April Family Weekend: Cabin trip to Pine

April was an especially fun month...not because we did our taxes, but because we celebrated our big tax refund by going to the mountains for the weekend! Our old neighbors/friends, Paul and Mindy Pickett let us use their cabin in Pine on the weekend he ran the Boston Marathon. I've always been to Woods Canyon Lake and Christopher Creek for my White Mountain camping experiences, but this was really great. It was much closer to Phoenix (saved about an hour) and was just as beautiful. They have a nice big cabin with lots of room and a great view!


This is the view from the deck of their cabin.


We had so much fun we didn't take too many pictures, but here's a pic of Bryce and Paige playing on their papasan chair.


Here's a pic of Paige waving to the camera in the chair.


And finally, a pic of Bryce with his cute morning look smile.

On the way home, we hiked at Tonto Bridges State Park. It was a beautiful excursion as we hiked through the park, saw the waterfalls, and enjoyed the sunny weather. The kids were a little tired, so the pics of them aren't totally stellar. But what do you expect after a long fun weekend in the mountains? I used to be so rigged about my kids getting naps and planning my whole trips around that, and now, I think, eh, we're on vacation, and I want to go to this state park, so we're going and they can deal. That's why every parent should have 2 kids or more so they can lower their expectations of life and their children. Anyway, I digress...


Here is a pic of us at the bridge.


This is one of us after we hiked down to the bottom near the waterfall. I could've sworn we had a waterfall pic, but maybe not...

Miscellaneously Cute April Photos

I was looking through my pics to blog about, and I found some cute pics of Bryce and Paige that I had to post...



Bryce and Paige having fun on the couch (with a computer mouse, no less)



Bryce tickling/wrestling with Paige on the floor. Fortunately, she loves it! (He does this all the time, and has gotten better about being gentle with her)



...but he hadn't quite learned how to be gentle yet in this scene (don't worry - this only lasted 2 seconds before we broke it up)



Oh, and here's a pic of us with Scott's Grandma Brokaw on a visit to her house and our regular trip to Randy's Restaurant for brunch.

March Family Day: Cubs Spring Training Game

For our March family day this year, it was kind of a no-brainer. Ever since I moved to AZ to go to ASU, I was converted to spring training - the annual March influx of MLB sports teams from other states to train here in AZ in March. There's at least 6 games a week, and while I'm not a baseball fan, I am a fan of having fun!

The Cubs have the best spring training stadium, with a large inclined lawn where spectators can sit on blankets, eat hot dogs and ice cream (or whatever), watch the game and have fun. The weather is usually beautiful, and the Cubs fans are really fun and friendly, and the lawn seats are super cheap. So it is now a Lineweaver tradition to go to a Cubs game every March.

This year, we were joined by Michayle and her kids and her mom and it was really fun. Bryce made friends with pretty much everyone in our section as he ran around with Ginny's blanket (Michayle's daughter) and laughed and entertained them for a couple hours. Most of the other spectators were drinking a little, so they thought he was especially funny. I even saw some of them taking pictures and posting it on their facebook pages! I can't find any pics, and I think Scott took video, but that is too time consuming to post on here. Come to my house and I'll show you the funny videos :)

But I do have some pics of the kids from March. That was the month we attempted (emphasis on attempted) to potty train Bryce. It was supposedly this magical 3-day method that is ideally for kids around 2 years old. You don't find out until after you've read the whole mini-book and ready to implement it that it's not really recommended for kids over 2.5 (because they are set in their ways). Bryce was almost 3, but I had invested so much time into it and it was spring break, and I was going to potty train him (or so I thought). These are some pics of our front room with rubber exercise squares covering our nice rug to help with accidents.



He's my stubborn little red-head, but he's so cute! Paige was crawling a little, and quite bald compared to now, but she's so sweet :)



It is like a joke to get our kids to sit with Daddy and pose. To them, sittin on Daddy usually involved climbing, wrestling, laughing, tickling, that it is hard to get them to be serious or still enough for a picture. But they love their daddy and so do I!







This is Paige in her I-only-play-with-Bryce's-toys faze. She is well past that now as she is into full girly mode, but it was a cute phase :)