Cougar the puppy

Cougar came to us via Craigslist:) I had wanted to get a rescue dog, but Friday we spent all day at the Mesa animal shelter waiting to look at a dog- long story, but I was there with all 5 kids from 12-3 and we never got to see the dog we went there to see. It was frustrating and so that night I did a search on Craigslist and a little white maltipoo came up. We did a little more research on the breed and it looked like what we were looking for: low-shedding, playful, good with kids and other pets, and small. We went to look at him Friday night, and he was such a cute little ball of fur, didn't bark alot, curious, but not overbearing. The kids were in love. Curtis and I weren't sure, we had heard so many horror stories about puppies. We we slept on it Friday, and sent back and forth Saturday morning and afternoon. By Saturday late afternoon we decided to go for it!
He came as Chippy but became Cougar pretty quickly.  Janie carries him around like a baby for most of his waking hours. Curtis came home one day after a week of this and said "I'm surprised everyday when I come home and that dog is still alive." Yep. Me too.

More visitors for Spring Break!

Mom and Dad came down from Pocatello the Sunday after Kim and Todd left. The kids had Spring Break, so it was nice to have everyone home and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. We went for a hike on Tuesday, and then I jumped into the pool for the first time! I surprised Curtis with my spontaneity. It was cold but I recovered in the spa, hot water made it better! Wednesday we swapped off and Curtis and I went to the temple in the morning, and then mom and dad went in the afternoon. When we got back, mom and dad had helped the kids to get their dog jar full of pompoms! It was a group effort- I think mom wanted the kids to get a puppy, more than the kids wanted to get a puppy- because they had been working on that thing since December! You got to put a pom pom in the jar if you said or did something nice for somebody else, which is really hard to do I guess! But somehow they got the jar full in one morning…hmm….

Mom and Sadie

Jonah is Jonah

The guys who made it all the way to the hieroglyphs

Mom, Dad and the kiddos- it is impossible to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time!

Mom, Dad and Janie Kate

Mom, dad, and Jonah

Mom, Dad and Eli

Mom, Dad and Ethan

Mom, Dad, and Sadie Grace

Visitors in Town

We really had a fun two weeks with lots of company! Kim and Todd, along with Sofi, Hogan and Lola came to Phoenix the second week of March. They stayed with us for a few days, and we really loved swimming, eating, and chatting! Cousins are really the best.

Splashing in the spa

The spa was heated, the pool was not!

Hogan and Sadie

Sophie and Sadie

Lola and Janie



Lola and Janie had so much fun together. They played Barbies one morning in the spa for a few hours, and Lola got sunburned really bad, we all lost track of time because they were just playing away! I wish I had a picture of Hogan juicing oranges! He was a regular little worker, picking and juicing, and then wanted everyone to try all of his different combinations of juice- tangelo, tangelo grapefruit, orange, orange-grapefruit. They were all delicious!