Random pictures taken this week at my Mom's house

Once again my mom picked out the best toy because Avery absolutely loved it and wanted to play in it all day every day. It was a mess, every night I spent about 30 min trying to comb out the sand from her hair with a fine toothed comb and still there was sand in our bed every night.

Just Checking In

It has been a few days since I have been blogging and thank goodness it isn't because I am the new Primary President or something like that (Tara). I picked up my sister Shelley and her husband Dave last week and we came up here to Farmington, Utah for Mother's Day. I haven't been very good at blogging the details of our busy life lately but my Mom remarried last month and moved up to Farmington where her now husband lived. He has 6 kids three still at home and it has been a little bit of an adjustment so we thought we would come up to celebrate her and help her by just being close. It is different to consider that I now have step-siblings but it is nice to extend your friendships. Monday night we held FHE together with most all the kids and it was a lot of fun. Brent (my mom's husband) has two daughters me and my sister's age and the oldest Brandy came with her husband Eric and their two Kids Hayden,3 and Maya, 10 mo. They are very fun to be with and I am especially excited that their kids and mine are so close in age. I feel a special friendship developing with Brandy and she just started her family blog last night. I am excited for that.


Also, my brother Kyle will be set apart as an Elder tonight and report to the MTC tomorrow. It is very exciting.

The Sweetest Song

The sweetest song you will hear is when you are driving down the road and your 2 year old starts singing to the Little Mermaid movie you have playing on DVD. Or when each night before bed she asks you to sing I Am A Child Of God and then sings it with you. Your heart will light up like a star when she can sing every word of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. And when in sacrament the congregation is asked to sing Families Can Be Together Forever your two year old recognizes it can get at least the last word of each phrase as she joins in. That little voice is the sweetest song I've ever known...

4 Months Old Today!

Tattoos

So Travis was watching Basketball on TV the other night when Avery noticed that, "those boys have stamps on their skin. Their Mommy's are going to be mad at them. They're going to time out!"

And She Said She Wasn't Tired

The Sqirrels

A few weeks ago we were doing yard work and I went to the side of the house by the AC unit to get some soil for planting. I screamed when a cat ran out from behind the unit startling me. This caught Avery's attention because she is a huge animal lover. I didn't think anything of it until a few minutes later Avery came to the back door yelling for me. I came to the back door to see what the matter was and she was holding what looked like a rat in each hand. I let out another scream and told her to put them down. It didn't occur to me that the cat I saw earlier had kittens in our yard.
We are not pet people and have always been in agreeance that "there will be NO pets in our house" but they were so cute and tiny and helpless. Avery was so excited about them that I began to cave. Fortunately Travis could see it and in a very firm, end of the discussion kind of way said, "NO! We are not keeping them!" Then we found out the cat was our neighbor's and they were excited to take the kittens in and I am glad that they have a home. Avery goes to visit and she calls them squirrels. It's kind of cute.

Family Night at the Bellagio

Travis was golfing Shadow Creek for a work related thing and so his office paid for a room at the Bellagio which we decided to make a family night of. It was great fun. I always love going to hotels and jumping on the beds so we did and we discovered that Madelyn absolutely loves bouncing. We recorded it on video but you can't hear her squealing and giggling but you can see the big grin on her face.



I love to watch the fountains at the Bellagio but it was too windy and so they weren't on. Thankfully the gardens were open and beautiful as always. I learned that they redo the gardens 5 times a year including the very intricate tiny tiles to create pictures on the floor that match the garden theme. They also had a beautiful live butterfly exhibit with a hundred or more species of butterflies. It was breathtaking as always!

The next morning I took the girls swimming and then to the Mirage to see the Dolphin and Tiger exhibit. Avery loved it. Unfortunately by this time my camera battery was dead and I didn't get any pictures but I plan to do it again. I think it would be a great activity for us mom's one day to take our kids and a lunch down there...

We're Back

It has been about two weeks since I have been able to use our computer. I am still not sure what the problem was and it is still having some minor glitches but we're back in the game. Luckily Travis bought an external hard drive for me for Christmas and just by chance I backed up all of my photos about 3 weeks ago just before the "crash". Well luckily it wasn't a real crash but it was a good motivator for me to get all my important things like pics and documents backed up just in case.
Well, I look forward to getting back into the loop. Unfortunately I am afraid I will be very tired tomorrow because tonight after the girls are down I'll probably spend half the night catching up with all of you!

There goes the dress...