Our summer camping trip

It was the last summer weekend before school and we'd promised Mayah all year that we would go camping, fishing and the whole shebang! We figured we better not break that promise. We didn't really have any camping gear other than two sleeping bags and a lantern, so we went out the night before and bought a tent, another sleeping bag for Mayah, cooking pans and the food needed to make s'mores, pancakes, tin foil dinners, and all the camp-friendly snacks we could think of. We also got online, so Clint could get a fishing license and find a good campground.We decided to stay close to the city and ended up at a place called Two Rivers. After a 30 minute drive, we came to our destination, which was surprisingly clean, green and looked like fun. There were lakes for fishing, sandy beaches for swimming, playgrounds, and plenty of campgrounds. They also have this group of cabooses that have been decommissioned from the Union Pacific Railroad that people can rent and camp in. We found a spot close to the sandy beach and playground and got started setting up the tent.While it was really Mayah's camping trip, Ava had a blast. Both girls made friends on the playground and enjoyed the swings. They each got to eat a hot dog and make a s'more before bed. Mayah gave fishing a shot for one of her first times. Didn't catch any fish, but she got better at loading the bait (night crawlers) and casting.It was hilarious watching Ava roll around as we finally laid down for sleep. She was giggling and climbing all over us. It's the first time we've let her sleep right between us. After a while, she settled down and went right to sleep.In the morning, we made a pancake and egg breakfast and relaxed a bit on our lawn chairs before breaking down camp and hitting the road back home. It was a fun time that I'm sure we'll all remember.

Our long over due post of our trip to San Diego

Since Mayah spent most of the summer with her Dad in Utah, Ava hadn't seen her in almost 5 weeks. She was so happy to have her back that she didn't want to leave her side for one second! It was so cute to watch our two girls reunite in San Diego.

Trip to the beach

Clint and Mayah wave jumping

Ava and Grandma Darcy
We all thought that Ava might be a little timid around the waves, but we should have known better. Ava has little fear of anything. She just went charging right out there as excited as possible!

Mom and Mayah posing as usual! Our suits match, cute huh...

Clint and I just before I went out and tore those waves up

We tried to get Ava free of sand for the drive back to the hotel. This required removing her swimsuit completely..... would you look at those cheeks?

We all had a really good time while we were there, it almost didn't last long enough. It was nice to spend time with both sides of the family all at once, and of course to see some old friends as well.

Our girls trip to Vegas!

Farewell my old friend!

As I take a big step in my life toward eternal happiness I am forced to say goodbye to my favorite article of clothing. This week I'll be going into the Temple for the first time, which means I will be wearing a garment after that. For anyone who reads this and is not familiar with the LDS garment... it is a type of modest under clothing that is worn to remind us of promises we've made to God, and is symbolic of Adam and Eve covering up in the garden of Eden. We believe they'll help protect us from temptation, and be an outward symbol of an inward commitment. The downside is that it does limit certain clothing choices available to the rest of the world.

Tank tops in the summer were always essential for me....especially since I have never thought much of wearing shorts. I have been trying to slowly work them out of my wardrobe for the last year, but still wear them on occasion. As of this coming Thursday I will have to say good bye to tank tops forever...I will be a garment wearing LDS girl!! As my good friend Serenity says "it is a small sacrifice for heavenly blessings," but in the heat and mugginess of summer, as I feel multiple layers of clothing sticking to my body it may be hard to think of it as a small sacrifice! I will do my best to stay positive about it and try to remind myself that I am setting an example for my girls to follow, and in the end it will all be worth it! So at this time I will have a moment of silence as I say farewell to my old friend--you will be missed!

Ava's First Birthday

For Ava's first birthday we just had a simple get together with Clint's best friend Justin and his wife Brianna, Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Rudy and of course her best friend /sister Mayah, Mom and Dad. She was completely unaware of the fact that it was her birthday but very excited when a GIANT cupcake (seemingly twice the size of her) was placed in front of her and no one stopped her when she slowly dug her little fingers into the frosting! She didn't really eat any of it, just played for awhile and then wiped the remaining frosting where she could. After singing Happy Birthday, she finished destroying the cake then went in for a bath before opening presents... I think she thoroughly enjoyed each gift. As Ava is always looking up to big sister, she wanted a piano...simply because Mayah got one from Grandma Brenda for her birthday! So of course Grandma Brenda also got one for Ava and she plays it everyday! Her favorite note is "yellow". She got her very own cell phone which was a huge hit when we visited Grandma Darcy and Grandpa Mike in Utah. All of the older girls, including Mayah, were fighting over whose turn it was to play with Ava's cell phone. She also received a magnet set and a slew of clothes...all in all, I'd say she had a good day!

I thought it would be fun the add some of the tricks Ava can do at her year mark...

• She can wave (a pageant wave) hello and good bye
• The itsy bitsy spider
• Head shoulders knees and toes
• Paddy cake
• blow kisses
• give high five
• play peekaboo
• tell you what a fishy says
• Ava loves to play games and is pretty much always in the mood to laugh. She will let you know she wants to laugh by doing this forced laugh out of no where and will keep doing it until you start playing with her.

• My personal favorite at this moment is this funny face that she makes and does pretty often now because she knows that we find it hilarious. It's kind of like the wide eyed, open mouth look when McCaulley Caulkin screams into the mirror on Home Alone.
  

Kitty Lee Dance Recital

After 6 months of hard work and early Saturday mornings we finally got to see the fruits of Mayah's labors. We went to Burke High School in Omaha to watch Mayah and at least 100 other dancers from the Kitty Lee Dance Company perform. Upon arrival, the whole school was rigged to extract every last penny from would-be spectators. They had carnations, roses, purses, ribbons, hair bows, and miscellaneous other souvenirs that deserving little girls just couldn't resist. What better way to show support and recognition for their efforts than to spoil them with armfuls of the stuff when they finished?


Then we entered the auditorium to learn that all video taping and photography was banned. Of course they had their own "professional" version of the tape that you could buy for a mere $45, which of course wouldn't zoom in on your kid, and would include all of the other performances in the very lengthy recital. Needless to say, and as evidenced by the videos in this post, we are not the type to passively follow those kind of rules. The first video was a pretty shaky and the angle was a little too wide to see much of Mayah. At that point, Clint was still trying to hide the fact that he was video taping and didn't spend much time actually looking through the viewfinder... but we got braver on the second song, and ended up zooming in and following Mayah a little closer. If you can't tell, Mayah is the front girl on the far right for the tap dance, and the middle girl in the right column for the ballet number. Once again she was the shortest in the group...but living up to the award they gave her, she was by far the "most adorable dancer."


She said she was feeling some butterflies before the performance, and wasn't so sure about performing in front of about 500 people...but in the end she LOVED it, and said she didn't want to get off that stage. She loved having fancy hair and make-up, and I have a suspicion she'll be anxious to do it all over again in the fall.


We were sure proud of our little Mayah, and I couldn't help the tears from streaming as I watched her. How cute is my kid?

Happy Father's Day Clint!

Today Mayah, Ava and I woke up at 7:00 am, made cinnamon rolls & scrambled eggs, poured a glass of milk and went upstairs to surprise dad with breakfast in bed. Mayah and Ava also presented him with their Father's Day gifts. Ava colored a wonderful masterpiece for him and Mayah wanted to spend some of her birthday money to buy him a pair of swim trunks that she had overheard him say he liked. Here is a picture of the three of them this morning.


I just wanted to take a minute and express my appreciation for Clint and the kind father he has been to our girls, and the wonderful husband and friend he has been to me. He loves to play with both the girls and is good at spending quality time with them. He has a way of taking an every day thing and making it seem like something extremely exciting and out of the ordinary. For example one night Mayah was saying she was bored and wanted to go some where and do something. Clint told her that he had something planned for all of us... We were going to have a big sleep over in the living room with blankets and pillows on the floor, popcorn and a movie. Mayah was so excited and we weren't really doing anything different other than the fact that we had blankets and pillows on the floor. Clint is always willing to change a diaper, and get up with Ava in the middle of the night even though he has to be up early for work. I don't know too many guys that are willing to do those things, and he does it without complaint! He is generous and a hard worker. He sacrifices a lot and works hard just so that I can stay home with the girls, and that means more to me than I can ever express to him. Clint is so patient with me and that (I hate to admit) is not an easy thing to do. I can tend to have a short fuse. He is always there to rationalize and help me (in a nice way) see how ridiculous I really am! Clint is a good example and great leader in our home. I love you babe! Happy Fathers Day!!!

Clint the first time he met Ava

Clint the first time he met Mayah

Lemonade Stand

Today was the perfect day for an ice cold lemonade! Who better to get it from than my cute girls! You would think with those two girls sitting out at the edge of the driveway, business would be booming right....? I mean how could you resist!? Ava was so excited to just be a part of this with Mayah. She was all smiles, sitting in her chair like a big girl ready to sell.


Sadly, not all of us thought lemonade sounded ideal. Ava got a little restless and couldn't sit still any longer. She wasn't done being a part of it completely, but had to get a few wiggles out. Between her and Rhet we couldn't keep the dang lemonade sign up long enough to let people know how much it cost. Things got a little hectic for me. Cups were blowing over, Rhet was eating the sign, Ava was trying to climb on and off her chair, and if she wasn't doing that, she was busy trying to get some of the lemonade! I was ready to call it a day before we even had our first customer.

Luckily, Mayah has patience and was not going to give up. She sat out there with high hopes of earning a buck. She recently got a new iPod shuffle for her birthday and was content sitting out there with some tunes and her dog. She smiled and waved at every car that went by. 2 hours later Mayah was finally ready to come in. Not to worry... she'd earned $7.50! I admire Mayah's willingness to put the time in to get a few dollars. Ava, on the other hand, went in for a nap after about 25 min. In the end, Mayah was happy with how much she earned and I was proud of her for not giving up ... because if you wait, they will come... I'd say those girls did pretty good for their first time!

Tiniest artist...

Today was one of those days where Ava caught us totally by surprise. We had been out playing with Mayah's friends and Rhet, our puppy. I turned around to see Ava sitting quietly on the porch, drawing on the blackboard! I told Clint to hurry and get it on camera, so here it is. Honestly, what kid do you know at 11 months that gets the concept of holding chalk, not to eat, but to draw on a blackboard? I have no idea how long she's been doing this behind our back, when she's up in Mayah's room playing...but we did notice a couple of months ago that she could use the chalk eraser and was constantly erasing Mayah's pictures--much to her chagrin. It's bad enough that she's walking all over, and stumbling downstairs...now we have to worry about her coloring on the walls.

So on top of all the other crazy things that happened today over the course of Mayah's birthday, we now have another young artist to applaud!

The Golden Birthday

I think that's what they call it. Today, on June 7th, Mayah turned 7, and she'd also like me to add that she lost her 7th tooth the night before her birthday. Triple 7's!! I think that's a sign for good luck right? The good luck has already kicked in, too. She won a birthday party to the "Amazing Pizza Machine" (a $200 value) which was announced on Action 3 news, when they said the winner was "Mia R." Mayah was yelling at the T.V "IT'S MAYAH!" She wanted me to call the station and tell them to re-announce it correctly. I told her that anyone who knows how to read would have seen it on the T.V screen and known that they said it wrong. Too bad I didn't know she was going to win that before I planned the party we had today. It would have saved myself and my poor husband a lot of stress. Clint had to deal with all my freak outs for the last week during all the preparations. I am lucky to have such a good guy to put up with me.

Mayah had requested to have a cooking party. At the time I thought, oh it will be so fun to make all the little girls cute aprons with the sewing machine that I got for my birthday. For the first time I actually started something a few weeks before it needed to be done and it was a good thing, too. It was a good learning opportunity because of all the errors I had to re-do on those aprons. But in the end they turned out great, and were even finished on time.


Thanks to my husband (who has learned from the best how to be a great party host), the party was a hit and all of Mayah's little friends had a BLAST! We started out by having them decorate their own place mats and then roll out pizza dough and add their own toppings.

While the pizzas were in the oven, we played a few games and started on dessert. The first game was like a dry version of bobbing for apples, only with doughnuts on strings hanging from the ceiling. The next was a blind tasting contest where they had to identify raisins, m&m's, pickles and surprisingly the hardest of all--ketchup--just from taste. Apparently, they've only ever tasted ketchup on things like hamburgers, french fries and eggs...because they had guesses such as pickle juice, vinegar, etc... Then the girls made cupcakes that resembled flower pots, using ice cream cones, oreos, frosting and green coconut shavings. They also made "sherbet the frogs" using lime sherbet, gummy candies for legs, and junior mints for eyes. Before everyone left, we cut mayah's birthday apron cake and opened gifts.

They all took home lime green whisks stuffed with candy, chef hats, home-sewn aprons, miniature rolling pins, self-decorated place mats, and the cutest recipe books, which my sister-in-law Melissa helped design. On their way out, they all stopped to run around in the yard with our puppy Rhet and laugh at him licking Ava's face.

After all of the work, stress and money we spent on this party, I learned that I could actually pull something like this off, but I might not choose to do it again--at least not any time soon. I wonder if that hassle-free party at the Pizza Machine will still be usable for next year's birthday...??

The newest member of our family...Rhet

Today we took a country drive out to an old small farmhouse and came home with a 5th member of the family. His name is Rhet, although Mayah likes to spell it Ret.

We debated between Rhet and Wrigley for a while, and Clint and I were leaning toward Wrigley, but when we got to Petco for some Puppy Chow, Mayah told the clerk that his name was Rhet. When we asked if she wanted to name him that, she said yeah, maybe Wrigley can be the middle name. And we asked if she didn't really like Wrigley, to which she responded, "I'm just not feelin' it..."


One of the reasons we finally decided to give into Mayah's demands was that Ava seems to have an infatuation with dogs! Every time we're at the park and a dog walks by, or she sees one on TV, she starts to grunt and point. It's the cutest thing ever. Today, when Clint sent me the Craigslist ad about the puppies, I showed the pictures to Ava and she went wild. When we finally brought the puppy home and gave Ava a chance to pet him, she got a little more timid. She will approach him slowly, and then back away super quickly as soon as he looks at her. This last picture catches her reaction perfectly. Hopefully she'll get over her initial scare and enjoy having a "brother."

Ava Walks at 10 months!!

As you can tell from this video, our little Ava is figuring out how to put one foot in front of the other and walk...at least short distances. She took her first steps on May 1, which is eleven days after her 10-month birthday. She's starting to do it more and more, and always in the least expected moments, which has made it difficult to catch on film. Tonight, we got it. She whined at first, but eventually gave in as you can see. In the same time frame, she learned to voluntarily give kisses and we love every slobbery one we get. Tonight, as she was being sent to bed, I asked her to give Mayah, Daddy and Mommy kisses, and she leaned out to each of us one at a time with little puckered lips (partially open). The thing she's also learned in the last couple of weeks which is beginning to show her stubborn side is to shake her head "no" when she doesn't want something. I walked her to the park today and played on the swing with her. I asked if she was ready to go home and she shook her head no. Then before bed when we asked for kisses, she actually shook her head no at first and made every attempt to avoid it. It wasn't until a few minutes later (after she walked a little more and got worn out) that she eventually gave in and did it willingly. Then when I went to lay her down for bed, as we got near her crib, she shook her head even more vigorously. She is going to be that kind of kid that has to have her way, or else she'll let you hear it. Sure is fun and cute to watch her grow and learn right now... but there will be times to come when I wish we could turn back the clock.

HELP!!!

Nope, not a hair issue... Need another clue?

I think you might be getting warmer.....

I feel I should give you a little background first because I have not written too much about our little Ava. She is what I like to call "my little Curious George." Ava doesn't seem to be the kind of kid who learns from others' experiences, she is more of a first-hand knowledge type of girl! That is where she and Mayah are totally different. I am already afraid of what's to come with Ava. She will definitely keep Clint and me on our feet at all times and has proven to do so from the get go! She is always keeping me busy cleaning up after she's pulled every last Q-tip out of the box, or all of Clint's socks out of his sock drawer; or making me chase her up the stairs after I turn my back for a second.... and her personal favorite: sticking EVERYTHING in her mouth. Like when she found an old, tiny, fuzzy raisin on the floor at Whole Foods and was eating it before I figured out what it was, or the time I pulled a pebble out from between her two front teeth. It must not have bothered her, based on the enormous smile that revealed the pebble to me. Which brings me to my story.

This morning while I was making our bed, Ava was on the floor in the room playing with a doll of Mayah's that I had given to her to keep her occupied. I should have known that Ava needs something more interesting to keep her attention, because moments later I heard coughing coming from the bathroom. I walked in to find Ava with a tube of permanent hair color in her hand, the contents of which were dripping from her mouth. I freaked at the sight of red dye running down her cheeks, chin, hands and consequently everything she touched. My first reaction was to flush her mouth with water and wipe the mess off her face and hands. Then it dawned on me that it could be poisonous. I dialed 411-connect on my cell phone and asked for Poison Control, only to be patched through to an invalid number. More aggravated than before, I re-dialed and asked for a different number. This time, as I held my breath, it worked and soon I was talking to a rational human being on the other end. After describing the complete details of the substance Ava had potentially swallowed, I was placed on hold for what seemed an eternity (although it was only about 60 seconds in reality). The woman returned and asked one last pointed question, "It wasn't the developer was it?" I said no, feeling a little relieved, and then she continued to calm my anxiousness. She said I had done the right thing by flushing it down with water, and to just continue to watch carefully to make sure there's no problems with her airway. She suggested giving her juice or formula to coat her stomach and make sure she didn't show signs of vomiting or irritation. Once again, I'm grateful to have her survive the risks of a day in the life of Ava. There have been many falls, bumps, and scares that have left me wondering how she'll ever make it to her first birthday. This was just one more occasion for worry and relief at the same time. If there's one thing I can say about Ava, it is that there is never a dull moment. She is a full-time job and keeps me on my toes. If this is any sign of what's to come, I think she'll have an adventure-filled life.

Oh the tragedy ...

Who ever thought it would be such a terrible thing when the Dr. comes in the room and announces "Guess who doesn't need glasses..."? Well that's our Mayah! For weeks she has been complaining of poor vision, and trouble reading. Several of her friends got glasses and I guess she was feeling left out. Finally after I got tired of hearing her complaints I figured it was worth going in to the optometrist just in case. $70 and one broken heart later, we can now be thankful that Mayah has great eyesight. I keep trying to explain that I would give anything to not have to wear contacts or glasses but I am not getting through to her. She has been pouting ever since, so we had to send her to bed early tonight :(

Although I do remember as a child wanting silly things such as braces... things that as a parent make no sense. I do have to admit that wearing glasses nowadays is a lot cooler than when I was a kid! I felt so bad for her as I turned around and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks before we even stepped out of the room. Feeling embarrassed but not able to hold back her tears she buried her face into my stomach. I would have gotten the frames for her just cause I felt sorry for her, but the glasses she wanted were the most expensive pair in the place. The girl does have style! I just couldn't justify spending another $130 on a pair of frames just for play.