Just Say NO!

The next time your husband comes up with a brillant idea to steam clean the carpets on a Sunday- during an important football game...just say NO! What started off as a great idea of steam cleaning some rooms in our house turned out to be complete chaos. First Tony started with our room since he said it smelled of Towson (he sleeps in the corner of our room on a pillow). Out came our giant bed and dressers. Our mattress was now in Gabi's room and the bedframe was in the hall and the dressers were in the bathroom. While that room "attempted" to dry, Tony took his adventures downstairs. Next came the playroom. Mind you I just reorganized that entire room the week before. Anyone who has tons of toys in the house knows that is not an easy task.So, all of the toys that weren't in the closet came spitting up and landed in the small living room. While that room was drying, Tony made his way to the family room. He disconnected the t.v. and moved all of the furniture into the kithen. The house looked a total disaster area. It is now 5 P.M. on a Sunday night. We couldn't even make dinner in the house. So we quickly gathered up the troops and headed to Chinese (of course) and tried to watch the Cardinals game. We got back home and naturally none of the carpets were dry. We still had to get to the kids in baths and ready for the school the next day. Lets just say it was a rather long night. After putting kids to bed and opening every window for the carpets to dry, we still had to joy of moving all of the furniture back in its place. Next time, we are paying someone.

Enjoy the Silence

Moments like these are golden in our house. My kids truly do love each other, but when they have had enough of each other all hell breaks loose in the house. Normally these precious moments of "love" happen on Gabi's schedule. If she is not in the mood to deal with Aidan she lets everyone know. However, when she is being an awesome big sister she is amazing. With Gabi knowing how to read now and Aidan always wanting to be read to, this was truly a beautiful moment in our house. Maybe because noone was in the "naughty chair" or because Tony and I weren't screaming, but because our kids were showing love for one another. I'm hoping to capture more of the moments on film.

it's a snow day!

We headed up north to Flagstaff with some friends to take the kids sledding. We haven't been in the snow for almost 2 years and figured it was time to find out what the cold felt like again. We left Phoenix at 9 in the morning and the weather report had said it was going to be a high of 70. We were hoping that the snow up north was still there. Nonetheless, we bundled up with layers, tried to find warm clothes and left for our 2 hour car ride. For many miles there was nothing, except catcus and mountains. But little by little, we started seeing some white stuff on the highway. By the time we reached Flagstaff we definitely knew we had come to the right place. The town was covered with white stuff from a storm the week earlier.
We had a great time sledding down all the different hills, having snowball fights and building snowmen. We slipped on the ice a few times, lost one mitten and crashed into a few incident bystanders. We had a great day, however, I really missed the blazing Phoenix sun.

Jews on Christmas Eve

Ever wonder what Jews do on Christmas Eve? The answer is not much. We decided to make our own yearly tradition of going to the drive-in movies. Last summer I attempted to take Aidan to the real movie theaters, but it was too hard and long for him to sit. We figured we would give the drive-in a try instead so we could actually see a first run movie together as a family. Normally, either Tony and I take Gabi while the other stays home with Aidan. This time, we were going to go together and if Aidan needed to talk (or scream) or even needed to get out of the car we could do that.We got the kids in the jammies, got some pizza and then headed to Scottsdale to watch the Princess and the Frog. There were only 6 other cars watching at our screen. It was great! The best part of the entire experience (according to the kids) was that Gabi and Aidan got to sit up front in the driver's and passenger seats without car seats! Have no worries, on Christmas Day we went to the Chinese Buffet and finished celebrating Christmas watching a Christmas Story and Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas.