Frying pans! Who knew, right?

Name that movie!

So, I just killed our second (HUGE) scorpion in the garage with a frying pan. It was quite an ordeal. It was pretty high up, so I had to go get a chair to stand on in order to get to it. I was so afraid of it falling on top of me and stinging me that I kept chickening out. Brynn was my cheer-leader and kept offering brave words to me. I finally decided that since it was the garage, I was I would hit it hard enough to put a hole in the wall if I had to. Well, scorpion's dead, no hole, creeped out now, the end.

P.S. It's Flynn, from Rapunzel.

Everything else from this spring...

Caught in the act!
One day Brynn brought the camera to me and said, "Look, Mom! I took some pictures of Bryce!" I looked and thought, "what is he doing?"

That kind of looks like my....

Wait, I think it is....

My credit card, you little thief!!! Thanks Brynn. Moment of disaster avoided in the grocery store check-out line!

Construction has begun on the Gilbert, AZ Temple!

We thought it might be fun to come to the site from time to time to take pictures with the kids as it progresses. This will be MUCH closer to our house!

Yep, another four-going-on-clueless-preteen pose.

It's been a gorgeous May!

We spent a lot of time outside. This is definitely the most beautiful and cool May we have had since we've moved here. Usually it is depressingly already stifling in May, but this year there weren't many days that were to hot to spend outside. So here we are at Freestone Park.

This is so random, but this is how Bryce sits in his carseat and how he sleeps. I just love how he looks with those little arms behind his head like he is so cool.

Father/son camp-out, Girl's Day - Fablious!
That's what Brynn calls our girl's days (she means fabulous). I am not ashamed to admit that I have been looking forward to this since last year (it's ok, Marty knows I love him and miss him when he's gone). We spent a lot of time at the library because lately it's just impossible to take Bryce there and it used to be our absolute favorite place. We also went to Kohl's and picked out an Easter dress and present for Bryce. But I was feeling a little under the weather that night so we just stopped at a grocery store and I let her pick out a Kid Cuisine and I picked out a yummy steamy veggie dinner. The next morning we snuggled/read like crazy and just enjoyed each other's company.

Daddy and Bryce had lots of fun, too! Sorry I don't have many details about it. Marty informed me, "Well, I'm a guy! I think it's great that I even came back with two pictures!"

Hair.
Yes, a topic only a mommy cares about, but hey, it's my blog. Brynn's been doing her own hair lately, and I'm been amazed at how often we can walk out the door the way she does it. It's definitely losing some of it's curl. It's at the point now where I have to scrunch it with gel because the ringlets are pretty much gone.
Yesterday she found some sponge curlers and asked me what they were. I told her they were for curling hair and every since then she has been dying to try them. So today after I washed her hair I put them in. Wasn't a big deal, didn't take long. But when she saw them, she was TICKED. Apparently she didn't realize we couldn't curl it and take them right out. She said, "Mommy, I wanted princess hair, not silly hair!" As you can see, she is NOT happy about this picture ("I do NOT want a SILLY picture!").

Finally it was dry and time to take them out. But first! She must put on her ballerina costume! And the results? Still not happy. "NO, mommy! It's still silly! It's like grandma hair!" Well, we put some of it up and she danced around all day and it loosened up and looked beautiful, actually.

I don't see us ever using them again now that the novelty has worn off and there is really no other reason to. That's a relief. I'm surprised a four year old even cares what her hair looks like, actually. But I'm told by my friends that's normal.
This is another angelic picture I got today. Lately Brynn has been really into "putting Bryce down." She wraps him up, holds him on the chair (even though he weighs almost as much as she does) and sings to him. What a beautiful thing to come back in the room to see Bryce sound asleep on Sister's lap while she is still softly singing to him. Sigh.

The end of this post is called:

He is going to KILL me for this later.

Our bishop issued a challenge on Sunday. He descibed a scenario where a natural disaster had occured in Queen Creek and told us we couldn't get to the stores and had to survive off of our food storage this week. I was totally up for it and getting excited (our food storage can definitely hold out a week), then I realized we were almost completely out of diapers. We were planning to go to the store the night before but decided we should go rescue our baby-sitter and just hold out until Monday. Now I see that was a mistake. The bishop encouraged us to live the law of consecration and barter with your neighbors. So I started asking around and have already gotten a donation and several offers. But before that happened, THIS was what we resorted to:

Brynn's old pull-ups I dug out of the guest room closet. Don't tell Marty, but Bryce was actually excited to wear them. You don't grow up with Brynn as a sister and not know who Cinderella is. Now that it's gotten hot I've been letting him just run around in his diaper, but after so many times of "Look...Mom! Cillella...Mom!" I decided I'd better hurry and get some shorts on him and put a stop to that. So we'll see how this food storage week goes. I don't like rationing my fresh fruit....

Ahhhhhhh. Spring 2011 is officially blogged.

GnG Johnson in May

As I mentioned, Marty's Dad and Step-Mom came out for his graduation and I am so glad they did. It was only a couple of days, but we used it well!

We went to Schnepf Farms and picked peaches (which we GOBBLED all day long and then made peach ice cream that night), then went on the train ride.

And had a fun tea party.

And for the first time we went to the children's museum in Mesa. They have ALL kinds of art projects there (Brynn's dream world). Here she is drawing on the walls.


And the finished product:

Bryce and Daddy enjoyed the baseball exhibit.

A cool technological music demo...thingy. You put your hands through the red lasers and as you do each puts out a different sound like drums, guitar, voice, strings. So the more people you get, the more cool stuff you can add to your synthetic band. Easy enough for even a toddler.

We spent the most time at the Fairy Tale exhibit. It was SO CUTE!!! You went from one station to the next trying on fairy tale costumes on that specific story's background. So here is Alice in Wonderland:


A cool black light room

Little Red Riding Hood.

This one was hilarious. Here I am minding my own business admiring my cute four year old when she starts FREAKING OUT. She runs at me screaming, "Nooooo!!!" Then she proceeds to climb me before I've even had a chance to react. She shimmies up my legs (pulling my pants down in the process, I might add) and latches on to me so tightly all the while still screaming "no." So I look behind me and there is Marty in a wolf costume. I keep telling people that Brynn thinks all these characters and totally real. If you had been there, you would have gotten it.

Here she is, still not really having warmed up to the idea of her Daddy in a wolf mask. Even after we explained all about it, she is still seeking shelter in Grandma.

The princess corner. Actually not her favorite. It was the one part of the museum I think she felt, "Been there, done that." But Bryce had fun as a king.

The three little pigs. And that mean old wolf again.

Fairy land

It really was geared more to little girls, but Bryce had lots of fun riding horsies with Grandma!

Puppet shows

Yes, that's much easier to reach.

They advertise this place as a grandparent's dream. I think that's accurate. :)

Happy Festivation, Marty!

Hallelujah! Marty is DONE with school! FOREVER!!!! His parents came out for his graduation and we had a blast! It's really easy to be in a partying mood when something so huge is out of the way. Oh, and we've been calling it his "festivation" because when he came home from work on his graduation day, I told Brynn to run out to his car to tell him "congratulations on graduating." I guess it was just too many syllables for the poor girl because it sounded more like, "Congratulations on...festivating, Daddy....(whispered) wait, what is it?"

Brynnie and I decorated. And by the way, the photo below is not the last you will see of Brynn's new pose. That's a sad post in and of itself.

Graduation night:

Our thoughts: "We did it!!!!!!!" (OH yes, I get to say we. I made some sacrifices too, and Marty gets to say we had a baby. Just...let me have that).

Just pretend you can see a really sharp-looking rock star giving his little graduation speech. They let all the graduates do that. There weren't many since it was the distance ed ceremony. He was the last one and thanked all his 14 brothers and sisters individually. Just kidding.

I am so stinking proud of my husband. He graduated with his Masters degree in under two years with honors. He's unassuming, but freak-show smart and I had to hate him just a little for how easy he made everything look. Truly, it wasn't that bad. I'd be fine with him going back for a PhD (after I forget this last horrible semester), but he will have none of that. He started just a few weeks after Bryce was born, so to be a single mom to that sweet-but-acid-reflux-high-maintenance-constantly-screaming-baby stands out in my mind. This last semester he just had too many classes. But other than that, I didn't mind it. I don't think he did, either.

Marty also has this amazing ability to visualize a goal, figure out and decide exactly the precise steps to be taken to reach that goal, and then just hurry and get it done. He was the same way with his under-grad. Got it in just three years because he knew where he was going and had almost no extra credits and just DID it. Love that guy. Proud of that guy. Hands off, he's mine.