Miss Allyson has a cold, but we didn't want her missing out on the fun so I took these pictures yesterday. I can't believe she will be 6 months old Saturday! My baby! :)

The girls went to bed on Monday night praying it would snow. You would have thought it was Christmas when they woke up the next morning to the chilly white stranger. :) This was Madelyn's first time playing in the snow. She loved it until she realized she could no longer feel her fingers. (We don't have mittens for her since it never snows here!) I taught her to tuck her hands into her sleeves and she was fine after that. Ryen was like a little winter fairy, skipping around and throwing snow on anything and everyone. She and Sonny made their first snowman. I forget that I married an Arizona boy sometimes! Not everyone is part polar bear. We decided to take the kids out to dinner and there was nothing open! Almost all of the stores and restaurants were completely deserted. It made me laugh. What a fun thing though... their first real SNOW!

It's pretty amazing that a movie originally released in 1939 is still not only relelvant, but adored today. My kids love The Wizard of Oz. Madelyn would watch it a thousand times a day if I let her. When Sonny came home from work last Friday, he opened the door to his wife wearing wiskers and a construction paper mane. A yellow blanket became the yellow brick road, a stuffed dog became Toto... the girls even made their own Munchkin Land with building blocks and small figurines.
An Imagination is a beautiful thing.

I heart Target. Ooh, I really do! They have a serious clearance going on right now. I try to buy ahead for the girls when things are on sale and I totally scored today. They had so many cute shoes for 3 or 4 dollars. They even had tons of baby shoes for around $2. I snagged the most adorable rain boots ever for $3.74. Other great finds:

Entire Disney princess doll collection- regularly $60, now $15
A Leapfrog educational toy thingy- regularly $15, now $3
Light up princess wands- normally $7, now $1-something
Play Wonder princess dress- usually $30, now $7
Puppet theater- regularly $70, now $17

There was a lot more too! I'm too lazy to list every bargain I saw, but trust me... there were orangey-red stickers as far as the eye could see! I'm telling the Easter Bunny. We both love a good deal!

While I was in Arizona, my husband's cousin (Becca) gave me the honor of a Fabulous Blog Award. I've never gotten a blog award before... so yay for me! Unfortunately, for some reason I was unable to steal the accompanying graphic from her blog so I was forced to do an image search on my own. The best I could do was this.... a female wrestler named the Fabulous Moolah. Sorry.

So, without further scary photographs, here's what I'm supposed to do with my award:
1. Pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. List 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. Copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.

I lovingly pass this award on to Rachel H., Carrie, Katie, Tifani, and Jill. You are each ridiculously fabulous bloggers and I adore each of your cute selves. But I don't expect any of you to do a post about this award since you may feel strange about posting my friend up there, the Fabulous Moolah. Your call. Aaaanyway...

My 5 fabulous obsessions are:
1. My family
2. Art- in all forms
3. Finding cheap expensive things
4. Antiques
5. Nerdy digital stuff (scrapbooking/photography/blogging)

Here are the instructions for the award if you choose to act on it:
Upon receipt of this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then "add image" it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the "picture" gadget. Also, don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.
So there you go!

********************
Aaaand... while I'm at it, I was also tagged by my sweet new friend Francesca over at Three Bay B Chicks. (How cute is that blog name?) Isn't that so nice? Blogs are such a fun way to meet people and Francesca totally made my day! Here are the guidlines for this tag:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Right then. Here are six random things about Yours Truly...
1. Roadkill gives me the chills every single time I see it
2. I hate answering the phone... and calling people. It's nothing personal. I just hate phones.
3. I used to carry a "Beauty and the Beast" lunchbox to school... high school
4. I would rather eat a grilled cheese sandwich than something super fancy at an elite restaurant
5. I cannot remember numbers to save my soul. Any number, no matter how important, just goes in my brain and straight back out. (I still don't know my own cell number.)
6. I can spit abnormally far

Doing some "blog-hopping" I found and tag the following people:
1. Alissa
2. Emily
3. Shannon
4. Jodi
5. Misty
6. Melannie

Happy blogging!

Whoa. So that's what it's like to be totally and completely separated from your computer for days and daaaays. Hmm. Strange. I suppose it should be a liberating experience, but it wasn't. It was oddly unsettling. I missed you, Tallulah... and I'm not ashamed to say it. We belong together, you and me. (Yes, I named my computer Tallulah. I name everything. Don't judge me!)

So here we are... all home and happy and back into the swing of things. We had a marvelous time in Arizona! We didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see or go everywhere we wanted to go, as our trip was a whirlwind visit. I am still trying to organize and edit the bazillion photos I took while there. In the meantime, here are some of the highlights:

• Meeting Miss Molly, our new sister-in-law/aunt... who we all completely adore (Way to go Spencer!)
  
• Ryen riding horses "all by herself" and love love looooving it
• Maddie riding quads in the desert and hate hate haaaating it
• Spending a lovely day with Lindsey
• Getting family pictures taken
• Sonny getting his local food fix
• Introducing Ally to the whole Hastings clan and watching her cousins fight over the privilege of holding her :)
  
• The Cutie Patootie Nieces Photo Shoot- which I think is now a solid tradition
• Checking out our favorite property- which is for sale again, but ridiculously expensive, making any thoughts of returning virtually non-existent
• Spending time with the family... the whole family (Yay!)
• Encouraging Mom and Dad Hastings to serve a mission
• Trying to talk all of Sonny's family into becoming computer nerds
  
• Discovering a clean Walmart... which I thought was an urban myth
• All 3 girls being downright angelic while flying the not-so-friendly skies
• Dave/Papa using a tractor to ram a tree in an attempt to free a $10 airplane lodged in its branches (Now that is a cool grandpa!)
• Norma/Nana feeding the girls pancakes every morning (nanacakes)
• Dinner at Matta's with the Johnsons
• Not seeing our kids all day long because they were lost in Cousin Land
• Trying not to laugh while watching Madelyn apply 57 coats of Disney princess make-up to every last spec of her face...and hands...and feet...and legs...and arms...and clothes...and...
• Getting to sit with Sonny in church
• Ally's first two little teeth popping up

I told you it was a whirlwind! But I wouldn't abandon Tallulah for just any old thing.