Happy birthday Ava!

 So this post is a little late, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk about my little baby girl who is getting so big so fast!  I'm not going to lie, the first two years of Ava's life have been a bit challenging!   Slowly though as she became more able to communicate and a little more mature, things started getting better and better.  She now sleeps through the night ( most of the time)  and she can talk to me and play with me and now that I know what she is saying there is much less frustration!  When I have to leave her I can explain that I will come right back and she knows what that means.  We had a hard time with nursery at church for a long time!  She would either go in with me, but I could never leave or she refused to even enter the doors because she knew where we were going and she did not want to be around that many people.  But a little after her second birthday she started getting better.  The first time I left for good I told her I would be right back and she cried for a while but kept repeating to herself, 'be right back...be right back' and when I came back she was so happy!  Now she knows I always come back and while I feel a little less claustrophobic now, I always miss her terribly when I am gone!  I love this girl more than anything, she is so funny and wonderful and beautiful and I can't believe she is mine!  Here are some things about Ava right now.  She likes to think she is very funny and loves to make us laugh with her silly faces, silly songs and whatever else she can come up with to make us laugh.  She also loves her big sister and I will find her carefully watching Audrey's every move and then doing it herself.  If Audrey is doing it, then it is something she wants to do.  Her favorite person is still Mom, however she is branching out and enjoying other people's company much more these days.  I am continually surprised lately by how bold she has gotten and how social she is becoming.  One of the things I love about her is her cuddles.  I am pretty much the only one she will cuddle and love, and I love every second I get with her!  She is pretty much potty training herself as she does not like to wear any clothes and does not like to have accidents so she always tells me when she needs to go.  She wears underpants around the house and does a great job with them, but I have been too nervous to go anywhere just in case.  However, the other day we went to Walmart and were there forever and I was price matching everything and it took forever and right when the lady starts checking out my groceries she tells me she has to go potty. So I tell her she needs to wait because there is no other option, but I am thinking oh my gosh there is going to be potty all over the floor because I forgot to put a diaper on her!  She totally held it and we hurried to the bathroom where I helped her go and she told me "That was fun!"  haha, so I guess she can do it!  She is so full of life and has extreme emotions from laughing and bursting with excitement to full on tantrums with kicking and hitting and screaming.  She has a big personality and anyone who knows her can't help but love her, especially me!  I am so thankful for my Ava! 

       



















We had a barnyard party.  Super casual, not lots of people, just the way Ava like's things!

  

     

















Ava got a Minnie mouse vaccum and a Dora trike.  Audrey uses the trike more because Ava's legs don't quite fit, but I'm sure it won't be long!

Mia!!!

So we have been really wanting a puppy for a while now, but have put it off for lots of reasons like no backyard, no time, etc.  So we finally decided that while right now is probably not the perfect time, things are better now than they ever have been and we might as well go for it!  We got lots of advice, most people telling us not to do a puppy but maybe an older, already trained dog or something like that.  But of course we wanted a puppy!!  We wanted to bring an animal into our home from the very beginning and have them be part of our family and grow up with us.  We had this wonderful picture in our head of how things would go, it looked like this:  Our family gathered around playing and laughing with our new puppy, taking her with us wherever we go and she would be so happy and well behaved just to be with us, us watching TV while she happily napped on her bed in the living room; well you can see where this is going, our fantasy of a dream dog was exactly that - a fantasy!  We got Mia at six weeks and immediately fell in love with her!  She had ten siblings and they were the cutest things ever.  We chose Mia because we were told she was the most mild tempered and sweet of the litter; now I can't imagine if that is true how the other puppies behave!  She has endless amounts of energy loves to play with people.  The biggest problem we have is her nipping, which sometimes turns into biting when she gets too excited!  The girls can't be in the same room with her unless I am right there supervising every step anyone takes or Mia will get too excited and start jumping on them and maybe even biting.  I can't really let her in the house anymore because she chews things and again she terrorizes the girls.  However, we have now had her for six weeks and I have seen huge progress in her behavior.  She still nips, but she happily sleeps through the night and never cries.  Nate feeds her and puts her outside in the morning and she stays out there pretty much all day and does just fine.  We go out and play with her as much as possible and she goes for a walk with Nate or I every morning and night.  I am hoping if we keep up this routine she will continually get better and as the girls learn more about how to handle her, our fantasy might not be a comlete reality, but hopefully close!

California!

So last week the girls and I were able to take a trip to visit my family in California.  We have been wanting to go for a really long time with all of us, but were not able to work things out with Nate so he stayed here.  It has been really hard being in Utah when my Mom has been going through all kinds of chemo, radiation, operations and doctors visits so far away.  So it was good to spend some time with both her and my Dad and hopefully help out a little.  We are thinking we may be going back for Thanksgiving so we'll see how that works out.  Here are some pictures of all the fun we had!

 Picking apples with Papa from the tree was a real treat!

 Grandma had all kinds of crafting supplies that kept Audrey quite busy!

 This was the last picture I took before I dropped my camera on the concrete and broke it.  So sad because the next day we went to Avila beach and it was so beautiful!!!

 Lynda, Laurie and Grandma were all there over the weekend so we had a good time!

 This was one of the highlights for the girls.  Riding the four wheeler with Papa!

 This is where the boys spent much of their time, on the computer.  The girls were completely taken with them and thought they were so cool!

Ava is completely into her movie while Audrey gives Grandpa a hard time :)

Catch up

We have been loving our new house and all the business that moving has brought along with it!  We have not had the internet until recently and I only got my computer a couple days ago, so now I will try and play catch up with what we have been doing the past couple months.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to:

We had no couch for a few weeks so we got creative with furniture.

Spending time with Bampa at Artic Circle

 There is a cute pioneer cemetery by our house with some amazing views.

spending time at the zoo

Preschool graduation!

Ava, Dad and Bampa working hard at getting our yard in.  We are getting closer!

And now we are caught up and I will be better at staying on top of things!

Moving day

Well we are finally moved into our new house.  Now it is just a matter of finding everything and finding places to put it.  I would put up some pictures, but seriously have no idea where the camera is!  We feel a little crazy as we have no fridge yet, it was ordered but may not be here until next week.  There are no blinds, so we sort of hung up some blankets and sheets in the bedroom windows so people can't see us, and we still have no couch.  We keep going back and forth if we should buy one or just sort of make do until something comes up, like a garage sale bargain or such.  We also don't have cable, internet or phone up yet so I feel a little separated from the world.  But.... we have a house people!!  Yes, I don't care about all the craziness because I know it will all come together eventually and it is our home!  I just love looking out the window at my street and my neighborhood and thinking yay, this is my place.  :)  Last night was our first night sleeping there.  We put out a blanket in the living room and all curled up and watched a movie.  Audrey thinks the whole thing is such a fun adventure!  Ava didn't sleep too well, but there is no surprise there.  Overall things are going well and we are happy!

quilt!

I have started making a quilt for our bed with Lynette's help (lots of help!!) and Audrey wanted to do something similar.  So she made this quilt for my bed.  She REALLY wanted to tape the whole thing together and have us sleep in it at night and it took lots of persuading and convincing to have her clean it up.  But I thought it was really cute! 

Tough Guy

Nate likes to act tough but the reality is both girls have him wrapped around their fingers