Fantastic Weather . . . . . . .

We all went to the playground last Saturday. Ava gets so excited you'd think we were headed to Disneyland! The weather was wonderful and the kids had a blast. Ava always wants to take Kai on the slides and without fail, it's a fun time, and then Kai gets hurt. At least it's toughening him up! They both love to swing and Kai giggles the entire time. Even more than swinging, Ava loves to push Kai. I have to remind her over and over to not push him too high but she can't grasp the concept that there is such a thing as "too high." We had so much fun at the playground and intend to soak up every bit of good weather until the dreaded summer hits. (I'm calling it the dreaded summer because I'M dreading the heat).







We ended the night with "movie night." Ava said we didn't need popcorn and that it could still be a good movie night without it. Alrighty then. We watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and it was a pretty darn good flick.

A few thoughts . . . . .

Ava thinks that ANYTHING can be fixed with tape. Anything.

Why is it that even though I know my children are going to wake up in the middle of the night AND early in the morning, I STILL stay up to watch something that I've seen forty times. In this case 50 First Dates. It is a good one. (By the way, Kai has begun sleeping 8-10 hours at night consistently. Finally.)

I really wish that Kai could climb down the stairs. He gets up them so fast, but it about gives me a heart attack every single time because the only way for him to get down is to fall. Quickly. It ends up in tears. For both of us.

Why does Kai always end up crying when he's playing with Ava? Every time I go to see what happened she is mysteriously all the way across the room with a blank expression on her face. Hmmmm . . . . . .

Ava better be careful because one day Kai will be bigger and stronger than her.

I love 9:00 church. My days of naps are long gone with my rugrats around, but we can still hang out in our comfy Sunday clothes and spend the whole day together. Love it.

I love football. Really, I do. My husband REALLY loves football. A lot. He honestly gets sad at the end of the season. He's never been overly emotional (understatement), but the end of football seems to pull on his heart strings.

Does my husband look like Tony Romo? I'm not gonna lie, he gets it ALL THE TIME!









Funny thing is, we don't like the Cowboys. At all.

Fun Family Times . . . . .

My family came down this weekend and we had SOOOO much fun! Basically, we ate, watched sports, played games, and ate! :) We also decided to fit in some golf and miniature bowling. As far as golf goes, we did find out that of all the children, Robert is by far the superior in that department. Miniature bowling was a blast. It was small lanes, small pins, and small balls and Ava was in heaven. Even when there were no pins to bowl with, she continued chucking the ball down the lane. She was entertained for so long, which was a good thing considering it took a good 1 1/2 hours to get our nasty food. Just sayin'. :)

Ava had a birthday party at preschool last week and she has been begging me to make cupcakes for all of her friends. Well, we don't have a lot of friends down here. Really, we don't have any, so I had been putting it off. When I told Ava that everybody was coming to visit she said, "I know! We can make cupcakes for Grandma Annie and Papa!" So we did! We made some tiny ones and they were so cute!


Kai got a hold of a piece of licorice and instead of taking it away, I decided to strip him down and let him have at it. He loved every second. I posted a video of this to show his delight.


Just hangin' out.







Here's Robert helping Ava with her swing. He's a darn good golfer and I see a State Champion in this kid's future.

Here's how Kai enjoyed the day of golf.

Here are the miniature bowling pics. It was so much fun and I posted a video of this too. Kids can be entertained by the darndest things.





Lunch at Sammy's Pizza. The. Best. Food. Ever. Come visit us. We'll take you there. They brought us a huge thing of cotton candy for dessert and Ava was loving it. Kai loved it too. I know this because I caught his aunt's sneaking it to him.



AWESOME Grandma Annie and Papa. These kids sure love you!

Uncle Robert. Pretty much the coolest uncle ever. Ava said to me the other day, "You need to call Robert and tell him to bring a football." So I did. Then she said to me, "I need a pink umbrella. I know! Call Robert and he will bring it to me!" And he did. :)

This one is random. We went to Home Depot after we ate and you would have thought we were in Disneyland. Kai thought he was such a big boy. As if a car cart isn't fun enough by itself, stick your little brother in there with you and it is the best thing ever!


Thanks for coming to visit us! We love you all!

This morning in Vegas . . . .

Well, we are all moved into Vegas. For the most part. I am procrastinating digging into the office boxes, but besides that we're pretty much moved in. We're liking it a lot. Unlike Utah, where 4 neighbors brought cookies within the first few hours of us moving in, I haven't met a single neighbor. Everybody pretty much keeps to themselves which is fine. We're excited about getting to know the ward and meeting some people down here. The weather is PERFECT right now. Mid 60's for the last week. We are taking full advantage of it. There is a fantastic park near here that Ava LOVES and we have taken a lot of walks. I got Ava into a fantastic preschool nearby that pretty much fell into my lap and I'm so grateful for that. She is loving our new house and everything that comes with it. Yesterday she said to me, "Mom, this is a beautiful home that we can eat in, play in, have snacks in, read books to Kai in, and go to preschool! I love it!" We went to "In N Out" the other night for dinner and Ava was so upset because she wanted to eat dinner at her house. Ava dropped my camera a few weeks back and broke it. I sent it into Panasonic to see if by some miracle they would replace it. Voila! I received a new camera in the mail yesterday and I tried it out this morning. Here are a couple of the pics:

This picture is the result of what happens if you sneeze while eating bananas. I'll spare you the picture of what I looked like. :)


Here's Ava all ready for preschool. She kept saying, "Mom, check the clock. We're going to be late and all of the kids are going to leave!" We just started doing her hair in braids and she loves it.

C'mon Jazz . . .

Really c'mon. Give us something to cheer for. Anyway, we were able to all go to the Jazz game before the big move and it was so much fun. About halfway through the second quarter I didn't think there was any way we were going to make it through, but surprisingly, things got better and we made it through to the end! Ava had a blast and Kai could not get enough of the noise and sights!




There are two things on Kai's mind in this picture: Basketball and Drool. Actually, probably just basketball because the drool seems to come about without Kai being aware of it at all.


Ava collecting confetti after the game. When I saw her do this, I had a flood of memories come to me. I used to do the EXACT same thing after Jazz games when I was little. Why do little people think it's so cool to collect stuff like that? Ava said it was "beautiful" confetti and I'll bet you my mom was cleaning that beauty out of her car for a while.

I just had to add this picture in. While we were in Vegas a few weeks ago, we saw this car ahead of us. I immediately started sounding it out and of course came up with "Gotta go." My husband, on the other hand, who tends to be a bit sports-minded, thought that it said, "Go Tag - Double Zero." Any Ostertag fans out there? I pretty much thought this was hilarious.

Christmas . . . .

We had such a fabulous Christmas this year. When little ones are around, it makes the Season so magical! Ava was so excited to have Santa come to our house on Christmas Eve. She was scared to death of him and wanted nothing to do with him when she actually saw him, but she was completely cool with him breaking into her house in the middle of the night. We tried to teach Ava about Baby Jesus as much as possible but I never really thought it sunk in. Then one day she said to me, "Mom, do you know Jesus was married?" I was a little confused. After a minute I said, "Do you mean Jesus and Mary?" "Yes! And they were at a farm." Hence, the manger I'm assuming. Her last comment was, "Mom, Dora was there with Jesus and Mary." Hmmm . . . . At least she seemed to understand something about the reason for the season!

Christmas Morning


Ava showing off the cookies that Santa ate

Opening Presents. The kids were thrilled! And yes, Kai loved the paper more than anything. Ava, on the other hand, has definitely come to realize that it's what's INSIDE the package that counts.



Ava finally got her Princess Camera. It was the only thing she really asked for and she was so happy with it! It says things like, "Smile! You're as Pretty as a Princess!" Sometimes I have her take pictures of me to give me a confidence booster. :)


No, this is not a stroller for Kai. It's a stroller for Ava's dolls. Does anybody have any question at all as to why this is a replacement for Ava's broken doll stroller? Randy? Can you help me out with that?

The darling jacket Ava got from Grandma Annie and Papa.

Christmas Day Kai started pulling himself up on all of the presents. He is now officially crawling everywhere and I can't keep track of him!

We even got to see Grandma and Grandpa Cuff! Ava got an awesome Kid's Encyclopedia that we have spent a lot of time looking through. She also got a Princess pillowcase and of course, a matching pillow for Carson. Grandma Cuff really knows what she's doing!



A couple of days after Christmas my dad got the snowmobiles out. I was in the house and Ava ran in and yelled to me, "Mom! Papa's getting the sleds out!" It was hilarious. She had SOOOOO much fun on the snowmobiles. I went outside to check on them and couldn't resist getting on one myself. I had soaking wet hair and by the time I went inside, my hair was practically icicles!