The Circus!

Libby had free tickets from her work for the circus so we decided to take the kiddos! They were SO excited when I told them we were going....they've never been so I was pretty excited to take them as well. It was a pretty cool circus......The kids really got a kick out of the trapeez artists and they also really liked the tigers. They all got to take a pony ride, thanks to Grandma Dottie...kinda spoiled!

Uncle Luke took an elephant ride!

Sunday football

Alex and Les had a SUNDAY FUN DAY at their house! Boy, did we miss these days living in mexico. I love these sundays especially when there's LOTS of good food;) Leave it up to Alex to make enough delicious food for an army! Thanks Les and Alex for an awesome sunday!

Boys and their dorky faces

Showering Les and baby Brooks

Lynz and I threw a baby shower for Les and baby Brooks. Lynz was awesome with her martha stewart talents and ideas! We decided to go with a ducky theme and everything turned out super cute! I even got a little creative and made duck candies for favors. They were yummy! Les had a good amount of people there to shower her and Brooks with lots of wonderful things she'll be needing. It's been so fun being pregnant with my sister and I'm so happy I was able to be here to be a part of her special day! Can't wait to meet our little BROOKS and I'm so excited our little guy is going to have a buddy his age to play with!!!

Celebrating Mexican Independence Day...in the USA

Halle and her teacher Mrs. Lizarraga

Halle's class celebrated Mexican Independence Day at their school with a lunch , and invited parents and grandparents. I'm so happy that she's in this dual language program and is still able to keep up with her ethnicity. Thanks to Grandma Gloria for joining us!

My baby...for a little bit longer

Well, after finding a place to live we decided we needed to find a new school for Costa because the distance between the school and the house would be too much driving for me, especially when the baby gets here. It was a difficult decision and I was feeling extremely sad over it, but I knew it was the right one. Again, all the emotion of so much change! The pregnancy hormones were not helping in this situation! I felt so bad because I took him out of school before I even had another one for him.

So I searched and searched online, trying to find a good, cheap pre-school close to our new house. It was so stressful. Most of the public schools that have pre-schools were all full. I felt like I was going backwards with him......I mean, he was in an all-spanish pre-school last year, 5 days a week. Now what? How will I ever find something comparable to that? I really needed to come to the realization that I just wasn't. You just want what's best for your kids and I felt like I was at a stand still with this.....so hard. Erik suggested Tumbleweed, our gym. I looked into it and they actually still had some spots open! Not at Tumbleweed, but even closer to our house, Snedigar Rec Center. Only bummer was they didn't start for another 3 weeks! What was I going to do with this kid for another 3 weeks? He gets bored SO easily! There's only so much a prego mama can do to entertain her 4 year old all day.

Kinda funny how things work out. God always has a plan, doesn't he? Crazy that he will only be my baby for a short while longer.....and this short time we have had together, just the two of us has been so special. He has been my little buddy and we have had SO much fun! He's at a really good age right now and is pretty fun to be around. He says the funniest things, I love it! So much that I was really sad to drop him off at school today! I had just got into a routine with him.....he's really into sports right now and loves to play raquetball, basketball and baseball at the gym so we've been taking turns with those things and will probably keep them up on tuesdays and thursdays when he doesn't have school. He's such a determined little boy! I love watching him try to shoot the basketball over and over into the tall hoop! It's too cute! And the way he winds up his arm and puts his leg up to "pitch" the ball to me (just like the BIG boys do)......precious. And says...."Mom, you can't wait til I'm a pitcher, huh?" Where does he come up with this stuff? He'd actually rather play some sport with me than play on the toys at the playground. It's so hilarious to Erik and I because we're not even really athletic and this kid is ALL about it, already. We've also had some fun days meeting up with Aunt Lynz and Xander. This one on one time has been awesome, and I'm so thankful for these memories with my Costi! Love you buddy!

Here he is on his first day...again;)

He also had his first day of soccer practice today. He must have asked me 20 times when it was going to be time to go to soccer.....so funny. He was so cute out there running and hustling in the 100 degree heat! GO Cost!!!!

Picture day for Halle

Halle had picture day today...I just wanted to share how cute she looked!

Gilbert Elementary

Gilbert, Arizona

First grade, 6 years old

Top Cat

Our Halle girl got picked Top Cat of the week for her school! She came home after daddy picked her up and had a surprise for me behind her back......she said..."guess who's Top Cat mommy?" She was SO excited, it was adorable. It's a super special thing to be chosen as Top Cat by the principal of the school AND you get to bring home the class pet....a lion named Filo. It worked out perfectly that Filo got to come home with Halle for labor day weekend and come with us to Pinetop! It was fun for her to write about her adventures with Filo in the class journal....she couldn't wait to take it to school on tuesday and share it with her classmates. I think that was Halle's favorite part about being top cat, bringing the lion home with her. So much in fact she cried when we had to take him back on tuesday! We ended up asking the teacher if we could keep him at our house until friday...thank goodness she was OK with it. We would have had a super sad little girl without a few more days with him. Hopefully we'll get one more chance this year to be Top Cat and bring Filo home for another adventure!

Labor day in the USA

We were so excited to spend our first labor day in three years...in the USA! For the last three years living in mexico, it's been business as usual...school for the kids and Erik. We always would get kinda bummed out and missing home when we would hear everybody bragging it up to us about their plans for labor day and having a three day weekend. But not this year, we were home! And, even better we headed up to pinetop to relax in the beautiful mountain weather and get out of the crazy heat.

Erik took the kids out for a ride in Uncle Ralph's rhino~they had a blast!

We made our yummy subs

Saturday, we went with the Spilsbury and Letourneau families to the Annual Taylor Corn Festival. The kids had a blast running around and eating snow cones with all the other kiddos. It was fun to see TJ and Jennie and their three kids.... and of course, we always enjoy being with Bri, Seth and their kiddos. We have never even met TJ and Jennie's youngest, Macy, whose three. It's always fun to catch up with old friends! We all tasted the deliciously sweet corn and ended up buying some for our bbq that night.

Lucas, Jack, Halle, Costa and Sage at the festival

We invited Justin, Libby, Belles and Justy up to stay with us at our cabin and they got in later saturday afternoon...just in time to join us for the bbq over at Spilsbury's cabin. Dinner was fabulous! Yummy steaks! All the kids were so cute playing together! They are all at perfect ages and love just playing for hours on end. It's so nice to be home and making these memories for our kids...and ourselves too! Costa has been hilarious since he met Jack and Lucas....all he talks about is playing baseball with them someday!


Sunday, Lib and I had planned on going antiquing. We were so excited for our girls day out! Our first stop was Charlie Clarks, the garden in the back....it was so cute back there. I've never been. They had a craft fair going on so we browsed for awhile and then decided to get Lib a beer and myself a water and sit down and enjoy ourselves for a bit. They had a live band and the weather was so perfect, of course. You just want to soak up every minute of it when you're up there.....especially when you know it's 115 degrees back home! After our relax time we hit pretty much every antique shop on the mountain. It was so fun! I never knew pinetop had so many! We ended up buying the kids a little trinket, of course but we also got ourselves some amazing smelling fall candles. Oh, and I did buy mom and dad Contreras a whiskey barrel for their front porch to put flowers in. It's pretty cute!

The boys took the kids to the creek to try and catch some fish while us girls were out having our fun. Of course, I don't know what is up with that creek but it's damn near impossible to catch a fish. Such a bummer. Good thing they were smart dads and brought some ice cream out there! They would have had some pretty bored, disappointed kids if not!


That night, we headed over to Grandpa Tom's and Terry's house for some dinner. Once again, it was an amazing feast and wonderful company. It's always extra special to head up north knowing I get to see my dad and he gets to spend time with his grandkids. It's so important for me for them to know him. We truly enjoy the time we get to spend with him and Terry. Dad, of course had to make his fire out back and had S'mores for the kids.....kind of his trademark now. A perfect ending of our first labor day back in the states! It was just awesome, and exactly what we needed.

Oh, and I wanted to mention Halle brought a little friend with us to pinetop....Filo, the class lion. She was picked to be "Top Cat", friday before we left. She was so excited about this and took Filo everywhere we went......he had quite the adventure in pinetop!