So this Easter outfit reminded me of another great Easter outfit...

This great Easter egg hunt outfit worn by Ava:

Reminded me for some reason of another great Easter egg hunt outfit worn by her big sister Katrena at the age of 4.

Easter April 8, 2012

Easter was just plain fabulous all the way around this year, I don't think I've ever enjoyed the day and time with my little family more. Every thing just made me happy!

We started off the festivities with pizza and egg coloring on saturday night.
On Sunday morning I was awoken by a complete scream of delight as Ava realized it was Easter! I thought for sure she had already broken the rules and had gone to the kitchen table, but she had not she just remembered and screamed and shouted "Its Easter!" She then asked me where the bunny poop was and I had to explain that the house didn't get vacuumed yesterday and the Easter Bunny thought it was probably best not to leave any jelly bean poop around this year. Ava then quickly ran to wake her sister so that we could go see their Easter baskets. I made a mistake and used the camera instead of the video camera and I should have recorded it because Ava's comments were hilarious the whole day!

Here is their loot


Ava screamed and got excited over everything and I loved it, the hits were the spinbrush toothbrush and rainboots and gum! With everything she picked up she'd scream shout what it was and then say "I noticed it, I noticed it!" Trena was excited but slightly sad that hers wasn't funner. Although they cost about the same and its hard as your kids grow up. She was very excited about the 10th book in her favorite series though.


Gum, who knew right?
Next while we waited for our yummy baked french toast with apples and cranberries to finish bake the girls and I watched some beautiful videos put out by our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on YouTube about Easter. I explained the videos to the girls as it went along and answered any questions and Ava had a lot. I loved how when we got to church Ava was as excited to tell her teacher about the videos of Christ we watched as she was about the goodies in her basket. After we got home from church Ava had a few questions for Trena about death while they were playing outside and she didn't like her sisters answers because she came inside crying that she didn't want to die and didn't want her family to die. She kept this up off and on the rest of the night. She would just out of the blue say she didn't want to die or she didn't want me to die. Its hard to reassure your 3 year old you are not going to die when we have no idea when we will die.

After breakfast and videos we all got ready for church and I have to say I am just giddy over how cute my girls looked! There were so beautiful and radiant and I just love how these photos turned out!

I had to leave this cheesey one of Ava in and I love that I forgot to cut her tag in the first few photos.



And together! The first shot was a total keeper, that never happens!
My beautiful grown up Katrena



Then we were off to Church and my friends baby was blessed on this beautiful Easter Sunday. When we got home we all grabbed something to hold us over until our yummy Easter dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, broccoli salad, and carrots was done. While everything was finishing up cooking we headed outside for a backyard Easter egg hunt. Dad is very good at hiding those eggs, this year they had 32 to find.

The polk a dot wonder woman


Every time Ava would find an egg she'd wave it in the air and yell "Yeah," and then she'd say "I found a ______ one, yeah, a _______ one, yeah" inserting the color of the egg found. It was slightly snotty but super funny.





The great count showed 17 for Trena and 15 for Ava!
of course they then made dad hide them all again and the next time they tied with 16.

An Easter picture with my girls

When we got back inside Ava was very disappointed that I had not done my messages in the eggs asking them questions about Easter and having them do different things like sing their favorite primary song and then telling them to go look somewhere for something special from mom and dad. Mom was just a little bit of a slacker this year and we'll blame it on pregnancy. I felt really bad though because she remembered. So I took 3 eggs out and put places for them to go look and there was a prize for each of them and one for them together. I then hid the three eggs in the family room and had them go find it. They both got a soccer ball and a net to share.


They also had received cards in the mail from Grammy Ann and my mom as well as a package from Brent's mom so they opened those up and got those prizes as well. I think that all in all they had a pretty awesome Easter!

Baseball

Last Tuesday April 3rd just for fun while playing in the backyard the girls and dad decided to play baseball. All we have for "equipment" is a splash bat and a big (well it was big once upon a time, so a shrunken big) ball.

This was Ava's first time playing and she had so much fun! Here are some photos of Brent pitching her the ball. I absolutely love the joy on her face every time she makes contact with the ball.


Sister took over pitching and Dad gave her some pointers:

And then Trena pitched to dad:


And dad pitched to Trena, I didn't get many pics of Trena at bat because A) she would hit the ball and it was gone faster than I could take the picture and B) the kid was way too serious:


And then Ava started to pout that it was too hard:

So sister pitched, daddy took over with the camera and mom assisted:

It was such a fun 45 minutes and I found myself wondering why we don't take more opportunities to enjoy these simple but unforgetable moments!

Twice a week starting at week 26...

There is a plus minus to being a high risk pregnancy, the plus 2-4 doctor visits a week, the minus 2-4 doctor visits a week! While this makes the time go faster, it definitely means I spend a lot of time a the doctors office. As most readers of my blog know I had beautiful baby boy born still at the end of my 27th week of pregnancy; because of this at 26 weeks gestation I am monitored with NST's and BPP's twice a week. A plus here is I see my baby on ultrasound every Tuesday and Friday.

This is what I look like kicked back in the recliner for my NST:

The lovely machine:


My side kick:

She loves to see her brother on the ultrasound, and usually reads books, colors or plays on the tablet during my NST's. She is so good and patient. This particular day she was chatting it up with Grandma on the phone.


This is outside my perinatologists office:


In addition to all of this fun there is also a monthly growth ultrasound and regular OB visits too!!!

I am all done with growth ultrasounds as my last one is the day before my c-section so they just canceled it, but I am 37 weeks and still have 3 visits this coming week and 2 more plus having the baby the following week. It sure is getting exciting around here!

Stitches, take 3, although this time its Ava (3/5/12)...

On March 5th while watching a movie, Ava was dancing around during one of the songs and tripped and fell and hit her head on our rock fire place. Ava immediately started crying and I ran to her to find what looked like smeared chocolate on her forehead as all the blood rushed to the site. As soon as I got her to the couch it split open and the blood came gushing out pooling in her ear and hair (amazingly none got on anything else). This all happened right as the garage door opened and dad pulled in from work, he of course confirmed stitches were needed and we loaded in the car and headed back to dad's work. When we got there they knew that we were coming because Brent had called ahead and they had all the paper work ready to go and took us right back, another PA at the urgent care attached to Brent's family practice office quickly stitched up our brave little girl, dad didn't want to hurt his little girl and passed the buck to someone else. She cried harder when they numbed her and the first poke, but then she did great and was a super trooper! In the van on the way to the clinic Katrena was crying harder than Ava, I have to admit I loved that she was so upset that her sister was hurt. It truly shows how much they love one another!

I didn't get any pics of the bloody injury as I was too busy being mom. So here she is with a bandaid over the fresh stitches, and the blood all cleaned up right after we got home.

She was of course given stickers for being a brave girl, I love that she stuck them on her legs and refused to take them off for days! I had to scrub them with rubbing alcohol to get all the adhesive off.

They said to keep the stitches in for 3-5 days and being on the face we wanted to try and prevent scaring so dad took them out after 3 days. This is what the stitches looked like without the bandaid right before dad removed the stitches.



Once the stitches were removed Dad put steri strips on to help it heal even better.

And here she is now after the steri strips have fallen off

Florence Nightingale...

When I was three years old my Grammy Ann bought this cute nurses outfit for me for Halloween. Both of my sisters also wore this costume and so did my Trena bug, well for some reason and I have know idea why I forgot to have Ava wear it last year! So we had a fashion show and she dressed up with her play dr kit and dad's stethoscope.

Primary 3-11-12, Ava

Last week after church Ava came home with the monthly newsletter full of excitement because she was to give the scripture and prayer in primary, and has talked about it everyday this past week.

Today was the day and she did such an adorable job! I am so proud of her! She read Alma 37:35, my favorite part was when she tried to say youth and it comes out looth.

No picture because she ran in the door and quickly changed her clothes.

Baby Shower 3/3/12...

My sweet friend Mal gave me a baby shower yesterday, she went all out on food and decorations, it was adorable and fun and we had a great time just chatting as friends.

Ashley, me, Tonja, Rebecca, and Malarie with baby Harlee

Ava with Josie (Ashleys daughter) in Siena's room. Siena had gone to her cousins with her dad, mom decided she could only have one daughter there and be the hostess. Can't say I blame her.

The cute food table! We didn't get a photo until after we'd started eating but the frames had what each item was (and it was all delicious). There was veggies and dip, mini fruit pizzas sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting and diced strawberries, kiwi's and blueberries, then there was 7 layer bean dip individual cups with chips and an adorable cupcake stand with cupcakes in a jar with blue and green frosting.

Mal made this cute garland and subway art for the shower. The fabric used is actually the fabric that I am doing his "corner" in.

The subway art is a list of rock bands including two of his dads favorites: RUSH and Dream Theater.

Mal also made this ADORABLE bunting for me (again the fabric his "corner" is being done in), the ends are burp cloths, then there is a crinkle tag toy, bib and a onesie with a guitar appliqued on the front. LOVE IT! She also gave me another burp cloth, and a blanket and sleeper with guitar fabric as well.

Tissue paper pom poms out of the colors

Opening presents! Ava was my little helper, she was so excited and made me tell everyone how excited she was to have a little brother.

Funny side note, that morning as I was getting ready I told her I was going to go get in the shower and she asked why because I was going to be showering at Malaries house. I LOVE it.

Our fun goodies! My friend Ashley gave us one of those soft blanket stuffed animals that is a monkey. Totally fun because Trena gave one of those to Ava at the hospital when she was born too.

Me and my girls, I love this picture. Trena was my great photographer for the day, so she wasn't in any of the other photos.

I also forgot to mention Brent dropped by to check out all the fun, but I hadn't gotten the camera out yet. But I still want to remember how much it meant to me that he stopped by after his work meeting.

Crazy Ava, when we arrived at the shower she had a headband in her hair, a jean skirt on over her leggings and a purple, pink and white striped sweater. You can obviously tell how comfortable she is at Mal's house.

Another funny side note: we haven't officially picked out a name, but the one we are leaning towards is not Ava's first choice. So the other day I asked Ava what she wanted to name her baby brother. Ava looked at me and said well, Harlee is a girls name so I think we should name him Harlot!!! So there you have it folks According to the three year old our baby should be Harlot North!