Baptism Weekend

The baptism weekend was fantastic. Amberly, Aaron, Ethan Thomas, Radley and Annie as well as my Mom and Darryl came out for all the festivities! It was so great to have them. And good thing we all like each other because it was a full house. Poor Aaron was sicker then a dog the whole time, but still made it to the baptism. Shawn's parents and brother, Eric, joined us for the service. After the baptism we went to Pei Wei for lunch, and took over their restaurant. Libby ate her weight in fortune cookies, and the boys had fun with the touch screen soda machine. (Yikes! Is that my son? No couldn't be!)I think the owner might have been happy to see us go! 

Sunday after church we were all enjoying our dinner while Libby and Radley played outside. They wanted to play and we wanted a peaceful dinner, so good deal, right? But after hearing shrieks and giggles we find them running through the sprinklers, in the church clothes! They were having a ball, but I think our plan for a peaceful dinner backfired on us! Libby loves her cousin Radley and adores baby Annie too.

It was a great weekend. I am so grateful Hayden made the choice to get baptized. Shawn asked Hayden why he wanted to get baptized, and he said "because I want to be like Jesus." I am grateful for his sweet spirit, and his obedience to our Heavenly Father.

I am so proud of you, and love you so much Hayden!

Let's Glow Birthday Party

Make a wish Hayden! (Colored flame candles.)

Freeze tag. The boys each had several glow sticks. The "it" person had to wear a glow mask!

Glow in the dark Bowling

The boys catching frogs. Yes, we have tons of frogs right now.

Hayden's Birthday Party was Friday night. And can I say I am so glad birthday's are only once a year! Phew! Hayden had a great time with his friends. Hayden was very grateful, and must have said thank you a hundred times! It was very sweet. A few highlights of the evening were freeze tag, an Easter egg hunt with glow bracelets inside, glowing bowling and football. I wanted to make glow in the dark slime but I didn't have any takers, they just wanted to wrestle and play football! Oh boys will be boys! This party was fun.

If I were to do it again I would definitely find a big black light, because it wasn't dark enough to see everything glow. All I could find was a scorpion hunting black light, which is tiny! So plan ahead and order online. The Easter egg hunt was so cool, but you have to have the larger eggs to fit the bracelets inside. It took me forever to squeeze them into the regular eggs. I couldn't get a good picture to show the eggs glowing because of the flash on my camera so you just have to trust me-its a must do! Also next time I would start decorating a lot earlier because the glow bracelets last a really long time so its OK to light them up early. And my last piece of advice would be two and a half hours is way to long! Two hours would have been plenty!! What was I thinking!

Party Invite

We are pulling together a super fun party for Hayden this weekend. He wanted to do games in the backyard. But I thought, what is better then games in the backyard? Games in the dark, that's what! We are going to do some fun games with glow sticks. And maybe even some fun experiments with glow water; which who knew you can make from a highlighter? So cool. Can't wait. Hopefully it won't rain, or be to hot. Or both. Oh gotta love AZ weather.

Preschool Time

Welcome to my new classroom! This is my three year old preschool class. If you follow me on pinterest you may have already guessed at my new job. Possibly because of the bombardment of all the preschool activities that I've been pinning. Sorry! I am teaching two classes, and both of my classes are so great. We just started on Monday, and I've already received lots of hugs and even a declaration of love! Preschool is decidedly the BEST! Last year I was teaching at the high school so I am loving all the genuine sweet love in the room this year. We definitely still have some attitude, but at least there aren't any swear words being tossed around the room (my ears appreciate it). I just got the job two weeks ago so it was a mad rush to get my classroom pulled together and organized before the "Meet the Teacher Orientation" last week. Thank goodness for my Mom and Darryl; they came to my rescue. We spent several long days, and one long night where everyone was being quite silly, I think we were tired because everything was funny, cleaning and hanging up bulletin boards. I had so much fun with them and seriously could not have done it with out their help.

I think this job is going to be a good fit for me right now.  I am home in the morning and can help the boys get ready for school, and I am done by nap time for Libby. And...Libby gets to go to preschool too. An added bonus! Although it still costs an arm and a leg for her to go there. It is great program. She will have two days of Spanish (Si!), and two days of gymnastics! As I was putting together my lesson plans for our first week of school, I realized how fun preschool is. I get to sing songs, do crafts and play! All my favorite things! We are going to have so much fun this year. I'll keep you posted on fun activities that are worth doing with your toddler.

Doing something new is scary! I feel completely out of my comfort level for sure. I've been filled with self doubt, questioning my ability to do this. And I keep thinking that is why I need to do this. Its my ammo. Just to prove it to myself. Is that the wrong reason to do something. Maybe. But I will be a good preschool teacher. So watch out. (a little overboard? Ya, probably. I'll tone it down in the future.)

School and A Birthday

Back to school shopping and lunch at our favorite place.

Waffles, whip cream and blueberries!

Cupcakes and ice cream. Everyone is focused on dessert.

Oh man it has been a busy end of summer. I can not believe how fast summer vacation flew by. Blah. I hate that. The last few weeks of summer were spent swimming, hanging with cousin Xander, and Lovey and Grandpa Darryl. It was a great finale for a fun summer.

Monday Ethan started 7th grade, at a new school. He changes class every period, and has a locker! Big stuff. He already really likes it. Hayden started 3rd grade. He really likes his teacher, but I think he misses having his brother at school. And Libby started preschool. My babies are all growing up. (Sob, sob!)

Tuesday was Hayden's 8th Birthday! He brought treats to school to share with his friends, and we had Grandma, Poppa, and Noah over for his special dinner. Hayden was very excited about getting a new bike, a football and even some cash. We are having a "Glow in the Dark" birthday party next week with his friends. And he will get baptized in September. Eight is a big year! I love you Hayden. Happy Birthday!

Another Project Completed

 Ethan has been at scout camp all week! I am so happy he will be back tomorrow. This picture is of him getting ready to leave Monday morning at 4:45. He was so excited. I was so sad! But I didn't cry!

This last weekend Shawn came home from work with the materials to build another built in bookcase, as well as frame out a niche. Our home has tons of these weird little niches. I wasn't really sure what to do with them because they really limit what I can hang on the wall. So I figured we would put some moulding around them to make them more pretty. It is a little more work then slapping up some moulding though. To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it when Shawn announced his plan for doing it. But how could I discourage him from completing something off the "Honey do list". That would be blasphemy! Our deal is that he installs and I sand and finish. Pretty good deal. I am very happy with the project. It makes the niche look more finished, and I love the white against the dark blue. Three down, only two more to go! You can see the last two to be completed in the bottom picture of Ethan. Although it might be awhile. And I am okay with that! These took me three nap times!

A Crafty Week

We made a trip to the Lego store.

Card games.

Potty Training.

Quilting and a new party.

These are all pictures from instagram. So in love with instagram lately! If you want to follow me on instagram, my name is ashleyelizabethhancock. Do you instagram? 

This week I was feeling a little inspired to craft. I bought coordinating fabric for my office, forever ago, to make a quilt. But that was maybe two years ago, and it has been on my to do list for that long! Yes, I know. I can be the queen of procrastination sometimes! This was the week I was determined to check it off my list. I choose to do a very simple strip quilt, which honestly, can we really even call it quilting? Probably not. But it is done, so who cares! My other craft inspiration is a new party for my shop. I have a few parties I am working on. The first is a butterfly party. Then I am going to get started on a Halloween party, as well as a black cat party. They will all coordinate, which makes it easier/cheaper for me to make. I am excited, I think this butterfly party is going to be really fun. I love the black and white chevron, with the gold and bright colors!! More pictures to come!

We also decided to start potty training. Libby has really sensitive skin and gets really bad diaper rashes, therefore spends a lot of time, when we are home, diaper-less, (Au natural). So we decided to make it official and she has been doing awesome. The easiest of the three. Hayden was really easy too, but Libby is a champ.

This week has been stormy! Gray clouds, windy, rainy. Love it. Ethan has taken advantage of it being slightly cooler (like 97) and went to the skate park with cousin Noah. This stormy weather makes me want to curl up read....but I have kids, that want to be entertained (so inconvenient!) so we've spent a lot of time playing cards. I taught the boys how to play speed, one of my favorite card games. And Ethan taught us how to play crazy eights. Its been so fun. When the kids get bored they start to rough house so I've been trying to come up with new things to do to redirect their competitive and aggressive behaviors. Some days are really long! Not going to lie! But we are having fun together coming up with new things to do.

What are your favorite things to do at home??