Future NRA member!

We went shooting with the Bowman's, Budge's and Castillo's this weekend, and had a BLAST...literally! :) Gwen especially loved shooting the little BB gun and as soon as she had it in her hands, she was pulling the trigger and then anxiously waiting for me to pump it again. What's cuter than a two year old shooting a gun!? AHHHHHH!!!

She was so proud of herself! And wanted to do it all by herself. Since she wouldn't wear ear plugs in her ears, Jayne Bowman was nice enough to share her princess beanie with ear covers on it with Gwen.

I'm so lucky to have such a cute husband and daughter! And we all were so lucky that Drake was asleep in the car for all of the shooting time, and then woke up and came out for the campfire and yummy hamburgers. This is Ryan wearing his sexy eye protection, he's shooting a World War 2 muzzle loader. Jay's dad came too with some fun guns, and he and Ryan had a good time talking about Scotland.

granite grill

This is Drake at the Posh Nosh.
It's a cute little restaraunt in dowtown Mesa Jodi, Tara and I discovered on one of our playdays.
It's really cute, and even though the menu isn't very diversified, it does have GELATO!!
yummy yummy
Drake was so hungry he tried eating the table.
How cute is he!?

BATH TIME

Drake and Gwen love to take baths!

You'd think with the enthusiasm they have for bathing, they'd get them more often! Drake absolutely loves to spash around!

And when he's laying on his back, his arms and legs are flying everywhere!

He's making his own indoor wave pool.

Please try to look past the aweful ring around the tub

and just look at the cute kids.

Thank you!

Happy V-Day!

Gwen had a FANTASTIC Valetnine's Day!

She was so Excited to get Cinderella 3!

I really need to give Ryan a HUGE thank you for our ROMANTIC Valentine's Day!!! (Thanks for helping him out Jodi!)

When I got home from dropping the kids off at Tara's, Ryan had me wait downstairs while he finised my surprise upstairs.

When I finally got to go up, I saw that he had candle's and rose petals all over all over the bathroom, and a yummy pomegranate bubble bath drawn. He said I might want to take a relaxing bath while he made us dinner!

So when I came down, he had gotten out our CHINA, and we had CAFE RIO by candlelight. After that we went to see MUSIC & LYRICS. (and it was really cute) THANKS SOOOO MUCH for a wonderful Valentine's Day Ryan! I LOVE YOU!!

So True! :)

This HAD to be posted.

(Courtesy of another cute blog)


HOW TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE READY TO HAVE CHILDREN
MESS TEST Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.
TOY TEST Obtain a 55-gallon box of Lego's (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.
GROCERY STORE TEST Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.
DRESSING TEST Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.
FEEDING TEST Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.
NIGHT TEST Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 p.m. begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 a. m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Getup and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
INGENUITY TEST Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint,turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a Ping-Pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.
AUTOMOBILE TEST Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat.Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There, perfect.
PHYSICAL TEST (Women) Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans.
PHYSICAL TEST (Men) Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store.Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.
FINAL ASSIGNMENT Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

Gwen's cooking!

What do you like to do on a rainy day? Well Gwen likes to spend her time in the kitchen. She made me some delicious watermelon soup! And she was sure to put ice in it so it wasn't too hot.

Gwen's getting ready for a dinner party!

This kitty's not a stuffed animal!?

Uh oh, caught torturing the kitty!

Well, mommy's smiling, must be okay!

I wonder what he tastes like.....

Poor Zazu, he's such a good sport.

They call him Mr. Personality!

Drake is really showing his personality lately. We always knew he was a smiley baby, but now he's a laughing, funny face making, boy! He is so giggly and tickelish I love it! And as we showed in the video two posts ago, he LOVES playing with his tongue and sticking it out.

Bike ride

Today I took the kids for a bike ride in the trailer behind my bike. About five minutes into the ride I thought the kids were being really quite, I turned around to see them totally asleep just slumped into each other. All that exercise must have worn them out!

Drake's lick

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Make an online slideshow at onetruemedia.com

Cute kids!

So Drake and Jack are best friends, when ever Jack comes over, they like to sit on the couch together and hold hands. It looks like we are going to have two brown eyed boys!

Gwen loves to take care of her little brother. She likes playing "bed". She always brings a blanket to Drake and covers him with it and then whispers, "shh, Drake sleep in yours bed". She is really starting to put together bigger sentences. Sometimes she just doesn't stop talking, and I just say, "uh huh, uh huh". As I'm putting this blog up, she is drawing her hand, with painted fingernails, with a heart ring on her finger, and a bandaid on the owie on her hand. She is so funny!

Happy New Year!!!

For New Years, we had our annual cookout in the desert. We had so much fun shooting guns and grilling up some good grub. It was unexpectedly chilly. But the kids stayed nice and warm. It was so nice to spend time with family and smell like camp fire!

Christmas!

Chaching! Stocking time and Gwen cashed in!
In Kristin's stocking was an US Weekly subscription, and in Ryan's was a bag of coal! Maybe next year Ryan will be a good boy.
Gwen turned out to be an expert present opener. But it did take a while. Because as she would open a present, she would want me to take it out of the box so she could play with it for a little bit before she'd move on to the next one. And toys these days are so screwed into the packaging you need a chainsaw to get them out!
Perhaps the best present the girls got! For two days Gwen and Claire were Snow White and Belle respectively. They LOVED their dresses so much! Thanks Grammy!!

Drake was such a good little boy. He slept through just about all of the present opening, but was still so happy. Maybe the key to his happiness is his beautiful pink and purple sassy passy?

Christmas Eve

For Christmas this year, we went up to Sacramento to spend the holiday with Ryan's mom. We had so much fun spending time with the family and Gwen loved spending time with her cousin Claire. Here's Gwen opening her Christmas Eve present.
Everytime Gwen and Claire get together they become the best of friends again. While we were driving home, Gwen woke up from a nap and immediately started asking for her sister Claire. I asked her "do you mean your cousin?" and she said, "no, my sister". I don't know how she knows that sister is a closer relation, but that's what she prefers. Here's the two in their Christmas dresses.

This year we had a baby Jesus! Gwen was Mary. And this is what happens when you have a two year old acting out the Christmas story. Luckily daddy was there to be Joseph and keep the Christmas story under control.

Gwen is at that magical age when a bandaid can fix any "owie". But the problem with that, is that she is always looking for more owies to get more bandaids. I don't remember why her upper lip was hurting here, but we thought the bandaid mustache was pretty cute!
We had our ward Christmas party this last Friday. Drake had been pretty sick all day and we didn't think we could go, but we went anyway and he was so cute. Since he wasn't feeling well, we let him wear his Santa pajamas. :)
This is Gwen at the ward Christmas party. She's into wearing dresses lately. In fact she won't wear anything unless it's a dress. But it was the end of the week, and all of her dresses were dirty. So I got her to wear this skirt by telling her that it was Ariel's wedding skirt. Once she's in her dress/skirt, she grabs it with one hand, puts her other hand up in the air and dances around the way the princesses taught her how in Disneyland. It's so cute!
Drake is so grown up now! He had food today! I gave him some rice cereal and he loved it! It's funny that I waited until he's almost five months old to try food with him. With Gwen, we tried just about as soon as she had head control. But the advantage of waiting an extra month and a half was that he could actually eat it from the spoon and swallow it. It was sooooo much easier than first trying to feed Gwen.

Looking at this picture just made me realize how big the kids are now. Gwen's doing her cheezy smile, but won't really take her eyes off the tv. And this is her all time favorite dress. The pink mumu! Once we get it off, we have to hide it until it gets washed, and as soon as it comes out of the dryer, Gwen's got it on.

I don't know why sometimes I can't get the writing to match up with the pictures they are supposed to. Oh well.

Grammy's been in town lately! She loved getting in her snuggly time with Drake, even though he's a slobbery little guy. :) This is them at the Phoenix Zoo for Cloe's third birthday.
Ryan and Gwenny in monkey village at the zoo. The monkeys were unbelievably close, just inches away, running along the path and jumping on the benches that people were sitting on. Gwen loved it!

Gwen LOVES playing tea party. Today when our home teachers were over, she just kept serving us tea, making us drink it, then she would gather up our cups, pour more, and make us drink again.

When we were walking into Disneyland on the first day, Gavin and Emily were approached and asked if they wanted to be the grand marshalls at the parade that night? Duh, of course! Luckily we got to ride along with them. It was so funny, we rode in this cute little fire engine and waved at all the people waiting for the parade to begin and the whol time this guy was saying of the speaker system, "And the grand marshalls this evening is the McPhie family from Chandler, Arizona"! And then all the people that were from Arizona would yell at us where they were from and cheer really loud! It was awesome, then we got to sit in resereved seating at the front of the entrance for the rest of the parade. Talk about a once in a lifetime experience!

Why do these pictures never come up in the order I want them to? Anyways, I tried publishing these pictures back when I put up the other Disneyland stuff, and for some reason, the website didn't want to put these pictures up. So I tried again and it worked!!! Gwen was so excited to get to meet Ariel, (I think she's her new favorite) and Ariel even kissed her on the cheek!

Here we are in front of It's a Small World. Gwen was just in awe of all the little dolls in there.

And this is the whole group after our ride in the fire truck, this is where we got to sit during the rest of the parade. It was a sectioned off area up above everyone else. :)

HALLOWEEN!

For Halloween, Gwen was Cinderella and Drake was the cuddliest caterpillar ever! Gwen LOVED trick or treating! She learned early in the day when we (Gwen, Drake and Jack who was the sexiest gold fish ever) went to Gigi's work and then aunt Tawnya's work to show everybody in the office how cute the kids were, and Gwen raked it in big time. Then we went to our ward's Chili Cookoff and then more trick or treating. Gwen would knock or ring the door bell, and then whisper so quietly, "trick or treat" with her little hand stretched out, open, waiting for candy. Then she would quietly whisper "thank you". It was so cute! And now all she wants to wear is the Cinderella dress. Too bad everyday's not Halloween.