Winter Wonderland!

This is what I saw this morning, February 3rd, when I dropped the girls off at Red Mountain Ranch Elementary School.  A water pipe must have broken during the night.  Stinks for the school, but so cool for us to see.  I still can't believe that I got to see something like this here in the Mesa area.  There have been a couple days of hard freeze alerts around here.  That is unusual around here, especially for February. Last nights temps I believe were in the low 20's.  Now I know that I sound like the biggest wimp to some of you in other states, but 40 degrees for a high is REALLY cold for us especially since 2 days ago we were about up to 80 degrees.  I have decided that I absolutely hate my heat pump in my house because it just blows cold air all the time.  It is so cold outside that the heat pump isn't doing a great job of heating the house anymore.  Bummer. 

I know that the sidewalk looks like it is just wet in this picture, but it is all a sheet of ice across the sidewalk. 

So since this post is about weird weather here, I thought that I would post a few pictures of our snowstorm that we had on December 30th.  I can honestly say that I have never seen it snow here in Mesa before.  Good thing that the snowstorm wasn't very long because my kids are now wimps and didn't want to stay outside long . . . maybe that was because we were all outside playing in our flip-flops? 

Got to love how we are all outside with our flip-flops on! 

Birthday Party

The boys had a few friends over to help them celebrate their birthdays.  The party was supposed to be at the park, but we had to change plans at the last minute because of a big rainstorm that started a couple hours before their party.  The party was really just a play date with cake and ice cream.  That is all that the boys wanted to do was to play with their friends.  The boys helped picked out their cupcake cake.  Jacob wanted a Woody cake and Jayden wanted a Buzz Lightyear cake.  This cake was perfect because it had them both characters on it.  It was so fun to see the boys interact with all of their friends from their primary class. 

Christmas Piano Recital 2010

Jessica played "SquareDanc- Hoedown" and "Jingle Bell Rock"

Jocelyn played "Away in a Manger" and "I Hope They Call Me On A Mission"

Jacob just didn't want to be left out at a photo op!

Jayden wanted to get his picture taken as well with the piano! 

Good-Bye Toddler Beds - Hello Bunk Beds

Can you tell how excited they are about getting their new beds?  They are growing up so fast! 

A Budding Photographer

As I have been going through pictures to update the blog I came across several pictures that Jacob has been taking.  He is becoming quite good for a little 4 year old.  Looking at his pictures makes me smile.

Suprise! - (Well Almost!)

Can you believe that Jared turned 40 this year?  Being the nice wife that I am, *wink wink* I decided to have a surprise party with some of his friends to help him celebrate.  For months I planned, schemed, lied and and even got a new email address so that I could communicate with people without him seeing it.  

One of the hardest things to plan was when our handy-man could come over and fix some lighting for me out in the backyard.  How do you justify to your husband, out-of-the-blue, that you need lights fixed outside and you need them by a certain date?  I couldn't, so i called Ron, our handy handyman. Ron came up with his own version on how we could plan out the date and time for him to come over.  He called one night and left a message on the phone saying, "Hey Jared and JoAnn! I hope that everything is going well.  Hey, JoAnn I wanted to let you know that I did some work for someone the other day that is looking for a piano teacher for their kids.  I am pretty busy for the next few days but I will have some time to call you back and give you their information on Friday around 9:30.  Have a great day!"  Of course, I knew what the hidden message was, but Jared thought that it was nice that he would be passing on the word that I teach piano! 

The day finally arrived (Friday, December 3rd) and I felt very confident that Jared didn't have any clue about the party that would be happening later that night.  The plan was that he was supposed to go out to dinner with a friend (Karl Bickmore) and be at the house around 7:00 for his grand entrance.  Well as luck would have it the service was very slow at the restaurant that they went to.  I mean VERY slow!  I entertained guests for an hour before the birthday boy decided to come home!  Once dinner was over Karl  called and said that he would lose Jared on the freeway so that he could get to the party first and so that we would know that Jared would soon be arriving.  

Knowing that he would be arriving soon I  passed out the horns to the kids and let them have some fun with them for a few minutes before the guys were supposed to be back.  The kids are all having a great time blowing their horns and making all sorts of noise...the next thing that I knew was there was Jared walking in the front door while everyone was just doing there own thing.  After a few seconds of being so shocked all I could say was a weak "SURPRISE!" 

The surprise was really on all of us because we had no idea that he was even home.  Oops!  The surprise was so anti-climatic for me but the party was a lot of fun.  We had good food (nachos with all the toppings) and got to hang out with lots of our friends.  I have to admit, I was so glad when the party day had finally arrived so that I wouldn't have to feel like I was having to whisper behind his back and keep acting suspicious all the time.  Keeping the surprise from him about killed me off, but it was worth it!  Happy Birthday Jared.  I hope that this is a great year for you!  I love you!