Day 31- Halloween

Today was  Halloween! I LOVE HALLOWEEN! This year we stayed in our neighborhood, I was hoping to meet some of our neighbors, unfortunately the 4 people surrounding us didn't participate. :( But we had fun anyways, we had a fire pit in the drive way (on an 80* night!) and hung out with Adam & Aubrey.

Arg! Olivia was a Pirate

Boo! Spencer was a ghost, with a mustache....

Ethan was a ventriloquist dummy.

Day 30 - Tuesday practice

Tonight the boys have football practice and it's FREEZING! Don't laugh...we are used to 90*! It's like 68* out here {blush}... Anyways, back to practice. Today Is their second to last practice because Saturday they play for the state Championship and win or lose its the end of the road. Definitely bittersweet.

Day 29 - The Phoenix Zoo

Today was a super lucky day! A good friend asked me if Olivia and I would like to go to the zoo with her and her son, Jase, today and of course we said YES! I couldn't think of a time that Olivia had ever been to the zoo (Olivia says that she has, but I don't remember ever taking her, nor do I have the pictures to back up her story) so I was really excited to explore it with her. Next year she'll be in Kindergarten so I need to take advantage of this time.

Olivia was enamored with the Zoo Map. She carried that thing around for almost the whole trip (and sobbed when she lost it) and she referred to it often. She was actually pretty smart with navigating it. She could tell us how to get to a place if she knew where we were on the map. Jase of course, was more interested in petting the Iguana's.

 Since the weather started out beautiful in the morning all the animals were out! It was so fun to see them up close. By lunch time it was hot (90*) so they were getting harder to find.

 The New(ish) Monkey exhibit is SO FUN! We got to go inside the cage with the Monkey's and see them running around all around us. They are seriously cute. Olivia officially wants one to take home.

 The Giraffe was the MUST SEE for Olivia. She was nagging to see them from the second we stepped in the place. They were pretty active when we got to them around lunch time and Livy was in heaven watching them from the tower that overlooks their enclosure.

 The baboons are usually fun to watch because they are so playful, but today this guy was sad. This little man just sat and stared at us with those terribly tormented eyes. I felt bad finally walking away from him, like I was abandoning him.

Jase and Olivia have know each other for Jase's whole life and they had so much fun together today. I am so thankful that they thought to invite us along!

This is the look that Olivia gets on her face as she puts her hand in a prickly pear cactus (left), thankfully it was as we were leaving so I only had to listen to her whimper for an hour.

Day 26 - Halloween Carnival

ARRRG! Today our little Pirate had her School Carnival. She has been excited for this thing all week! She has been in countdown mode for at least 7 days! Well the day finally arrived and I'm pretty sure it met all her expectations. They had all sorts of game stations where you can win candy and little toys and there were hundreds of little cute kids in costumes. I am 100% sure she was the only girl pirate there!

This is her teacher Miss Michelle

Later in the day I was hanging out with our nephews, Kingsley & Maddox, when Grandma Suey stopped in to bring Olivia some Halloween books. I thought it was so cute to that all of them were totally enthralled in Gramma's story telling. Unfortunately, they only had the attention span for 1 book, we will have to read the second one later I guess.

Day 25 - Softball

It's been really difficult to get some decent pictures of Ryleigh playing softball  this season, One: because I keep score, so taking the time to take the pictures can sometimes mess me up. Two: Because it is starting to get dark earlier and I am not allowed to use a flash as the games. The other night, however, they played a 5:30 game so I thought I could snag a few photos before the sun totally died.

 This has been a semi-fun season for Ryleigh. Fun! Because she plays with Jayda and because they are on a winning team. Not fun because she is not utilized how she would prefer. The coach often has her and Jayda set up as interchangeable, so if one of them is on the bench than the other is playing on defense and then the next inning they will just switch positions. I can tell it is a little discouraging for Ry, and it is starting to get into her head a little. But we just encourage her to have a good attitude and try her best. She is also doing a softball camp for High School so she is knee deep in Softball right now.

Miss Jayda, up to bat.

Ryeigh on Second

#5

Day 24 - Happy Birthday Noelle

Today is our "puppy's" birthday! She is 8 years old. It seems like yesterday she came into my life while Dan was in Iraq. I'm so thankful that Santa Claus was smart enough to know that she was exactly what we needed. According to pedigree.com her dachshund age is 48 years old, so she's still practically a puppy! :)

Day 23 - mini game

Tonight at Ethan's practice they were going over situation play after the debacle last weekend. I thought is was so cute that the coach set up a mini-diamond and the played that way so they could visualize where to be at all times. They learned how important it is that no one is just watching the game around them, everyone should be an active player in the game.

Day 21- tough loss

Today we drove back out to Peoria for the bracket games in Ethan's tournament. Unfortunately after 2 losses yesterday they seeded last so we had to play the early morning game. I was so excited because Ethan finally got to put on his gear and play catcher! He loves that position, but yesterday his coach thought he was better suited for Shortstop :-/. I think he proved himself worthy today.

 He didn't have a single passed ball! He kept everything in front of him. He did have a few kids steal but they were really tough plays. Our team lost (pretty bad! 16-3) but this was their first tournament so there is going to be some growing pains in there. I have confidence in our teams abilities, I just hope that we can come together and win soon!

Day 20- Crazy busy

Rawhiders are #1

So our football team is pretty awesome.. They won the D3 Eastern Confrence Championship and now they play for state on November 3rd! It has been so wonderful playing for a winning team and our coaches couldn't be more amazing! I am so proud of the boys and the whole team.

 Saturday started out running! We had a football game (the Conference championship game) at 10:00 and the boys had to be to the field by 8:30am. The field was in San Tan Valley (which is about an hour southeast of us). After a totally awesome - nailbiting win we booked it to Peoria (about an hour northwest of us) for Ethan's baseball teams first tournament at 2:00pm. We got home around 9:00 and crashed!
Here are some of Ethan's highlights from Saturday's games:

Day 18 - Addy & Liam

Addy giving Liam a kiss

My kids went back to school yesterday after a two and a half week fall break! (YES!!!) All my nieces and nephews just started their fall break this week. Every year in the past we have gotten together for a family lunch picnic during the day on fall break and get the kids together to play, but this year my kids were back at school and some of the older kids opted out of a day at the park... its a little sad that they are getting older and we are starting to get busy with our own lives, but its fun for the younger kids still. Olivia was able to come with us and she was able to play with her cousins and of course we have a baby and a toddler in the family that are more than entertaining!

Day 17 - Noelle

Our little puppy has a birthday coming up this month. She is going to be 8 on October 24th! We have been joking that she's getting "so old" lately and laughing at her grey-haired snout...but today it got serious.
I had to go buy her some new dog food and I noticed that the flavor I normally buy said for ages 1-7. So I looked for the next age group up. There was only one next age group - SENIOR! Wha!!!! {I'm crying a little}

Day 16 - Coach Dirk

Coach Dirk is the base runner on Second, half the team watching in the front row

 Today was an extra special day! It was our last day of Fall Break and it just so happened that Spencer's club baseball coach had his own baseball tournament. I was so thankful for Coaches wife for letting everyone know! ;) I sent out an email to the team and offered to take anyone that was still around and available. Two boys took me up on my offer, plus another boy and his dad came on their own plus Coach Dirk's two boys (that are also teammates) were there of course. It was such a treat for them to see their coach play some baseball (and practice what he preaches).

Coach up to bat! He had a great hit!

They just can't handle watching the game, they have to be playing it! They would play in the grassy area in the stadium and then watch when they would hear Coach come up to bat.

 At the end of the game the boys rushed the field to congratulate coach on the 12-6 win! Coach definitely had the largest cheering section, I'll bet his teammates were jealous.

Even Olivia had to get in on a hug for coach.

I am in LOVE with this picture.
Coach on second
Boys in the front row
Left to right:
Jacob{a friend}, Cameron -00, Clay -13, Ryan -3, Spencer -6, Jackson -11, Ethan -15, Ty-44

Day 14 - Livy's Apron

My mom made this absolutely adorable apron for Olivia. Olivia is in love with it, of course, because she loves to help out in the kitchen!

Day 12 - At the park

Today while we were enjoying the beautiful weather at Spencer's baseball practice I took Olivia over to the park and quick snapped a picture of her before she darted off in another direction!

Later in the evening it was just too cold for her! She found a long sleeve shirt in Ethan's bag and then tried using the bag as a sleeping bag to keep herself warm. She's such a crackup!

Day 11- Rain!

Rain! Tonight at Ryleigh's softball game it started to rain (for like 73 seconds) but they played through it...Until its started to rain again. At this point they just called the game (we were up 18-6)
I love Arizona rain, there is nothing like it. We've lived all over the United States and AZ really does have the best rain storms.