Home away from home

Mom always says to make sure you have people in your pics - so I've obeyed here!
View looking down our street - mountains in the distance - we sort of live right in the middle of a mountain

View looking from the house

I wanted to title this "home sweet home" but then I got to thinking...."home is still in Iowa, on the farm, at my parent's house. My parent's house is MY house, my home." It really still is home to me...so I had to change it to "home away from home!" I sometimes get called on when I tell people here I'm going "back home!" They are like, "Huh?!" Isn't it like 5 minutes away?!

Anyway, I had a few friends ask me to send pictures of where I live (not to mention any names, Sara!) - so here ya go! I snapped these the day of Konnor's turkey trot b/c I was thinking about it at the time. Clearly not the best day out for pictures but I'm not about to run out there right now and take some more!

There is more to the side of the house that you can't see - but we love it. It is our "home in Arizona!" Konnor swears he's going to move to Iowa as soon as he possibly can - so for the kids, they feel a sense of home back in Iowa too, which is awesome. I've taught them well...or shall I say, my family has? They always welcome us in and make us feel at home.

We have a small backyard - but the neighborhood is wonderful. You won't find too many of these village looking places in Phoenix - but it's cute, safe, and homey for now. It kind of seems like a Desparate Housewives neighborhood when you look at it -but really, everyone kind of keeps to themselves which is kind of nice considering the close proximity we are in. We live directly across from multi-millionaire homes - so we are like the little cheapos over here:)

Anyway, enjoy! This is the best I could come up with for today. More pics of the kids to come - since I know that's the main reason most of you check this! I saw them off to California today - so I'm taking some "me" time over the next few days:)

**Okay, so I posted this and two minutes later thought, "great, what a fun post that has nothing to do with the kids!" Well, lo and behold, a few cute stories from today came to mind.

#1) Hunter and Quinn were sitting at their little table, eating hot dogs at 8:35 this morning (yes, that's right, hot dogs at 8:35 - they had already had breakfast two hours earlier!) and Hunter likes to give Quinn crap, but Quinn plays it right back. Anyway, I'm off to the side listening in and Hunter pretends he's going to sneak a piece of hot dog off of Quinn's plate and Quinn goes, with his little pointer finger up "you nawny (naughty)." "You nawny" again and again. Hunter proceeds to do it again so this time Quinn YELLS "Mommy he nawny" - again - pointing his little index finger right at Hunter! It was so cute at the time. Hunter never once took a piece of hot dog - but Quinn was not about to risk it! I wish you could hear his little voice. These two are very fun when Konnor's away at school - Hunter sort of regresses back to age 20 months and Quinn attempts to take the place of Konnor and acts like a 5 year old.

#2) While driving home from school we are talking about their trip to California and what they are going to do. I was telling them that they were going to be taking Pati's (Sanjog's Mom) van instead of Daddy's. So Konnor proceeds to tell me that Pati is away in India right now b/c Big Tata (their great-grandfather) died. "he's dead, his time has come" he told me. I'm freaking out a little b/c I have not yet really had a conversation of the sorts with them yet - and I left this one up to Sanjog's family for obvious reasons. Konnor than says "Mom, what are we going to do when your time comes? How will we live all by ourselves?" He's being as serious as can be. I said "well, Mommy is young and when Mommy's time does come someday you will be a grown man like Daddy, Tata, and Grandpa." (This is all I could come up with since he needs immediate responses). He thinks for a few minutes "Wow, we're going to have you around for a long time then aren't we? We sure are lucky!" Again, this kid loves the word lucky and understands it in every shape and form - and I of course said "we sure are."

The fun conversations have begun......