I had so many people tell me that their third baby put them over the top, that things never ran as smoothly after that.  YES, YES, YES, I agree whole heartadly.  I love my sweet baby boy he is my miracle beyond miracles and its not that he is a challenging child. Its just amazing to me that one more person to clothe, feed, clean up after, bathe, makes that big of a difference.  Nolan will be two in April and I have blogged ONCE since he was born.  Was this because my life was boring, maybe, but mostly just because I am/was too exhausted to think let alone type a coherent sentence. 

Repentance is forth coming, I don't know if anyone even reads my little blog anymore, what am I saying of course they don't, you have to write a blog for people to read it.  It also seems now with Facebook and Pinterest bloggers blog less, but since we live near NO ONE in our families, I will start up again in hopes that they will enjoy keeping up on our family adventures, through my Momma diary. And most importantly I do best when writing down my feelings it helps me to see things in a different light and I hope that my blog will once again become a form of therapy for this adult conversation deprived momma. 

Just to remind you who we are

My favorite teenager in the whole world

My little monkeys

My favorite little man in the history of ever

 My favorite Kindergartner and total Momma lover

The Momma diaries will be coming soon...

Just keep swimming...

Today is the first day of Kindergarten for Ava girl and yes, she is my second but in my defense there is a 7 year gap and I am very use to Trena being in school at this time, its the normal.  Now don't get me wrong I love to have Trena home too, but Trena is more quiet at home spends a lot of time in her room reading and I have to beg her to go do anything.  Ava on the other hand is right where I am at all times,  my little shadow, my shadow that I fought so hard to have.  And so yes its the first day of kindergarten and both of our worlds have been completely rocked, mine I believe more than hers. 

why is it so hard when our kids start a new adventure with out us?  Ava had some concerns this morning that were not addressed in orientation yesterday, and the truth is they are pretty insignificant but as a mom I don't want her to worry about a thing.  I explained that the teacher would help her and let her know exactly where to put her stuff today.  I am thankful that she was excited and kissed me quickly while I was still trying to throw out my words of advice and that she quickly climbed the stairs with her hand in her sisters as she boarded the bus. And yet now I sit, I am sitting here questioning if I have taught her enough, I am hoping that I have raised her to be compassionate enough and loving enough to others.  I am praying that she will make a good little friend and won't feel lonely (and yet a little lonely, I still want to be her favorite person in the world). Trena starting school was such a different experience for me because I worked full time and she had gone to preschool, i had been in college when she was a baby, then part time work.  Trena and I learned early on how to be separated from one another when she would go to her dad's for over nighters, and when she started school my mom and then Brent's mom too were always right there a mere five houses a way.  We spend the first five years of our children's lives preparing them to start school, to have the confidence to not be afraid, and I have succeeded and yet now I worry about all the time that I didn't spend with my Ava doing the things that she loves.  I know I am a good mom and that my kids don't feel unloved or deprived of my time, but still with the emptiness in my home at this time all I can think is now is the perfect time for a game of candyland...

Introducing Nolan

Born 8:56 AM on 4/12/12 via C-section
7lbs 2 oz
18.5 inches

So this Easter outfit reminded me of another great Easter outfit...

This great Easter egg hunt outfit worn by Ava:

Reminded me for some reason of another great Easter egg hunt outfit worn by her big sister Katrena at the age of 4.

Easter April 8, 2012

Easter was just plain fabulous all the way around this year, I don't think I've ever enjoyed the day and time with my little family more. Every thing just made me happy!

We started off the festivities with pizza and egg coloring on saturday night.
On Sunday morning I was awoken by a complete scream of delight as Ava realized it was Easter! I thought for sure she had already broken the rules and had gone to the kitchen table, but she had not she just remembered and screamed and shouted "Its Easter!" She then asked me where the bunny poop was and I had to explain that the house didn't get vacuumed yesterday and the Easter Bunny thought it was probably best not to leave any jelly bean poop around this year. Ava then quickly ran to wake her sister so that we could go see their Easter baskets. I made a mistake and used the camera instead of the video camera and I should have recorded it because Ava's comments were hilarious the whole day!

Here is their loot


Ava screamed and got excited over everything and I loved it, the hits were the spinbrush toothbrush and rainboots and gum! With everything she picked up she'd scream shout what it was and then say "I noticed it, I noticed it!" Trena was excited but slightly sad that hers wasn't funner. Although they cost about the same and its hard as your kids grow up. She was very excited about the 10th book in her favorite series though.


Gum, who knew right?
Next while we waited for our yummy baked french toast with apples and cranberries to finish bake the girls and I watched some beautiful videos put out by our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on YouTube about Easter. I explained the videos to the girls as it went along and answered any questions and Ava had a lot. I loved how when we got to church Ava was as excited to tell her teacher about the videos of Christ we watched as she was about the goodies in her basket. After we got home from church Ava had a few questions for Trena about death while they were playing outside and she didn't like her sisters answers because she came inside crying that she didn't want to die and didn't want her family to die. She kept this up off and on the rest of the night. She would just out of the blue say she didn't want to die or she didn't want me to die. Its hard to reassure your 3 year old you are not going to die when we have no idea when we will die.

After breakfast and videos we all got ready for church and I have to say I am just giddy over how cute my girls looked! There were so beautiful and radiant and I just love how these photos turned out!

I had to leave this cheesey one of Ava in and I love that I forgot to cut her tag in the first few photos.



And together! The first shot was a total keeper, that never happens!
My beautiful grown up Katrena



Then we were off to Church and my friends baby was blessed on this beautiful Easter Sunday. When we got home we all grabbed something to hold us over until our yummy Easter dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, broccoli salad, and carrots was done. While everything was finishing up cooking we headed outside for a backyard Easter egg hunt. Dad is very good at hiding those eggs, this year they had 32 to find.

The polk a dot wonder woman


Every time Ava would find an egg she'd wave it in the air and yell "Yeah," and then she'd say "I found a ______ one, yeah, a _______ one, yeah" inserting the color of the egg found. It was slightly snotty but super funny.





The great count showed 17 for Trena and 15 for Ava!
of course they then made dad hide them all again and the next time they tied with 16.

An Easter picture with my girls

When we got back inside Ava was very disappointed that I had not done my messages in the eggs asking them questions about Easter and having them do different things like sing their favorite primary song and then telling them to go look somewhere for something special from mom and dad. Mom was just a little bit of a slacker this year and we'll blame it on pregnancy. I felt really bad though because she remembered. So I took 3 eggs out and put places for them to go look and there was a prize for each of them and one for them together. I then hid the three eggs in the family room and had them go find it. They both got a soccer ball and a net to share.


They also had received cards in the mail from Grammy Ann and my mom as well as a package from Brent's mom so they opened those up and got those prizes as well. I think that all in all they had a pretty awesome Easter!

Afgan for my friends baby blessing...

This is my go to afgan pattern for baby girls. I will do it in fun colors or I will do it in white for baby blessings, it is actually the pattern I used for Trena's baby blessing. I used a different pattern for Ava's so that they would be different and I kind of regret it now because I love this pattern so much. Anyways when I do it for blessings I usually put white or a soft pink ribbon down the sides, but decided to use teal instead because this sweet babies room is done in teal and red and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. Having probably made twenty of these over time, I really think this one is my favorite.


My mother in law asked me how long it takes me to make one of these blankets and I really don't have any idea. I timed it once and depending on the row (because of the pattern) it can take between 5-15 minutes per row and there are 102 rows, plus 5 rows of border and they each take about an hour or so. You can easily put 10 hours into one, but they turn out so beautiful that it is worth every minute.

Baseball

Last Tuesday April 3rd just for fun while playing in the backyard the girls and dad decided to play baseball. All we have for "equipment" is a splash bat and a big (well it was big once upon a time, so a shrunken big) ball.

This was Ava's first time playing and she had so much fun! Here are some photos of Brent pitching her the ball. I absolutely love the joy on her face every time she makes contact with the ball.


Sister took over pitching and Dad gave her some pointers:

And then Trena pitched to dad:


And dad pitched to Trena, I didn't get many pics of Trena at bat because A) she would hit the ball and it was gone faster than I could take the picture and B) the kid was way too serious:


And then Ava started to pout that it was too hard:

So sister pitched, daddy took over with the camera and mom assisted:

It was such a fun 45 minutes and I found myself wondering why we don't take more opportunities to enjoy these simple but unforgetable moments!