ARIZONA TRIP HIGHLIGHTS! Part 2

Ready for more pictures, everyone? Here we go!

 This is Chase and Gunnar at a totally awesome place in Mesa called Pipe Organ Pizza.  There is a MASSIVE pipe organ on the lower level, and they have really amazing artists come in and play.  But it's so much more than just listening to music, it's a show! They have lights that come on with different tunes, and certain areas of the organ are highlighted for specific bits in songs as well.  Our guy played "Under the Sea" from "The Little Mermaid", and bubbles floated down from the rafters as the song played! And then he did a "Star Wars" medley and it was awesome!

 The twins liked the show, but they enjoyed the pizza more than anything.  Yeah, our group put down 2 large pizzas in no time flat!

 This is Parker, me (with no makeup!) and Gunnar at Pipe Organ Pizza.

 Ah....these little angels are Abbie and Baylie (don't get me lyin' as to which one is which!) My friend Windy and her family live in Queen Creek, which isn't too far from Mesa, and every time we come to town we try to get together.  Her girls are actually fraternal twins, but they look more alike than my identical twins!

 Mason wasn't too interested in the girls (you can see his face in the previous picture that he wasn't thrilled to be taking the picture!) However, Parker kept feeding them pringles and seemed genuinely interested in being around them while they were there.  Perhaps there could be a double wedding in the distant future? I honestly hope so! Those girls are so adorable, and we'd be so lucky to have in-laws like Dan and Windy!

Now most of the McKnights know what it means to get together with the family- food, and May I! May I is a card game that my husband's uncle came up with using Rook cards.  It's complicated at first, but once you have a few years of experience (or a good set of written instructions) it becomes very fun! Parker decided he was going to play with Aunt Carrie, and she was nice enough to let him hold a few of her cards during this game. 

So, after 2 full weeks of playing, swimming, and watching movies (Seth and Carrie went with our boys and our nieces to see "Brave" in the theater!), we headed out for Utah.  My mother-in-law drove my Suburban, I rode shotgun, and my brother-in-law, Seth, rode in the back with the boys.  We drove up to St. George, Utah, and drove around to see the sights before heading to their house there.  It was a brief stay, because we were up early the next day, and we drove into Provo.  We drove around Orem/Provo and then headed up to Aspen Grove.  It was a quick drive up the canyon, and a few minutes around the mountain from Sundance.  When we got there, it was cold and raining, but it warmed up quickly and quit raining, and then we started unpacking at our HUGE family cabin.  I'll leave it there for today, and post about Aspen Grove, Chase's birthday, and our adventures in Salt Lake City tomorrow!

ARIZONA TRIP HIGHLIGHTS! Part 1

 So Todd will probably murder me for putting this picture on here, but here he is in the pool with Mason.

 This is Todd's sister with Parker, and Chase and Gunnar (wearing a shark fin swim jacket!)

 And what kind of trip to Arizona would it be if we didn't have In-N-Out? It honestly seems to be the only thing we can agree on when we're out there.  The boys didn't want McDonald's or Chik-Fil-A, only burgers from In-N-Out! I thought the hats would be a fun touch for photos!

 Chase and Gunnar wore their hats for a long time, and they always eat really well when we have I-N-O, but I think they enjoy the fact that they get to have a drink that isn't kid sized! Coca-Cola for everyone!

 My Sister-in-law made shirts for her family before the big reunion, so we decided to make some Sharpie Marker tie-dyed shirts.  You use regular Sharpie markers on a plain white t-shirt, then use a medicine dropper filled with rubbing alcohol to made the pattern "bleed" out.  Here is a picture of the twins coloring their shirts.  They did such a great job!

 This is me making my shirt.  I tried to use pretty, vibrant colors and make it look like a tie-dyed shirt I would have purchased.  I LOVE tie-dye (at one point in high school, I had a different tie-dye shirt for every day of the school week!)

 And here is the finished product! Too bad they faded really bad after their first wash.  I looked it up on Pinterest the next day, and we forgot a step- we didn't "heat set" the shirts after we finished with the rubbing alcohol. 

And here is a picture of all 4 boys on the couch. (L-R) Gunnar, Chase, Parker, and Mason.

SUMMER VACATION!

Hi ho, there, I'm back! I decided it was finally time to update the blog and let everyone know how our Summer went!  So after we finished up with T-ball, and school had ended, we had a bit of a break.  For 2 whole weeks we didn't have anything to do, and it was great! We slept in every day, and just bummed around.  Then, we started swim lessons for the older boys.  

 Chase was the only one in his group, maybe because he was more advanced, but he became a much more confident swimmer, that's for sure.

  Gunnar was in a group of about 5 or 6, and even though he swam without a life jacket or floaties, he still didn't feel quite as confident as Chase did.  They had swim lessons 4 days a week for 2 weeks, and I'm certain we'll do lessons for the twins next Summer as well!

 And of course, the Twins were jealous that they couldn't get in the pool when their big brothers were swimming.  I kept promising them that they would learn soon enough, and that we would get to play in Grandma's pool when we got to Arizona.

Here are the little ones in the fridge!  They have become so independent, and have taken to getting out their own snacks when I don't act quickly enough.  They loved having all of the delicious Summer fruit around the house, like strawberries, nectarines, and peaches.  They have also become big fans of cheese, and grapes! Parker broke my Pampered Chef Mix-N-Stir pitcher (just look on the top shelf, see it? We LOVE those pitchers!), because he thinks he is strong enough to get it out of the fridge on his own, and he dropped it while it was full. 

So there are a few quick pics before we head off to ARIZONA! We had our last swim lesson the morning that we left, and let me tell ya, it was a really busy day!

ARIZONA

This was a trip that our boys had been looking forward to all year long! We had planned to have a McKnight family reunion at Aspen Grove in Utah the first week of July, and we had already planned to spend some time with Todd's parents in Arizona, so we came up with the idea that Todd would drive the family out and I would stay with the 4 boys for 2 weeks before our Aspen Grove trip.  The drive was really quite pleasant this time around, probably because we didn't have to stop too much, and our dog wasn't with us this trip.  The only bad part was that the kids never napped in the 2 days we drove out from Tulsa.  We left home a little after one o'clock, and it was the first time we had left so early in the day.  We made it to Albuquerque, New Mexico by 10:30 at night when we stopped for the night.  We stayed in a nice hotel, had a good night's rest, and complimentary breakfast the next morning.  We noticed that my car was starting to have some transmission issues (shifting improperly) and told Todd's parents that we might have to have it serviced while we were in town.  Well, things got worse with the car, but we were still managing to make pretty good time driving.  We were just outside of Mesa when the Suburban decided it wouldn't go any faster than 40 miles an hour.  So, we called in the reinforcements, and Todd's parents were there in no time flat with 2 cars to unload all of our luggage and kids.  Mason and Parker started bawling, because they had no idea what was going on, their Daddy wasn't getting in the car with us, and they hadn't napped in 2 days.  We got to the house, everyone unloaded pretty quickly, and we were settled for the next two weeks!

I'll start a new post that is all pictures, so I won't mess up how this one looks.  Enjoy!