WOW!  It’s been awhile since I posted and we have been b-u-s-y!  We had a great Thanksgiving with about 25 people and we hosted so it was a full house.  Our construction is finished and our extra room looks great!  We have to paint the stucco on the outside and get our patio cover up, move the office furniture and hang a few pictures and then we will be DONE!  It will probably be after Christmas that we get everything finally moved and in it’s place, but we are making progress each day

Since Matt had shoulder surgery about a month ago, we haven’t really decorated too much for Christmas.  We have put up 2 blow up decorations in the front yard, but that’s about it.  Luckily our next-door neighbors have a very festive front yard so Braelyn gets her nightly fill of lights by going to visit them. 

We also made our annual trek to ZOOlights at the Phoenix Zoo which we all think is pretty cool.  They have a new exhibit for the Kimodo Dragons which Braelyn was VERY excited about.  They are pretty scary creatures actually, but she loved them and climbed on the life-size statue and gave it a kiss :)  She also decided that she wanted to ride a camel with Grandpa which was pretty funny because she was so very excited for it.

We have been listening to Christmas Carols almost every day because we have a radio station here that plays them from Thanksgiving through the New Year and Braelyn is really into listening to them this year.  This works out great for me because I absolutely LOVE Christmas music and frankly I needed a break from the Magic Treehouse CDs that we have been listening to in the Durango for the past 6 months!!!  Braelyn is also getting really good at singing the carols so I decided to film some of her repetoire….. (more to come later!)

She is also becoming a ‘double-threat’ to the entertainment world by singing and now DANCING!  She had her winter recital last night at her dance school and again did really well.  It was so great to see her onstage performing and having such a good time.

Matt is doing great following his surgery.  He saw the doctor this week and got out of his sling - finally!  His doctor was really amazed at his range of motion and pleased with all of the physical therapy that he has been doing with the Dbacks trainers - they definitely have him on the right track.  He still has some minor pain but is able to sleep better out of the sling and he can start lifting things and using his arm again, slowly but surely.  He has been going into the office on and off for the past few weeks to try to be available to the staff and get in the flow of working again.  He met with his new boss a week or so ago and they put together his schedule for the upcoming season.  He will be out of town about 25 days per month from April-August.  There are a few trips that Braelyn and I can make with him to some west coast cities so that we can see him more often and explore some places we have never been but, it will be another challenging year having him gone so much.

I am staying busy with Braelyn’s swim and dance classes and my agility sessions with Casie.  We have moved into the intermediate class and she is the best pup in it.  It is fun to actually start running mini-courses with her and see how well all of the training and time I have put in is paying off.  She is not the fastest dog but she is the most consistent, never missing obstacles, so that will be beneficial if I ever decide to compete with her. 

After the first of the year I am going to start taking B to the library 2-3 times per week to do some home-preschooling with her.  When I try to do educational things at home, she tells me that she ‘doesn’t want to learn’ so I have to be sneaky with what I ‘teach’ her.  I think that getting her into a different environment will allow me to work with her on some things like reading and writing.  I want to get her into more of a learning routine but not overdo it so I think that the library will give us a bit of what we need.

We will also be starting her in tennis lessons when she is 4 in February because she actually has a bit of natural talent with a racket.  She has been asking to try tennis lessons for a few months now but the clubs won’t start them until they are 4, so we have to hold out a bit longer.  She is still a really strong swimmer and hopefully will be moving up to be an ‘octopus’ as soon as she can dive and grab the rings from the bottom of the pool without Chris’s help.

We hope to have some family holiday pictures to post in the next week or so, hopefully before Christmas!  Have a wonderful Holiday and we hope to see you all soon!

Love,

MLB Mama

Happy November to Everyone!

We just got back from a week long California extravaganza which included a lot of visits with friends and family and a very fun trip to Disneyland to see it decorated for Halloween and to do some trick-or-treating with Mickey and the gang!

We have never done trick-or-treating with Braelyn before because she is not one to eat candy BUT she really wanted to dress up and go out this year so we figured, what the heck! She wanted to be Tinkerbell which is right in line with her new fairy obsession so of course, mom obliged! On Friday of our trip, we went with Tom and Sheri to the trick-or-treat party at California Adventure Park which consisted of parades, characters dressed up in costumes and several trick-or-treat stations around the park.

Braelyn was lucky enough to be in the parade and to dance with Pinocchio and a very friendly pink witch. They grabbed her out of the crowd and showed her some funny Halloween dances. She was SO excited and kept looking over at us and smiling.

She was also VERY into standing in line and getting her candy. We hit all of the candy stations and her bucket was totally full by the end of the evening. She only ate 1 thing out of the entire bucket and divided up the rest for her sweet-tooth relatives!

We also did a 2 day pass to Disneyland on Monday and Tuesday and got to see some shows, go on all of her old favorite rides and even experience a couple of new rides. She finally agreed to go into the Tiki Room and even wanted to go on Pirates of the Caribbean. She did really good with both, only hiding her face once or twice which is a real accomplishment for her. We tried to get her to do Nemo but she told us that she would only do that when she turns 4.

We did our annual Princess lunch as well and she was picked to be the one to greet all of the princesses when they come out. She stood at the front as the royal announcer told everyone her name and that she would be helping him, then each princess came out to our table first. She was really happy about that and would run up to them the second they came out from the back.

We had a lot of fun but were worn out from all of our activities and it took us a few days to recover once we got home!

Matt carved a pumpkin with her on Friday and she wanted to go out again on Halloween night to get more candy!

We weren’t sure that we would take her out because she had been sick all week and was still coughing and sneezing that morning, but after a 4 hour nap her heart was really set on going out.  We dressed her up as Minnie Mouse and I think that her costume earned her extra treats because after only 7 houses, her bucket was full. Again she ate only 1 thing and we put the rest away for everyone else.

We have lots more pictures to share of things we’ve done with friends and family and I will update everyone about Matt’s surgery next week. OR maybe I will make him dictate it to me since he still owes everyone an update on his new job!! We hope everyone is doing well and that we will get to spend some time with you during the upcoming Holiday season. Goodbye for now!

It’s about that time for our annual Tolmachoff Farms pumpkin patch visit.

This year the set up was much better than the last few years and because we went earlier in the day, it was cooler and less crowded.  Braelyn enjoyed petting the animals and picking out her perfect pumpkin but she did not enjoy the chicken that was following us around the entire time.  It was hiding in the corn by the pumpkin picking area and jumped out right above her which prompted her to run and yell and have uncle Chris pick her up the rest of the visit!!

We also went in the corn maze this year which started off to be quite simple and ended up with us lost and going around in circles for 25 minutes.  It was funny and we ended up escaping by plowing our way through the middle of the corn and then finding the exit path :)  Braelyn was also brave and big enough this year to ride on the ladybug train which was pulled by an ATV down a trail next to the corn maze.  She was proud of herself that she didn’t get scared or dizzy when it went around in circles.

We are excited to be going to Disneyland next week and we will have lots of pictures and information to report about the trick-or-treat party at California Adventure. 

We hope you are all picking your “perfect pumpkin” and celebrating the beginning of the fall, holiday season.

Love to All!!

Happy Cooler (relatively!) Weather Everyone

Temperatures here have finally dropped down below 100 so we feel like “fall” has officially come.  In celebration of this, we decided to get together with our friends, Mia, Esteka and Moises to make some fun pumpkin cupcakes.  The girls had a lot of fun mixing and decorating the cupcakes and the difficulty level was perfect for both of them.  We got the decorating ideas from the book, Hello Cupcake .  Just a word of advice, if you do choose to try this activity, DO NOT USE PILLSBURY WHIPPED FROSTING - it falls right off of the cupcakes and you will have a puddle of orange at the base of your cupcakes!  Anyway, I digress :)  Here are the photos from our fun day yesterday!!

Braelyn has also been really enjoying her dance/gymnastics class that she goes to once a week.  They alternate 1/2 hour of tap and ballet each week and then also do 1/2 hour of gymnastics.  They are practicing a tap routine for a community holiday festival called Glendale Glitters where they will be performing on the big stage in front of a crowd!!  We think that the date is November 27th at 7PM, but are waiting for final confirmation from the dance teacher.  We will keep everyone updated and of course, will be there with the video camera to capture it for those of you that can’t make it.  She wanted to show off her dance costume in these pics and we had been to the zoo to get a HUGE lollipop

Happy beginning of fall to everyone!  We hope your days are filled with cooler temps, falling leaves and pumpkins galore!!

Love,

MLB Mama

Swimming in September, wearing cool shades, crocs and NOTHING ELSE

Wishing you all this type of fun and happiness!!!!

Happy Saturday Afternoon!

Our family just got back from lovely (and HOT!) San Diego so, I thought I would share all of our fun times with everyone :)  Because we were gone for a whole week and packed a TON of activities into that time, I decided to make a list of all of the adventures and fun times we had rather than writing paragraphs about each one.  I also have a bunch of pics for everyone to enjoy so…. here we go….

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT/PEOPLE WE SAW

(These are in no particular order!!)

1. Kyleigh’s 1st Birthday Party

2. Legoland

3. The Sea Life Aquarium

4. Dinner with Sara and Emma

5. Dinner downtown and the show, Wicked

6. Time with family

7. Time at the beach

8. Matt’s Birthday

9. Time in the water (to cool off from the ridiculously HOT weather!)

I will leave it to you all to figure out which pictures below came from which of our destinations :)  We hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend & hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

MLB Mama

Hello everyone!

We have been enjoying the summer and having Matt around a bit more now that the draft is over. He only works about 5 days a week now, like a normal person, so he gets to join in more activities with us which is nice.

We took Braelyn to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale this past week for the “Dog Days of Summer” Family night. The kids got to look at 3 of the exhibits, including William Wegman who photographs the Weimeraner dogs in costumes. They also had a puppet show put on by the Great Arizona Puppet Theater and an art project for the kids. At the very end of the evening, they turned on the fountain outside and had bubbles, juice and popsicles for everyone. It was really fun and Braelyn had a great time looking at all of the colorful exhibits and she really loved being in the water with her Barbies. I love finding unique things like that to do as a family!

We have also been in the pool EVERY DAY and Braelyn is getting a little bit of a tan Today she was swimming as a noodie and sporting some very cool shades!

I also wanted to show everyone how good Braelyn is getting with her writing and drawing. The picture she has drawn is a self-portrait and she wrote her entire name WITHOUT HELP (except for letter N) this morning! She is getting close to reading now - she knows all of her lower case letters and the sounds they make and she has been practicing sounding out letters to spell words. I think the next step is recognizing words and then reading. I am trying not to push her because I want her to enjoy it so I am letting her tell me when she is ready.

We hope all is well with everyone and we are looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you all soon!

Love,

MLB Mama

Hello Everyone - we hope you are having a great weekend.  I just wanted to send out some videos I had taken lately. We are reminded every day that our baby is growing up into a little girl which is scary but exciting!!  Have a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Love,

MLB Mama

Hi Everyone, Happy Sunday!

It is warming up here and so we are spending more and more time in the pool. I thought you might enjoy a couple of pictures and videos of the fun we have while cooling off!!

We also had a get together when Sara was in town and had all of the kiddos together finally (minus the Charlesworth boys)! It was great to see everyone and so amazing and surreal to see us old high school and grade school friends with children of our own.

(From left to right: Gideon Schwamb, Braelyn, Chloe Scott, Luke Flowers, Allison Scott & Mikayla Bryan)

Here’s to a great week ahead!

Love,

MLB Mama

Hi Everyone!

I hope your Friday is going well :)  I wanted to get some pictures up from our Mother’s Day brunch this year where we had a wonderful weekend visit with Sheri.  We went to a place called The Farm, which is a really cool outdoor event center that hosts all kinds of things, including weddings.  We looked into having our wedding there which is how we know about it.  The weather was perfect and the food was really good too.  After we got done there, we took Sheri to the Phoenix Children’s Museum to pass the time until her flight left.  After we got back from the airport, Braelyn took a nap with Gramma Bonnie and I too took a well-deserved nap (instead of working out!) :)  We ordered Italian take out for dinner and relaxed with Braelyn.   I hope all of you mothers out there enjoyed your special day and here’s to hoping that they create a year-round celebration of the HARDEST (but most rewarding) JOB ON EARTH!!!

Love,

MLB Mama