First day of nursery...

Ava is 18 months which means nursery time. Yeah for mom to not have to wrestle her all during church. She loved it and only got teary eyed a few times. Her leader said she really loved singing time, not surprising at all she loves when we sing at home.

It has become nearly impossible to take her picture these days, she knows that when you take her photo you can see it on the camera, so I used to count to 3 and she would give me a big cheesy grin. Now I start counting and she starts running to the camera to see her picture.



For some reason if she wasn't running she wanted to be a goat and eat her nursery picture.

Oh and just in time for mom to have her alone time in church, I got called to be a primary teacher. Way excited for my new calling and funny how things work, the lord knew that I couldn't wrestle a one year old and teach primary too.

Katrena's friend party, January 22nd

Katrena has gotten jipped on Birthday parties with friends the last few years, in 2008 we moved two weeks before from UT to AZ so she knew no one. In 2009 her one close friend had moved away, she had never had anyone over from school and none of the girls in the ward were her age. So we invited one friend from school to go do a fun activity and she couldn't. So I wasn't going to let that happen again. Although we just moved to CA 5 weeks ago I was determined to let her have a party and get to know some of the girls a little better. She invited 2 girls from our new ward Kristin (who she's had a couple of play dates with already) and Charity who she just really seemed to hit it off with. And then I told her she could either invite one more girl from the ward (mom's choice) or her new little best friend from school, Deann. She insisted that she invite Deann. I told her that Deann probably would not be able to come, because lets face it I've never met her mother, and if the situation was reversed my daughter wouldn't be going. But low and behold she came.

Katrena was in heaven all night long. She loved having friends over and just being able to be silly. They ate pizza and played tag, hide n go seek, they played dance, dance revolution, they played with Ava.

We played a crazy nail polish game, and we all had very funky hands afterwards. We even painted Ava's toes, she was so cute she would look at our hands and then point to her toes. she thought it was so cool that she had orange toes.



We had left over cake from her actual birthday, so she blew out candles on a small thing of brownies. They all decided that they wanted half a brownie, and half a slice of cake. They all loved the cake and had know idea there was zucchini in it.

Eating cake and ice cream, the girls didn't like spumoni ice cream. Crazy.

Charity, Deann, Katrena and Kristin

Opening presents

Finally around 11:30 I told them it was time to settle down and put a movie on or go to sleep, I hinted strongly that they go to sleep. 30 minutes later the 3 friends are asleep and Ava has decided to wake up and stay up till 4! At 12:30 I went in and told Trena to turn off the movie it was time for bed, she would have easily stayed up all night. (On a side note Trena was not moody the next day and never did take a nap, I on the other hand took a 3 hour nap and Ava took a 4 hour nap).

The next morning the girls got up at 8, so so did mom. I asked the girls what they wanted for breakfast and the vote was cereal and cinnamon rolls, so they had cereal and cinnamon rolls.

After breakfast we headed out back for the piniata. Trena has wanted a piniata for years at her birthday party, but lets face it January in Utah is not the time for a piniata. So this was the year.


When the piniata had busted and all the candy had been gathered, they destroyed that poor thing. Even Dad got in on the action, he thoroughly enjoyed bashing in Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus' face!


And then the fun was over and everyone headed home and Katrena and I started cleaning.

Thanks for coming girls and thanks for the presents. Katrena had a blast and was so glad that you could all come.

Oh the rain...

As you all know last week we got pounded with rain, enough that they closed Trena's school due to roads collapsing. People's homes were flooding and people had to be evacuated.

Anyways here are some photos of our back yard. The rock landscape in the back was flooded we said that Ava's little slide was a water slide going into the rock pool.

This area was completely flooded and looked like a swamp with the bushes, you half expected a crockodile to come out of the bushes.

So what do you do when there is all that rain...

We finger paint with pudding

And WE LOVE that we get to make a BIG mess!

And we get SUPER SILLY!

And then we decide to just dig right in and start eating

Knotts

The weekend before Katrena's birthday we decided to take advantage of our season passes and headed to Knotts for the day, and then we went to Trena's favorite place to eat for dinner after, Sweet Tomatoes. The closest one to our house is half way between our place and Knotts Berry Farms so it worked out great.

We had a fun time, the weather was great the sun was shining and then down came the rain. By the time we left we were soaked, especially Dad and Trena. They decided since they were already wet they would go on Big Foot Rapids and get even wetter. Crazy kids.

Ava is such an animal lover, I could totally see her being a veternarian one day, anyways when I was taking her on the merry go round I asked her what she wanted to ride and she picked the ostrich. This was the first time she ever sat alone on the animal, she's always been too afraid.

Katrena's Birthday...

Katrena was very disappointed that she had to go to school on her Birthday this year because she hasn't had to the last 3 years. She woke up to her first phone call of the day from Grandpa. And then mom let her go back to sleep for another 20 minutes while cinnamon rolls baked.




After she was already for school she got to open THE FIRST GIFT OF BIRTHDAY and she chose one from Grammy Ann which was a new shirt and head bands.

After school (and homework) we had lots of phone calls from all of her loved ones and one of her favorite meals, polynesian meatballs and rice.

While mom was on the phone with some of her birthday well wishers Trena and Ava played dressup.

And then we opened presents... she got a lot of fun stuff, shirts, magazine subscription, art stuff, money, gift card, joke book...



A new birthstone necklace, the stone fell out of her last one that Grandma and Grandpa Watts gave her and she was heartbroken, so Grammy Ann got her one for her birthday.

A new camera

A funky, fashionable skinny scarf made by mom (she didn't like it as much as I had hoped she would)


And just for cuteness here is Ava modeling the scarf a few days earlier (I got the pattern from one of my favorite blogs, Joy's Hope, you can find the tutorial HERE, this link will take you to all posts on the skinny scarf, the very bottom post is the start of the tutorial. I made mine slightly smaller since it was not for an adult.)



Obviously Ava saw a whole lot of this going on all night, so she was mimicking it


And then it was time for cake, again her favorite, chocolate zucchini cake. We have this every year on her birthday and this year I got in trouble because I made it without her.


After cake we watched Hotel for Dogs as a family, this was actually a cute show, and I will be honest I was kind of dreading it.

And then we sent the Birthday to her room to put on her p.j.s, after all it was now after 10 and past bedtime, but first we had to call her back to get all of her goodies out of the family room.

And what to her wondering eyes should appear...

Exactly what she wanted!!!

The perfect end to a perfect day!

Thank you for all of her wonderful presents, cards, and phone calls

We hope you had a Happy Birthday Binxie

Happy Birthday Katrena...

My Dear Sweet Katrena - It is so hard for me to believe that my beautiful, precious girl is 9 years old!!! I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday. It was one of the most amazing and terrifying days of my life. I didn't know that you could instantly love something, or someone so much, but I did. From the moment I saw you face and heard you cry, my heart was yours. I would have done anything in the world for you, and still would.

You are a very special lady and you make me very proud to be your mom. Here is a list of 9 things I love about you or that you did this last year that make me very proud:

1. I was so proud of you and your decision to be baptized, you looked so beautiful all dressed in white. I loved being in the dressing room with you after wards just the two of us and being able to talk about what had just happened.

2. You're a wonderful big sister, always willing to teach Ava new things. I know its tough sometimes, but she looks up to you so much and you are awesome with her.

3. What a brave and talented girl you turned out to be. Trying out for the talent show and performing in front of all those people and doing such an awesome job.

4. I love it when you sing, you have such a beautiful voice.

5. You're so compassionate towards others always worried about others feelings and always so willing to help all the little ones that are around. You will make a great mom someday.

6. You're a friend to everyone! It doesn't matter if they are 90 or 1, you're their friend and they love you.

7. You're always so willing to help others (well maybe not mom and dad so much :)) No matter where we are, church, school or someone's home; if they are trying to pick up or do something you're willing to jump right in and help.

8. My little artist, you love it all. I love watching you create, whether its paint, clay, sewing, drawing, or dance.

9. My little chatty cathy-you always have so much to say and so many stories to tell. Please don't stop sharing them with me. I love to hear all that you have to say, even when you think I am to busy, know that I am never to busy for you. I hope you will always consider me not only as mom, but as a friend too.

Thank you for being the special girl you are, our family would not be complete with out you.

Love,
Mama

P.S. Thanks for loving to watch old movies and snuggling with me too!

Christmas 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I know I used the wrong form of "no" on the slide show.

We had a wonderful Christmas, sleeping in till 9 and we were spoiled! I even got my mixer yipee! We had many wonderful phonecalls from family, and had our traditional cinnamon rolls for Breakfast. My cousing was serving his mission here in Apple Valley and came for Christmas dinner with his companion. We cooked and cooked. We had ham, sweet potato casserole, funeral potatoes, rolls, fresh fruit, broccoli salad, strawberry jello with strawberries and orange juice, mandarin tapioca salad, corn, veggies with dip and hummus, cheese ball and crackers, picco de gallo with chips, gingersnap cookies, apple pie with vanilla icecream, chocolate sheet cake with spimoni ice cream! Brent and I ate it for about 5 nights!!! Good thing it was all tastey.

It was a very memorable Christmas and although we missed all our loved ones we will never forget the first Christmas we spent alone, but together.

First Day of School, Take 2...

After 5 weeks of no school it was back to the grind this morning. Although we have enjoyed sleeping in greatly, it is good to be back to some kind of normalcy.

I find that as a mother, wife, professional errand runner and driver it is much easier to be productive when I start my day at 6:30 rather than 9!

I took Katrena to school so that we could find out the morning routine and where she needed to go, her teacher is extremely nice and there are only 6 other girls in her class and 13 boys.

The first thing she said when she got in the car after school was that she hated her school. I asked why and she said that she only made one friend, Diane, and that another girl was accusing her of trying to steal her boyfriend, my heck they are only in the 3rd grade! Later the verdict was that she likes the school, the teachers, librarian, office staff and cafeteria workers, she only didn't like the one girl and her boyfriend who were calling her names. Which opened up the discussion about jealousy and insecurity leading to being mean to other kids.

So I then asked her if the school she is supposed to go to calls this week does she want to transfer over or wait till the next school year and she said wait, so it couldn't have been too bad, we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Ava knows her body parts...

Check out our smart little monkey, she's been doing this for awhile now.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL6oTh6jqjI

The great Houdini...

She may look innocent



But she is not

This little Houdini refused to go to sleep last night, so I left her to cry it out while I went into the kitchen. All of a sudden I hear the crying stop and then start again as I hear her tearing down the hall. Yep, you guessed it she climbed out of her crib!!! I can't believe she figured it out already, however it is 4 months later than her sister. She grabbed a hold of her changing table that is about 9 inches to a foot away from her bed and pulled herself on top of it, she then climbed across the changing table and dropped into her laundry basket. I wish I could have heard her whole thought process.

So what time did she finally go to sleep since she woke up at 7 and took a 3 hour nap, 11:45!!!

Christmas Eve

I usually love Christmas Eve, but for some reason this year didn't feel all that Christmasey.

We spent the better part of the day baking and preparing food for Christmas day so that all I had to do on Christmas was stick the food in the oven. Now that was perfect.

Brent was able to get off work at lunch time and well he decided napping was what Christmas Eve was for, but at least Ava took a good nap with him.




Then Katrena and I went on a mommy daughter date to see The Princess and the Frog. LOVED IT!!! However, I could see how it might scare a younger child a little. Definitely a buyer when it comes out on DVD.

When we got back home we quickly made some soup and then we started our Christmas Eve traditions, first we took pictures under the Christmas tree and then made cookies for Santa, we played a game together and then read our traditional stories. Every year we have a stack of Christmas stories we read throughout the month of December, but we always save The Polar Express and Twas the Night Before Christmas until Christmas Eve. We also always make sure we read Luke chapter 2, this way we make sure that the real meaning of Christmas is brought home.

In the end the milk and cookies were set out by the fireplace and two beautiful girls were tucked into bed anxiously awaiting the arrival of Old Saint Nick, (we also had a visit from the tooth fairy as well that night), and the night well what can I say except that it was perfectly Christmasey.