holidays

turkey bowl with friends from russell's school

calvin was not content to sit on the sidelines and they graciously allowed him some playtime

this was my only picture from thanksgiving...i made rolls (my first attempt ever) and they turned out pretty well. we had a delish dinner with katy, dan, the cousins, and the missionaries.

we actually started decorating for Christmas on thanksgiving. those of you who know russell should know that he started it even though he usually protests anything Christmasy before turkey day is over. calvin found his stocking, a mitten decoration, and squished his "my first Christmas" hat on his head for a festive outfit...

i came downstairs and found two boys watching the train circle the tree

we've also been to two light parades. we went to this one in tempe with katy and her kiddos:

and, Christmas came early when toys r us delivered a small gift in a huge box (it was a big waste), so we made an airplane out of it. calvin enjoys taking his animals for a spin.

in unrelated news, russell participated in a dodgeball tournament (no fractured fingers this time!) for charity that was hosted by a club at school. here's his team in their goofy costumes. yeah, russell's the one with his underwears showing and the sporty pink headband...

his team won 2nd place!

november in arizona

This month's weather has been beautiful and actually bearable for venturing outside. A few weeks ago, Russell's school hosted the ATSU Founder's Day BBQ at the Big Dreams Little League Park in Gilbert. The park has major league replica fields, a huge indoor soccer field, and a cool indoor eating place that overlooks five of the fields. There was a kickball tournament - our team took 2nd! - and of course Calvin was in heaven. He LOVES baseball and got to hang out in the dugout with our team and play on the field after the game.

learning to run the bases (backwards)

our friends Stan and Samira Brewer (below) and their little Isabella - she was so cute with her face painted!

I took these last pics two days ago - it was 75 degrees and we spent a lot of the day outside. Here's Calvin next to our monstrosity of a tumble weed...it's taller than him. Notice the flowers still blooming!:

I love this grass. I learned that there are actually two kinds of grass in Arizona - summer grass and winter grass. The summer grass is green, but not so soft and it's a type that can withstand the major heat. THIS is winter grass. It's emerald green and thick and luscious and I could probably eat it or at least have a nice nap in it.

I love that Calvin smiles for pictures now.
This is my favorite boy next to my favorite bush in our backyard.

I'm thankful for warm, sunny weather, especially because it's raining today.
Happy Thanksgiving!

quirky tag

My sis-in-law Lyndy tagged me like two months ago...

Here are the rules:
Link the Person who Tagged you.
Mention rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 quirks of yours.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.

1. I have to sleep on my side with a pillow between my legs and preferably be facing away from Russell and not touching him at all. I do love my husband, but I can't fall asleep without these conditions.

2. I hate shaving my legs. Before we moved to Arizona, I didn't really own a pair of shorts and seriously shaved probably once a month or so and even less in the winter (sorry if that grosses anyone out). I've only worn shorts since we moved here and regrettably, I've shaved more in the last three months than probably the last 5 years.

3. I'm a compulsive chap-stick user. I always have at least one tube with me and in the event that I can't find it, I'm really uncomfortable until my lips are properly coated again.

4. I always have a song in my head, which sounds sort of cheesy, but it's true. You can often catch me humming parts of it, which is probably annoying. The songs vary, but it's usually one that I've heard a lot lately. Recently, it's been "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?" or something from Aladdin - you can probably guess why.

5. I always squeeze the toothpaste from the middle. I like it. Russell is a bottom of the tube squeezer and regularly pushes the toothpaste back up to the top so it's nice and neat again. That's my favorite time to get a good squeeze right in the middle.

6. If my feet are cold, my whole body is uncomfortable. I usually sleep in socks because of this.

If you feel inclined to share your quirks, consider yourself tagged.

Enough about my issues...let me add some cute pics of Calvin. His latest quirk has to do with his wardrobe. These are all from the same day last week. He started out by insisting that he wear his coon skin cap to breakfast. He had to put it back on every time it fell off and there were fuzz balls in his cereal and stuck to his hands, though he didn't seem to mind.

When he got dressed, he wanted to put on a tie and then raided my "unmentionables" drawer. He put them on all by himself, so I had to capture it on film...
Then he kept the tie and tried on Russell's socks and shoes. Looks like a little old man...

yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me...

Our Halloween festivities started with our ward's trunk-or-treat on Tuesday night.
Here's our little pirate all ready to go:

Calvin won a cupcake in the cake walk and got cotton candy and a balloon sword.

Russell's sister Katy let us borrow a crayon costume for me and a knight for Sir Russell...

Here's the boys in front of our trunk.

We carved our pumpkin on Thursday night

Calvin trick-or-treated at Katy & Dan's neighborhood with the cousins and loved it. Surprisingly, he ran up to all the doors, stuck out his bucket, and even waved bye and said "welcome" when Russell or I said "thanks." He scored in the candy department and still talks about "oween."

Russell decided to wear another of Katy's costumes for trick-or-treating - the "warlock" (witch) riding a ghost. Needless to say, he only lasted about a half hour waddling around in the 90 degree heat - yeah, I've never been so hot on Halloween and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Here's Uncle Dan, cousins Magavin the jedi, Milo as spiderman, Koby the pirate, and Delaney as Ariel, and Calvin all ready to go.

I had to include a short video (sorry the lighting is bad) of our candy-monger...

september visitors!

Happy Birthday to me - my mom, sister Heather, and her boys Max and Ezra came to visit the day before my birthday. They graciously braved the heat (it was still in the 100's for all of Sept) and we had a great time. We ate out (Texas Roadhouse, Sweet Tomatoes, Cafe Rio!), enjoyed the pool, went to storytime at the library, got pedicures (just the girls), visited the Mesa Temple and visitor's center, and tried to walk around at the Riparian Preserve (a desert/wildlife area), but didn't last long in the heat. I wish I had more pictures, but I left the camera home most of the time. The cousins sure had a blast and it was great to spend some time with two of my favorite ladies.

calvin and max scooping rocks in the back...they really were having fun, but were probably annoyed that i asked them to look at the camera

fancy toes

grandma looks gorgeous with two distracted boys

matching cousins

Mesa Temple grounds

smiley brothers (max loved calvin's tool set safety goggles)

ezra is getting so big and is still such a good baby. he learned to scoot on his stomach while they were here.

heather and the boys stayed for almost a week and a half and my mom was able to stay for an extra week. calvin kept close tabs on his grandma and dragged her around with him everywhere for the last few days she was here. we were definitely spoiled and sad to see everyone go!

calvin discovered his shadow a couple days before my mom left - it was quite entertaining!

white coat ceremony

Russell started school on July 28th and his white coat ceremony was Friday, August 1st. It's a traditional start-of-medical- school thing they do where some faculty and other guests speak, the students are given a white coat, they recite the osteopathic oath and then everyone takes pictures. This is what was going on inside the auditorium...

And out in the lobby (Calvin didn't last very long, but they did have screens outside and I was able to go back in when it was Russell's turn to be "coated")...

We're so glad that Hal, Kyle and Katy + kids could be there, as well as my mom. Russell had quite the fan club.

I'm so proud of all the hard work that Russell has put in to getting this far! (And, for those who were wondering, I finally cut Russell's hair yesterday - it was out of control in these pictures! It just wasn't on my to-do list those last two weeks of July. =)

arizona, shoes & dancing

We love AZ so far and are anxious for the time when we can actually go outside for an extended period. They tell us here that it starts to cool off around October-ish. We are pretty much settled in our home - my favorite features are the space (compared to our last teeny apt), the kitchen, the air conditioning, the ceiling fans, and the garage. Some stuff we've done this past month:

- spent time at the pool whenever possible
- visited IKEA for the first time and had yummy meatballs
- unpacked and put away ALMOST everthing
- been to Wal-Mart WAY too many times
- BBQ'ed last weekend with Russell's school friends
- spoke in Sacrament Meeting our 2nd Sunday
- ate at In-n-Out Burger (honestly, I'd rather go to Carl's Jr - sorry to all you die hard fans)
- visited the library weekly
- ate Cafe Rio with Katy, my sis-in-law (yay, they have one here!)

We would love to host any who want to come visit (well, as long as we know you) and if it helps entice anyone, we have a Texas Roadhouse, Sweet Tomatoes, Bajio, and Chipotle just around the corner (you can tell we're enticed by good food).

I don't have pictures of the house yet, but one of Calvin's newest things is to go into my closet and try on my shoes. He always puts on the fancy ones and then walks back and forth across the bathroom floor between the bedroom and the closet - I guess he likes the noise they make. I've caught him on film twice so far:

These black ones are his favorite, but the blue suede (below) went better with his outfit that day...

He always neatly puts them back where they go - this kid cracks me up. His favorite words these days are broccoli (he loves to eat it too), racquetball, soccer ball, basketball (sensing a theme?), and Virgil (our turtle). He's become quite brave in the pool and would walk right off the step if I wasn't watching. He also loves to jump off the side and splash.

Okay, last thing. The other night, I put on the music from our wedding and we all danced for about an hour. Here's a video I took of Calvin and Russell about halfway through:

texas trip

Right before we moved, we took a much-needed vacation. We stopped in Killeen to see Heather & Ephraim just in time to celebrate Ephraim's birthday. We got to meet little Ezra and enjoyed some amazing BBQ spots. Heather and the boys joined us in San Antonio and we visited the zoo, the Japanese sunken gardens, and spent a couple days in Padre Island at the beach. It was so nice to visit with family there and Calvin enjoyed playing with cousins. Here's a bunch of pictures to make up for my recent lapse:

Ezra and the birthday boy

Max graciously demonstrated his famous statue of liberty trick (and many others)

We all played out in the sprinklers

Me, Max and a rare look at an unhappy Ezra (he's usually so mild-mannered)

Butterfly photo shoot at the zoo...

Savannah

Calvin (what's with the ballerina arms?)

Max!

John, Kelly and the kiddos took us to the zoo

Cousins at the sunken gardens

We also went swimming at Grandma & Grandpa Roberts' pool...Here's Rod with Ezra

Karen let us take her Yukon to the coast so we could all drive together.
Heather was a trooper in the backseat with three little boys.

The beach! This was Calvin's first experience with the ocean and he loved it.

Boys playing in the sand

Ezra and Heather enjoying some shade

Calvin and Daddy flying a kite

More sand castle building

We had a wonderful time and are so glad we decided to still go. Who knows when we'll have another chance for a trip? We drove home straight through (23 hours and the low point of the trip) and got back on Wednesday at 4 in the morning. We packed Wednesday & Thursday, loaded the truck Friday, and Russell left Saturday morning. Thanks so much to our brother-in-law Mike for driving our stuff and my husband down to AZ (we used his truck and trailer and it was a tight squeeze). Calvin and I cleaned and checked out of our apt (with lots of help from amazing friends - Judy and Jean) and left Tuesday morning. Thanks to my mom for braving the drive with us! She stayed and helped unpack until Friday afternoon and was such a big help. So many things fell into place for us this past month. While on vacation, we were able to buy all of Russell's books (all 7 pages!!), figure out financial aid and apply for a scholarship, find a house to rent (with my sis-in-law Katy's help - actually she did it all!), sell our contract, find new health insurance, and arrange the moving stuff, to name a few. We are so blessed with supportive family and friends and the opportunity to see so many that we love.