Christmas, Vegas Style . . . . . .

To start off our Christmas Season, we went and saw the Santa Parade at Towne Square.  Of course we all loved it.  I seriously teared up watching my kids get so excited.  You should have seen my girl when Santa lit up the huge tree.  At the risk of getting all mushy, it seriously about did me in.  It was so sweet.  They set up a whole Santa shop at Town Square and Ava had a million questions.  Here was our conversation:  A: Does Santa actually live there or just visit? Me: Just visit of course.  A: Well, of course mom because he lives at the North Pole.  Well, how does he get here? Me: I think you know the answer to that.  A: Oh ya, the reindeer.  How does he light up the tree? Me: Magic.  A: That makes sense.  I wasn't sure if Santa would actually come to Las Vegas, but I'm so glad he does. :)  The kids also got new ornaments for Christmas.  Ava's is Princess of course and Kai's was Toy Story.  You'll notice the lack of a picture of Kai with his ornament.  Some days you just have to pick your battles.  Also, as a side note, it really wasn't cold enough to wear all the warm clothes, but I'm a Utah girl at heart and I pretty much refused to go to a parade starring Santa Claus without beanies and coats.

Ava had a little dance recital for Christmas.  She danced to Jingle Bell Rock and every single time we heard it on the radio she would get SO excited.  She is such a good little dancer.  She loves doing all of her moves and listens to her teacher so well!  It doesn't hurt that she has her "very best friend" Taylor in class with her.  These girls are great friends.

Snow in Las Vegas . . . . *sigh* . . . . . this really makes me laugh.  They actually brought some man made snow to the park in our neighborhood.  I know all of you Utah friends are laughing at this, but when you live someplace without snow, you improvise right?  Well, it was a bit of a dissappointment because it was a pretty small patch of snow considering the amount of people that were there.  The line was probably over an hour to actually slide down the snow, so me, being the law-abiding citizen that I am, gave Ava full permission to jump the bales of hay and make snow angels.  The best was when Ava's friend Ethan made a snow angel face down.  We even got to see Reindeer, although Ava made sure to not get too close.   

Now this was pretty cool.  At Town Square they actually have falling snow.  We waited in line for *ahem* 1 1/2 hours to see Santa and while we were waiting they started announcing that there would be "Snow in Las Vegas."  Ava looked at me point blank and said, "What is she talking about?  It doesn't snow in Las Vegas."  Well, it did that night and the kids loved it.

My family came down for the annual Christmas Party in Pahrump.  Randy so kindly offered to stay with the kids so I could go with my family.  (With the agreement that I would send some yummy fried shrimp his way).  It was so much fun.  Good food and good times spent with the best family in the entire world.  How cute is my little sister's baby bump?  We cannot wait to meet that little girl!

 

Thanksgiving/Christmas . . . . .

We went to Richfield for Thanksgiving this year and it was so much fun!  I don't have a single picture from Thanksgiving day.  Apparently I was too busy eating.  The spread and company were wonderful as always. 

We definitely know how to pack as much celebration in as possible.  We celebrated Thanksgiving and the day after we had our family Christmas Party.  Every year on Black Friday, Santa rides down Main Street in a fire truck.  The kids loved it.  It was freezing cold, but there is something about the beginning of the Christmas season, Santa Claus waving from the fire truck and the sparkle in my kid's eyes!

Then it was off for a day of bowling.  I'm sorry, you wanted to know who won?  Like, had the best score out of everybody???  Well, that would be me of course!  The kids both loved bowling.  Kai loved it so much that he cried the entire time he wasn't actually bowling.  Poor kid can be quite emotional if things aren't exactly the way he wants them. 

Grandma Vicki got us all matching shirts, which of course led into pictures with all of us.  You can see how much Kai loved getting his picture taken.

Thank you so much for such a wonderful trip Grandma and Grandpa!  We LOVED it!

Family, Etc. . . . . . .

We've been able to spend some good quality time with our families over the last couple of months. Our kids AND us love meeting up with the family in St. George.

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We also had the big 29th birthday for both me and Randy and we celebrated in style. . . . with our kids . . . . at home. We wouldn't want it any other way. (My sisters made me a yummy rainbow chip cake though). It was momentous for me because I got my very own Bosch mixer. I love it. Like really love it. Thus why it has it's very own picture on my blog.

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We also had our fair share of cuteness, sickness, and other fun stuff.

From Random Blog

All Hallow's Eve . . . . . .

Don't you call it that? Anyway, I'm finally getting around to posting about our Halloween fun.  We had SOOOOO much going on.  Seriously, by the 31st, I was so ready for it to be over.  I lost count of how many times the kids wore their Halloween costumes with the school parties, trunk or treats, and play groups.  We all had a blast! 

I wanted the kids to be Snow White and Dopey.  Do you all have any idea how hard it is to find a Dopey costume?  (I gave up quickly after a search on Ebay brought up the word "rare" on every listing.)  Anywho, thanks to a steal of a deal, we came up with "The Cutest Monkey in the Entire World" and "Halloween Ballerina".  Ava's costume was $3.99 and I knew that getting Ava to switch from Snow White was going to be difficult.  Thus, the Halloween Ballerina was invented.  I knew that a plain old witch wasn't going to cut it.  What sealed the deal?  Her spiderweb tights of course.  She did get a little huffy every time someone told her what a cute little witch she was.  Duh people.  Isn't it obvious that she is a Halloween Ballerina, not a witch?  Geez.  Kai, on the other hand, was a little bit more difficult.  He cried hysterically the first couple of times that I tried to put him in his costume, but I am pretty stubborn and tortured him with it until he gave in and embraced his inner monkey.  I am not looking forward to the days when I am unable to manipulate my children. :) 

We had so much fun with all of the pumpkin patches, parties, and sugar cookie making.  The top right picture demonstrates what Kai thought of the bouncy houses.

The top 2 pictures on the left show how my kids felt about the petting zoo.  Kai was in heaven.  Ava, on the other hand, was a bit nervous, as I'm sure you can tell from her nervous smile.  I guess I would feel the same way if a pitbull bit my rear-end.  Poor girl is slowly working through her new fear of animals.   

Even me and my girls got in on the Halloween fun!!  I have a friend who puts on a Witches Tea every year.  Kellie goes all out with a 3 course gourmet meal and a slew of delicious desserts.  Witches attire required of course.  My good friend Raelynn is in the first pic and my witchy friend is Miss Adrienne. :)

A little pumpkin carving.  Don't be disappointed that I don't have pics of the final product, you probably would have ended up disappointed anyway.  The only whining I heard that night had to do with cleaning out the guts, and it came from the adults.

My three favorite people.  Ava told me she had to take Daddy with her to pick out pumpkins because she wanted a HUGE one!  Well, daddy delivered.  Daddy took his kiddos and picked out the "best pumpkins ever", according to Ava. 

The actual day of Halloween spent with fun friends and good food. My kids costumes lasted about 2 minutes that night and I couldn't get them to sit still long enough to take any pics. I don't blame them.

We were so busy this Halloween that it will probably take a year to prepare myself for next year!  Good thing that's exactly how long I have. 

What do we do?

I've been asked that a few times since I've had kids.  People wonder what in the world I do all day if I'm just at home being a mom.  Well, first of all, I'm rarely home.  Second of all, we do a lot! :)  Here is just a glimpse of what we are doing on any given day.

(If you want a closer shot of the pictures, just click on them)

Just two of the sweetest kids I know.


On the left side we have our first attempt at Kai's haircut.  It was a failure because I refused to cut off his curls and he screamed the entire time.  All wasn't lost though because the kids got Slurpees at the end.  On the other side we have Ava and her lizard (she's been trying to catch one all summer and we finally found a half-dead one that couldn't move fast enough), Kai and his fascination with water, daddy's softball games, and Ava's friend "Whaley Whale".


Shark Reef Aquarium


A "Late Night" with good friends.  Ice cream, a movie, and a bunch of little girls.  What more could Ava ask for?


Children's Museum.  We had so much fun!  Both kids were fascinated by the miniature grocery story.  Ava loved running the cash register and Kai was thrilled to fill his basket with food.  When he tried to pick it up though, he was truly annoyed.  It's a good thing he doesn't handle the grocery shopping in this house.  Kai dressed up as Superman and Ava, of course, dressed up as a princess and they both showed us their moves on stage!


One night we had some friends over and the kids were playing so well upstairs!  Little did I know they had emptied the ENTIRE playroom into our gigantic tub.  I'm not even going to talk about how long it took to clean up.  Some other fun things that Ava has done lately is to have us all wear pig masks.  She loved it, but Kai refused to join in on the fun.  She is also going to dance every week with her friend Taylor and she really likes it.  The last picture is just the cutest thing.  During conference my kids actually sat down for a couple of minutes and watched President Monson.  It totally made up for them running around and screaming the rest of the time.

R.I.P. Mullet . . . . .

Kai had the cutest curls ever. I really loved them. What I didn't love is the fact that the curls made him be total business in the front and party in the back. It took us an unnatural amount of time to determine that the mullet really had to go. Randy just decided on Sunday night that it was time. We armed ourselves with a shirtless 17 month old, the highchair, some clippers, and a popsicle. Kai was terrified at first, but then decided he actually thought the whole experience was pretty cool. I may have shed a few tears. These are his baby curls people! He looks so darn cute though. As you can see by my impromptu photo shoot after the fact.

The before pics. Pictures really don't do it justice. If you need to link back to the Gaston ponytail, please do.

The Clipper Master:

The Process: At first Kai was terrified and then he decided it really wasn't too bad.

Yep. I'm picture happy. I really am bad at choosing pictures to NOT be in my blog. I'm really good at choosing pictures to make an appearance though. Of course, Ava wanted to be seen. Kai is laughing at Ava. He thinks she is the funniest thing on Earth.

The result: What a handsome little dude-man. I could just eat this kid up!

Random in Vegas . . . . . . . .

Sometimes I do a post that can only be described as random, but this time I got fancy and labeled it "Random IN Vegas."

The Bellagio has a conservatory that really is beautiful and fun to go see. The kids love it. They change it every season. I must say that Vegas does have some pretty good family stuff. A lot MORE stuff is geared towards LESS family-oriented things, but I digress. We made this trip with some friends and the kids had a blast.

Isn't it beautiful? Vegas really does have some original beauty . . .

And Vegas also has this . . . . It's really all about diversity and the unexpected.

One Saturday we also made a trip to Circus Circus. We thought it would be great. Well, it was hot, Ava went on one ride, and that was about it. Therefore, I have 2 pictures to document the excitement.

We have a very small lawn. In comparison to other yards down here though, it is really quite lush. It's a small job. You'll notice that Randy didn't even bother to take his work clothes off before this 3 minute endeavor. It's really not a 3 person job, but don't tell my kids that.

The first picture is a good example of what happens when you give a 1 year old a chocolate ice cream bar. The 2nd picture is what happens when a 4 year old goes to sleep in a tent with Curious George: A cozy sleeping spot with a monkey on your head.

And that is what you get when I decide to blog at 1:00 am. :)

Road Trip . . . . .

These kids . . . . . .

Happen to really like these People . . . . . .

Thus the reason for our last trip to Utah. It was a marathon trip too. We were there for almost 2 weeks. We were able to attend my cousin Braden's missionary farewell, play/work my dad's charity golf tournament, visit Fish Lake, and go to the Cougar's Home Opener. (I've got to be honest - the game was the main reason it was such a long trip).

In these top two pictures you'll notice Kai has a ponytail. My mom thought it was pretty funny. Randy didn't. To be fair, we thought it was less girly and more Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. What do you think? Kai also took matters into his own hands when it came to entertaining himself. We have his own bat, ball, and tee at home, but since Grandma Annie's house doesn't have one, he improvised with a vase, spoon, and practice golf ball. Genius. If I do say so myself.

Ava was, once again, in heaven when she found Abby to play with. Plus, this night was extra special because not only did she have Abby, but she also had corn on the cob. It just happened to be Mini Cheer while we were there so Ava joined in on the fun and became a little cheerleader for a week. She loved it. I loved it too because she was completely entertained for 1 1/2 hours every day we were there. Bliss.

We bleed blue. We're Cougar Fans. We love Bronco. We love Lavell Edwards stadium. This game was fun and exciting. The 2 quarterback system kept it pretty entertaining. BYU tends to get us all excited in the 1st game, then bring us back down a little in the 2nd game. We're hoping the 3rd game puts us on the upswing again. :)

My Kids + Playground + Grandma and Grandpa = Pure Joy

Ava managed to find the ONE muddy spot in the entire park and step right in it. For her, the initial reaction was devastation (pretty normal), but luckily she eventually found it funny. I love the top picture because it captures my kids so well. Ava: Always ready for a picture. Kai: NEVER ready for a picture and always moving.

Before you have kids, it's hard to imagine how your life will completely revolve around them. Life is filled with sippy cups, blow-up pools, playgrounds, and vacations to Grandma and Grandpa's. I love it.

Back to School, Back to School . . . . . . . . .

To prove to my daddy that I'm not a fool. Yep, I just quoted Billy Madison and I'm not even going to apologize for it. :)

I LOVE this time of year. We are headed into fall which is my FAVORITE season. It's nice to get a routine going now that the lazy days of summer are behind us. Ava started her new dance class yesterday and she couldn't be more excited. Of course Kai had to get in on the picture. Apparently I wasn't as worried about what he looked like as I was about Ava. Nice onesie and Spongebob crocs little man.



I told Ava to do a dance pose and this is what I got. Not sure which dance teacher taught her that pose . . . She's especially excited because she gets to go with her friend Taylor. Aren't they the cutest little girls ever?


Today was her first day back at preschool! She couldn't wait. Now she's going to be asking me every morning and night until next Monday if it's a school day. I can't believe she's getting so big! She is such a social butterfly and looks forward to anything that has to do with other kids and adventure.


She's 4 now. (Just ask her. She tells me on a daily basis). Apparently that means she is much older and is WAY more independent. She wants to do everything that big people do. That includes putting PB&J on her own toast. It makes the mornings go quite a bit slower and teaches me patience, but she is so proud of her accomplishments! She has the same darling teacher she had last year. She loves Mrs. "Hutchison"!


2 times a week I get to spend some one on one time with my little man. I'm excited about it, but he was super sad when I dropped Ava off at dancing and preschool. He misses her already, poor kid!