Sunday Makeovers!

 Here are those photos I mentioned from the girl's Sunday makeover we did 2 weeks ago.  I even broke out my good camera to capture these pictures. :)  Ever since having an iPhone I just don't break it out often enough and have to be reminded how much better the quality is.

 The only makeup the girls are wearing is sparkly eye liner I got for cheap at Primark in England, my favorite pink lipstick, and some blush.  They felt sooo pretty!

 Love these girlies!!!

 These apple glasses had to make an appearance!  The girls got them the day before for free at the Phoenix Zoo.  We went with our Pogo Pass on the day they had a Zoo race event so there were a lot of fun booths with freebies and activities.  Apparently Andrew took the kids on the same day last year when I was running the Ragnar Del Sol as team captain.  Can't believe that was a year ago!

 Zara's expression just cracks me up here! ;)  She's all business and Avery's all smiles.

 This black and white one I edited with the Afterlight app.  I love how warm and moody it is.  The ones below Avery and Zara edited and they had so much fun!

This might become a monthly Sunday activity!  With 8:30am church this year the afternoons can get a little long.

playdate makeovers

The first Sunday of spring break I did makeovers on the girls and took some pictures.  I'll have to share some of those photos later because they're so cute.  Of course I always tell the girls they look beautiful without makeup, but everyone loves a little makeover every now and again.  The next day the Bennett girls came over all afternoon so we did makeovers again.  This is something I never did as a kid because my mom hardly wore makeup and didn't have very much.  I, on the other hand, have a dozen lipsticks.  I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to makeup but I love playing around with color.

After doing makeovers I let the girls edit their own selfie with the app Afterlight.  I love this app and use it to edit most of my instagram photos.  I taught them the basics and let them have free reign, something I don't do very often.  We trying to keep screen time to the minimum over here because they're happier when we do and my kids have such great imaginations I want them to continue to develope.  This was such a fun way to be creative and hopefully boost their confidence.

I've tried several photo editing apps but do you have a favorite?  I'm all ears. :)

spring break forts

 Last week was spring break and the first half started off great!  Swimming, playdates, Phoenix Zoo, and other fun things.  For October and Spring breaks I try to find that balance of planning one or two fun things every day so everyone has something to look forward to without over planning and getting burnt out.  Because it's spring break, ya know!  A little relaxing and chilling is good too!

Our week slowed down as soon as Zara had a 103 degree temperature.  She was sick for days, and then Rupert also got sick.  A week later Elliot is home sick today.  Thankfully Avery, Andrew and I haven't gotten sick.  Hope that lasts!  Staying home half of the break the kids and I had to get creative.  Check out Elliot's amazing forts!  Each blanket was a "room" for each kid.  I love it when they use their imagination like this.  Elliot even put everything away after so this was a perfect way for them to spend an afternoon.  How was your spring break?

St. Patrick's Day

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I broke our my green stash for today and I think everyone still fits the same shirts as last year.  Thank goodness because with it being spring break this week and having sick kids the last few days all my fun St. Patrick's Day plans didn't happen.  My kids are easy to please and didn't know they were missing out on anything.   

 As you can imagine, St. Patrick's Day is not a favorite of Andrew's.  It's right up there with Independence Day.  He did not wear green today.  He did, however, make a green smoothie this morning.  And not just any green smoothie with lots of spinach and kale but one he intentionally added green food coloring to!  When he told me I thought "who is this guy anyway?!".  :)

Well, I hope you wore green and didn't get pinched.  It's been a good one for us.

2017 Solar Eclipse

Last Summer we experienced an incredible Solar Eclipse and I've been keeping these photos on the desktop, just waiting for me to post them. :)  We didn't get the total eclipse experience in AZ but Chris and Kristy did in Missouri which is amazing!  When the moon covered the sun for a couple minutes it went dark and they could see a faint ring around the sun.  Wish were were there but even the partial eclipse was amazing!  I even got a little emotional thinking about God's creations and His love for us.

Here's the eclipse at it's fullest in AZ through Elliot's sun glasses.  I took the kids out of school to see it.  Elliot and Avery went back to class after its' peak but Zara is half day so she came with Rupert and I to Andrew's work after.

 All the leaves made half moon shadows.  So incredible!

 Here's our homemade cereal box experiment Andrew helped the kids make.  It worked!

One of the teachers had a pair of these special solar glasses we could see the sun with, and was nice to share.  They sold out so fast or we would have had them too.  How did you experience the solar eclipse last year?

Root beer taste test

I follow someone on Instagram named Kelly Jensen that does something she calls a Live List with her family.  It's like a bucket list except it's not really a list of things to do before dying, but a list they make together as a family that has activities and service and things they want to do to LIVE their life now the best way they can.  We've adapted that as a family.

The Jensen family do a root beer taste test every year and Elliot and Andrew wanted to add that to our live list so we did!  We also invited the Waldman family to join us a few hours before and then volunteered to watch the Manning kids two hours before so we had a full house.

We lined up all the different flavors and everyone got a taste of each.  Then everyone had root beer floats.  My favorite ones from the glade bottles were the Brownie one and Bulldog, right next to it.  I think those were favorites among the kids too.  I still don't have much of a sweet tooth this pregnancy and I don't really like soda but a good root beer float every now and again is really good!

 Alice had a hard time on and off because she wouldn't fall asleep.  Bless her!  She did well with Andrew most of the time.

 After the taste testing the kids watched a movie while the adults played Harry Potter Clue.  I love this game and Bradley and I both ended up winning. It was so fun having friends over tonight!  They actually live down the street, and I'm not sure why we don't get together more often. :)

^ ^ The girls tried hard to cheer Alice up. ^ ^

 Also, Avery lost her 6th tooth today!  Two on top and four on bottom now!  Love those growing smiles. :)

Christmas in England

It's been too long since sharing anything here (6 or 7 months!) but if you follow me in instagram you would know we went to England for Christmas.  All these are iPhone photos so excuse the quality, or lack thereof.

It was a short trip, just over a week, but one we were so grateful to be able to do.  Since we flew in and out of London Heathrow airport the first day and a half of our trip with spent in London.  Then we took a train up to Hull to be with family.  We squeezed in a day trip to Scarborough and York, and loved going to Hull 2nd Ward Christmas Eve but mostly spent time with family, as you should over the holidays!  Andrew's parents hosted us this time.  The last several times we've stayed at Di and Grandma's.

 Elliot and Avery were into making weird faces when this group photo was taken and this was the best one out of the bunch.  Funny enough Carol, my mother in law, requested this group photo be taken.  Normally I'm the big photo taker, but I think she wanted something to put up in her house.  I wish she were more into photos while raising Andrew because he was a very cute boy. :)

 Christmas morning we woke up at Nanna and Grandads!  Millie the dog was so interested in what everyone got. :)  A couple days before Carol took the kids to pick out toys for Millie so she would be distracted but I'm not sure it worked.  Millie especially loved Rupert's new electric toothbrush. ;)

 Andrew grew up with this tradition, which i think is the norm in England, to have all your gifts wrapped and put in one big bag for each person.  So here is everyone with their big bag of gifts.  Andrew's family were and always are so generous.

Seeing Andrew so happy over this trip was pure magic!

 For Christmas dinner we ate at Grandma Freeman's and Di's house.  The smells were heavenly!  We brought stuffing balls and trifle to contribute to the meal.

 Here's my nephew, Oliver, Claire and Rich's son.  He's about 6 months younger than Rupert but about the same size.  I wish Rupert and Oliver got along better but Oliver really loves playing with older kids so it was fun watching him with Elliot, Avery, and Zara.

 Wish you could smell and taste all this!  My favorites were the yorkshire puddings, brussell sprouts, turkey and brown gravy.  I'm salivating just looking at this.

^ ^ All of Carol and Nev's grandchildren! ^ ^

With two more on the way!  It's so exciting being pregnant together again, this time for both of our last children.  I'm due early May and Claire some time in June, I believe.  Elliot snagged this photo shortly before we headed to Heathrow Christmas night since we flew back home the next morning.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  Mostly I'm just grateful my morning sickness has (mostly) finally passed!  The last three weeks have been soooo much better than last several months.

I haven't made too many concrete goals this year, but my word of the year is to be more Proactive, as opposed to reactive.  Now that morning sickness has passed I'm able to be on top of things so much better and I want to be more intentional with my time.  And maybe you'll see more of us here!