Kelsey, Where Are You?

I always know that when Kelsey hides and doesn't want to come out that she's in trouble. This time she had gotten into Grandma's lipstick - "I'm beautiful, Mommy!"

I don't think she actually got any of it on her lips...

Fun Run

They had the kids race around once then leat them run/walk for 15 minutes.
Collin did pretty good with the race - coming in close to the front

Even Kelsey got into it. She did an entire lap with Collin then half a lap with me - until she wanted to be carried...

I'm sure they're still collecting donations if you want to contribute...

Potty Training at 3 AM

Kelsey was pretty much potty trained until she got princess pull-ups... now she's only potty trained when it's inconvenient...It was early morning when I got up to go to the bathroom. While there I heard Kelsey yell, "Mom, I need to go potty!" I told Chad to get her then later I heard him go back to bed... When I got up to see her she was sitting on the potty reading her book...
I don't know where she got the weird idea to just sit and read a book all night??? Needless to say I finally had to drag her off the toilet and put her back to bed at about 3:45am - just go back to sleep!

Princess Dress

Kelsey loves her new Princess (Easter) dress

Hotel Fun

Kelsey in fearless

Because of the wind the pool was closed (have you ever heard that one before??) so my kids jacuzzied in the bathtub

Easter Bunny

Kelsey snuck into the bathroom to eat her chocolate bunny... You really need to see the video that goes along with this, "Oh no, don't eat my eyes!" "Quite, you're not a real bunny - you're just chocolate!"

Easter at the Hatfields

These posts are all out of order since I only get to download occasionally...

We ate Easter dinner over at Sharon's brother-in-law, Steve's house. My kids jumped right in with all the other cousins...
Kelsey always tells Chad, "Put me in the sky!"
Collin & Max continues to play and play...

Kelsey's Early Birthday Party in Arizona

Kelsey has been saying for months that it was her birthday - so her cousins took pity on her and threw her an early party...

Sharon made Kelsey a cool castle cake

Anticipation

I got Kelsey a Tinkerbell doll

and some princess and Tinkerbell pj's

Sharon gave her 2 new princess dolls - she loves them! She had been playing Barbies with the girls all week so now she's pro - too bad her mom never played Barbies growing up...

What Happens in Costa Rica Doesn't Always Stay in Costa Rica...

Take time to watch this 5 minute video - you'll be glad you did.

The Grand Canyon

When we talked about going to Arizona to visit Sharon Collin talked about going to see the Grand Canyon - so of course, we did...

Just as soon as we pulled up Kelsey fell asleep so Collin and I did a little recon while she slept in the car with Chad

We went up to the Watch Tower. It looks hundreds of years old but it was built in the 1930's. Super cool look out

Collin's so patient for mom's pictures

There's 4 flights of stairs to climb to reach the top. But there's windows all the way up

A view from level 3 to Collin on level 1

We finally went and got Dad and Kelsey and did it all again (my legs were like spaghetti)

We were lucky we stopped for a pit stop just before we got to Sharon's house at the Flying J they had these yellow jackets on sale for $3 so we got them for the kids - a good thing since it was so windy and cold up on the ledge.

Collin was most impressed with the big hole in the earth

We got Collin's new friends from Pennsylvania to take our picture. Chad and I wanted a picture of just us but it was so windy and not rail where we were so there was no way we were letting go of Kelsey!

So windy!

We stopped again really quick and got someone to take our picture while the kids sat in the car.

We took a side trip to find the village - instead we found about a dozen elk

and about 20 deer - quite the adventure!

We stayed the night in Williams - about an hour away. We were going to go back up in the morning before we went home but it was SNOWING! We also figured out it was about a 10 hour drive back so we decided we would just leave. Chad's great though and stopped a couple of places so I could get my smashed pennies! :)

Family Pictures

Easter Pictures

We rarely get family pictures but we've been really lucky lately to get some - thanks to tripods, and strangers willing to take our pictures

Father and son
Brother and sister
Father and daughter

We are so blessed with a happy, healthy family!

Spring Break

For the first day of Spring Break we met Chad at the beach on his Lunch hour (Collin gets 2 weeks, Chad only gets one)

The waves were a little strong so Collin just dug for sand crabs. He found some pretty big ones - but mom is so mean and didn't let him keep them, "But Mom, we have salt at home - we can make salt water!" Kelsey loves swinging, "Higher!" After this Chad had her in the big-kid swings when I guess she just decided to let go. As soon as I saw her fall backwards I screamed! She flipped all the way around and landed on her stomach, face down in the sand. The most amazing thing though was that she didn't even cry! She just brushed off the sand and walked over to me. Collin thought it was pretty cool and wanted to try it too - no way! Kelsey was so lucky she wasn't hurt.

Arizona Museum of Natural History

While the girls went to see the new Hannah Montana movie the boys (and one girl - I was corrected) decided to do something a little more manly... You know no vacation is complete without finding at least one dinosaur museum to go to. This one was pretty cool (they had an entire wing devoted to animal poop - perfect for boys)

Max and Collin looking through a meteor that landed in Tucson
They had this really cool dinosaur mountain, complete with stream that floods. The T-rex actually moves little bit - just enough for 2 little boys to get really nervous that it might actually be coming to life :) (Oh, how I love messing with them :P )

We had to go upstairs for a picture with the apatasaurus

Outside they had a place where you can pan for gold!

I told Collin about his great-great-great grandfather, Henry Meyring, who went to Colorado to be a carpenter. When the job dried up he figured he would prospect for gold. He asked a couple of miners where he should dig. Laughing at him, they told him to dig over by that tree over there... So Henry did - and found one of the richest gold mines in the state!

Collin was pretty excited that he's famous (not that anyone has ever heard of him, though I do have a book about the Salina miners if anyone in the family would like to know more...)

They had a fun time trying out all the hands on puzzles and experiments that they had around the museum

They pulled this one apart and were actually able to put it back together again. Collin was excited when they read the name on the spine: K-E-L-S-E-Y

Max & Collin served a little time in the Mesa Jail

I did eventually let them out for good behavior (and because there were no locks on the doors - darn it!)

They had a bunch of Native American art and artifacts but Collin wasn't as intrested - it's not old enough

Collin had somehow talked me into getting him another stuffed animal! He decided that Arizona is the capital of the push-over (though he uses some other weird term for my giving into him again and again here) and bagels - I don't think the two things are related but that's how he says it.

I think what it is is that now that we've got him off of the medication he was on he hasn't had any major melt downs so I'm more inclined to indulge him. I didn't notice the cause of the change in him because it seemed so gradual but now that we stopped giving him the medication it was been amazing! Just last night after shower time, Chad told Collin, "It's so nice to have you back again!" And that's really what it seems like - that our nice, sweet boy is back. I'm hoping that after Spring Break, when we go back to our normal routine, that he will continue to be more even natured...