Pirate Party--AARRRRRGGGGG

Caleb the pirate killing all his foes. :)

Pirate feast!

Brayden walking the plank singing "I'm a ballerina." I'm not sure why he chose to sing that the rest of were chanting "Walk the plank."

So I am FINALLY updating my blog. :) We've had a LOT happen the last six months, but first, I'll tell you about Caleb's 5th birthday. We went camping with Michelle and Ivan, or as we like to call them, Meeshivan. We went up Mount Lemon and escaped the cacti and heat for pine trees and cool weather. It's a great view. It makes you feel like you're on top of the world. So we camped up there and had owl cupcakes to celebrate camping. Nobody slept much and we were cold, but it was still fun. So we came back and did a dinner with Meeshivan and opened presents Sunday night. Then Monday I started planning Caleb's pirate party. Thanks to my new love Pinterest, I could plan and execute a party in two days. So we had a few friends over Wednesday after school. They decorated pirate swords with "treasure." They got pirate hats (which didn't really work out). They went on a treasure hunt. This included swabbing the deck (sweeping and popping balloons), walking the plank, pinning the eye patch on Capt. Hook, and then finding the treasure box in a "sea" of toys. They actually found the treasure box before we even officially started the party so I had to re-hide it. Good thing we have lots of "seas" of toys. :) Then we ended the party with a pirate feast and presents. It was crazy chaos but I think everyone had fun. And I had a great friend who stayed to help, and her help was invaluable! Things I'm really proud of for this party: I freehanded Capt. Hook's face. Our treasure map turned out really cool. Caleb's preschool teacher had the PERFECT treasure chest for us to borrow and we filled it with rollos and gummy worms and swedish fish and it looked great. And our pirate feast was great. We had "salty bones" (breadsticks that looked like bones), cute pirate cupcakes and bottled rootbeer and and popcorn. I love cute food. Now that our house and I have recovered from Caleb's birthday activities, it's on to thank you cards!

8 hours uninterrupted sleep . . .

and I feel like my old self instead of this needy, angry person that I've been for the last year and a half. We took Devin to a new pediatrician a couple weeks ago, which is great and we love him sooooo much better then our last for many, many reasons, and found out he (Devin) has started growing again. He looks skinny still, well, he is skinny, but his length is back where it used to be and head circumference is also, and he's eating (when he's not sick, which is a lot), and he's not having diarrhea. Anyway, because he's growing again, we decided to cut the nighttime feedings so that I can be a normal person again. So we only had one night of crying and he started sleeping through the night. Even while being sick and eating less. It is soooooo amazing!! My kids now seem funny instead of hellions, my house is so much easier to clean, I don't mind that Mike's working 16 hour days right now, I am actually getting down enough on my to do list that I'm getting laundry done, and I have free time to blog right now. Only wish I had pictures. But that will be for another time. For now, this is great.

Out of the fire and into the furnace

So while you may think this is referring to the weather state of AZ, not so my friends. This is my life. :) It seems we have been in the state of putting out fires. Crisis after crisis. Or at least it has felt that way to my sleep deprived brain. Our latest and greatest was we had a hard freeze here. We knew it was coming and being from Michigan (well for the last 6 years) we figured not a big deal, we know how to handle this. Well, we're not used to uninsulated pipes, so they froze. But we had a wonderful neighbor we brought out a space heater and made a cocoon out of a quilt to localize the heat and soon we had water again. However, the gas company couldn't handle everyone running their heaters to compensate for the 18 degree weather, so they turned a bunch of people's gas off. No warning, no explanation, just bye bye heat, have fun dealing with subfreezing temps and no gas. Well, Ivan (Michelle's fiance) saved the day. His family has an extra house that they are not using, so they let us come and stay at their house. Yay for warmth!! And I didn't feel guilty about ordering chinese, or pizza, yes! And another really great neighbor of our's called and said the gas company here is turning back on the gas and pilot lights, (b/c apparently they are the only people competent enough to turn on a pilot light, heaven forbid civilians take their hand at it) tell us the code to your garage and we'll go in and wait for them and get your gas turned on. Thank you!! We're all grateful for heat, and for warm weather, and for running water, and for my own house with my own stuff and clean floors! And I've realized that I do not miss the cold. Good lesson to learn since we're here for a while.