It's going to rain the rest of the week

Why not take advantage of the upcoming rainstorm and bring out the sidewalk chalk. After putting Reid down for his afternoon nap, we headed outdoors. Sorry Reid.

Ava really enjoyed getting to go outside today. Too bad the clouds are rolling back in tomorrow.

After she was all done drawing she decided she needed to sign her name.

I tried teaching Ava how to play hopscotch. She decided that was boring. But jumping from the step onto the numbers was much more fun. So that's just what she did.

It might be hard to see, but if you look right above Ava's hands you can see what she's smiling about. After she scribbled to her hearts content we brought out the bubble maker. She loves trying to pop all of the bubbles.

Another thing that makes Ava happy is completely showering her parents with bubbles. Lets just say that Josh opened the front door at the wrong time.

Don't mess with Ava when she's got the bubble maker, she has no mercy. Sidenote - I just saw today that Target is now carrying this bubble maker in their stores again. Hurry, go get one for yourself your kids. We play with this thing almost all year long.

When the sun comes out, you've got to go out and play

Well Shelby, you should of stayed an extra week. The weather today was 68 degrees without a cloud in the sky. It was a perfect day to take a trip up to the Berkeley hills to visit the Little Farm.

Upon arriving Ava ran over to the fence, points, screams "Cows Mom, cows!", and then excitedly jumps up and down for a few seconds. I guess it's been awhile since I last took her on an outing to the farm.

Once Ava noticed just how large the cows were she quickly announced that she wanted to see the chickens. So here she is peering at the chickens and geese, who are not as intimidating.

Then she felt brave enough to go peer at the dairy cows, but not brave enough to actually feed them some celery. When I handed her a stalk of celery to feed the cow, she was going to totally do it, until the cow stuck her head through the fence. Then she handed it to me and said, "I want to watch you feed the cow."

Here's Reidy enjoying our little outing in the safety of the bjorn. It was actually quite nice not having to haul the stroller around. I love having little kiddos. Makes my back a lot happier.

On our way back to the car to get some lunch, a bazillion butterflies decided to join us on the trail. They ranged from medium sized bright orange ones to teeny tiny periwinkle ones. Here's Ava watching the butterflies fly by.

Sidenote, notice how Ava is standing on a tree stump. When she saw the stump she proudly announced, "If I saw them cutting down the tree, I would say 'No cut down tree'." We've been living in the bay area for way too long!

After following the butterflies for quite some time we finally made it back to the car to retreive our lunch. Why does food always seem to taste better when you're outside? Ava's showing me what a daddy bite would look like.

Here's the aftermath of the "daddy bite".

Here's my best picture of all of us. Ava says I should finish the post by saying, "I love going to the animal farm." Yep, agreed.

We had a visitor!

And what a fun visitor she was! This past week Josh's Mom Shelby flew out to visit. The weather was cloudy and cold (for CA) for most of the week and both kids developed an ear infection, but I still think we had a grand ol' time.

After a few nights we were sad to discover that our blow up mattress was not living up to its job description. So on Monday morning I made a quick trip to Target to find a replacement. The old mattress quickly found a home in our playroom as a trampoline. Reid and Ava couldn't of been happier. Notice the humongous grin plastered on Reid's face. So Shelby got a mattress that actually holds air longer than an hour and the kids got a trampoline. It was a win win.

Ava has gotten way into playing board games lately. Her favs at the moment are Hi Ho Cherry-o and Memory. Shelby got roped into a few games during the week. If anyone has any game suggestions for an almost 3 year old, I would love to add some more variety to our board game mix.

Once the kids were feeling better we made a trip over to the library and a nearby park. It was nice having Shelby join us in the book searching because she came across a book that she used to read to Josh and his brothers. Ava and Josh have read that book almost every night since. Adorable, right?

I never knew this could be possible, but Reid just might love the swing more than Ava.

At the end of the week we headed over to the Abraham Lincoln Museum? Modern Art Museum? The local thrift store?

This picture should clear it up. By the way, isn't the picture above pretty impressive. There were portraits all throughout the factory made with Jelly Bellys.

They take cleanliness very seriously on the tour. In order to go on the tour (which is above the factory in an enclosed walkway) you had to wear the hat. Personally I think they just wanted to give the employees below a good laugh when they look up and see all these dorks wearing these paper hats. But hey, I didn't care, they gave me loads of free Jelly Bellys :) Looking good guys!

They did make sure to give Reid a hat to wear on the tour, but thankfully they didn't enforce it.

Amazingly we ended the tour right at noon. How lucky were we that there was an In N Out within a few minutes of the factory. It was meant to be.

Any guesses on how many times we ventured over to Nordstroms? Not one, not two, but three times :) One of our favorite little places to go with Shelby is the Nordstroms' Cafe.

I think Ava is a fan too. She gives the mac and cheese two hands up!

On Sat. the clouds parted and the weather warmed up into the mid sixties. And of course it happened to be Shelby's last day visiting. So we made a quick stop by the park so Shelby could soak up some CA rays before heading back to the snow.

It may look like Reid has hardly any hair, but look closely. You can see his very fine hair blowing in the wind. Adorable little guy.

There is no way that I can look at this picture and not laugh. These kiddos of mine are a crack up.

This big, wet kiss is just for Nana from Reid! We loved getting to spend the whole week with you.

9 Months

My baby boy is 9 months old today. Eek! I must admit, I'm having a slight panic attack. He'll be a year old in 3 months. I'm not ready for him to grow up yet!

If Reid will be one in 3 months, that means that his big sister will be three in almost 3 months. Double eek!

I can now completely understand why my mother-in-law made Josh promise to never grow up when he was a little boy. I am just loving the age that these too kiddos of mine are at.

Christmas time in '09

Posting about our Christmas break has been on my to do list for a month now. Sadness right? But hey, when you have 498 pics taken just during your almost two week trip, you might just keep putting it off too! (I did not take all of those pictures. I put all the pics taken from everyone else's camera on my computer) But I'm hoping that today I will finally be able to cross it off of my list.

Whew. Now I can finally get around to all of the other pics I took in January that I've been DYING to post!

Temple Lights

Beautiful.

You can tell by the picture that Ava was more than thrilled to be there. She couldn't wait to put on all her winter gear and see the lights. It's not often that we get the mittens, hats and coats out.

Props to all the people who put up all of the lights this year. We especially liked how they even made sure to add lights to the planters.

Here's Reid checking out the lights. All snug with his cozy blanket.

I don't want to distract from the cuteness of my family in this pic (because they sure are cute!), but seriously, which thing doesn't belong 1) people wearing winter gear 2) Christmas lights or 3) blooming flowers.

I doubt I'll have anytime to post before Christmas, so hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Santa's Watching

I was a little worried about if Josh was going to be on the good list this year, so I went straight to the big guy. He's the nicest guy. He even sent a message just for Josh...if you can believe it. Check it out.

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/23abe596938f2d91383e849f03c21322

I also did one for Ava. I must admit, she was pretty shocked by the whole thing. Especially when he said her name.

The big day

Lets take a stroll back through Ava's past history with St. Nick. Here's Ava's first visit.

The next year wasn't any better. She sat on his lap for a mere millisecond...if that.

Wanting Ava to have a better experience this year, I went into prep mode a week before the visit. We read The Night Before Christmas every night, we acted out possible scenarios that could happen, practiced what she would ask for, and we watched Dora's Christmas Special (where she visits Santa) over and over and over. This is how Ava's encounter with Santa went.

I'm so proud of my little girl! Even though she felt like crying, she held it together. She sat on his lap...leaps and bounds above last year. And by the end of the visit she was even able to squeak out what she wanted. I wish I got a pic of Ava afterwards. She was smiling from ear to ear and would show her bag of candy that Santa gave her to anyone who would ask if she saw Santa.

Reid didn't know what the big deal was. He doesn't care who is holding him, just as long as he's being held.

Here's one lap that both kiddos don't mind sitting on.

This year I decided to start a advent calendar for Ava. Each day leading up to Christmas we do a different activity. Today's activity was writing a letter to Santa. I found this cute print-out that was perfect. Ava loved getting to color it just for Santa.

Just to clarify, the reason why Ava wants a camera that works is because the battery in the old camera we gave Ava, won't hold a charge anymore. So she doesn't just want a camera, she wants one that will actually take pictures.

I know it's not Thanksgiving anymore, but I just had to post this little activity we did last week. Everyday for the month of Nov, we would all write one thing we were thankful for on a piece of paper. Then we would add that strip to a paper chain. I saw this activity and knew it would be a perfect way to record Ava's thankfuls.

My favorite was "loud noises that wake-up Reid". Lets just say that wasn't on my thankful list.