Lunch with Trena

Today we went and had lunch with Trena, we surprised her with a $5 footlong from Subway (drinks and chips from home). I love that I never tell her I am coming, I just show up, that way she is not disappointed if we can't make it. We always go outside afterwords and hang with her and her little friends. This time while we were out there, Cindy from the office came walking by with a box, they had found two little baby bunnies under the slide, so we got to take a peak. They had been burried under there, probably by there Mama to keep them safe. I love being able to go spend her lunch time with her and I am so thankful the school allows this.

I actually remembered my camera today so here is a picture of my girls in the lunch room.

Sweetness

I just wanted to share this cute picture. We were in Sunday school and Ava was sitting on the floor and some of the other more mobile kids wandered over to visit with her they are all 15 mths or younger and they sat and played so good, even during the closing prayer. There was no pushing or hitting, or toy stealing. I realized I had my camera in my bag (not sure it was appropriate, but Sunday School was over), so I whipped out the camera and took a picture.

Taven and Ava are in the back, and Isabel and Grace are in the front.

Link to "new" older post:
Science Museum, Take Two

Ava Lulu is 9 months old!

Ava once again ripped a part the paper and then proceeded to cover herself up. You'd think she thought she was at OB's or something, or is extremely modest!

4/24/09

Ava's 9 Months Stats:
Weight: 18 lbs, 3 oz (25th to 50th percentile)
Height: 28.25 inches (75th to 90th percentile)

No, that is not her name, but for some reason that is what both Brent and I call her. I love it, and I would have never thought that I liked the name Lulu. We still love her middle name, classy and beautiful Angeline, named after her Grandma Joyce, but we think this is a cute nickname. Ava also guys by Avie, Avers, love bug, lil' sis, and little bit (same as her sister), just to name a few nicknames.

I am constantly amazed at how fast our little one is growing up. It seems like it was only a couple of months ago that the nurse was holding her little face up to mine in the operating room so that I could get a look at her before they took her away. I remember thinking how beautiful she was and asking Brent if he was taking pictures, no fear he took a ton.

Its been fun to watch the way she has changed over the months. She is spoiled and is still rocked to sleep every night. I did the same thing with Katrena, I don't think it hurts them any. She went through a period of time were she would put her fingers in her mouth to soothe herself back to sleep, now she finds her binky. She used to wake up crying and hungry and now she wakes up talking and playing. It used to be that when we would go in her room to get her she would raise her head really high and you would see her little eyes over the bumper pad, she looked like a little crockodile. She would then start bouncing her head up and down very excitedly. Now when we go in to get her she is sitting up. She still takes a nice long 3 hour nap everyday (well almost every day, there are days when she will barely nap at all). When she is tired she scratches behind her right ear, and rubs her eyes. And as she is falling asleep she plays with the hair on her head. She loves to be sung to and to not only be read too, but to look at books on her own. She still isn't crawling but does what we or I call the Sidewinder to get around. She will be sitting up, lays on her stomach, and then twists herself up to a sitting position, she does this over and over until she gets where she wants to go. She can make it all the way around the living room.

We are so very thankful for the joy she brings to our family every day.

Some of Ava's 9 month milestones are:
3/25- 3rd tooth, upper right
3/29- scoots on her butt
4/4- successfully puts cheerios in her mouth.
4/5- started crying when I left the room
4/8- started showing signs of stranger awareness.
4/10- able to sit up on her own from a laying down position.
4/15- cut 4th tooth, upper left.
4/17- pulls things overhead, example: shirt, bib
4/17- got on her hands and knees on her own.
4/23- pulled herself to a standing position. (and I actually had the camera right beside me!)

My first sucker, I am not so sure about this

ok, maybe its not so bad

Just for cuteness

First time falling asleep in her high chair

Trying to figure out how to get the balls out of there

Crocodile Eyes

With mom on Easter

Cute little hiker

Almost ready to stand, but not quite there

I stood up and everyone was freaking out, I am not really sure what all the excitement is about!

Link to Ava's 8th month post

Guess who tried out and made the talent show...

I just want to say how proud I am of Katrena. She was going to try out with a bunch of girls from her class this week for the talent show. They were going to dance the Hoe Down from the new Hannah Montana movie. On Monday I showed up after school for tryouts and Katrena informs me that three of the other girls were not going to do it now, so it was just her and her friend Sarah. I then said are you sure you want to do this then, and she assured me she did. Sarah's mom was asking her the same thing, and she wanted to as well. I then asked if anyone had the music and Sarah said she had the CD, so that was good. The girls then preceded to try out. They were the very first ones to try out and for having only practiced at recess, they did pretty well. On Thursday when Trena got to school she went to the office first thing to find out if she had made it, and she had. When she got home, I said "So...?" And she responded with "How much did you lose?" I started laughing and said "No, did you make the talent show." She excitedly told me that she did and how excited they were. I then said "Well, you might be needing this to practice then." And I gave her the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack. She was very excited, I got lots of kisses and thank you's. We then had to tell Dad, and call Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Karey. She will be having practice every day after school for two weeks prior to the talent show, crazy! They take this stuff seriously here! I can't wait to see her perform. I am so proud of her for having the courage to get up there and tryout and to perform in front of all the parents and other students.

(On a side note, Trena doesn't know this, but I being the mother that I am I had called the school that afternoon to be forewarned if she had made it or not. This way I would know if we needed a consolation prize and lots of love, or the CD and lots of love.)

Science Museum, take two

My family, My happy place

We absolutely LOVE the Science Museum and wanted to go there again before we move. One of the best things about the Science Museum, is that you are learning so much, while having fun, and its not just for kids there is so much for you to learn as an adult. I highly recommend you go there. So through our library system we were able to "check out" 4 free tickets to Arizona Science Museum. We were so glad to be able to go again, there were even new exhibits since we were there last September: The physics room and another room that I am not sure what it was called, but it seemed to have to do with the mind, why we do things, thought process, etc. Also the water fountain wasn't working last time, but was today. Ava also was able to appreciate the things around her a little more (last time she wasn't even 2 months, pooped on mom twice and threw up, this time she just threw up and on Dad, not mom).

Here are some photos of our fun afternoon:

What can I say, I just love this photo.

Hard at work in a construction area. We definitely see and hear enough of this these days at our place.

The girls playing in the home building room.

This is a concentration type activity were you are both concentrating on this ball and you are trying to move it towards your opponent.

You were supposed to put a baby or small child on this table and they wold be too scared to go to the other side because of the depth perception (this was in the mind room), this did not bother Ava at all! She would gladly go after my keys. I was slightly surprised that it didn't bother her, because she loves to throw things off her high chair and then look over the side for them.

Katrena was so looking forward to wheel chair racing against Dad again.

Teaching moment in the Physics room. I love moments like this.

Katrena and this other little girl playing tug a war against 5 little boys, the girls won every time. The reason for the girls kept winning (they were in the physics room) the ropes were tied to a tall tower type thing only the girls side was tied at the top and the boys was more towards the bottom. They all knew why the girls kept winning, but those boys were still determined that they could beat the laws of physics and beat the girls.

Brent lying on a bed of nails in the Physics room.

In the physics room Trena pulling herself up with a rope. There were three of these, hard, harder and hardest. She could do the hard by herself, needed help at the end of harder, and hardest it took both of us.

Brent pulling himself up with a rope.

Ava loved this game, and would have gladly sat here all day, it was so fun watching her try to catch the ball. Every time she would knock it out of the way this little girl would grab it away and put it back (Brent and I would just look at each other each time she did this, with a half smile, a shrug, and a who knows). She did not want Ava to play this game. Ava would catch the ball every once in awhile, and one time this other girl yanked the ball right out of her hand (mind you there were four of these balls being blown up in the air, so Ava was not monopolizing it), I had to politely take the ball back and tell the little girl that Ava could play with the ball. I then looked around to see were her parents were, I couldn't find them. This girl was like 4 or 5, definitely should not be left alone.

This was in the physics room as well. We spent a lot of time in here because we had not done any of it before.

Katrena in the elements room. She pretty much played in the sand while I listened to a presentation on volcano's and dad fed Ava. There was nothing new in this area, but we again watched the show about the different types of weather/elements, and it is just really neat to experience.

Mom and her girls.

Dad and his girls.

Aunt Karey's here, Aunt Karey's here

We love our Aunt Karey and we were so happy that she came and spent her spring break with us. She is 15 and there is the same age difference between her and Trena as Trena and Ava, so that is kind of interensting to see. She was with us from 4/8 to 4/13 and there were tears when she came (Ava) and tears when she left (Trena and myself). Brent was so cute too, he made the comment on Friday that he felt bad that she was here on vacation and we hadn't done anything special. So we tried to pack Saturday full and of course Sunday was Easter. It was a BIG test week for Brent so everyone understood. She had her first in-n-out burger, went to baby time with Ava, swam with Trena, went grocery shopping, watched a movie a day, went to the New Hannah Montana movie as well as everything else that got its own post. I hope she had a good time because we sure loved having her here with us.

I love this photo of Trena

Easter Dresses...

My absolute FAVORITE photo of the day!!!

I thought the girls Easter Dresses deserved a post of their own. It must be the age, but it was harder to get a real smile out of Katrena than Ava!

Our Family

The Girls with Aunt Karey

Our Beautiful Girls in Pink

Ava deciding she would rather eat grass than take any more pictures

Big Sis telling Little Sis to not eat or grab the grass

Big Sis

Lil' Sis

Lil' Sis again

Aunt Karey

New OLDER Posts:
Conference Weekend, Click here to read all about it
Pennies for Patients, Click here to read all about it
Easter egg hunt at Midwestern, Click here to read all about it
Geo Caching, White Tank Mountain, and Tandori Times II, Click here to read all about it

Easter 4/12/09

We had a rushed Easter morning, we all slept until 8. So we quickly looked at our Easter baskets and got ready. Ava had a rough night and was up for about 3 hours in the middle of the night, luckily after the first hour Brent took over and I went back to sleep. After church we arrived home to the ducks outside our apartment, we didn't take any photos but Brent ran upstairs and found some old bread and we took a moment to feed the ducks. After this we walked over by the club house and took a ton of Easter photos (post to follow).

Here are some Easter morning photos:

Easter baskets: Trena, Karey, and Ava. Brent's is the boring one in front.

Katrena with her Easter goodies

Ava with her Easter goodies

Girls and aunt Karey.

Trying to convince Dad to get up and get ready for church

No Photos but we had a yummy but simple Easter dinner. With there only being the four of us and Trena doesn't eat much I didn't want to over do it and eat leftovers for a week. As it was we had left overs 3 nights. We had a Ham that I cooked in the crock pot with pineapple and apricot preserves, and a little brown sugar. It turned out pretty good and was pretty healthy. We also had funeral potatoes, they just go with ham to me; however I did make them with fat free cheese and fat free sour cream to make them slightly healthier and you couldn't taste a difference. For our vegetable we had broccoli and cauliflower, and for dessert chocolate pie in a grahm cracker crust (also made low fat). I think we did okay for our first Holiday dinner with out going to our parents or grandparents house.

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That night after dinner we had an Easter Egg Hunt, Brent went over to the college and hid the eggs around campus. The girls, including Karey, then hunted for eggs. We had a lot of fun, and I loved that Brent took the time to make it fun. The first egg we couldn't find forever, he hid it on top of the covered parking at the apartments. Trena got it down by climbing on Karey's shoulders. The other eggs were hidden in the pavilion, by one of the classroom buildings, in front of the library, and by the water out front.

Here are some photos from the Easter egg hunt:

Ava found the first egg of the hunt


Katrena finding an egg

Karey and Trena racing to find an egg, Karey obviously won

Sadly, I didn't get Trena on Karey's shoulders, but she obviously needed help reaching the egg up there.

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Katrena got a bird house in her Easter basket (or by it). Her and Karey painted it white and put pok-a-dots on half of the roof, then Trena took over painting the rest. Brent says it will attract hippie birds.

Here are some bird house photos:

Painting the bird house white

Love the intense concentration here

The finished project side view

We kind of spaced decorating Easter eggs, even though I had bought everything to do it. Oh well, next year maybe my brain will be a little more intact.

We had a wonderful Easter holiday together as a family and again we were so glad aunt Karey was here to share it with us. We are already looking forward to next years fun!

I just had to end on this note. My daughter is one unique creature, it is Easter sunday, she is wearing Halloween socks and she watched a Christmas movie today. Gotta love her!!!