids watched for the night and got to spend a night just me and him!

Before that though we took Stella and Lincoln to the hotel's water park which was so much FUN! They had a kiddie pool with springs bursting up water, a lazy river, a wave pool and just a regular pool with a basketball hoop and volleyball net. It was fancy shmancy. Stella loved the springs. She took a plastic cup and copied what another boy was doing, but then ended up just collecting water in it and pouring it in the kiddie pool haha. Who knew one could have so much fun with a plastic cup.

We went down the lazy river a couple of times, which was nice. One section, towards the end, had small rapids and we got splashed. The whole time Lincoln had such a somber face and when he got splashed in my lap he had no expression at all hahah. He usually is a smiley boy, but the whole time he was expressionless or looked kind of mad. lol

We didn't get to enjoy the slides since we had the kids, but all in all it was still a blast. Stella had 3 days of swim lessons under her belt at that time and she was brave enough to go under water and everything; when before she would FREAK out and cry. I'm glad swimming lessons are helping her enjoy her water experience :)

After the water park fun we dropped off the kiddos with my mom and came back to the hotel to get ready for the awards dinner. There were so many cute and fancy dresses that the ladies were wearing. They had games before the actual dinner and a meet and greet with GRANT HILL Phoenix Suns player. Yes I got to meet him, shake his hand and get his autograph. AMAZING! Curtis won a nice fossil watch with an olive toss in the martini glass game and then came dinner. It tasted soo good. I wasn't a fan of the dessert, but the salad and the main course were awesome!

And that's what we got to do for our weekend. :) Too bad we didn't win any of the door prizes (i.e. Ipad 2, Wii, XBOX 360, Dbacks package of sitting in the dugout, etc.) Maybe next year hehe

Camping, Mother's Day and many more updates

 Just an fyi this post will be quite lengthy. I won't be too sad if you don't read through it, but there will be fun information and pictures, so your loss not mine haha jk.

Ok so Stella and Lincoln were attending a Kindermusic class and they absolutely LOVED it! Every week Stella would ask to go to her class. I liked it because they were learning about different animals, sounds, instruments and just having a great ol' time! It was a gift from my awesome mother-in-law! Here a couple pictures (all taken at different times). They had their last day a week from yesterday :( We'll see if we can do it again the next semester.

 

We finally got to go camping the weekend of April 30th with my good friends Shalyse and Chase and their two sweet kids. It was so fun just to get away and enjoy nature. Stella had a blast playing with Kael, getting dirty, exploring and riding on the quad with mom. I'll admit I'm not a professional quad rider and I was freaked when I first started, but I was ok and Stella had fun. Hopefully I can get more comfortable one day. Lincoln wanted to be everywhere but he enjoyed being held and playing in his pack n play and in Claire's. They became buddies, but I think Lincoln liked her too much because he was mauling her and she just looked up with an expression of "Help me, please." Good times.

My sweet Lincoln loving the outdoors

Going on a walk to explore the area

The view

Stella's delighted face on being able to get dirty and not get in trouble haha

 On the actual day of Mother's day there really is nothing to report. We had a normal morning that became hectic and became even more hectic for me in primary. You may ask "Why is primary hectic?" Well first of all our ward is combined with the spanish ward which means a TON of kids! And secondly for the second half we (the primary presidency) were handing over the reins to the elders and priests of our ward, while we got to enjoy Relief Society. All in all though I LOVE my calling! Even though it always seems hectic, I love seeing the sweet faces and hearing their silly comments :) Oh yes the reason why Mother's day was so anti-climactic was because I received my AMAZING gift 2 1/2 weeks before! It was a new sewing machine!!!! Yay!!!! I was so happy and it seriously has made sewing so much smoother, faster and just a dream. I had my mom's old one, which was given to her by her cousin, which was given to her by an old lady who she cleaned for. So yeah it was pretty old! It only had one stitch and NO backstitch! Anyway I'm thankful to my awesome husband! He set the bar high for Mother's day, so we'll see if he keeps it up ;)

I finally finished a bag that I purchased the pattern for back in FEBRUARY! Oh my gosh what a heart ache it brought lol. Luckily Curtis is so patient that he would say stuff like "I'm sure you can figure out a different way to make it if the instructions don't make any sense." And lo and behold I did! Hurray!

Didn't like the size of the tie. I'll probably make another one so it's bigger

 

Another piece of information is that we bought a zoo membership last week and Stella's favorite part or at least the part that she constantly mentions are the monkeys. She kept saying "Monkey assedent." Translation the monkey had an accident. While we were in the Orangutan exhibit, which is so cool by the way literally because it has AC inside, the baby orangutan was climbing up the the glass and was just hanging there and felt the call of nature and just let it go right in front of us. It was pretty hilarious!

This peacock was awesome! It was just walking around and posing :)



Tried to take a quick picture because it was a cute area.



 

Lincoln staring at Stella running through the little splash park

On a final note, I make a tribute to the sweet and loving husband I have. I've been sick since Monday and have not had dinner made this whole week! Yikes! Yeah I've been a slacker, but you can't blame me fully because not only was I sick, but my sweet little ones were pretty sick too! So it was a TRIPLE whammy! But instead of complaining or asking "what are you cooking tonight?" He just went to the laptop and researched a recipe and cooked for us! What an awesome husband huh?! That was every night this week :) Yeah I'm blessed I know. I need to thank my Heavenly Father constantly for sending him my way and for blessing with two adorable kids, who like to test mom's abilities to the fullest.

Not daddy, you curtis

Stella can be such a funny girl sometimes lol. We're sitting down eating dinner and Stella points to Curtis and says "Curtis get me some juice." hahhahaa Curtis says "Did you just call me Curtis? I'm daddy to you." She responds "Noooooo, you Curtis." Then he points to me and says who's that?" Stella says "Mommy." hahahah Curtis says "Noooo that's Ashley." And she flashes her quick response "Nooooo that's my mommy."

Oh man the things she says. I seriously love being a mom and children bring the most sweetest and tender moments.

Slowly but Surely

Lincoln is a little bit on the slower side when it comes to the moving around skills. He still does an army crawl, but he sure gets around FAST! A couple of days ago I noticed him sitting in his crib playing when I had laid him down. So he finally sits up on his own now :) And just now I walk into the front room and he's standing leaning up against the coffee table!! So that means he pulls himself up haha.

There still might be hope for him to walk by a year old, but I'm in no hurry lol. He gets into plenty of things just crawling. I can only imagine what havoc him and Stella would reak with both of them on two feet :)

Anyway that's a small update on how we're doing. I have a lot of pictures that I'll post soon!

Hallelujah!!

I am happy to report that Lincoln finally took a bottle (formula) on Friday afternoon yay!! I got carried away and decided to just cut off nursing completely, rather than a gradual transition. I couldn't help but eat delicious ice-cream and AWESOME sugar cookies made by my sister-in-law Esther. Mmmm the joy of being able to eat yummy food.

On another note, Curtis and I decided to get a family gym membership at the Y and boy oh boy do I love it!! They have child watch and I have a complete hr to myself to work out :) Every time we have to leave though it's a nightmare because Stella LOVES playing on the playground and socializing with the other kids.

Today was yet another horror to leave and my body was not up for the battle due to participation in my first gym class. It was Total Body Conditioning (TBC) and oh my goodness am I going to feel it tomorrow hahah. The instructor was so cute and she was so good. We used free weights, the exercise ball, the bar and the step. I'm glad I went, although I was intimidated to go in the first place. It was my FIRST EVER gym class, even though I have had other gym memberships in the past. Crazy I know ha!

Anyway when I finally got Stella to exit the building, she decided to test my body some more by running down the little hill they have in front of the building. I set Lincoln down in his carseat (which was a nice rest to my sore biceps and triceps) and chased after her. My legs felt like they were going to give every time a stepped; they felt so wobbly and I couldn't help but laugh. Stella turned back and was grinning her wide grin and laughing out loud. I finally caught up and grabbed her. She sure put up a fight and I almost dropped her because of the soreness of muscles. Luckily she kind of freaked from that and calmed down a little. Some may wonder "Why join a gym, when you have a Stella to chase after?" I would say it is to help me catch her faster lol!

What a day

So after 2.5 hrs of waiting in the lab place to get our (Lincoln and I) blood drawn, we finally got called back. Let me just say thank goodness for grandma's haha. My mom also needed her blood drawn and joined us in our long wait. Unfortunately after she got called she had to hurry and leave to get to work on time, but I don't know what I would've done without her with a wild Stella constantly running out and down the halls haha. When we finally did get called back Stella was like "Mommy pokey, ouchy" and I would just respond with a "yeah it's ok." Her response to that was shocking "My turn mommy. Pokey me." In my mind I was "Huh, you seriously want to get poked in the arm with a needle!" Lincoln was up next, another shocking moment, he sat on my lap while one Dr. held his arm down and the other poked him. He just sat there and stared at what was happening to his arm and didn't flinch or even cry. Nothing. He was such a good baby! And Stella during the process was saying "It's ok Keenkin, ouchy you." Then she let out a huge sigh, comforting her little brother. When Lincoln was finished she said "My turn, my turn, pokey pokey me." She was so upset when we left without her getting poked. I thought I was in the clear when we were walking to our car, but she was started to throw a fit because she wanted a pokey. Kids...they don't know any better lol. Anyway tonight I went out to AJ to look at a table saw with my dad. And this is what I came home to. Cutest thing ever!! I decided to post about it rather than try to move the little ones from my bed to go to sleep heh.

I love how Lincoln is snuggling up on Curtis :)

Canker Sores yuck and ouch!

Lately I've been getting a lot of canker sores and I hardly ever get them. I think I can count on one hand the instances I've gotten one throughout my life. But in the few weeks I've gotten three!!! Ewww! So the student in me decided to do a little research to find out what the deal was. Let me just say I heart wikipedia! It is such an amazing tool! I also love medical websites hehe. From one I found that "Canker sores can be triggered by emotional stress, dietary deficiencies (especially iron, folic acid, or vitamin B-12), menstrual periods, hormonal changes, food allergies, and similar situations." -http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001993 What triggered my interest was the dietary deficiencies and emotional stress, since the others really didn't apply to my case because I rarely got them before. I searched Vitamin B12 and folic acid, since those were the ones that I was the most familiar with. I found the following on wikipedia: "Vitamin B12 is found in foods that come from animals, including fish and shellfish, meat (especially liver), poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products.[25] Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption.[29]" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12 "Certain foods are very high in folate: Leafy vegetables such as spinach, asparagus, turnip greens Legumes such as dried or fresh beans, peas and lentils Egg yolks.[13] Baker's yeast Fortified grain products (pasta, cereal, bread); some breakfast cereals (ready-to-eat and others) are fortified with 25% to 100% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for folic acid Sunflower seeds Liver and liver products also contain high amounts of folate Kidney[13]" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folic_acid So now thanks to my research and can better feed myself the things that I need and hopefully not get canker sores anymore lol. Sorry for this long educational post, but I have come to appreciate the internet as an awesome tool to further your education, even if you aren't in school :) Woohoo for education!