Culvers - yum!

 Dear Culvers, 

You had me at 'buttered bread' and 'mint oreo'.

-me

After Cabellas and all that 'hunting and camping', we needed a good meal and dessert since the girls had already eaten at Taco Bell. Poor Mo was exhausted and slept through the food and fun.

 3 Generations

 I don't know.

 Lucas was unable to get to his seat in a 'normal' way - see Grandpa's crooked hat??

 Pretending to not notice that dad is stealing his treat.

 GUILTY! Jeff was taking Lucas' bite from grandpa and leaving him with the custard, not the candy.

Time out is so much more fun when you put yourself there and mom has a new camera.

 Good morning Mo! Sorry you missed the party.

Cabellas

Sporting goods meets fake zoo meets endless enjoyment for all ages of boys.

some prefer to freak out, but only when the mom arrives - guess he didn't want to be lunch for the polar bear.

Probably best we stick with these guns.

This is my type of camping - no dirt, no fuss, when we're finished, just walk away. :)

 On to the Safari

Can you find Lucas or Abbey??

 Ammon found her.

 

 Some very expensive toys to climb on.

Adventures with Jeff

 Biking with Jeff: riding along, something brushed his leg, he reached down brushed it off and it stuck to his hand, flicked it off, then it landed on his shoulder. Turned out to be a 'jumping cactus' - hurts and left behind part of the thorns(?).  Poor guy.

Let's go D-Backs!! Jeff took Abbey and Lucas to a pre-season D-backs game. Abbey had a blast dancing to all the music, Lucas was mostly bored and probably irritated his sister joined the boys night....

 Baxter love

 Abbey wanted to be in the picture. :)
More pre-season, day game: they had a practice field set up for the kids to hit wiffle balls and run the bases. Jeff took the big kids over to play before the game started.

 

Mud buds

 One day I decided to remove a bougainvillea plant so the kids would have more space to play. Not as easy as it sounds. I dug a HUGE whole and possibly pulled a few muscles and still there is part of the stump way down there. Now I filled in the whole........same day, my kids found the 'soft' sand. Then the husband got involved, this is the result. Best dad award goes to.......Jeff!

  Lea was less than thrilled to 'wear' the mud.

 Ice cream at Scooptacular for good grades and good behavior.

Teacher Appreciation week

Since we have 3 teachers this year for school, it can get expensive! So a budget friendly I am, but still giving things the teachers can use, is what I do. :) And I wanted to do something every day for a couple reasons: 1: I truly appreciate my kids teachers - they are amazing and deserve every gift they receive. 2: the kids love giving their teachers the gifts - gives them great joy to be so responsible for the gift and making their teachers smile and feel loved.
Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3: pack of 5 notepads from the dollar store - comes in several different colors. Abbey wrote her name - so dang cute! All because her teacher taught her, not me.

 Day 4: Flowers - bought 2 bunches of the flowers, split them up among the 3 and put them in mason jars. we added ribbon around the jar and a sticker with their name on it.

Day 5: 'Days until' dry erase countdown - printed out the 8x10 - this was the most expensive one and I printed one for us - click here. Bought 1.92 picture frames from Walmart and figured they could provide their own markers.

Last day appreciation - I felt bad for not showing our appreciation to the Specials teachers: music, PE, art, computers, library. They do a lot for the kids too and may not get the same appreciation as the classroom teachers. So while cruising Walmart at 11 pm, I found a cart with gum marked to .25 a pack! Extra gum - see where this is going..... and then an idea sparked to get the whopper movie candy boxes. 71 packs of gum, 5 whopper boxes, 2 cute plastic cups/straws, I headed out the door to figure something out for the next and LAST day of school. Nothing like waiting til the 11th hour - literally - sheesh.

Still unsure what to do, candy-gram idea, a google search and this is what we have:

Simple, easy, cheap - it's how we work around here. A wonderful year - thanks Vista teachers!!