Catching up

We went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.  A bonus of having homeschool friends=we went right when it opened on a Thursday and no one was there.  It made that place a little more bearable.  Jon had mentioned it was an "Army" party, so some of the kids dressed up.

We went to a 'coming home poster making' event.  I really have no interest in trying to hold up a poster and wrangle 3 kids and keep track of all of our belongings and try to find Ben in a sea of military men, but the kids thought it was fun and it's somewhat part of the process of preparing for Ben to come home.

 

I just let my kiddos draw whatever they wanted and held baby Aiden.  I met Alyssa right before the boys left (we got to sit next to each other at the ball) and Aiden was just a teeny tiny newborn.  We've hung out throughout deployment and it's been fun to watch this baby grow.  I am SO glad my kids are older!  Can you imagine if Ben was deployed when Alison was this age?  I would have died.  It's nice to just be the friend who jumps in and helps.

The temperature has jumped here and there have been some almost 100 days.  After play practice, we picked up some sherbet to cool us off.

Alison had a friend over and helped her make a pillow.  It was so cool to see her confident in what she's learned.

 

We tried a new Mexican restaurant.  Arizona Donut still wins for best carne asada in my books.

Post church snuggles:

Both Alison and Eli's math lessons called for making cookies.  Eli's was supposed to make apple cookies, which sounded gross to me, but he really wanted to try them.  I loved how he wanted to try something new, so we made them.  They actually were pretty good; they tasted almost like a mini apple pie.  You know it's getting hotter in AZ when shirts are back off in pictures.

Alison let me convince her to make chocolate peanut butter cookies instead of what her book called for.  YUM!  I wish math called for cookies more often!