Spring Break - Part 1

Since Easter marked the beginning of Spring Break for Ava, we decided to make a long trip to Utah to celebrate! (Seeings how our typical long trip to Utah will fall about the time Baby Boy will be making his entrance so we're nixing it this year). We all drove up on Thursday night, threw a fun bridal shower for Jessica, celebrated Easter with both families, Randy flew home and then the kids and I basically just hung out for a week in Nephi and St. George!! It was so fun and relaxing and we were sad to see it end!

Jessica's shower:  We had lots of yummy food and lots of fun company!  I have to point out that I am in NO WAY responsible for the craziness that ensued during the shower.  The middle picture may look a little scandalous with Jess's soon to be mother-in-law feeling her up.  Apparently the Brazilians do things a little different than we do!  :)  It was a BLAST to get to know Jessica's soon to be new family and learn some things about their culture.  We are SOOOOO excited for Jessica and Rob and can't wait until the big day! (Neither can they apparently - I told you engagement was rough Jess!)

My AMAZING mom, my beautiful sister Alecia, the soon to be blushing bride Jessica, and me (blossoming, expanding, glowing, whatever you want to describe me as) :)  By the way - I was about 27 weeks pregnant in this pic.  I LOVE my family!!  Of course, we have Miss Vienna making an appearance.  She wanted my camera and I took advantage of taking a picture of her gorgeous little face.

The most amazing and beautiful kids on the planet.  Have I mentioned how much I love them?  This was at the beginning of our Cuff Easter party!  Almost everybody was there and it was SOOOOO fun to catch up and chat with everybody!  We are the furthest away from everybody, so if we can take advantage of a get together, we are all over it!

The HUNT!  Grandma and Grandpa did a great job of putting together not just one, but TWO egg hunts.  They all got to hunt for all of their candy eggs and then they did a MONEY hunt!  My kids had a blast.  There were extra candy eggs and Kai seemed to be the one to take advantage of it because he hasn't completely mastered his counting skills. ;)

Cousins - cousins - cousins & Fun - fun - fun.  Ava and Kai were in HEAVEN!

My wonderful little family and AMAZING grandparents!

Grandma and Grandpa!!

We got to spend a FABULOUS weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Cuff in town! We had so much fun. We took lots of walks, ate good food, watched conference, went to the park and read LOTS of books with Grandma.   We all had a blast! Thanks for visiting. We can't wait until next time!

We all love being outside and Grandma and Grandpa were here at the perfect time to witness all of the ladybugs and butterflies.  The ladybugs would crawl all over Kai and he was fascinated by them.

Grandma and Grandpa insisted that Randy and I have a date night so my WONDERFUL husband got us Garth Brooks tickets!  YAAYYYYYYYYY! I was SOOO excited!  He found them on Craigslist for a good deal, we met up with a super sketchy guy at the box office and prayed that the tickets were real when we headed into the theatre.  Ha ha.  Well, not only were they real but they were in a private box and the show was FABULOUS!  It was literally just Garth and his guitar and we were fully entertained for 2 1/2 hours! 

The kids even painted their very own pots to put their strawberry plants in. Somehow we convinced Kai to add a color other than black to his pot. ;)  We always have fun with the grandparents in town and this was no exception!

Marching on . . . . . .

My kids do the weirdest things. Case in point - here they are dressed up like Mommy and Daddy and to the right is Ava dressed up like Fancy Nancy. If you look closely at the picture of Nancy on the book, I have to say she came pretty darn close to perfection!

We got to meet up with some of our favorite friends a few weeks ago!  Our families lived very close to each other in Vegas and we spent a ridiculous amount of time together.  They ended up in Arizona and here we are in Pahrump so when Raelynn called and said they would be in Vegas, we jumped on it and met up for a yummy dinner at Cafe Rio!  We got to catch up, the kids got to play, and we got to meet their sweet, new baby boy.

Ava with one of her favorite people in the world - her Papa (the only people that compare in favoritism are her other Grandpa and her grandmas!).  Also - an awesome picture of Ava and Vienna playing on the little piano (Vienna's favorite toy at our house).  What?  You're asking about the creepy doll that Ava is holding that is TWICE the size of Vienna?  Why that's Michael.  I try to ignore him, but he seems to be everywhere.  (Oh - and if you ask Randy, his name is Deshawn).  On the right we have Ava on her way to hat day at school.  She is growing up WAY too fast!!

St. Patricks Day.  Kai wouldn't touch the green pancakes and milk, but Ava was all over it.  Have I mentioned how much that girl loves her holidays?  The picture on the right is Randy showing them pictures of Leprechauns and researching the mischief they can get into.  At our house, that darn leprechaun turned our toilet water green and spilled Lucky Charms all over!  For the entire day, any time ANYTHING was out of place, the kids would come running and yelling about another mess the leprechaun had made. 

The other highlight of St. Patricks day was the rain.  Yep - we live in the desert so rain is a BIG highlight!  My kids dressed themselves up for the big outside adventure and played to their hearts content. 

Ava also got to go to a Dance/Cheer camp put on by some Young Women to raise money for girls camp.  She had a blast and is the cutest little dancer ever!  She also got to hang out with her friend Summer, which made her so happy.  If there's anything my girl loves more than holidays, it's friends. :)  Kai was a trooper sitting through the performance and managed to have a good time too!

Now I've saved the best for last.  My children have become magicians.  Like, real magicians.  If you don't believe me, just check out these pictures.  They are balancing/spinning a real basketball on a tiny pen.  (Uncle Sam may have helped a little bit).  They were THRILLED with this trick!  Last, but not least, picture proof that my children can take something as simple as a paper plate craft and completely transform themselves into real, live clowns.  True story. 

Baby #3!

Baby #3 is on the way and we are so excited!  24 weeks tomorrow and he is DEFINITELY a boy.  This pregnancy has been a little rougher than the other two, so we are glad to be on this side of it!  Tentatively, we have scheduled his debut for July 2.  The kids are THRILLED and want to kiss my belly and feel him move all of the time.  Ava is going to be an amazing big sister and she can't wait to take care of the baby.  Kai does everything his sister does, so hopefully he follows suit!  We are thrilled with this little blessing in our life and July can't come soon enough!!

Isn't he beautiful?  I'm pretty sure he has the same cute button nose as Ava and Kai.  We love him already! 

St. Geezy . . . . .

Okay - we spend a lot of time in St. George. We went a couple of weekends ago and got to spend time with BOTH sides of the family. I definitely didn't take as many pictures as I could have. I was too busy having fun apparently!! We got to go see Uncle Ryan's team play in the state basketball tournament and the games we saw were exciting heartbreakers! Such a fun time. I also got to go with my beautiful sister to pick out her wedding dress. Let me tell you this - if you think you've seen a beautiful bride before, you've got another thing coming. SHE.IS.GORGEOUS. Rob is one lucky guy. (And not just because he gets me as a sister-in-law) We also got to celebrate Miss Vienna's first birthday! I CAN'T believe it's already been 1 year. We love her and we LOVE having her around! We just can't imagine life without her.

Ava was SOOOO excited for the party.  It was at Noon and Ava asked every 10 minutes from the time we got up if it was time yet.  She helped blow up all of the balloons and was Alecia's right hand gal when it came to decorating.  One thing is for sure - she loves parties.

Papa with his three grandkids.

The night before the party was also really fun.  Kai fell off of a stool onto the concrete floor and we ended up in the emergency room with staples in the back of his head.  I was sick to my stomach because I have done this THREE times with Ava and every single time was MISERABLE.  It literally involved me dragging her kicking and screaming into the doctor and holding her down while she was completely terrified.  Seriously - I cannot explain how horrible it is to take her to the doctor.  Back to Kai - it ended up being pretty much the easiest thing we've ever done.  He was laughing and telling the nurses and doctors all of his knock knock jokes.  There was staff coming into our room just to check him out he was so darn cute!  He barely flinched when they did the shots and staples and moved on like it was just another day.

THEN we had to go get the staples removed a week later.  Once again - Kai barely flinched and whispered "ow."  Then moved on with his life.  Ava, on the other hand, started having a panic attack as soon as we walked in the room with the doctor and I had to calmly walk her out before she became a flight risk.  I feel so bad that she is so terrified of anything having to do with doctors, but I feel GREAT that it doesn't seem to affect Kai at all.  I'm sure I'll have more stories to tell on this subject at some point . . . . . . .

Last Saturday Randy and I took the kids to see the Lorax in 3D.  The movie was great.  We all loved it.  The kids got lots of snacks and popcorn and giggled the whole time.  The low point was about when the credits started rolling and Ava realized she had her 3D glasses ON TOP of her head.  I have no idea how much of the movie she watched blurry and fuzzy.  Poor girl had a bit of a nervous breakdown, but it passed quicker than I thought.  It's a good thing we shelled out the extra money for the 3D right? :)  Oh how I love my family.  They keep me on my toes and I always have lots of stories to tell!