Baby is 2!

A couple weeks ago my sweet little madden guy turned 2. I have been thinking a lot about this sweet little boy and how grateful I am to have him in my family. This picture below was just a few days after madden was born. Although Madden wasn't planned I can't imagine our family without him. He has brought us so much happiness. Here are some pictures of the things I love about this baby!


Madden is ready for anything. He is just waiting around for something else to happen so he can do it. The second we brought out his cake he was filling his cheeks with air to blow out those candles. (I didn't even know he would know what to do).


He has such an angelic face and is a sweet boy but he is also my wild child:) Madden likes to test the boundaries and pinch, bite, hit or kick me. I will always tell him no Madd, we don't hit mommy, sometimes he will say "sorry mom" in his sweet voice. Other times he will do an evil laugh and run away.


He is all boy. He loves to wear hats, shoes football wrist bands or anything else he can find. He also wants to be doing every single thing Emerson does. Madden has to wear his backpack every time we take Emerson to school. He will literally follow Emerson around the house all day and follow every move, sound or action he does. It is pretty cute!




Lately Madden has been a good helper. He wants to help me with every single thing I do. He will vacuum, wash dishes, wipe counters, sweep and mop. I only wish he would just put his energy into those things, most of the time he is pulling things out and off of places, throwing toys all over the floor or the worst one yet, hitting our tv with a bat and breaking the 47" flat screen....nice!


My favorite thing Madden does is "be aggressive". The picture below is exactly what he does when we tell him to be aggressive. It is so funny! After he does that he will usually tackle us or something. He loves to wrestle his brother and daddy any chance he can get.




I absolutely love this babies dimples. They melt me. I love that he calls his daddy "mike" and laughs about it. I love that he calls emerson "bro-der". I love that he says "hike" with his football and tackles us. Even though he is a wild, crazy, energetic boy I love him so much. He is so fun to be around and still has a very sweet personality. I am so thankful for Madden to be in our family, we would be missing out on so much without him.


Happy Birthday Baby Guy! We love you lots and lots!

April Fools

I have never really done anything for April Fools before. This year my friend Heather and I decided to do a last minute April Fools party for the kids. So, Heather made the cupcakes and I put some crafts together and the kids came and had a good time. We handed out treats in a white sock we put cocoa on. Heather made these great cupcakes that looked like spaghetti and meatballs and mashed potatoes with butter (the butter was a starburst). It was fun to put together. The kids all ran around and had a good time.


Heathers fabulous cupcakes....

The kids in their "crazy" hats and making green slime....


Next year I think it might be fun to do an adult april fools party. There seemed to be lots of fun ideas online:)

Young Women's Campout Adventure

We decided to have a super activity for our young women. We made plans to go canoeing on the Verde River. I knew going into it that it would be an adventure, I just didn't know how much of an adventure it would be.

Day 1 we arrived in the White Tank Mountains. We set up camp and relaxed. Lucky for me, Emerson and Madden got to come up and spend with us. They loved it up there. Emerson got to play baseball with everyone.


These boys were spoiled rotten with attention from all the young women. All the girls were so great with them and played with them the entire time.



The girls set up all of the tents on their own. They were awesome!


We took a hike to a "waterfall" and saw a rattle snake on the way.



That was the first day....

Day 2 was a different day. It started off great. We went to McDonald's for breakfast and then headed a hour and a half north to get on the River. We got on our canoes at around 10:30 am. We were all really nervous because most of us had never canoed before. We got on the water and realized that it really wasn't too bad. The river was slow, wide and we just slowly went along.

After being on the water for a couple hours things started to get interesting. I had one of my cute young women, Katie with me. We somehow drifted to the side and couldn't get away and went right into a huge tree with tons of sticks (not really any leaves). I was laying flat on my back because the sticks were so thick. I was trying to push my way out but it was really hard. Finally we got out and I realized there were about 50 spiders in my boat!!!!! Yes, SPIDERS!!! all shapes and sizes. This was my worst fear by far. I was freaking out! I was standing in the canoe, jumping and screaming, stabbing and stomping the spiders with my feet and my ore. It was horrible.

I survived.

After lunch we headed out again. A few people had tipped there canoes but we hadn't yet. I was thankful because the water was cold and it was only 65 degrees outside. Well, not long after lunch did everyone start tipping over. The poor men on our trip spent the entire day getting all of us un-stuck, getting water out of our boats and convincing the girls that we needed to keep going. I could make this post sooo long and tell you about every single time we tipped over and had scary adventures but I won't. I will just say that it got so bad that almost every girl was crying and at one point they couldn't do it anymore. We had been through so much that last couple hours. So the girls decided to get out of their canoes and start walking. Obviously they couldn't go alone so since I was the only female leader with them at the time, I went with.

We thought we were almost at the end from where we got out of the water so the plan was to just follow the road along the river until we got to the cars. We walked for about a mile and we didn't see any cars. We did run into a lady and borrowed her phone. We found another couple from our group and they came to pick us up....in their Toyota Camry. We fit 8 girls in the back seat and I sat in the front seat on one of the other women leaders laps:) It was so funny. We were all soaking wet, freezing from the wind and emotionally exhausted!

The next few hours was spent wondering if the rest of our group on the river was okay. We didn't have any contact with them and as it got dark we were really scared. The rest of our group had to get all of our abandoned canoes down the river for 2 miles!!! We thought we were at the end but we weren't, we still had a long way to go.

After many prayers and waiting we located our group and got back together at around 9pm.

Next, we were getting ready to load up and one of the trucks wouldn't start so we had to get a tow truck to drive us back. When the tow truck arrived we got loaded up and then our driver decided to go off the path a little ways and got stuck in the parking lot!!!! It took a half hour to get us out and finally we were on our way at 10:30pm. We went and loaded the canoes and got a ride back to the White Tank mountains....arrival time was 1:30am.

It was the craziest day I have ever had. We were all emotionally exhausted but thankful to have everyone safe. Our goal for the trip was unity and we got it!!!!

Phoenix Childrens Museum

This place was amazing! The boys had so much fun here and I was pretty impressed myself. It was in a cool old building in downtown.

Emerson in the HUGE playhouse.

They rode trikes through a pretend carwash.

Madden liked Emerson to taxi him around. He never wanted to get out of that back seat:)



they made hats....

Painted a castle....

went through the noodle forest...


and went grocery shopping and checked themselves out.

I hope we go back again. These boys loved every minute!

Spring Training

Being in Phoenix in March has its perks. One of them is attending spring training games for way cheap. We got tickets to the Mariners for free from the Air Force base. Rob and Rocio came to visit us so we took them along with us. It is nice to sit on the grass and enjoy some sun. I don't think we watched much of the game but it was a good time anyway!