July (1st half)

4th of July- In the morning we went to a ward breakfast at the park.  Later in the afternoon some friends from our ward invited us over for dinner and fireworks!  The boys had a  great time, playing with other little kids, eating yummy food, and doing their first fireworks.

Desert Museum take 2- We thought we had seen most of the museum last time we went but we were excited to find that there was more to see the second time.  We went here one of Michael's last days off.

 This bird stood right next to the glass when we came by.  Calvin pointed at him and the bird tried to get his finger, luckily the bird was behind glass and just hit the glass.  We were surprised because we saw cranes in Mississippi but they were always very afraid of humans and would fly away even if we started heading their direction.

Story time-This was a special story time with Ronald McDonald.  We had seen him at a story time in Mississippi where he had done some fun magic tricks and songs so Alden was really excited to go again.

Stories- I love that my boys love reading stories.  Often in the morning after they wake up they will come downstairs and sit down in front of a pile of books and start reading and sharing the books. Alden had just read this book of the itsy bitsy spider, afterwards Calvin picked up the book and started singing the song.

Children's Museum- The Children's museum has a $2 day once a month, we decided to take advantage of it.  The boys loved it and had a great time!

This was one of the boys favorite activities, you would velcro a frog or bug to this line, pull it up and at the top a ceiling fan hit it flying across the room.

June

We move the end of May, but Michael didn't start work until July (just this week), so we have a lot of  family time which has been nice.  These are some of the things we have been able to do.

Desert Museum- We did this not long after we got here, it was good to go because it taught me a lot about the desert.  It is definitely different here but we are adapting and learning lots.

Dollar Movie- There is a movie theater by here that has movies in the morning that are free for kids and a dollar for adults.  It is a normal dollar theater so you can go later in the day to any movie for a dollar!  We will probably visit this place again sometime.  They were playing the movie Rio which we had seen and knew was good so we all went and had a day at the movies.  The boys had a great time and now love listening to the music from the movie.

This was later that day playing play-dough.  The boys love this little table and chairs that Michael's parents gave us, we put it in our kitchen so the boys can play play-dough, do crafts, or eat snacks on it.

Sprinkler Park and Cousins-  This park is a little of a drive from our home but made for a great activity to do with our cousins that came in to town the end of June.  We were all super excited when they said they were coming, it was a short visit but Alden and Calvin both got some good cousin play time in. Each day after playing with the cousins both Alden and Calvin took long naps.  They really loved having them over and wished they lived close by.  Their grandparents live by us here in Tucson so they spent the nights with them, one day we went over to pick them up and Alden got super excited he said, "This is by our house, mom, Haven and Hyrum live by us!"

Trains- We live fairly close to a train, when we go to the freeway we pass over the tracks, the boys love it when we get stopped by the train.  They both love trains, sometimes we can here it at our house and they will always stop and say, "train".  One night I was rocking Calvin to sleep, I thought he was asleep, but as soon as the train whistle went off Calvin excitedly said, "train".

The boys love to play with this wooden train set, we had some pieces before in Mississippi, but were then given a large one while we were in Utah.  They can now make a huge track if they want to.  They play with this track almost every day, they love it when Mommy or Daddy will help them make what they call a monster train track.

Bowling- A bowling place by us had a family deal for Monday nights, we did this on Michael's last Monday night at home. It was a package deal for a family of 4 that came with pizza, game tokens, and bowling.  The boys loved it! Just today Alden was asking me if we could sleep at the bowling alley. (we had to hurry and go last time because it was getting late and both boys were exhausted by the time we left) I told him that I didn't know if the people would like it if we slept there, he said how we could keep it a secret and then they wouldn't mind.  He asks frequently when we will be able to go again.

Randoms- This month we have visited many of the close parks by our home, we go to the swimming pool almost daily (it has been in the 100's every day we have been here), we are frequent visitors of the libraries in the area and love going to story time, and have played a lot of baseball.

That kindof sums up June for us, we have loved having Daddy home with us all day to play but are also excited for him to start doing what he has been studying.

Below is a picture of the boys eating oatmeal, they have become my biggest oatmeal fans.  When we moved here I wanted to find somewhere to get oatmeal for a good price, the best price I could find was online for a 50 lbs bag. Not really knowing there were different types of oats other than rolled and quick I just bought the bag of oats.  It turns out that Steel cut oats are in fact different, but everyone loves them! Alden and Calvin will sometimes eat 3 bowls or more of oatmeal in the morning and get super excited to eat it every day, so it has ended up working out.