Since all of our family is out of state, (sorry – all but ONE of our family is out of state :) and we live in a black hole when it comes to mail service…Caitlin’s gifts will be trickling in all week.
Tonight she opened gifts from two Great-Grandmas…
Gifts from Aunt Connie, Great Grandma Choo Choo and Great Grandma Casteel – THANK YOU!
On Sunday, Caitlin's actual birthday, we had a small party for her and invited Julie (my saving grace and the kids new best friend!) and her husband Denny.
Caitlin (and Evan) had a blast playing with balloons, eating cake and opening gifts!
Here are some photos of the afternoon. We'll put a whole bunch more up on the slide show as well!
What a nice Daddy :) 
So, the final cake!
Tinkerbell spent some time in the sun! We really should talk to her about sunblock…
Caitie's first dollhouse! She LOVES IT! 
Julie and her husband, Denny We had our first family tea party, too…
We’ve had so many today I think we may be a little bit British by now.
…and all the rest of the photos!
We had a great weekend!
Last night was the first part of Caitlin's birthday celebration...
We got a suite at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak and spent all day today at the water park there! We all had a blast...got a little sunburned despite the buckets of sunblock I tortured the kids with (actually Caitie is the ONLY one who didn't get burned)!
It's 745 and everyone is in bed. Here are some pictures of last night and this afternoon
A view of the "casitas" we stayed in. They are great little two story "houses" with kitchens and two bathrooms! Very cool :)
Main pool(above)
Playing a little miniature golf before the "dive in movie" started - you can see the lazy river to the right - it was HUGE, we spent a lot of the afternoon there! After golf, we went back over to the main pool where they had a projection screen set up for Madagascar II. It was such a perfect night! We stayed out there until 9pm...late for the kids, especially when they had such a busy day Friday!
Dinner Friday night. We ordered pizza from Spinato's, a local place that has gluten free crust on the menu! Yay for Evan
Kitchen of the casita...
Friday was a busy day! The kids both woke up at 5AM!! We had gymnastics in the morning where they ran themselves ragged. We got back home just in time to meet Julie and she took them to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, where they played again for quite a while.
When they got home it was just about time to leave for the water park!
Poor kids...it may be a long weekend.
Our little Caitie will be TWO this weekend! It's hard to believe :(
She's so funny and outspoken. She talks really well now and has a great imagination. She loves to dance and climb and act goofy. When she walks around you can see she's just in her own little world. So opposite Evan. He's VERY aware of what's going on around him and listens to everyone's conversations...Caitlin doesn't seem to realize we're in the room most of the time and sometimes she downright ignores us!
We've been planning her party and wanted to share what we're doing. Caitlin loves Tinkerbell so as I mentioned earlier we are having a Tinkerbell party. I am making a Tinkerbell cake and we have Tinkerbell decorations and she's even getting Tinkerbell the movie!
On Friday we are going to stay at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak...they have a huge waterpark with "dive-in" movies - a specialty around here. We'll get to watch a kids movie in the pool. We're staying in a "casita", it's like a little cabin/hotel room with a sun deck and two rooms so the kids can sleep while Danny and I hang out!
She's getting lots of fun toys for her birthday...a talking Tea Party set and a dollhouse. She loves to sit with the Little People toys and feed them all lunch and dinner and her stuffed animals all get drinks of water and she feeds them the play food from their kitchen do I think (hope) the tea set will be a hit!
We'll be sure to take lots of pictures from this weekend and put the slideshow of updated photos back up!
Well, today I got up (not near as early as I usually do with Melissa!) to go do some shopping. We got several things for the kids and something for Danny as well as some cute decorations.
This afternoon we took the kids to see their first movie at the theater...Madagascar 2!
It went perfectly for the first 45 mins or so, we had food and entertainment. But we ran out of popcorn and Caitlin was MAAAD! So I took her out to walk a bit and we decided to get a box of Raisinets (which are my new favorite treat!). We went back in and got her all settled and then Evan decided it wasn't good enough to have a handful of Raisinets, he needed the WHOLE box (he'd already had one mostly to himself and shared our popcorn)! When Danny told him he couldn't have the whole box he just fell apart and they had to leave.
After a few minutes, Caitie threw her drink on the floor and the guys had still not returned so we just threw in the towel and left (minus a sippy cup and a binkie - I didn't have enough hands to carry all of that plus my drink and Caitlin (who didn't want to be carried!).
It was fun, but we learned a valuable lesson...don't take the kids to the theater in the afternoon when they haven't had a nap!
This evening we watched Polar Express and had hot chocolate and tomorrow we are going to put up the Christmas Tree!
Yeah :)
Today, we bit the bullet and took the kids hiking. I'd really been avoiding it because I thought it was going to be a disaster but Danny found our nice carrier backpack (actually meant for hiking) that we've basically NEVER used and we decided to venture out to Usery Mountain.
We left around 8:30 this morning and were on the trail by 9:20 (you know everything takes twice as long when you have kids :)
Tracy and a friend of hers decided to take the hike, too, so we have lots of great photos of all 4 of us!
We took the trail just halfway up, to Wind Cave. Evan hiked all by himself only needing a hand a couple of times. He actually stopped several times to "help" Mom and Aunt Tracy.
Everyone we passed mentioned what a big boy he was and how good he was doing.
We climbed 1.5 miles up, to 2,800 ft elevation (only an 800 foot gain)... it's very pretty up there.
At the trailhead...
On top of the world!
Climbing, climbing, climbing...
At Wind Cave...
Danny and Caitie coming down
Caitlin seemed to really enjoy the hike. Our typically noisy girl didn't make a peep all the way up and fell asleep on the way down!
We toyed with trying for the summit but it's a good thing we decided to let well enough alone because Evan was VERY tired and fell apart on the way back down. He's a TROOPER! We came across the park ranger and when he heard Evan climbed all the way to the cave he gave him a Jr. Park Ranger badge!
We did actually find the Halloween pictures...
Couldn't manage to get Evan with his eyes open but they are still cute!
Tracy was an escapee from the asylum...she looks a little scary here! She and Evan are actually standing right in front of our house here. They had just hopped over to the neighbor's for some candy and were coming back to start some serious candy hunting!
And, just a few minutes later Caitlin was already tired of the whole thing! It was 80 and she was in a thick kitty costume...hot, hot, hot!
I wrapped up little chocolates with my business card and gave them out at each of the houses we visited. People didn't really know what to make of that!
And that's about all you will know about Halloween because I can't find the pictures we took for some reason :(
Hopefully it's just a momentary loss...they were so adorable!
Our computer was broken you know...All the while we were just saving up all these great pictures.
Okay, take a deep breath and dive in!
Two weeks of our life in 5 minutes or less :)
Geocaching at the Riparian Preserve
Fountain Hills - Evan's birthday was spent here riding bikes, having a picnic and playing in the spraygrounds!
The pizza place...Buono's
Birthday presents from Grandma, Papa, Nicki and Tyler! He LOVES the books and the puzzle!
Proof that we ride our bikes even when it's 100 degrees! This was a 3.5 mile one-way trip from our house to the coolest park on the planet! Tumbleweed
Boys being...well, boys!
Another trip to the Riparian Preserve (read the sign Evan is standing by)
Feeding Getting bit by ducks...
Notice Evan's attire...this is very typical! He's either a "fixer guy" or a "fireman guy", depends on the day.
A gift from Aunt Connie. I actually think Evan wears them more than Caitlin!
So, remember that sweet, quiet little thing that used to be our daughter? She's still sweet but replace quiet with VERY loud, goofy and a definite attitude sense of who she is and what she wants and you've got the new and improved version of our little Caitie-bug!
Uh...where's the audio???
And...we're done!
