family zoo day

dust had a random day off, so we decided to spend a family day at the zoo :)

mads got his map ready, and we were off and running! (this kid loves his maps!)

we kinda miss our portland zoo, but the phoenix one is a close second. lots of fun animals to see :)

and goats to brush, hug, pet, and pick up :)

quinc was such a cute little trooper and beckam was super excited to find the bears at feeding time!

we were all pooped by the end but such a fun family day at the zoo!

my little catcher

chilly is not the word i think of when i think of arizona, but we had a chilly night on the other day and it happened to be on a baseball day. so, we got our jackets and put a shirt under beckam's uniform and headed out!

lucky we did because beckam got to play catcher, and to say he was excited would be an understatement :)

he loved everything about it - making a pile with the balls that the hitters missed, throwing them back to the pitcher, and the equipment of course!

jeter and i had fun cuddling up and watching our little catcher! being a baseball mom is pretty fun stuff :)

my first homemade jam!

one of the many things i love about living in az is the cheap cheap cheap produce! strawberries went on sale a little while ago, so stacy and i stalked up and tried our first go at making some homemade jam :)

we tried a healthy honey/chia seed recipe, and then we did a lemon/low sugar kind too, and we were a little nervous watching it bubble away! it smelled sooooooo good though, so that was a good sign :)

once ours looked like the website jam consistency-wise, we took it off and crossed our fingers!

it was delicious!!! it doesn't last as long as the normal sugar/pectin kind, but i could eat this stuff by the spoonful and not feel guilty about it, so i was happy! we had so much fun too :) definitely planning another jam session next year! so yummy!!!

love me some egg decorating

i love the tradition of decorating eggs every easter season!

the boys (dad included) were very intense about their coloring and dying and dipping this year, and we got a few fun little kits to roll and dab our way to some cool eggs this time around!

we also hit up pinterest for this nail polish idea, and the cup was in rough shape, but the eggs turned out super cool!

this picture takes me back to when i was kid and just makes me so happy! love the after mess of easter fun!

then comes the rolling! i guess not everyone knows about or has heard of the rolling part of easter, but where we are from, we try our best to bust open those pretty eggs with a good steep hill!

luckily, we found a perfect az spot for our fun, and the boys were in heaving rolling and throwing and collecting their eggies :)

our easter family selfie turned out pretty good, and we had another awesome easter!

our mendozas

i'm so in love with these 3 little boys! we moved in and met these awesome friends - the mendozas - and i think we will be friends for life :) tyler is one of their favs and beckam and him especially hit it off and became fast friends.

then.....they bought a house :( so exciting for them but so sad for us! we will miss our park and play dates and roasting mallows and dinners and just seeing them as we drive by, but we are so thankful for their friendship and for the time we got to live so close!

bff's!

haylee was our bestest babysitter and these 4 always had so much fun together and we just love our mendoza clan :) miss you guys!!!!