Finger Painting

Good Bye Tucson

We are moving. Again. "Didn't you just barely get everything unpacked in this house?" Why, yes I did. "Didn't you guys move in not too long ago?" Well, yes that's true. Yep, we're moving. To Utah! Very exciting to be by my family but not excited about packing and moving. Nate got a job as a branch manager in Murray, so that means he gets his own Wells Fargo store. It's sad to leave friendships behind here, because this move is going to stick. The last time we moved away from Tucson to Flagstaff, we knew it wasn't going to be permanent. But this one will be. I'm sad to leave my baby-doctor and my baby's doctor. I'm sad to leave Gabe's new dentist, his friends and the story time lady. We will miss our ward, a lot. We will miss our cousins and family here but happy to be moving by other cousins and family.
I have wanted to take pictures in this plaza downtown for a few years now. Simultaneously, I have been wanting to take really great portraits of Gabriel for a couple years. Hmmm, here's a thought. Do them together. Ok! My great friend Jessica is amazingly talented. She does hair, takes photos, bakes and cooks, etc. She was lovely enough to take the pictures for me kind of commemorating our last full day in Tucson. They are fantastic!! (Despite the grouchy subject) She took about 400 and I'm going to post them all. HA! Nope. Just a few favorites. But be warned it is picture HEAVY.

My favorite

Keepin' it classy

Ah! I'm a crazy person! I know you didn't want to see all these but... tough. :)

Birthday, the fair, Easter, and others

I feel like the older Gabe gets, the less I take pictures. I'm not changing him into cute little outfits 5 times a day, he's not reaching any milestones super fast like eating, rolling, crawling, walking... Do other mother's feel that way? That the little baby picture taking honeymoon is over? Anyway, a lot has happened and I just haven't had the energy to blog! I'll try to catch up.

It was my birthday a while ago and it was really nice! Some friends arranged a surprise Murder Mystery party for me that was a 50's BBQ theme. We had great food and a lot of fun!! I wasn't the murderer luckily... that would have been a birthday downer :) My brother in law Daniel lives with us and gave me Harry Potter Legos for my birthday! The three of us stayed up all night building Hogwarts castle and Hagrid's hut. Really, really fun. Nate got me an Ipod and a board game called Ticket to Ride. Really great birthday!

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My dear friend Camry invited us to the county fair and we jumped at the chance. So we loaded up her car with our three babies and drove 20 minutes to the fair. She grew up a farm girl and did FFA and animal competitions and graduated in animal sciences so we spent most of the day in the animal competition barn. So much fun! She raised goats so she was chatting up the goat people and we got to pet baby goats and the kids got to hang out in a goat pen. It was really fun going there with her because she could tell me things about the cows and the sheep and goats. She could name every goat breed by sight! We really had a lot of fun and it's a good thing we didn't have any cash on us because we were tempted to buy everything in sight for our kids! Fairs are like that :)

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Easter was very relaxed. We went up to Mesa, I got to wear my new Easter dress and Gabe got some fun things from the Easter bunny. We waited around for quite a while for Nate's uncle and his family to show up for dinner because they were bringing the ham, rolls, and jello. We finally called them and they said "Um you didn't get our message a couple days ago?" "No..." "Oh... well we can't come anymore!" Well, there goes our main course! So someone ran around the corner to Nate's grandparents house to get a ham out of their fridge and we micro heated it fast and dinner was served! Nate's parent's new house has probably 30 orange and grapefruit trees around it which are beautiful to take pictures by (Christmas card) and for eating from! I picked a huge box full of giant grapefruit and oranges. Yum. So I took some Easter pictures of Gabe in front of the trees. None of me in my new dress but oh well!

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The Easter bunny brought a Playdough set. SO much fun!

Random Gabe

Built a block tower. There is a similar picture of me about the same age, wearing a new pair of panties with a block tower.

Watching Toy Story with his Mouse ears

His favorite thing is to line all his cars up along the tv stand

Gabe's 2nd Birthday

Yikes. I have a 2 year old. When I was little, we used to watch Dinosaurs the Tv show. I loved it. But the only episode that has stayed with me these 15 years was the Terrible Twos episodes. I actually had nightmares from that episode. Seriously. Watch the episode but NOT WITH YOUR KIDS if they scare easily. I don't want to be blamed for nightmares! Part 1, part 2, part 3 Anyway, this is honestly the first thing I think of when I think of terrible twos. I have heard recently that it's not the AGE 2, it's the YEAR 2, if that makes since. The Chinese actually celebrate it that way. When a baby is born, he's already 9 months old in their books. Gabe just passed through his 2nd year which is when that supposedly happens. So I think were in the clear. Cross your fingers. 

Gabe and I flew home the day before his birthday from Baltimore. Friday was his birthday and we opened the presents from us. We got him Toy Story the movie, a few Hot Wheels, a car mat, and an ABC magnet game. Nate brought him a cupcake home from work and then we went to dinner at Zinburger. YUM. 

The next morning was his party. It was a Cars themed tailgate. The cute invitations were made by Nate and they were supposed to be a race flyer. 

Nate and his brother Daniel cooked up some home made root beer that we called motor oil and lots of burgers.

We had banners with movie quotes on them:

The food table

Flo runs the fuel station and this was our fuel station... I know it looks really awkward if you don't know the line.... :)

Guido is the best tire changer around so we played a version of pin the tail on the donkey. And yes I drew and painted that all by myself. Thanks for asking. We used black paper plates as wheels.

We made personalized license plates. This was a hit! These two tables were packed.

Cake with Cars on it and, come to find out seconds after this picture was taken, trick candles! I just grabbed them because they were .99c at the store. I looked pretty dumb trying to blow those candles out over and over...

Eating cake at the new table Grandma Rene got him.

Wearing his Cars shirt for the occasion.

The kids also played on the car mat with the 30(!!!) cars he got for his birthday and watched Mater's Tall Tales. Highly recommend. I don't really like the movie Cars beacuse of Lightning McQueen. Mater is the best part of the movie, so a movie all about him? I'll take that over Cars any day.

You thought I was exaggerating. :)

(And yes he has a black eye. That's for a later post!)

Happy Birthday baby toddler!

P.S. Babycenter.com sent me my weekly e-mail on Friday and the new header said "Your Preschooler". I almost had a conniption. I'm still recovering. Please send chocolate.