Lake Powell 2012

We hadn’t been to Lake Powell for a couple years and thought it would be a great year to go. We all had a blast! What did we do at Lake Powell? Absolutely NOTHING, and it was great! Okay not nothing, but let me tell you there was a lot of relaxing going on. Mixed in with the relaxing we went jet skiing, we laid out in the sun, we read books, we sat on top of the houseboat and looked at the stars, we had glow stick parties at night, we went on a hike/hiked up a giant sand hill, we played plenty of games, and we made daily trips down to the shop to get a treat. Mason enjoyed playing with the hose while it filled up the blue pool. Avery liked to sit on the tube behind the boat and swim all day long. She also liked to line up all the pads on top of the house boat and pretend they were a train or do gymnastic tricks on them with Mason following right behind her. Plus we ate some pretty darn good food! Good food always makes for a great trip.

This popsicle started out as SpongeBob but quickly melted

Preschool

Avery just turned three and started her first year of Preschool.  We have been talking it up all summer so she wouldn’t be nervous.  The first day I could tell she was a little nervous when she asked me on the way to preschool, “Mom, you are going to stay with me right?” Oh, my heart strings being pulled! Once she got in there with all the other kids she did great and told me bye! That made me feel much better about leaving her. 

To tell you the truth I have been pretty nervous about her going to preschool too. I signed her up kind of late and her age class was full so she was put into an older class. Avery just turned 3 so she would already be the youngest in the younger class and now she is going to be with the older kids about to go into kindergarten. After a few weeks I talked to the teacher and she said that Avery is doing so well. She said that she is doing much better then a lot of the older kids in her class.

Avery loves preschool and is really learning so much. At first I just thought Avery needed preschool to be more social and have more interactions with kids her age, she tends to be shy like her mom. But really Avery has learned so much. She is always telling me things, or writing things, or asking me things and I just think, Wow!

After one week of preschool she was drawing on her magna doodle and she said, “Look it says mom.” I looked at it and it really said mom. I couldn’t just trust that she really just wrote that, I had to see for myself. Maybe she just scribbled and it ended up looking like MOM. Nope, I was wrong. I asked her to do it again. She started by drawing a circle in the middle, The O,  then she put two M’s on either side. She really did just write MOM. These aren’t even the letters that they have gone over yet in preschool. I couldn’t be more proud of Avery. She is doing so well in preschool and loving every minute of it.

Avery’s favorite thing at school is show and tell. She picks the thing she wants to show to her class on Monday and carries it in her back pack all week until Friday when the actual show and tell is.

 

Swim Lessons

This last week Avery had a week of free swim lessons at Aquatots. She had a ton of fun and she learned a lot of good skills. She was the best in her class at climbing out of the pool by herself. The other kids needed a little boost here and there. Avery is getting better at floating on her back. When we would practice at home she didn’t like putting her head all the way back because she got water in her ears. At swim lessons she finally mastered it and will put her head all the way back in the water. She is also getting a lot better at using her arms to swim.

We couldn’t leave out this happy boy!

Princess dance camp

Avery went to a princess dance camp for a day. She loved it. She got to make a crown, learn a dance,  and look in a magic mirror.  When I picked her up all the girls did a little dance they had learned.  Avery is the one in the pink tutu and black leotard. Sorry it is so far away, I sat down right in front of her and when they started the dance for some reason she ran to the other side of the room. All these girls dancing reminded me of the movie “The Little Rascals” when the boys are dancing around not knowing what the heck they are doing; especially when Avery just decides to twirl around in the back.

Paleo Diet

I just wanted to start out by saying that I have never been on a diet in my life. EVER.  Even if I thought I was going to start a diet, it wouldn’t even last a day. Lets just face it, I LOVE chocolate, and food, way too much to diet!
With that being said, here’s my story of the Paleo diet.  While I was in Utah in April I had made some arrangements to see some friends. We usually meet for dinner after they get done with work. While at Carrabbas, shoving our faces full of their delicious bread, crab cakes, our actual meal plus two Dr. Peppers, we started to discuss what girls talk about, thinking that they are fat.
I can’t talk for my friends, which I think looked great, but at that moment I was definitely at my heaviest weight in my life. I would like to think that I could blame it on being married. Or possibly that I have two kids under the age of 3; doesn’t everyone use that excuse? Well those are definitely not valid excuses.  During dinner my friend Alece told us all about the paleo diet that she had tried. We all decided to start the diet on May 1st for 30 days. She sent us a bunch of emails about the paleo diet so we could get ready for it. While I was in Utah I never had the time to actually do any research or plan out what I was going to eat. I drove home to Arizona the day before we were to start this diet. That night at ten o’clock I was reading what Alece had sent me and thought that I was going to die. My mom just laughed and laughed at me when I was telling her all the things I couldn’t eat. To put it simply you cannot eat anything. Okay not anything, but that’s how I felt. You cannot eat dairy, bread, sugar, and by sugar I mean anything with sugar in it like ketchup or any dressings. You wouldn’t believe all the things with added sugar. You can’t put butter on anything or cook with it.  All you can eat is fruit(natural sugar), vegetables, and meat. Some refer to it as eating like a caveman. Here is the link of the 30 day program we followed.
The first day I really felt like I was about to die from starvation. I was definitely not prepared at all for this. The only thing I ate the first day was carrots and fruit. I was starving! That night I decided I was going to get some recipes and everything I needed for them so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat all the snacks around the kitchen. Trust me, I have a lot of snacks around. I think with kids you just have to have snacks on hand.  I also got a huge bag of raw almonds to snack on if I thought I was about to give in. I won’t bore you with my day to day progress. I will just say that I did it! I stuck to it the whole month. Not one Dr. Pepper was slurped during the month of May. Here are my results. This is also with little to no exercise. I did walk 30 mins everyday for the first week and then my back was acting up and I didn’t exercise the rest of the month.
Measurements

• On each arm I lost ½ to ¾ of an inch. You know the area when you wave to someone and your under arm flab waves back.
• On each thigh I lost 2 ½ inches.
• Around the hips I lost 1 inch,
• Around the waist (belly button area) I lost 2 inches.
• Around the biggest part of my butt, which had gotten rather large, I lost 3 inches.
• And of course the one place where most girls would rather gain weight I lost the most; around the chest I lost 4 inches. Trust me there wasn’t much there to lose either.

The grand total of weight lost in the month of May was 15 pounds. I had lost 12 pounds in the first two weeks and then I came to a huge slow down and I lost the last three pounds the last two weeks. Now that the 30 days is over I have gone back to eating my “normal” just more cautious of what I am eating and not snacking so much. I have lost two more pounds and slurped plenty of Dr. Pepper.

The Pledge of Allegiance

Avery just turned 3 and knows the whole Pledge of Allegiance. She is kind of being silly in this video because there are a bunch of people watching her, but she can do the whole thing all by herself. About a month ago every time Avery saw a flag I would say the pledge of allegiance and she would repeat it. Now she's got it down.

Masons 1st Birthday

Mason had his 1st birthday on Sunday. It was a very eventful day filled with balloons, Chocolate chip pancakes, family, yummy food, cupcakes, toys, toys, and more toys! This kid is one spoiled little boy. But he sure does deserve it. I can’t even say how great Mason is. We love you Mason and want you to know that you have brought so much joy and happiness to our lives.
Just a little bit about Mason:

• He LOVES food. Don’t even think about taking a bite of something unless there is some for him too. There is not one thing that has gone in his mouth and came back out. He downs anything and everything. The only way to tell that he is done eating is that he will begin to put the food on top of his head. Each night he eats dinner around five and then when Levi gets home around 6:30, Mason thinks it’s dinner time all over again. He pretty much gets two dinners every night.
• He likes to clap his hands, give high fives, point to his nose, and he sometimes will put one finger up when you ask him how old he is.
• He is such a loving tender little guy. He loves to cuddle mom and give out kisses; watch out they are mostly open mouth kisses!
• When Dad comes home from work Mason lights up and makes a mad dash towards him.
• Mason always wants to see what Avery is doing, which is usually taking toys from him. But he still loves to play right along side of her, toys or no toys.
• Mason loves the bath tub, but he is terrified of people swimming. Whenever someone jumps off the diving board or goes under the water he flips out.

Here are a few pictures from his birthday fun!

Masons first trip to the swimming pool

This was Masons first trip into the good old pool. Mason LOVES the bath tub so I thought he was going to love the pool. Come on it’s like one huge bath tub, what's not to love? Well at first he didn’t like it one bit. He cried and cried and cried (mostly when he saw Nik). I am not really sure why. Maybe because he wasn’t sporting his normal glasses; Mason usually loves Nik. Mason just clung on to me and gave Nik the stink eye for quite a while. He finally warmed up to the swimming pool and Nik. Hopefully our next visit to the pool will be a success!

Avery and Mason with Uncle Nik and Aunt Hannah

Fishing in Payson

We headed up to Payson last Saturday to get out of this crazy heat. Levi’s parents just recently bought a house up in the mountains and we thought we would take a break and go check it out.  It will be a nice place to visit when they are done fixing it up. While we were there we rode the ranger around and went fishing. We all had a great time. Avery caught her first fish and was scared to death of it. Uncle Nik caught a crawdad which Avery was pretty scared of too. After fishing Levi, Nik, and Rick took on the project of ripping out all of the kitchen cabinets and countertops to get it ready for the new ones. Sadly I didn’t get a picture of this but it was a pretty big task, which they got done. We had a great time and can’t wait to get out of this 108 degree weather soon!

  

Mothers Day

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

I love these kids! They are the best kids in the world. I am so lucky to be called their mom!

Phoenix Zoo

Avery and I were so excited when we were invited by some friends to go check out the phoenix zoo. I have lived here for almost six years now and had never made it to the zoo. It is an awesome zoo. We had a great time. This little family we went with has a little girl that is a couple of months older than Avery and they also have a boy who is two or so months older than Mason. So it worked out perfectly, everyone had someone to play with. Avery even got to ride a camel with her friend Ady.  We didn’t take the kids swimsuits because we didn’t know the splash pad would be on but to our surprise it was. At the end of our day we let them get soaked at the splash pad. We all had a good time seeing all the animals and munching on eight dollar popcorn!

Happy Easter

We had a great Easter. We did all the fun activities like Easter egg hunts. Made Easter bunnies out of paper plates and made Easter eggs. We also left out carrots and lettuce for the Easter bunny, which he gobbled all up. The thing I love most about Easter is going to the Mesa Easter Pageant and taking time to remember Christ. This year we took Avery with us. She liked to see the angels on top of the stage all in white! I think Avery was a little young to really enjoy it, but I think it will be a fun family tradition to do each year together. We hope you all had a wonderful Easter season with your families!

He thinks he is so BIG!

Mason thinks that it is time for him to play with the big kids! This last week he has been trying to climb up the stairs after Avery. I usually find him when he is on the first step thank goodness! This time I decided to see how far he could get on his own. Of course Avery had to be by his side and cheer him on and I was right behind him in case he fell.

He made it to the first landing then he tried to continue on until I told him no.

So he decided to try coming down head first!!

Lovin' the weather

After each of us had the 24 hour stomach bug (all on different days) we needed to get out of this house! This week the weather has been amazing!  So we took every opportunity we had to be outside!  Avery is becoming a pro at her tricycle. She loves to ride it out on the back patio. We have taken quite a few trips to the park. These two LOVE the swings! Avery use to hate the swings when she was Masons age. She would scream and scream until we would get her out and now it is her favorite thing to do.