Urban Dare

My sister and I talked our hubbies into competing in Urban Dare with us this weekend. They were reluctant, even 5 minutes into it! By the end, all four of us agree that it is a blast and we will SO do it again next year. Definitely a memorable experience. Think scavenger hunt on steroids.

We had a LOT of people stopping us asking what the prize is for the winners. To be honest, I'm not even sure. I didn't care. We competed Kasey and Joel vs. Drew and me. Losers buy dinner.

We started at the Tavern on Mill in Tempe with no idea what to expect. A little after 12:00, there were a few hundred of us gathered and they quickly handed a sheet of clues to each team. They were to be completed in any order. We needed to take a picture and/or get a stamp at each stop, depending on the location, then finish back at the Tavern on Mill.

1. Get your picture with: Waiting for a Date.

2. Go to celebration by Jerry Peart for your wheelbarrow dare.

3. Get your picture with a neon sign that says: free smells.

4. Get your picture with a sculpture of Charles Trumbull Hayden.

5. This was the official office of the Catholic Church until Pop John Paul II abolished it in 1983. Get your picture in front of the establishment that goes by this name.

6. PHOTO HUNT - Get a picture of 2 people, not in the race, reenacting the famous WWII photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Get a picture of 3 people doing see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. You may not use the same person more than once.

7. A historical novel written by Henry Sienkiewicz during the time when Nero was emperor. Get your picture in front of the bookstore which goes by the name of this book.

8. Go to Birchett park for your scrabblestick dare. Get the point value for the word on your passport by using the letters with numbers in the park.

9. Get your picture with a billboard that says "Legalize Marinara".

10. Go to the giant hands by Suikang Zhao for your balloon dare.

11. Get your picture with Devil Dancer.

Finish - Go to the Tavern on mill for the finish

5 minute bonus, Get a picture of a group of 6 people posed as if they were all shooting bow and arrows.

We were stumped!! Yikes! Drew and I decided to spend a lot of time at the start sitting and working out all the clues. So, we pulled out our phones and started Google-ing. We figured out the answers to most of the clues and then started plotting them out on a map. We ended up ALL over Tempe. Running, walking, sprinting, backtracking (too many times), wandering, asking clueless people, and sweating our brains out, we ended up traveling 7 miles on foot before we got to the finish. We finished in 1 hour 56 minutes and earned a free dinner by beating Kasey and Joel. LOVED it!

If you are as stumped as we were about the clues...here are the answers and pictures to go along with each.

1. A Bench on University2. A sculpture on ASU campus where we completed a wheelbarrow race and get a stamp
3. Jimmy Johns sandwich shop4. A sculpture by the Police station on 5th st.5. A bar called Devil's Advocate.6. photos
7. A store called Quo Vadis Books.8. Park on Apache and Mill to do a word game and get a stamp

9. Billboard on Apache for Oreganos. (Unfortunately we ran all the way TO Oreganos to get the picture before realizing on the way back that the billboard would have saved us 1/2 mile or so)10. Sculpture along the lightrail to make a sword out of balloons and get a stamp
11. Sculpture on ASU campus. 7. 6 People shooting Bows and Arrows.

Kryptonite

This is Maddux's Kryptonite.
He has slept with it every night since he found it in our front yard two and a half weeks ago!

My baby girl is 10 months old!

This girl is so full of personality. I just can't get enough of her and those chubby cheeks!

This month Reese:

*Has 6 teeth
*Walks along all the furniture and can stand for a few seconds on her own.
*Loves to play with (next to or on top of) Maddux
*Waves
*Claps
*Dances
*Refuses to sleep anywhere but her OWN crib or carseat
*Squeals with excitement when she sees Daddy
*Poops way more times a day than a kid her size should (3-4?!?!)
*Nibbles on all our food

*Still has no hair!

Surgery

Maddux had surgery this morning on an inguinal hernia. He was such a trooper and did amazing through the whole process. All he cared about was NOT getting a "pokey". Every time we would go in a new room, or a new nurse or doctor would come in, he would tense up and say, "I can't need a pokey!" The kid HATES shots.

He was at Cardon Children's Hospital and they were so great with him. He got to wear a mask to put him to sleep and they let him sniff all the scents and pick his favorite to paint on the inside of the mask. He also got to decorate his mask with stickers, then choose how he wanted to get to the operating room. He chose a car. They had a binder with pictures for him to look at of everything he would see while at the hospital (check in room, admitting office, nurses, the operating room with the table and lights). They did awesome at making him feel comfortable (and us too).

He went in like a champ and the nurses said he was talking up a storm while the silly gas was pumping. Once he was asleep, they gave him an IV and the whole surgery took about an hour.

When he came to, he did a LOT better than he did with his ear tubes. He was a little sad for a few minutes and he was numb from the waist down and wasn't a fan of not being able to walk for a few hours. Other than that, he did great.

waiting room...

pre-surgery...ready to head to the operating room...
(he chose the yellow hat with kittens rather than the white hat with sports balls) ;)post surgery...At home with balloons from his bff Paisley...

Bath

3.5 hours at the park requires a nice long bath for both kiddos. Lucky for all of us, my kids LOVE the bath...

1 of a Zillion Reasons I LOVE my son...

Monday morning Maddux and I had a "cleaning/dance party" together. I blasted some awesome dance music and we danced and picked up toys for about 15 minutes. It was a total hit and we actually got a lot done together!About 10 hours later, it was bedtime and I insisted that Maddux clean up his play area before bed. We went in to pick up and at a closer look, I noticed his "mess" (above) was actually this...

A pile of Lions and a pile of Tigers...

Bugs...Not just dinosaurs, but all of his Brachiosaurases...

Anyway, there were like 10 different piles of animals. He had been sorting for an hour or two. I was pretty impressed!

I let him keep his hard work out and they are still strewn all over the floor in my entry. :)

9 Months

Today my baby is 9 months. Before I know it, she isn't going to be a baby anymore! Depressing.

Her stats are:
Weight- 17 lbs, 11oz - 25%
Height- 28.75 inches - 85%
Head - 17.5 inches - 73%

We have been calling her our Chunky Monkey for months, but I think we need to come up with a new nickname. I had no idea she was such a peanut!

This month she:
*Crawls like a big girl
*Has 5 teeth
*Claps
*Dances
*Stands (holding something) for prolonged periods of time (usually until Maddux knocks her over)
*Says "dadada", "mamama", and "bababa"
*Eats any baby food, rice, formula, AND anything and everything we eat
*STILL has no hair
*Loves Daddy a LOT
*Looks more and more like Maddux everyday

LOVE this girl!

Peeked in on Reese during naptime. I was certain she was asleep, she hadn't made a peep in 15 minutes.
Wrong...

silly girl

"it ok mommy"

This morning I went in to wake Maddux up for school (at 9:05!!). He was completely incoherent when I went to lay Reese down on his bed. Then I notice, on the top of his comforter, a giant wet circle. Ew. "Uh oh, Maddux, did you have an accident??" He leaps out from under the covers and says, "it ok mommy. I got new pants" Stands up to show off the fact that he had changed his pants after peeing the bed...

As if all problems are solved by the fact he simply changed his pants and threw the nasty wet ones on the floor, then went back into a deep sleep.

If you can't tell, his waist is in a leg hole and the top of the shorts is on the right side of his hip.

8 months

I'm way behind! Little Reesie is already 8 months and not so little anymore! She is ALL over the place. She still army crawls on her tummy, but she seriously can get anywhere in a matter of seconds. AGH!

Yesterday I put Baby Einstein on for her and went to put some toy's away, I came back just seconds later to find her trying to get under the table. I put her back on the rug and left the room again...

this was about 45 seconds later...

this is a little video of her in action...

Here are a few other fun things about Reese at 8 months:

*Has two teeth on the bottom
**Will eat absolutely ANYTHING we give her
*Still adores her big brother and vice versa
**Has almost no hair, just a few whispies
*Jabbers constantly. Drew says he will never be able to get a word in with a house full of three big talkers
**A pretty big scaredy cat. She is scared of a lot of things: loud noises, Santa, some people she doesn't know, Maddux pretending to be a dinosaur, etc...
*Loves books, looking at them, flipping pages, and chewing on them
**She gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, but when it comes time to move, it's back to the tummy

11 in '11

This year, instead of making a new years resolution, which I can never manage to keep up more than a few months, I decided to make a list of goals. Something about checking stuff off a list makes it so much easier for me to do!
11 goals to accomplish sometime, anytime, in 2011.

1- Run a 10K in 45 minutes
2- Read a book to my kids every day
3- Read the Book of Mormon
4- Complete a Ragnar
5- Be on time
6- Find 15 new healthy recipes to add to my mix
7- Read the Ensigns each month
8- Complete a triathlon
9- Go to the temple once a month
10- Make more $ than I did in 2010
11- Do a RAK everyday

3

Maddux turned three yesterday and we celebrated with all things super hero!

I didn't get many pictures during the day. But, Daddy took the day off to celebrate.
We started with doughnuts for breakfast, Bounce Jungle, and then lunch at Chik-fil-a.

Super Hero Party...

I had no intention of having a bounce house IN my house, but of all days for it to rain in Phoenix.!!! So, we made due inside!

Super hero capes for each kid...Vander and Reese sporting their mini- capes...This was the stash of gifts that I have to find room for in the house. (We barely found room after Christmas!) Yikes!!!
Thank you everyone who made Maddux's birthday so fun!