Christmas toys

Christmas morning opening their stockings that Santa had filled and of course the cat, Zyan, right in the middle of it :)

Mason and Jarron with their first remote control cars.  Thank you Auntie Brenda, they LOVE them!!!!!!!!

Happy Holidays

I started a new tradition this year, Christmas Eve dinner at my house.  It was a special feeling to have a house full of family and friends.  Thank you to everyone who spent this wonderful day with us.

Bobby and Lori made the Ham for dinner

Auntie Janie, Tanya (Lori's sister), Dora (Lori's mother), and Ashley

Aunt Rosie and Nanny Wilma

Auntie Brenda, Mom, and Aunt CJ

Jarron, My Little Drummer Boy

Video coming soon.  I can't seem to get it uploaded right now.

Rock Band for Xmas

Well, after a year of wanting we finally got it.  ROCK BAND!!  My Mom bought it for the family and we had some fun Rock Band parties.

Auntie Janie belting it out
Mom on drums and Janie on guitar
Eric and Bobby singing a duet
Ashley and Adam, the brother and sister team
Jarron loves the drums and is very good at it

S'mores

Jarron has been bugging me about making s'mores so we finally did.  They were very happy :)

O Christmas Tree

The boys had a lot of fun this year and helped each other hang the ornaments on the high branches.   

Tis the season

This pic should be at the bottom of the page to go in order but I am just lucky to find the time this morning to put any pics up :) So just pretend these are in order.

Jarron goes to preschool at Archer Center, a parks and rec program, twice a week.  They have wonderful festivities for the holidays and this day was meeting Santa.  There are two separate classes for the preschoolers but they have the parties for them at the same time, so some of the kids in the pics aren't in his class.  I volunteer several times a month and Mason gets to go with me and he loves it.  He joins in like he is a 4 year old and all the kids know him and treat him like a fellow student.

Mason and the reindeer.  That was his first question on our way to see Santa, "Will Rudolph be there"?

Jarron and Mason with part of his class.

Jarron with Santa, Mrs. Claus, part of his class and his teacher Miss Leah.

Mason and Jarron giving Santa their Christmas letters.  They cut and paste pics from the Sunday ads.  Jarron had no problems talking to Santa and sitting on his lap but Mason would only go as far as handing his letter over and waiting for the candy cane.

Halloween 2008

The Dark Knight and the Brave Knight.  Jarron chose to be Batman, again, and Mason chose to be a "Brave Knight" because he rarely takes the costume off at home for the past few months.  The skeleton is their friend named "Boney".

They of course had a blast trick or treating and Jarron used the same strategy as last year.  Holding up his pumpkin and saying his lines, then after they drop candy in he keeps the pumpkin held up for more.  Hehehe what a character he is.

Mason did very well too but had to eat a piece of candy every few houses, and we hit a lot of houses.  At the end of the night Mason bit into his glow stick (because he obviously didn't get enough candy I guess) and got the fluid in his mouth which burned.  I called Poison Control and was told not to worry but I did anyway.  Leave it to Mason!!!!

After the boys went to bed, Eric and I had our traditional Halloween fun.  We pile up the candy in a big pile and take turns choosing for ourselves.  We did leave the boys a few pieces for the rest of the weekend :p

Phoenix Mars Lander

Eric and I took Jarron on a tour of the facility that houses the Phoenix Mars Lander team.  This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that gave me serious goosebumps.  It is amazing what the human race can accomplish in space (just wish we could say the same here on earth! Go Obama!)  For those of you that are not familiar with this expedition, it launched in August of 2007 and landed successfully on Mars May of 2008 with a Mission to study the history of water on Mars. Here is the link if you would like to learn more  http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php

Here we are at the beginning of the tour where there was a slide show of actual pictures on Mars, some of them 3-D which were Jarron's favorite.  My favorite was the picture showing a cd disc on top of the lander which I knew had Jarron's name on it.  I was able to register his name, along with 250,000 others, back in the beginning of 2007 to go to Mars.
Jarron is standing next to a smaller scale replica of the shovel from the Phoenix used to take dirt and rock samples on Mars.

Jarron is controlling a robotic arm, similar to one on the Phoenix, to paint with.  It was very hard to control.

Phoenix Mars Lander continued

This is his finished artwork.  He said he wanted a robotic arm for christmas...Yeah right, let me just give NASA a call :)

This is the coolest yet.  When they developed the Phoenix, they actually made 2 of them.  One to actually go to Mars and one to practice with and do calculations with here at the center.  Today was the last day anyone will be able to view this before it is sent to the Smithsonian for display.  We feel pretty lucky!
A closer look.
The mural outside of the building.  Just click on the picture to get a full screen of it.
Second half.

We had a wonderful experience that we will treasure always, but this is not the end since they are already gearing up for the next mission next year.

Silk worm larvae?

Waiting outside of our latest adventure, Jarron found this caterpillar.  It is the most amazing caterpillar I have ever seen.  It had actual silver spikes along its back that were very sharp and looked/felt like metal.  I tried to look it up and find out what family this belongs to and the closest I could find so far (I am still trying if anyone out there has any info) is the Saturniidae, the Silk Worm.  It was very cool!!!!

Daddy the Giant

The kids tortured Eric again.  He was the "sleeping giant" and they stacked everything they could find on top of him.  When Eric finally moved and everything fell off, they howled with laughter.  I love those moments, especially since it gave me time to update my blog :)

Pumpkin Carving

Our dear neighbors Martha and Jesse brought the boys a pumpkin.  They couldn't wait to dig in!

                                        "Pumpkin Guts" they kept shouting.
                                       Jarron drew the face and they both cut it out. 

San Diego again :)

Stickers Galore

Jarron and Mason had fun putting stickers on Daddy.  What a great Daddy to endure such decorating.  I guess it could be worse if we had girls, then it would have probably been make-up, haha.

Colossal Cave

I now have a couple of spelunkers on my hands.  We took the boys to Colossal Cave and of course my adventurous boys loved it.  Jarron was more amazed by the formations and designs in the rocks but Mason was more into sticking his fingers/hands in all the dark little holes deep in the mountain (ahhhh!)  Who knows what is hiding in there!!  I could have taken some cool pics inside but I was spending all my time trying to keep Mason safe.  The highlight of the cave was a single bat hanging down as we were leaving.  

We also went to the other side of the park and visited the tortoises, the butterfly garden, ect.  See the pic below of Mason and the tortoise looking at each other.  We went to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Farnsworth in Benson afterwards and of course the boys found a lot more to keep their interest.  Snails, grasshoppers, and caterpillars Oh My :)  We had a wonderful visit and got to eat sweet pomegranates straight from the tree, and bring some home.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, we love you.

Under the Big Top!

My Mom and I took the boys to the Barnes Circus last weekend.  It was a three ringed, two hour spectacular show that kept the boys mesmerized.  Mason's favorite were the clowns, although he didn't want to get close to them.  Jarron's was the high wire and trapeze acts.

Fun Pics

They are pretending to be pirates with their "pirate hats" and "swords".

We went to a Fall Festival at a park and the boys got their first face painting.