The Phoenician - Scottsdale, AZ

Every year in March, Ben and I are fortunate enough to have an adult-only vacation with our Federated friends. I literally look forward to it ALL. YEAR. LONG. Ha! It's such a fun week of relaxing and hanging out with great friends who are scattered all over the country now. (And our parents are WONDERFUL to take all of the kids! Reid spent the week in TX being completely spoiled by Grandma & Pops and KK & Doc!)

This year, we headed out to The Phoenician Golf & Spa resort in Scottsdale, AZ. It is possibly my favorite resort I've been too. It was wonderful! Par for the course, I didn't take very many pictures. But we had a fabulous 6 days of doing absolutely nothing! We laid by the pool every day... the guys golfed... the girls did spa stuff... then we went out to dinners and dancing at night. Fantastic!

Here's a pic of Ben and I

The resort.. amazing, right?!?

Poolside lunch

Our crew - love these people and look so forward to spending this time with them every year!

With the Cromer's

Yes... be jealous.

With my Abigail

It's a rough life...

Jenny and I - so fun!

The handsome guys

This is an annual picture they've taken for the last 5 years together. One day I'll line up all the pictures to see the age progression - ha!

Already looking forward to Maui next March!

Swimming Lessons

Today Reid had his very first swimming lesson... to say that he LOVES them would be the understatement of the year!

Here's our little fish with his swim instructor, Miss Sarah

We're doing a semi-private lesson every Thursday with two of his little buddies from school - Jack Kella & Sam Hurtado. The boys all had a great time!

Reid is already asking to go to swimming lessons again - he can't wait until next week!

Reid's Preschool Birthday Party

We can hardly believe that our baby boy is turning 3 YEARS OLD! I mean 3 is BIG... really big. I have no clue how it came so quickly!

We have a HUGE week planned with lots of celebrating and all of our family coming in - we are so excited! On Tuesday, Jan 30th, KK was the first to arrive to help Mommy get everything prepared. She was such a huge help! And an added bonus is that she got to join me at Reid's preschool birthday party on Thursday morning, Feb 2nd. Here are a few pics of Reid and his classmates...

Reid had to take Thomas the Train cupcakes, of course - they were a huge hit!

All of the kids waiting patiently while we set out their cupcakes...

The birthday boy!

Look at all these kiddos - their teachers are so brave! Ha!

A picture with Mommy

And, of course, we had to do a silly pic...

Reid and his KK

On Thursday after the party, Grandma and Pops arrived... Doc flew in... and even Aunt Candice and "Baby Cousin Annabel" flew in from Manhattan, NY. Everyone was so excited to celebrate with Reid! Here is a little schedule of the next few days... pics to come!

THURSDAY, FEB 2nd: Reid's School Party, The whole family arrives!, Mommy & Daddy's 10 Year Wedding Anniversary, Dinner with the entire family at Doe's Steakhouse in Downtown (Yummy!)

Friday, February 3rd: REIDER IS 3!!!, Jump!Zone Birthday Party (10am), Lunch and Opening presents at our house, Daddy surprises Mommy and takes her out of town to celebrate our anniversary! (Grandma, Pops, Aunt Candice, and Annabel stayed the weekend with Reid)

It was such a fun few days with much celebrating!

Halloween 2011

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh my! It's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But we don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run! Let's run!"

The fifth one said, "Isn't Halloween fun?"

...And fun is definitely what we had this Halloween! Reid (now being 2 1/2) COMPLETELY got it - he's practiced and played Trick or Treat over and over. And over again. Haha!

The Saturday before Halloween, we headed out to a "real" pumpkin patch in Mayflower, AR with a group of friends. I wish I had more pictures, because all of the kids had a blast! They had playsets, swingsets, slides, bounce houses, food, snow cones, hay rides, horse back rides... you name it! Reid's favorite part of the day was "riding the tractor to pick his pumkins"... We took a hayride out to an actual pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins from the vine.

That following week was followed with not one, but TWO Halloween (Harvest) parties at Reid's school. He was so excited to have halloween cupcakes and cookies during class! Then the Saturday night before Halloween, some friends of ours threw a mega Halloween party. And let me tell you... the Phelan's KNOW HOW TO THROW A HALLOWEEN PARTY!

Here's our little Superhero enjoying some donuts from one of the games...

Showing us how "fast he can fly!"

With some friends at the Phelan's party...stoping for some dinner...

My friend Emily and I (I was Queen B... she was June Cleaver).

All the Mommies... love this pic!

Then on Halloween night, we went to Palio's Pizza with the Darby's, the Smith's, and the Martin's before assaulting all of the neighbors with our tiny trick-or-treaters.

Here's Reid - ready to go!

Best shot I could get of a few of the kiddos at Palio's - Owen, Reid, Alex, and Avery.

Wagons were the transportation of choice during trick-or-treat!

Kylie stopping to talk with Cole and Reid

Buddies! - Already digging into their candy =)

Look out neighbors!

Reider's loot - pretty good for a two year old!

We're already looking forward to next year!

Busy Saturday!

It's been a BIG Saturday around here, so I wanted to share a few pics from the day...

In case you haven't heard, Reid is not a fan of haircuts. In fact, I would venture to say... he HATES them. Long story short, this morning we went for our second attempt (this week) to cut our kiddo's shaggy head... it took myself, Ben, and another hairdresser to hold him down while the 4th hairdresser cut his hair. Since an even cut with scissors was clearly out of the question, our little dude got his first buzz cut. I was a little sad it was going to be so short, but he didn't leave us many options. The funny part about haircuts is he is 100% fine as soon as they are done... and he even gets excited about the new do (and the sucker).

Here is the handsome little man post-haircut... so cute!

After Reider's haircut, he got to go pick out two new pairs of tennis shoes - Yes, he LOVES shoe shopping! (Of course I didn't get any pictures) Then we went home to set up his "Big Boy Bed"... Here he is - he was so excited! (We just converted his crib to a toddler bed to get him used to it)

We are so proud because he has done really well! He went straight to sleep tonight and didn't get up one time - yay!

Oh! And one more cute pic... we cooked his favorite meal for dinner... SPAGHETTI!