Lacy's 2nd Bday

This big girl turned two this week! It's been so much fun having a birthday right by Halloween!


       Lacy started the morning with a "2" pancake that more closely resembled a "Z" but she didn't seem to mind.  Phew.
        Before Jack and Lily headed off to school, we got to open presents from the family.
        Lacy and I hung out and did things she loves while the kids were at school--finger paints,  a bubble bath,  the park,  a walk,  and then we went to the kids school to have lunch with them. We brought "dog dogs" (corndogs) and chocolate milk,  and they all loved it.  :)
When dad got off work we went to Barros to have Lacy's favorite dinner.  We got pizza and while we were waiting,   Lacy was hitting her fists on the table and chanting  "pi-zza, pi-zza"!

      We had a halloween birthday party with some little friends. I'm really bad at remembering to take pictures, but here are a few before the party started! This is the face painting station. We had a cute young woman from our ward do the painting and the kids loved it. 

The streamers that broke mom's back.

Worth it.

 We had some spooky games for the kids to play like witch pitch, glow in the dark ghost balloons on the trampoline, corn hole, monster slime, and mini pumpkin decorating.

Lacy was addicted to the face painting, which I think surprised us all.

Our little parrot in all of her face paint glory.

Lacy adopted a new Great Grandpa. 

Thanks to Grandpa Dean for helping Lacy feel loved on her special day. :)

And she blew them out! With a fishy face in between candles. 

SEDONA

I got out of the habit of blogging in the craziness of summer break! But this weekend we definitely had a fun little post-worthy trip to blog about. We FINALLY made it up to Sedona after only 3 years of living here. What a truly beautiful place with all of the greenery against the majestic red rocks. It's stunning and definitely a place everyone should checkout while living in AZ.

We stopped to checkout this chapel that was built into the rock cliffs. 

The entire front is a big glass window that looks out onto the valley.

 

We spotted this Mountain Bluebird just outside of the chapel.

We took a nature walk along the Oak Creek to checkout Cathedral Rock (behind us). 

It's Finally SUMMER!

We had some fun with the heat this weekend. The forecast predicted saturday to be 117-118 decrees. We were naturally super excited for such oppressive conditions, especially since we've never been here on such a day. We grabbed a frying pan and an egg. We made some cookie dough to bake in the car. We chopped up some crayons to melt into a cookie cutter to make a mega crayon... The crayons and cookies turned out just perfect, the egg was trickier (it didn't work).

The weather only ended up reaching a mere 115 degrees. Boo.

But it's ok, we still had fun with it.

Lily loved her new crayon star!

  

And the cookies were excellent, according to the kids!

Lily had a dance recital this week. She did so well.

 I love nothing more than watching this girl on stage. She's such a cute little dancer.

Preschool Graduation

Lily is going to miss her sweet teacher, Mrs. Black!

Jack finished off the school year with straight A's all four quarters. SO proud of this little stud.

Hassayampa River Preserve. 

We were loving the shade up there! 

Nevis

John and I had such a fun time getting to see the island of Nevis and spend time together. Here's a little video of some of our adventures!

Lily's 5th Birthday and a Surprise Party!

Lily was so excited this year to have a party. She decided that what she really wanted was a ballerina party! And mom and dad decided that it would be fun to not tell her when that party would take place for a fun surprise party! It was great. She was so shocked. We loved having all of Lily's cute little friends come to celebrate with us. 

Camping at Sophie Flats

We took a short weekend trip to do some desert camping at Sophie Flats, just right outside of Wickenburg. It was so much fun. The kids are addicted to camping, so it's nice to get everyone out of the house to enjoy the great outdoors. We're excited for it to warm up so we can do some mountain camping!

Springtime at the Sperry's

Springtime is coming to an end here in AZ, but luckily we've spent plenty of time outside biking, going for walks, and playing at the park. We're just entering the two months where we need to get creative because it's too hot to play outside, and not quite hot enough to go swimming. But nonetheless, we're loving life here in our little corner of paradise!

Here are some pictures of what the kids have been up to:

Lacy has been learning from her big sister.

She loves putting on purses, necklaces, and backpacks. :)

 We had a nasty case of the flu (the number of cases in AZ was out of control this year).

We were excited to be back in action after missing a whole week of school. 

 We spent the night last weekend in Scottsdale before my 1/2 marathon.

It was fun to have a mini getaway!