Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it all

The group.

Can you say comatose?

Thank you projector.

I am a happy robot!

The clean up. Not bad.

Phineas and Ferb party!! The Disney Channel has been advertising the "longest day of summer" episode for weeks. A full hour of Phineas and Ferb and their race against time to tour the world and have the longest day of summer ever. So we decided we needed to commemorate the date and have a party. I sent out an Evite thinking we'd probably get half the kids and it would be a modest sized group. But everyone from the Evite came plus Brayden talked to some kids on the bus that of course had to come. Sooooo we ended up with a group of 24 kids!! It was awesome. We borrowed a projector and moved both our couches into the family room and put out a bunch of chairs. We ended up cooking 12 bags of popcorn through our hour in a half party. We passed out 2 bags of Skittles, plus of bag of fun-sized Butterfingers and Snickers. And the kids were enthralled. We had kids come in their pajamas and some brought something fun to cuddle with and some brought pillows and blankets. One girl came with a Perry the Platypus stuffed animal. Devin slept like a baby through the whole thing. And I even was able to give away our last two mint green chairs that are probably 50 years old. One of the moms thought they were super cute, so she became the proud new owner instantaneously. Our only casualty was two little boys who ran into each other on the driveway when leaving and gave each other goose-eggs over their eyes. Poor kiddos. But everyone was well behaved and watched the show and we even had a little dance party at the end. Caleb graced us with his Dufenschmirtz-I-am-a-happy-robot dance. I feel kind of bad that in the process he accidentally kicked a kid in the head who had fallen asleep on the floor, but this little boy was so tired that he didn't even wake up. I feel like the night was a huge success. We had a blast.

Kindergarten

Do you like how the school is bright pink? Pretty cool, huh? The southwest is C-RA-ZY!

Brayden started kindergarten a couple weeks ago. I've been waiting to post about it so I could capture a few happy faces on the camera, but now I'm content to just document it. Our first day was complete with drama in addition to the woes of starting school. We tried to meet up with one of Brayden's fearless friends for riding the bus to help Brayden be brave and missed them. They were at our house, we were at their house. You know how it goes. Then we missed the bus because Brayden was about to pee his pants. No biggy, school is five minutes away, and I was going to meet him there anyway to walk him to his class. So we go to school and my baby that never cries cried/screamed the whole time we were there. I don't really blame him though. It was like 105 degrees outside and I've been paranoid about keeping him in an air conditioned house and out of the sun and heat. So Brayden did get to see several friends on the playground before school started and I thought we were going to be okay. He lined up with his class and walked without me into his classroom. But during the 10 minutes it took me to get to his classroom with the hoards of other parents, he couldn't find his desk and freaked out and came barreling outside a bucket of tears. He finally got settled again, and the fire alarm went off. More tears. Finally they got resettled. Then I left, and promised him I'd be back to pick him up. After school when I asked him how his first day of school was he said "It was the worst day of school." I complimented him on his really ingenious rhyme and then listened to the woes.

Now that it has been a few weeks, he's doing much better for the most part. He didn't like the bus and begged me to pick him up from school, but we've worked out a deal that if he rides without complaining, I'll pick him up on Raytheon Fridays when Mike is home to babysit Devin. He likes his teacher who came and did an awesome home visit. She played LEGOs with him for 30 minutes. Sweet! And we've met a couple kids on our street that go to school with him and one is in his class. However, I still get to have long listening sessions where he cries about school--everyone treats him the worst, he wishes people were nicer, this girl kissed him and said she was in love with him, this boy kissed him and wouldn't stop (wierd), someone called him chicken pants, he does everything the teacher asks and doesn't get moved up to maximum power (behavior chart thing) and the bus is too loud. Most of these are okay, but he cried for probably an hour about the girl calling him chicken pants. And because one child called him a name, everyone hates him, he has no friends, he gets treated worse than anyone else, etc. This little boy is boiling over with emotions. We've discovered if he's hungry, these problems are overwhelming and all consuming, and if he's full they are relatively manageable. But still, this is a whole new world for us. I'm assuming Brayden will toughen up with a little bit of time and hopefully the whole world won't hate him if one girl calls him chicken pants.

Monsoons!!

Devinator in his cute rain jacket that I thought we wouldn't use until the winter.

This flooding occurred in about ten minutes.

So who knew in Tucson that it would get all rainy and humid and buggy? Certainly not me. But we have had some awesome rain/thunderstorms. There have been a couple torrential downpours where the street has flooded, our backyard has flooded and the washes filled up and swept shopping carts away. And then there has been just a bit of rain. The kind where it is really fun to go outside with an umbrella, or not if you want to get wet, and play because the rain cools it down twenty degrees and it actually feels good outside. And then there are dry thunderstorms. Like Saturday night when I went to the grocery store for some treats at 8 pm. I watched the sky light up over and over again on my drive home. There was not a drop of rain, but the sky was filled with sheet lighting that would highlight different storm clouds every couple seconds. It is really fun. And supposedly it will go through September. Bring on the rain.

Playing in the Water

So the summer activities in Tucson are a little limited--really, you just want to be in the water. We have been lucky enough to have a few different friends invite us over to swim in their pools, and there is a community pool just up the street that we haven't been to yet, and . . . we've turned our backyard into a pond. And our big, blue ball bucket has become a little pool to soak in. This is probably the boys' favorite past time. We probably do it a couple times a week, and the boys get super muddy and soaked. If we wait until the late afternoon to do it, our backyard becomes shaded and that helps bring the temperature down a bit. We've even had some friends be brave enough to try it with us. We even had a family of mostly girls join us--and they were so into it! It was pure entertainment for me watching these kids. One of the girls kept saying "I want to roll in the mud. I'm like a pig. I want to roll in the mud like a pig." My boys had so much fun that while this family was out of town, Brayden and Caleb kept prepping the backyard for the next time they came over. I still miss grass, but I'm glad the boys have found a way to be outside and have fun with the blazing heat.

Four Months Old

Here's Devin sleeping in his crib. His stats at four months old are 26 inches long and 16.1 pounds. That puts him at 85% for length and 75% for weight and his head is at the 22 percentile. He's sweet and smiley and cries very little. His whole face and body light up when you walk into the room and he does not like loud noises at all. Like when he's tired and I yell at the boys. That always makes him cry. Go me. Devin has discovered his hands, his toes, and loves to pull his legs up. He is starting to bite on things, including me. Ouch. Even with out teeth, ouch. He likes tummy time some of the time and when he gets too tired for it he cries instead of putting his head down to rest. He's super cute and we love him!

Behold, the Devinator

Devin with his cute third cousin Cameron. Although we ignore the "third" part. They are just cute cousins. Poor Camo wasn't very happy in the picture though.

The boys and I really like watching Phineas and Ferb on the Disney channel, and every episode Dr. Heinz Dufinschmirtz creates something "evil" and names it . . . inator (e.g., the shrinkinator, the ball-gowninator). Consequently, we have started calling Devin the Devinator, or when he's being particularly difficult we call him Devinsmirtz or Devin Dufinschmirtz, etc. Anyway, just a little explanation of the title.

So little Devin is not so little anymore (except for his head, which is 22 percentile while his body is around the 70 percentile). And he's discovering new things every day, like his thumb. He's starting to prefer his thumb to pacifiers and he's becoming very social. Today during church he was tired and sad, but he was so excited to see me smiling at him that he kept alternating between frowning with his eyes tearing up to smiling with his entire face and body. It was really funny. He tries to giggle, and he's starting to talk more and more. He likes to trick me at bedtime and even though he can't open his eyes all the way because he is so sleepy he will coo and ahh almost nonstop right before I put him in bed. I swear he's already thinking, if I'm cute enough she won't put me in bed. Nice try buddy. You're still going to bed. But I have to admit he does stall me for a couple minutes so I can enjoy his cuteness.

Father and son camp out

Father, son and twinners. We didn't plan it that way. I guess Mike and I both recognize good camping clothes.

Caleb at the campsite. It came complete with a lake. Yes, we did find a lake in AZ.

Brayden hiding under the ottoman b/c he was sad he couldn't go on the campout.
A couple weeks ago Mike and Caleb went on the ward Father/son camp out. Brayden was supposed to go, but he ended up getting sick. We figured a short night and being around lots of people probably wasn't a good thing to do when sick, so Braydo stayed home with me. I tried to make it fun for him--we ordered a pizza, sausage, his favorite kind, and rented a Diego movie from Redbox and had a slumber party in my room. He even got to watch his Diego movie again the next morning and we played sprinkler soccer in the backyard. The verdict on our great weekend--he still wished he could have gone camping with his dad. All my efforts for nothing! :) Whether he'll admit it or not, I think we had a great bonding experience. And I think Caleb was DELIGHTED to get one on one time from someone. Nothing makes Caleb happier than someone completely focused on him and talking to him. All in all, not what we planned, but I think a good memory. Hence, why I'm documenting it.