Gettin' our WILD on!

Today, the little boys and I took a trip to the zoo for free, courtesy of our Fry's VIP card. We went with two of my sis-in-laws and their boys; Kristin & Spencer, Kimberly & Jacob. I don't think Gavin had ever been to the Phoenix Zoo before! We had a good time. :)

G-raffes

They have this deal where you can have an "encounter" with the giraffes for $3. Consequently, the giraffes were all up at the top of the hill, eating from these people, pretty much in the shade. We could have fed the animals, but Gav said no way! So no great pics of these beautiful creatures! :/

Lions&

Tiger&

RhinosOH MY!!

(no bears)

Shhhhh.

Monkeys galorePumbaas & TimonsUn elefanteBrushing goats (someone was a little afraid...)And washing away the germiesTurtle Gavin & SpenceRide 'em, Gator!Pretty Preston Pearl

Round and Round the Merry-go-Round!!

This was Preston's 1st time actually riding an animal on a carosel! He smiled, despite the lack of emotion displayed here. It was awkward trying to hang on to him while taking a picture.

It was a bummer that the splash pad area wasn't working because we sure could have used the cool off on this scorching September day!

Bye zoo! We'll be back again soon! When it's not one million degrees outside!!Two tuckered out boys!

Little Ninja Orange Belt

Blake is doing very well in karate. He has a sharp mind and a knack for memorizing series of blocks, patterns and katas. He just had his second belt test and moved up from yellow stripe to orange stripe. Good job Blakey!!

By the way, Gavin is a karate drop-out. He just started refusing to get dressed, refusing to participate in class, full-on crying tantrums. He was doing very well too, catching on quickly, but he told me he was afraid he would mess up!!!!!!? What? A 3 year old concerned with perfectionism? It was tough to quit, but I'm hoping this won't be the end of his karate career.

100K

No, that's not referring to an amount of $$!

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We hit 100,000 miles in our Trailblazer today!!! Woot, woot!

It's been such a good car to us for the past 6 years! :)

We're definitely at max capacity though and I'm dying for a new, bigger car! Good thing this car is paid off and Matt's car needs a new part every other day or it could just bite the dust any day now! Yah, no new car for me happening here any time soon!! The only guarantee would be if we could ever decide to go for #5 or not.... :/

{9} months

It's official -- he's been out longer than he was in!!! Which means Christmas is just a mere three months away!

This is pretty much what I was dealing with during our quick photo shoot...

Preston has been busy, busy, busy!! He's all over the place these days!! The kids are annoyed with the fact that he is instantly attracted to their belongings. He's now for-real crawling, army crawling like a maniac, everything speck of anything goes into the mouth, pulling to a stand on short items, going mowgli-style and getting stuck, A LOT!!!

He hasn't figured out how to get himself down from this one ^ on his own
And his new thing is to get high-centered on the kitchen chairs, heehee!

We've got a major case of red, chafed crawler's knees here. Momma's working on acquiring some BabyLegs to keep those chubbers from getting rubbed raw.

The boy has lungs. OH BOY does he have lungs!!! Matt used to refer to our nephew Spencer as "mandrake." Well, move over, Spencer! I think we have a new title holder!!! He usually only emits these ear-piercing shrieks when tired or his highchair tray is empty. Or during church. Our ward was introduced to Presty's screams during a baby blessing (eek!) and while the sacrament was being passed (oops!) this past Sunday. We're referring to the mandrake root from Harry Potter as defined below --

"Whenever unearthed, the root screams. The scream of a mature Mandrake when it is unearthed will kill any person who hears it, but a young Mandrake's screams will usually only knock a person out for several hours." from harrypotter.wikia.comYep, that's him!! LOL!

Sleep. I wish he'd be consistent!! He's the easiest kid in the world to GET to sleep - zip him up in sleep sack, lay him down, stick binky in mouth, close door, done. He naps well. And 3 times a day. But nighttime sleep is all over the place!!! He HAS slept through the night, so I know he can do it! He doesn't need to be nursing all throughout the night, for heaven's sake! Matt would rather me just feed him than let him scream. I am NOT against crying it out (CIO) at all. We've done it with every other one of the kids. But for whatever reason, we haven't gone there yet. Sometimes Preston will sleep from 7:30pm-4:30am, nurse, back to bed, wake for day @ 6:30ish, which I'm fine with, but other times he's up at 10:30pm, 12:30am, 3:00am, 5:30am, ARGH!!!! I'm thinking it's time to invest in some earplugs for all of us because I'm not a very happy person when I don't get my sleep at night!!!

Preston has decided that he prefers real people food over the purees. And I don't blame him! He gobbled up this turkey meatloaf and green beans for dinner one night!! I think his fave puree, though, is pears mixed with oatmeal cereal. He can suck down 4-5 cubes of that!! He also loves avocado chunks and black beans, although I don't care so much for seeing that in his diaper the next day!

9 month stats~

Weight: 20 lbs. 11 oz (53rd %ile)
Length: 30 in (93rd %ile)
Head Circum: 18.5 in (90th %ile)

Slowing down in weight gain since he's more mobile now, which is completely normal for all my kids. He got three vaccines, including the first of his flu shot series. We love our pediatrician SO much and I would refer anyone in the WORLD to her!!! She was actually my pediatrician when I was a teen and I'm so glad that all my kids have been able to be under her watch and care the whole time we've lived in Arizona (before & after opt. school). She's awesome with the kids and she's very special to us.The next well check he'll have will be his 1 year check and I know that'll be here before we know it. *sniff sniff* Love our Prestido!!

A-Camping We Will Go

Our ward camp out was supposed to be this past weekend, but it got "postponed." [imagine me doing the quotes in the air with my fingers here]

Since Matt already had taken Friday off of work, we decided to keep with the plan to go camping and invited Matt's bro and his family to go with us. They led us to a campground up past Globe. The original campsite that we planned to go to was already inhabited (apparently it was a popular weekend for camping!!!) and thankfully, we scored the last camp spots in the next campground up the way.

~Highlights of the trip~

• Setting up tents in the dark
• Green trees, green bushes and more green!
• Visiting the top of the ranger station manned by a dirty [context taken either way] mountain man
• Pretty views & primitive furniture
• Outhouses - no need for elaboration on that one!! Blech!
  
• Being woken several times during the night by a baby that wouldn't settle down unless he was attached to the boob, or by a child that was cold, or by a child that had to pee, or by a child that was having his "personal space" invaded.
• Playing games
• Being dumped on by rain for a good 3-4 hours on Saturday
• Thunder and lighting in the mountains... ahhhhhh
• Two strong hubbies that chopped wood and got a fire going, even after the rain
• Worm hunting after the rain
• Foil dinners
• Dutch oven cobbler
• S'mores
• "A-Tooty-Tah" and "Going on a Lion Hunt" around the campfire
• Playing in the creek
• Going au naturale
• Exploring the woods
• Dirty hands, dirty faces, dirty bums

Our trip was so much fun!!!! I'm glad that my kids have cousins that live close by so we can go on adventures together. We had a great time enjoying the great outdoors, but once again, this reaffirms the fact that I NEVER would have made a good pioneer woman!!

Postscript: Matt dropped the entire car top carrier in the front room and now it smells like a stinkin' (literally) campfire!!! Back to the grindstone of washing everything and getting it put away..... Why is the woman's job SO much harder -- organizing and packing everything beforehand, then unpacking and cleaning/washing everything afterward??!