A few months ago, I was asking Ava some random questions and I said, "If we were to have another baby, would you want a brother or a sister?"

Ava, with a serious expression said, "Actually, I want a doggie."

So sorry to disappoint, Ava! Hope you change your mind in the next 7 months! (:

Do you think...

We've been reading a little too much Fancy Nancy?





(I actually let her leave the house like this- anyone who saw us on our neighborhood bike ride might have thought she was drowning in tutus.)

I know you're GREEN with envy...

...over our awesome St. Patrick's Day breakfast. Okay, maybe not... We thought it would be fun to serve green pancakes and green scrambled eggs this morning. In reality, it took Mase awhile until he would agree to eat it. He kept mentioning green beans and asparagus- he must have thought I was trying to trick him. (:
Ava, on the other hand, was delighted to eat her monochrome meal.



I also made these cookies for playgroup. Note to self: When making green cookies, please consider that the oatmeal chocolate chip variety tends to resemble guacamole, especially in the dough form. It looked disgusting, but they were pretty tasty.



Happy St. Patrick's Day! And Happy Birthday Lindsey!

Visitors... FINALLY!

Since we have moved, we have made some really great friends and are starting to feel very settled here. I feel weird even writing that because this place was so NEVER in our plans. But we feel very blessed.
We do miss our family and friends who do not live near us anymore, so it was so exciting to have my parents come to see us this last weekend. Along with showing them our new home and letting them see into our new life, we went exploring around Northern Arizona and saw some sights I had never seen before... Thanks mom and dad for giving me a reason to see some interesting sights!

Mason's favorite was Meteor Crater. The day before we went my Dad said this phrase, all too enthusiastically, "I LOVE meterorites!" and it has made me laugh out loud every time I have thought of it since. All of my brothers and sisters can attest to his love of nature and geology. On many road trips we heard, "Look at that sulphur, MIL!" So Meteor Crater was perfect for him...







Anxiety filled my SOUL on our next journey. I knew Walnut Canyon was beautiful and I also knew we would see ancient ruins from Native American tribes who used to reside there... sounds like a fun trip right? Yeah, until I realized it was a hike down a canyon mostly WITHOUT guardrails and pretty much 4 feet of walking space until you plunge to your death in the deep canyon below.
Most people would have no problem with this, but I have a fear of heights (especially right on-the-edge heights... I have lived in Arizona for 28 years and have never been to the Grand Canyon- there is a reason for this) and was SO sick to my stomach taking my energetic, carefree children down there. I had what I refer to as "jello legs" and was unable to look down. And I am sure my poor children have bruises on their hands with how tight I was squeezing them. I apologized to Ro for being slightly (okay, EXTREMELY) neurotic, but I have never felt quite so out of control.


You can tell I am forcing a half-smile in this pic, and that my kids can sense my uneasiness... it was for your own good! (:



It ended up being so beautiful, but I took a long deep breath when we safely reached the top and were on solid ground.

The visit was SO much fun, and I hope we get many more visitors in the future. We are fully aware that our little town doesn't have much to offer in entertainment, so we promise to bend over backwards to make sure our guests have fun SOMEHOW. (: Even if it's just a show put on by THIS silly girl...



Of course they couldn't leave without Standin' on the Corner. And the kids played in the "flat bed Ford" they have parked there (from the song). Fun times- MISS YOU!

Their point of view

I saw this on someone else's blog and I was interested to see what they would say... and a little scared of the truth! (: Turns out it wasn't so bad.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
M- I love you
A- You make me happy

2. What makes mom happy?
M- Me
A- When you see Daddy

3. What makes mom sad?
M- When I don’t hug you
A- When Daddy's at work

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
M- Tickle me!
A- I laugh hard!

5. What was your mom like as a child?
M- I don't know
A- She was yellow

6. How old is your mom?
M- 30
A- Three

7. How tall is your mom?
M- 50 feet
A- Big

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
M- Play with me
A- Make bows

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
M- Cry
A- Daddy plays with me

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
M- Painting and Dancing- I like when you do this-- (and demonstrates some slightly 80's moves)

11. What is your mom really good at?
M- Thumb wars
A- Bows

12. What is your mom not very good at?
M- Chasing me cuz I run too fast

13. What does your mom do for a job?
M & A- Make bows

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
M- Taco Tangles
A- Cherries

15.What makes you proud of your mom?
M- That you’re fun
A- I like your pretty bows

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
M- From High School Musical- the one with yellow hair
A- Luke Skywalker

17. What do you and your mom do together?
M- We play games and hide and seek
A- Clean up

18. How are you and your mom the same?
M- We’re not the same
A- We like to get drinks

19. How are you and your mom different?
M- We don’t wear the same clothes.
A- Your hair

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
M- Cuz I’m smart
A- I love you too.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
M- She loves him…. Because they’re married!!!
A- They like to play toys wiff me.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
M- Disneyland!
A- To Winslow

Bragging rights

My favorite little guy turned five last week, so I thought I'd record my five FAVORITE things about him right now. I'm sure they will have changed by next year- this is MASE at FIVE--

1. FUN The boy loves to play and I admire the way he jumps into situations with both feet to have a good time.

2. LOVING He is so loving toward Ava, us, his grandparents... He would never miss an opportunity to give me a hug and a kiss.

3. INDEPENDENT I have to admit that I struggle with this one. It is hard to love a quality that makes your strong-willed child want to do something opposite than you want him to. However, I can see that this will be a benefit to him in the future. He has never been one to cry when I drop him off somewhere- he is excited for the new adventure of life!

4. HILARIOUS Gotta love his sense of humor! He keeps us (and his little sister) laughing constantly.

5. INTELLIGENCE Just yesterday we sat down together and did a whole workbook of counting and adding and writing numbers. And he loves to go to the library and check out non-fiction books... especially about sports so he can bond with his dad. This is an exciting time to see him pick up new concepts.

I LOVE my boy. He does present his fair share of challenges (mostly the strong-willed and stubborn issues... don't know where he gets that from :) but we are figuring out ways around those. Like letting him ride his scooter in the house to release some of that energy! The excess of tile in our new house is serving Mase well. (:

Here is a photo from Grandma's house that sums up my kids personalities and relationship. Are we supposed to remove these during prayer, like hats? Oops!

Too much information

SOMEBODY in our bed last night said,

"Your farts are my favorite."

*My mom read this, and she assumed it was Mason's quote... I must admit this was only an adult conversation.

Bow special

We have some new products on our hairbow blog and we are running a little special. If you place an order and you add our "button" (above logo) to your personal blog, you will receive a free mini bow with your order. Just email us at avanadybowtique@hotmail.com with your order and leave your blog address.
To get the logo button, go to www.avanadybowtique.blogspot.com and click on the logo right under where it says "get a button". It will direct you to the html code to add to your own blog.

Check out our new crochet beanies and loopy flower headbands- our girls look adorable and yours will too! (:

p.s. Plus, for anyone who may live anywhere near our little town, we are having a "bow party" on Feb. 19th at my house with some fun giveaways and a lot of cute products! Just leave a comment if you want to come.

Smartypants

Mase came out of his room holding his new drawing. I told him it was good and asked if it meant "No girls allowed".
He looked at me with an irritated expression and said "No AVAs allowed!"
(Oh, I should have KNOWN... the normal girls he draws have a few strands of flowing hair coming off that round head- this one is bald...)

My Top Ten

Top 10 Reasons I LOVE living in a small town:

1. We rarely fill up the gas tank.

2. Nothing to do means more time to spend with these guys.


3. SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE... need I say more?

4. Well I will anyway. Ro comes home for two hours in the morning and for another hour at lunch because we are so close to work and traffic is nonexistent.

5. You get to see weird things like THIS on the corner:


6. Speaking of "the corner", it is a BIG DEAL here... The Eagles put this town on the map! The "standin on the corner" part of town goes a little overboard, but you can bet I will be taking you there if you ever come to visit us!

7. Road trips are a necessity!

8. The lack of good restaurants means we eat at home more.

9. Houses are unique and there are really no cookie cutters.

10. There IS such thing as a free lunch! (At the Rootbeer Stand of course...)

I could actually go on and on, but I will leave it at that. Then I will have to be inspired to create more when I get sick of looking at the same brown dirt and need some new reasons to be happy. No, this is not a beautiful place or an exciting place, but I am AMAZED at how much it feels like home.

It's really not so bad...

In fact, it's pretty great! I am so surprised at how much we actually like it here. The people are really nice, we love our house, and the kids are having SO much fun with their grandparents! It's easier to enjoy the simple things in life when not feeling distracted by things a big city has to offer (shopping, fun things to do, all that terrible stuff...) Soon I will post pictures of our house and some of the funny quirks in the town of Winslow.
For now, I want to put a plug in for one thing I've been up to. Since Ava has been nearly bald for 2 1/2 years now, I finally decided to stop spending money on bows and just make some for myself! My friend Lani showed me how and we have decided to start a business together. Check out our blog (needs lots of work, but it's a start) at www.avanadybowtique.blogspot.com
We make small bows, big bows, flower headbands, crochet beanies, small funky barrettes... all things girly! There is a store in Winslow that is allowing us to display our fanciness, but we also will sell online. Thanks for checking us out!

You-know-where must have frozen over

Tomorrow, January 1 2009, we are moving to a place I said I would NEVER move to. Can you believe I am actually a little excited about it? (And a little bit dreading it, too.)
Let you know how it is when we are standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona...

Rich

Just had to share this little experience I had with Mase today at the grocery store. Christmas Eve at the grocery store is no fun. So maybe I threatened him a little that Santa would not come if he did not behave...

He looked at me with big eyes and said, "Santa brings gifts to everyone, the rich AND the poor."

I contemplated this for a moment and said, "And what are we, Mason?"

He said, "Hmmm.... well, we are happy... so we are rich!"

The hug I gave him was maybe a little too long for the busy grocery store but I felt so proud of the wisdom he already has in his short four and a half years.

Merry Christmas!

Sillyhead

Blog neglect has led me to allow that wounded pic of Mase to be up for too long. So here is a silly one just to be at the top of the blog. We had our pics done and Mase really delivered some great photos... but THIS is the one he was dying to have in his new room. So he will have an 11x14 of this in his new room in Winslow.
Oh, by the way, did I mention we are moving to Winslow?
Next week?

Up and down

Our week started with a little of this:


(Mase jumped off a chair and had a fight with the sharp edge of the trash can)

And also had a little of this:


(Ava in the ER at 1:00am-- she is fine now)

And our week is ending with me frantically cleaning the house on a Friday night at 9:30 just so I don't end up feeling even MORE depressed tomorrow on my 30th birthday... Is that pathetic or what?

On the bright side, our we also did a little of this:



And one more day of this: (Our annual pass expired yesterday)




Life really is full of ups and downs. We'll see which category tomorrow fits into...

THIS HAIRDO....

Inspired the nickname "Fuzzy"...

Needs no detangler...

Softened Daddy's heart (and opened his wallet) to accept many purchases of cute hairbows...

Makes us feel like we still have a baby in the house...

Looks a lot like MY hair at this age...

Creates the CUTEST bedhead on the planet...

Probably invites strangers to think she is going through chemotherapy... ??? Really, as much as I think it is adorable, when will it grow???

The event we anticipate all year...

No, I'm not talking about Christmas. Not exactly anyway.
I have a big family. Okay, kind of a HUGE family. Now that all of my eight siblings are married and (almost) everyone has kids of their own, it's very hard for us to get together for Christmas. All the traveling and having commitments with in-laws make Christmas Day pretty hectic. For the past few years, we haven't gotten together in December at all. We end up grouping holidays together and do a weekend of celebrations all at once. This year we did the 70th Birthday Party of my parents/Thanksgiving/Christmas all in two days and all very early. (I'm just late writing about it...)

Our favorite thing ever is to have a weekend with family, fun, and food and LOTS of cousins, so here is my abbreviated recap:


A fun surprise pizza party for my mom and dad, who each had an important Fall birthday...


Finally took a big family photo... (Thanks for cooperating, guys!)


Had an eventful family talent show, including the above group called SABBA. For more information on this exciting performance, see here. If you are really in the mood to make fun of some people, you can watch the Youtube video after we put it up.

It was A LOT of fun and I'm so glad everyone came! We missed the few family members that couldn't make it and can't wait for you to be involved next year!

Together at last

Minnieland

Last time we were at Disneyland, we had KINGPIN seats for the parade. My kids (and their adorable cousins) enjoyed the close view so much, including special attention from characters and even a hug from a beautiful princess! During the grand finale of the parade, the float that held the highest character royalty possible, Mickey and Minnie, paused for awhile directly in front of our seats. Then the most amazing thing happened! Minnie Mouse took a special interest in my little boy. For about three minutes (the longest three minutes of his life maybe), they exchanged a silent but loving interaction...
She waved at him; he shyly waved back. She blew him kisses; he smiled in pure flattery. When he would not return the kisses, she put her hands on her hips and tried to demand more attention. He loved EVERY second of it. Finally, as the parade resumed, she blew one last kiss, and he could not help but blow one back. She looked back in amazement and jumped up and down at her victory.
Now- I know that she probably has this kind of interaction every evening. How amazing to be able to make a child's... uh, LIFE, in just a couple of minutes! Well, Mase told me later in a small voice that she was now his "girlfriend". (Where do they get these titles so young?) I couldn't help but adore his enthusiasm.
The next night we were not planning on watching the parade. However, we saw it from afar and ran to catch the last bit. This time we did not have great seats; in fact we did not have ANY seats. We stood in the distance as the Minnie and Mickey float approached. I glanced at Mase and could see the eagerness on his face. Before I could warn him that she may not see him from so far away, he yelled, "MINNIE!" My heart stopped as I prepared for a heart-broken four-year-old. Again, "MINNIE!!!" I started to say something and then I watched in slow-motion as she turned our way.
Her gloved hand waved through the air and looked in our general direction. A wave of quiet relief washed over his face. "She heard me mom!" Yes... she did babe. How I loved Minnie at this moment! (:
I am writing this little story in the hotel across from Disneyland. Tomorrow we will go there and he cannot WAIT for all the excitement of being with his grandparents, seeing his cousins, going on the rides... But this morning he pulled me aside and said, "Minnie will be happy to see me."
Pray for us...

The exhausting events called Halloween

Yep, SO exhausting, in fact, that it took three weeks to even get around to posting about it! (: By the time October 31st actually arrived, I was SO over Halloween. Here is a summary of the many things we did to celebrate this usually satisfying holiday.

*1*
See pics in last post. An AWESOME annual party at a friend's house. I'd like to say we had the best costumes, but you should've seen some of the others. My personal favorites were a couple dressed as Juno and Bleaker. Didn't really enjoy sitting across the room from the shiny gold shorts that were scandalously short (on the male of course) but they fit the part PERFECTLY!

*2*
The pumpkin patch. Kids had fun. Parents enjoyed watching.

Went on a hayride...

Tried to play ringtoss, but someone kept taking all of the rings for vain purposes...

CAUGHT red (but beautifully adorned) handed!!


*2*
Trunk or Treat. This event was what I considered the real Halloween this year. This is where they got most of their candy and actually kept their costumes on.

Sharkboy and Lavagirl get together for the evening-


I love this one of Ava and her friend comparing costumes...


It always amazes me that they collect ALL kinds of candy and eat a few pieces and then I hide it away when we get home and they never ask for it again. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess...

*3*
Halloween carnival at preschool. I actually have adorable pictures of this, but they are not on my computer, and what the heck do people do with hard copies of photos anymore (when they do not have a scanner)? I actually dressed up as a witch on this day because the kids really wanted me to. Helping at their school was really fun and they had a blast.
That night, we had event #4...

*4*
Trick-or-Treating at work. I invited some kids I knew as well as kids from church to come visit the assisted living home where I work to trick-or-treat. I know most of the kids were nervous, but I helped "the grandmas", as I affectionately call them, to dress up in witch hats we made to make everyone feel a little more festive and comfortable.


By this time, I was tired from my head to my feet (princess shoes and witch shoes are not made for comfort). And we hadn't even hit Halloween night!

So needless to say, event #5 was a bust for the smaller, more easily fatigued member of our family.
*5*
One more trunk or treat and a FUN party at a friend's house.
Ava slept through the trunk or treat, so we only stayed for 10 minutes. When we got to our other party, she was VERY tired and grumpy, so Ro ended up taking her home and Mase and I stayed out late to party some more. Edna and Chris sure can throw a party! Hot dogs and hamburgers in the driveway, complete with a Halloween movie projected onto the garage and LOTS of friends in costume. So awesome!
We did actually trick-or-treat down a couple of streets and it was hard keeping this wild group together.





More to come on Hall reunion fun, family pictures, and upcoming events... I just KNOW you are on the edge of your seat with anticipation...