December Adventures . . . .

We've lived in Las Vegas long enough that my kids are fascinated by rain.  They love it and Ava always wants to be right in it.  Honestly, she'll take any excuse to put on her pink rain boots, pink coat, and use her pink umbrella.  She's such a girl. 

We had the opportunity to go to a nursing home with Ava's preschool.  All of the kids sang and it was so great.  I prepared Ava for it by telling her that she was going to be singing Christmas songs to lots of Grandmas and Grandpas to make them happy.  Of course, being my curious girl, she wanted to know who's Grandma's and Grandpa's these people were.  I tried to tell her that I didn't know, but she was determined to find out.  On the way to the nursing home, I listed off a lot of random names of "grandkids."  She was satisfied with that.  Kai of course jumped in on the action.  They gave all of the people gingerbread men they had colored.  It was really sweet and Ava is a darn good little performer.  She also got to spend a lot of time with two of her favorite girls in the whole world, Miss Jolee and Miss Taylor. 

Randy would have preferred that I not publish this first picture, but I really couldn't resist.  Poor kid.  This just comes with having a big sister!  On another note, I heard Kai by the Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago and went in to get after him.  When I walked in I saw him kissing each and every ornament.  It was so cute!  These kids really loved our Christmas tree.  There are quite a few broken ornaments to prove it. 

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.

From Random Blog

From Random Blog

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.

From Random Blog

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.