Isaac is a Child of God

Oh my goodness my sweet little boy is adorable. We love to hear him sing his Nursery songs! I will find him sitting in his room with his book just singing his heart out. He "belts" it out when nobody is watching, so this little video of him is somewhat of a miracle because he knows he has an audience. I couldn't get the other one to load because it is too big, but this works. My favorite is, "I'll prepare myself while I am YUM, this is my sacred BOOTY." Ha! We love it!

Arizona State Fair

Yes, it is just wrong that we haven't once gone to the Arizona State Fair in the nine years we have lived here! I guess it doesn't help that it is in the heart of scary Phoenix neighborhoods. But the TJH band performed at the fair last Friday afternoon so we braved the drive. What fun! We watched the band play and then the boys and I enjoyed (really!) the arts and crafts, cooking, 4-H and animal exhibits. P.S. Grandpa Tom...I told the boys you were a famous "Best of Show" winning pigeon guy (keeper? raiser? breeder?). Jeremy met us after work while we were looking at rocks and photography. I told the boys we had to do this on a budget and they were pretty supportive once they caught on to all the free stuff. We parked in a bargain lot (but then we had to walk by the homeless living areas in the bushes on the way out...eek!), took advantage of the $5 before 5 admission deal, found the Spammobile for free Spamburgers (oh yeah...Jacob ate 7 of these!) and shared our other food with each other. The boys filled out a "Reading Promotion" form from school that earned them three free rides for reading three books and enjoyed the big slide, the fun house, a really freak-out spinning ride, and a lying down ride (nope, I did not pay attention to the names of these rides). But the climax of the evening was the free Demolition Derby. As we found our seats, Noah said, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever been to." I laughed and said that was the fun of it. We watched all the other (mostly drunk) people cheering and screaming for their favorite cars and just giggled. It actually was pretty awesome and the car Noah cheered for won. Oh, man, that's something you've got to do once in your life, and I mean once. Isaac fell asleep blissfully unaware of the revving of engines, metal-on-metal crashes, and the roar of the crowd. All in all a great family activity. See you next year!

Band Boosters

The band has played at two TJH football games as well (go Trojans!) and they have so much fun! We go and support the concession sales (proceeds benefit the band...gotta help out!).

OK, so I don't know how to switch the order of these pictures so you might have to skip around a little! This is Spencer entering the field at halftime of the Mesa High football game. They invited their three "feeder" Junior Highs to play with the MHS band. Spencer positively basked in the whole experience!

So, a quick summary of Spencer's Taylor Junior High Band adventures thus far this year. This is from the Mesa Constitution Week Celebration on Sept. 22nd. It was a fun Monday night activity at the Mesa Amphitheater...KFC, crafts, friends, dancing, music, patriotism, etc.

Fireman Isaac

We had the most fun last week at playgroup. We took a tour of a Mesa Fire Station and it was awesome! Isaac and his friends Porter, Breanna, Kennadi, Benson, Bennett, Zane, Abby, Kelley and Payton got to see where the firemen cook, eat, watch TV, work, sleep and exercise! The firemen pulled a firetruck out of the garage and let each kid spray water from their high-powered hoses to knock down some orange cones. Isaac keeps telling us that part. He, and all the others, were so excited! And, of course, the eye-candy for the moms wasn't bad, either. Everyone got hats and stickers and pencils and coloring books and then it was time for pictures. As soon as we were done with pictures, the firemen received a call and we got to watch them put on their gear, climb into the firetruck and race away with sirens and lights flashing! It was like it was planned! Such a great day!

Neighborhood Watch

Hello again! Yes, I feel like I have fallen off the face of the earth. I wasn't going to post anything until I could catch up with the news of the last busy month, but instead, we're skipping it and pretending it didn't happen. So, onward with the news of my latest project...the annual Getting Arizona Involved in Neighborhoods (GAIN) event! I learned so much from last year about simplifying and asking for help in bigger ways, so this year was far more relaxing and fun for me personally. My sweet co-captain, Stephanie, came up with a Fiesta theme to involve more of our Spanish-speaking neighbors and it was a big hit. On Saturday night we closed off a section of our street with barricades and set up tables and chairs, a basketball hoop, and orange cones for soccer and bike riding. My other awesome neighbor Tabatha provided the cute decorations. Everyone brought a potluck Mexican food dish for dinner and my good neighbor Carol brought drinks. My super-amazing-saved-the-day neighbor Brenda had Spanish music playing and invited her professional musician brother to play guitar and sing. Two adorable little girls that also live on our street dressed up in darling dresses with big skirts to dance for us. So cute! We had a pinata, also provided by great neighbors Linda and Arturo. And then several visits from our city councilman, some motorcycle cops, and an undercover police commander bearing gifts for the kids topped off the evening! What a great night. Of course my awesome husband just "made it all happen" as usual...Thanks honey! We had 12 families from our street participate, which keeps us on the Neighborhood Watch roster and helps us meet each other and keep our street a safer place for everyone.