Eduardo and Vaughn's birthday

Aria went over to a combined birthday party for her school friends Vaughn and Eduardo.  They had a guy dressed up as Spiderman show up, which scared the pants off Zade.  :)  The kids had a great time swimming in the pool and jumping around in the bouncy house.

And of course, the kids loved the cotton candy.

Look who's 4

We took Aria to Peter Piper Pizza to wish her a hippy barfday.  Just like Chuck E Cheese, it was loaded with games and prizes, so she and Zade had a good time.

Zade loved the basketball toss, even though each shot he put up basically didn't go any further than what you see in this picture.  Thus, my job was to catch each shot just before it landed on his head. :)

We also went to the rose garden at Reid Park, which was in full bloom.  It was pretty cool.  Sadly though, even though it's only April, the temperature is back up to 100 degrees.  This marks the entrance of 6 more months of blazing heat. :)  (At least it's dry heat).

Easter

Zade woke up around 6:20am this morning, like he usually does, and after I took him out of his crib, he noticed there was a plastic Easter egg in his room.  We wander over and was ecstatic to see it contained chocolate.  He then opened his door and peeked out and saw another egg in the hallway, which elicited another cry of joy from him. Aria then came bounding into his room and I tried to keep them in there until Tara awoke before letting them go hunting for more.  Although we were able to talk about the true meaning of Easter for around 10 minutes, I realized it was futile to wait any longer, so we woke up Tara.  The kids then went on a tear throughout the house looking for eggs and their Easter baskets.  It was fun to watch.  

Here they are in their jammies with their bounty:

Grandma and Grandpa D got them special Easter outfits, which they wore to church.  

Grandma & Grandpa come to visit

Grandma and Granpda D came to visit and had fun taking the kids all around town, to places like the Children's Museum:

And to playgroup where the kids had an Easter egg hunt:

On Friday we all went to the Phoenix zoo and then to the Easter Pageant in Mesa.

The Easter Pageant was held on the Mesa Temple grounds, which seemed to really enhance the atmosphere and made the message surprisingly powerful.  It was a great experience.

We didn't get back to Tucson until almost 11:30pm.  When I got Aria out of the car and carried her to her room, she started rousing and said she didn't want to go back to sleep.  I told her since it was almost midnight she should try and go back to sleep.  Even though she was half asleep, she responded, "That's Cinderella's bedtime."  With that simple acknowledgment, she went right to sleep. :)

Nine years and three decades

For our 9th anniversary we went to various art galleries in search of a painting to commemorate our time here in Tucson.  We had a great time despite not finding anything that we really wanted.  We then went out to dinner and had a nice meal, and enjoyed having a conversation without having to worry about taking care of the kids, who were at the Stratton's house.  It was great.

I also celebrated my 30th birthday- officially becoming an old maid, just kidding- 30 is the ultimate prime of life, and I feel just like I did when I was 18- except wiser and less self-centered... all good things, right? For my birthday, I went to Sweet Tomatoes with my family, and then Dane and I went to see The Hunger Games, which was no disappointment, even though I'd read the book.  The next day I got an hour massage at a massage place as a present from Dane.  Can't beat massages and movies.