Dune Weekend

We are finally getting ready for our first dune trip of 2008. This is the trip we were supposed to go on a few weeks back but had to cancel when Kyle mysteriously passed out in the bathroom and spent the night in the hospital. Now that that incident is just a memory, we are ready to try again. This week has been hectic to say the least. Wayne is finishing up our trailer...he installed a bathroom and shower and has been working on it every night until 10. I expect tonight to be a late one as well. Here is a very unfinished picture. The toilet is in and the shower fixture is mostly done. As you can see, there is still a little bit more to go. Mostly finishing up stuff.

Both babies came down with colds. Lauren has pretty much recovered but Taylor got hit hard today. She looked so sad with her runny nose and watery eyes. The poor girl couldn't sleep today but luckily fell asleep about 8 tonight...I have gone food shopping for camping and have been trying to get sort of packed and get all the wash done before we hit the road. This is our first trip with two active babies. The last camp trip, Taylor was maybe 4 mos. old. It'll be interesting to see how everything goes out there in the sand. Lauren has been talking about camping a lot lately so I know she is very excited about it. She loves campfires and you know grandma willl bring all the fixin's for s'mores.

We had a great Easter here. Lauren was fun to watch as she looked for eggs here and at grandma and papa's house. Taylor wouldn't even crawl on the grass, she just sat and looked at the egg in front of her and tried to lift her feet off the grass. Still so sweet though. Here are a few Easter pic's for you to enjoy.

What a day!

Well, today we officially started in on all the Easter festivities. It all started this morning when we went to Storytime at the library. The Easter Bunny arrived and led us all on an easter egg hunt. There were a lot of kids there, more than usual and luckily each child was only to find 2 eggs. That helped my little shy Lauren out. She never would have gotten an egg otherwise. We then went to the mall to get our picture with the EB himself. Today happened to be the grand opening of some double decker carousel so there were about a gazillion kids there. The line for the carousel alone was as long as the food court. It was rather ridiculous really. Luckily we got out of there in one piece and lived to tell the tale. Saturday morning there is an egg hunt put on by the parks and rec and I think I may just try to brave that as well.

Last night we were at Kyle's wrestling dinner/awards banquet. It was his last one and then it hit me. He graduates in two months. I suddenly feel old...I remember my high school graduation and it doesn't seem so far back but I guess it was...This year for him was not the best with his shoulder injury but overall he had a good run at it while he was in high school.

This past weekend we also had another "toddler funday" and although a smaller group of us showed up, we braved the same cold weather as last time. We had our jackets and hats on again and Katie brought Starbucks to keep us mommies warm. Katie has been dubbed our "mom by association-MBA" since she has no kids of her own, she is really an MBA to all our little ones. Rosemary brought this great big soft frisbee that Lauren and Anika were running after so hard that they were panting. It was a great time had by both little ones.

Blog, What Blog?

I know, you are probably thinking I had abandoned the whole blog thing but worry not...I had an extended blog vacation but am back to it. I hope everyone is doing well. We have been doing well here in the McMinn household. As many of you know, Kyle had a bit of an ordeal a few weeks ago...he is on the mend from his major concussion and seems to be his regular old self. Thank goodness...

Wayne is working on the bathroom in the trailer and it's giving him quite a hard time...he is frustrated but in the end it'll be worth it. Camping with four girls with no bathroom would be a bit much wouldn't you think?

We took the boat out last weekend and had a great time. We bought Lauren her new life jacket, gave Taylor Lauren's jacket from last year and we were good to go. Jessi had gone to a slumber party the night before so she had a post slumber party hangover...Lauren had a great time driving the boat with dad and eating the cookies we brought. Yummy. Kyle's GF Katy came with us as well and probably liked being out of the wintery Flagstaff snowy weather.

Taylor is officailly mobile. She is crawling and rolling around these days. She even just had her third tooth push through on Friday. I can't believe that she is 9 mos. already...I know everyone says it but they do grow up so fast. She is enjoying the variety of "real" foods in her diet, especially blueberries and veggie puffs. She just can't get enough.

Lauren is becoming little miss independent. She wants to do everything herself and when she can't, she gets extremely frustrated. It's really cute though to watch her play with Taylor and try to get Taylor to go where ever she goes by saying "C'mon, Tay, Tay."

We also had to bid farewell to Banshee, the little Boston Terrier, she died last week after 16 1/2 years. We'll miss her when we go to Grandma and Papa's house.

We would like to send big congratulations to Aimee (Doyle) Stock and her husband Walter...they are expecting their first baby in early September.

I promise to be a little better about this blogging business...really, I will. For those of you in Arizona, enjoy the beautiful weather...to those of you back east, I hope you come visit Arizona during the spring sometime. It's absolutely perfect.

All good things

This past weekend was the state tournament for wrestling. The short story is that Kyle won his first match, lost the second. Therefore, he pulled out. No need to permanantly damage the shoulder for 5th or 6th place. Last week started out with us looking feverishly for a shoulder brace for Kyle...the one place we talked to ordered it overnight for us...I called on Tuesday, not there, I called on Wednesday morning, not there. Keep in mind I was told it would be in Wednesday morning at the latest. After a few more phone calls and Wayne going directly there...it was back ordered. That is something that they could have told us on MONDAY. Jerks. Thursday morning rolls around, we had found a brace in Scottsdale that I was going to pick up on my way to the tournament. That was good. Small victory. I pack up all the baby stuff that you could think of, get the babies in the car, hit Starbucks (thanks Cari for the gift card) and off we went to pick up Wayne at work...this was 9am. Our day was a long one. We were in the gym watching wrestling, making friends with the people around us and eventually headed home. Long day but the babies were great. They just took it all in, hung out and were happy to be home doing nothing the following day.

We also found out this week that Kyle made it to next level for one of his scholarship applications...Yippee. That is great news. The scholarship is the Elks Lodge one and it goes from city, regional, state and then national. He is at the state level now...

Taylor is getting her first tooth!! I can feel it and see a little speck of white. Unfortunately, she is rather miserable right now. She has a cold with a cough combined with the teething pain...she is an unhappy girl. She has had a hard time sleeping but overall in an ok mood.

Went to Jessi's volleyball game last week. She served about 4-5 points for her team. The level of play is so much better than last year. She is on a team with mostly 8th graders and a few 7th graders. They actually volleyed the ball, it was great and fun to watch. We have two games this week and next then it's the playoffs...short season.

We are also looking forward to Uncle Tom, cousins Abbey and Kelsey coming for a visit on Saturday. They have never been to Arizona and will be making the trek up to the Grand Canyon. We'll take the boat out, do some hiking, enjoy the beautiful 70+ degree weather!! Can't wait.

Wayne has been working hard installing a bathroom/shower in our trailer. We hope to have most of it completed by our sand dune trip on the 29th...Why is he installing this you ask...the answer: 4 girls! We firured it was a must especially with two little ones who will be getting absolutely filthy on camp trips and will need to get cleaned up.

Lauren has reached a whole new level of "mine" these days. Everything is "mine", especially if it's something that Taylor is holding...I am trying to be patient but it's starting to drive me batty. If there were two words I would remove from the toddler vocabulary it would be "mine" and "no".

Ok folks, no pictures today but will put some on soon...hope everyone has a "love"ly Valentines Day...

I'm Back

I have to admit, I have been a bit busy and haven't gotten a post done in over a week...there has been a lot going on so I will get right to it...

My birthday came and went...the big 33 now and it was one of the rainiest days so my wish of going on a hike was not happening. Instead we had a relaxing day at home, made a yummy shrimp alfredo dinner and of course had cake for dessert.

Jessi has started her volleyball season and made it onto the "A" team which consists of mostly 8th graders and is considered the top team as opposed to the "B" and "C" teams. She was pretty jazzed about making it and we have the first game today. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

This weekend was Divisionals for wrestling. Kyle, as most of you know, had shoulder surgery last spring and had gotten everything back in order for this season. Well, just before Christmas, his shoulder popped out during a match and he has been going to PT to get it ready for this past weekend...the had 3 matches, his shoulder popped out in the second match and he wanted to keep going, he won and then wrestled his third match and won that as well. This means that we are going to state. Today's job is for me to find a shoulder brace for him to wear at the state tournament which starts this Thursday. It's really scary to watch but he told Wayne that he really wanted to make a run at winning state and well, he is an 18 year old boy so we'll see what happens.

With the impending Valentine's Day holiday, Lauren got right to work on some Valentines. She was loving the glitter glue and all the fun things to glue on the cards. Taylor was watching and smiling away. The glitter glue was such a big hit. I highly recommend it to any toddler parent. By the way, the card kits came from Target in the dollar section if anyone else is interested.

Theres still more so stick with me...

Yesterday my friend Katie had set up what she called a "2024 Preunion" Toddler Party. You see, Katie has several friends who all have two year olds. The really weird part is of the 5 toddlers, 4 are born within about a week of each other in December and one was born just a few weeks later in January. Isn't that crazy. So anyway, we went to this really neat park in Chandler, brought snacks, drinks, hats and mittens because it was cold and had a really nice time playing yesterday morning. Jessi came along as well and had just as much fun as the little ones. Lauren made a new friend in Reagan. They are only 2 days apart in age. They were running around and playing a lot together. Well, a lot in toddler terms. They are pictured here in the motorcycle and sidecar.

Well, that pretty much sums it all up for now. It is raining again this morning...maybe because the Patriots didn't win. That, by the way, was a big bummer. During the game (yes, I watched), I was teaching Lauren to say "Patriots" and she would say "ball game on" after every commercial.

I hope everyone has a great February. We are having my Uncle Tom and cousins Abby and Kelsey in town in a few weeks and then we will be heading down to the sand dunes at the end of the month for my first camp trip in a while and for Taylor's first dune trip. Looking forward to that. Also looking forward to much more outdoor fun with the family here, hiking, camping and boating all to come.

Birthday Weekend

It started out as a regular weekend. Friday night, pizza with chocolate chip cookies afterwards then early to bed. Pretty normal for us. Then Saturday, it was hair cut day for me. It was way overdue and is now much easier to manage. I did go shorter and even went with a little bang-age. Saturday night was topped off with some "mommy time", a movie with Cari. 27 Dresses...cute, girlie, totally predictable but good none the less. We stopped and got some of the required movie candy. For me, Junior Mints...is there any better movie candy out there?



This weekend was also Waynes birthday...Yesterday actually. The great thing was that he had the day off and really, doesn't everyone deserve a day off on their birthday...I had picked up a new backpack carrier for Taylor in the morning so we could go on a short hike. We loaded up the babies, Jessi and various jackets, diaper bags, hats, waters and granola bars and were ready to go...Kyle unfortunately didn't make the trek due to wrestling practice and then physical therapy for his shoulder...We went out to First Water which is a short distance from our house in hopes that there was water running. I carried Taylor and Wayne had Lauren and we were on our way. It turned out to be a great little hike. The water was running in the stream and we stopped to play. Lauren had a hard time walking around all the rocks by the stream so we cleared out a place just for her. We have declared that we must hike more, especially since we live so close to so many beautiful hiking spots and since the winter weather is perfect for hiking. With the close of wrestling season upon us we are gearing up for more time for hikes and family outings of all sorts...plus, what better workout than hiking with a baby on your back.

After our hike, we returned home to make Waynes cake and get ready for his birthday. We ended up having everyone come over for cake because not only did we make a cake, but grandma made one too! Luckily everyone accomlished the task of making at least one cake disappear. It turned out to be a great day, spending some nice time together with family, getting out of doors and ending it all off with cake!!

The greatness of Storytime

As some of you know, Thursday mornings for us has consisted of going to storytime at the local library. I have really enjoyed this time with Lauren and now with both Lauren and Taylor. It's fun to watch all the little babies enjoying a book, doing fingerplays, dancing and bouncing along to a song. It is equally enjoyable to watch my girls react to the environment. Lauren is most definitely a watcher...she keeps an eye on everyone and everything that is happening and very rarely joins in to sing or dance, even to the songs she is familiar with. Instead, she saves it all for our drive home and then when we get home. It's like she keeps it all bottled up inside and then will chatter constantly as we make our way home. Taylor seems to get a kick out of seeing all the other children and is smiling and laughing away...she may be a little less of a watcher and a little more of a doer but it may be a little early to tell for sure.
Today, after choosing some books and making our way to the car...it was windy, very chilly and windy...I was carrying Taylor and Lauren was walking beside me, very slowly might I add and I was just waiting for the "up" to come out of her cold, shivering mouth...suddenly, this sweet "grandma" asks if she can help and carry Lauren to our car. I, of course responded with a thankful "yes". Instead of trekking to the car slowly, we were there much faster thanks to the kindness of a stranger...and I didn't have to try to carry two babies. That, my friends, is the greatness of storytime.