Phoenix Trip part 1

We had a great trip to Phoenix in early December. (One of my goals for the new year is to blog more often. We'll see how that goes.) No pictures yet because I haven't put my camera software on the new laptop yet. And my old computer is just so slow it's hopeless.
Anyway, it was a fun trip. Claire, Alex and I flew out on Saturday the 4th. Yup, just me, and two babies. It was a pretty good flight though. Neither of them napped before the flight, because they are stinkers. We checked Claire's car seat. She was very distraught over this. We kept going back to where we handed over her seat and she would say "seat. gone?" But the running around got rid of some of her non-napped energy, so that was helpful. As we waited for our flight to board, Claire kept harassing some boy and trying to take his legos. As we were waiting for the family boarding group, Claire kept harassing the same little boy for his gameboy. Some lady said to me, after the boy and his dad boarded the plane "your husband should carry more stuff!" To which I laughed and said "that's not my husband. My daughter is just bugging the kid." (side note to anyone who works for Southwest: having families board AFTER A group (60 people) is a little ridiculous. Seriously, families should board after business select. Makes a lot less trouble that way, I promise.) The flight was only half full, so we had a whole row to ourselves. Immediately upon take-off, Alex fell asleep and slept in the seat next to me for about an hour, until Claire started trying to climb over him to get out into the aisle. For the first hour or so, Claire was fairly well behaved. She watched a movie and ate some. The second hour was wet. First, her diaper was apparently on funny, so she leaked on her pants. She was nice enough to tell me pretty much immediately, so I could change her. Thank goodness I grabbed an extra set of clothes. I changed her on my lap since I also had Alex. Is that weird? I'm still not sure. Her butt was on my lap, so it isn't like her naked body touched the seats at all, and I washed up with wipes afterward. But oh well. Couldn't be helped. Then, she was standing in the seat next to me, watching her movie, and all of a sudden reached behind her and put her arm through the hole between seats and knocked the lady's coke into her lap. So I passed all my burp cloths back to help clean up the mess. Thank goodness I grabbed that extra flannel blanket on the way out, because that became the burp cloth for the rest of the flight/ drive to the house. We walked the aisle a bit to help with the boredom. The third hour, Claire started wallowing on the floor of our row and was pretty quiet. Alex cried a bit and ate a bit and was pretty needy. We finally landed and got picked up by my sister. We headed to my mom's house, where we stayed. My little sister was there and made a fabulous dinner for us. Not really. But it wasn't her fault. It was just pasta and canned sauce, but the sauce was pretty awful. Won't buy that brand again. But we were pretty hungry. We worked on getting the kids in bed and then I got to talk to my sisters for a little while. They headed home and I went to bed. (My mom isn't living at her house. She is living with her boyfriend, so it was just me and the kids at the house. She was also out of town the first few days I was there.)
Sunday, I had hoped to get to church, but with the late nights, no one got going early enough. And naps came early and were very long. My sisters came over and spent the day with us. It was a lot of fun. Amy and Teene both helped with my Advent calendar, which I took with me so I could work on ornaments for it. I'll post pics of them once I get them all finished totally. It was a fun time to spend with my sisters. I was thinking about it and realized that I haven't spent time with just Amy in really years. I honestly can't remember the last time it was just her and me. So it was fun. Teene showed up a little later. Then the kids got back up from naps and we had a good time hanging out. Mom and Jim came over and saw us for a little while.
On Monday we went to an aquarium. It wasn't as large as I expected, and it was quite expensive, but it was at a mall. Either way, Claire really enjoyed it. She ran around and looked at everything and was having a blast. She liked everything, except the touch tank. She did not want to put her hand in there. It was "gross". She is weird like that. She loves to look at bugs, but doesn't want them near her, doesn't want to touch them, but gets mad at me if I kill it or take it outside (depending on the situation).
(Side story- I think I may have scared her a bit about bugs. She already didn't want to touch them, but then one day we were in the basement. I was putting away food and she was in the pantry/ food storage/ laundry room with me. She had been pointing at the the dead bugs on the ground, telling me bug, and I just "yes yes"ed at her.  All of a sudden, she is by my side, yelling "BUG!" and handing me something. I look down- it's a LIVE roach. EWWWWWWWWW. Okay, roaches, I seriously cannot handle. Spiders- ugh. Ants I hate the living daylights out of, but roaches. You know that movie Joe's Apartment? It sounded funny in the previews, but I couldn't watch it. Grossed me out. Alann tried to watch it once and I had to leave the room. Anyway, so I kind of maybe freaked out just a bit and may have risen my voice a little too much. I smacked it out of her hand and told her not to touch bugs. And killed it. Mercilessly. Thankfully, I still had shoes on. Since then, she has been even more cautious about bugs. Even lady bugs she won't go near. If I don't want her to touch something, I tell her it is either hot, dirty, or that there is a bug, depending on the situation and belivability. Is that wrong to play off my daughter's fears? Will I scar her for life? It's generally for her own good...)
So anyway, back to the aquarium. Claire really liked it. She was dancing around and having a good time. Then we had dinner at the food court and Teene teased me about how hot dogs and fries are a better dinner than popcorn. Yes okay, next time we will have popcorn for dinner. =) At least hot dog and fries has protein and a vegetable. Claire HAD to ride the carousel. She wanted to go more than once, but was a pretty good girl about not getting to go a second time. Then we headed back to Teene's house to drop her and Amy off. Alex screamed the whole time, until we turned on Teene's street. then he went to sleep. So I headed home and put the kiddos to bed.