Nice Boots

Owen loves his boots. So this morning when we got invited to eat Green Eggs with Michael, He had a lovely outfit to wear outside. Then here's a couple cute pictures of a happy Ava.

Brother & Sister & Ramone

I haven't taken many pictures of Owen & Ava together and I think they are fun. To get this picture, I asked Owen if he would hold Ava and I'd get a picture but he was playing with his cars so he didn't want to. Then I asked him if I could take a picture of him holding Ava & Ramone. He came right over and sat down.

Food.

Today I discovered the mypyramid.com website. It is awesome. I played around on it today and found a bunch of cool tools. It has Food Gallery's in the different food groups where you can see real pictures of what serving sizes are, it has the new food guide pyramid and if you give your age, height & weight it gives you recommendations for your needs. Also you can set up a personal profile where you can keep a food diary and it analyzes what you ate and gives you back a whole bunch of information- like how your diet compares to the Dietary Guidelines of what you should eat, how you did on all of the nutrients and other cool info. Anways, I was impressed with all that it could do and how it helped me understand what I need to do to be a healthier eater.

I love eating fruits and vegetables but it's just to often that days go by that I don't eat any or enough fruits or vegetables. So, I've been trying to eat better and have better options at our house. I decided it doesn't take a lot of work to be better- I just have to think about it and make an effort to first of all have fruits and vegetables at our house, and then once they are there- eat & cook them. They always taste so good and really make a meal complete. Just talking about vegetables gets me all excited about growing a garden- yum.

Our Little Girl-

Here is some pictures of our little Ava. The first one is of her and Matthew on a Sunday afternoon, the rest are from yesterday- I was bored so we had a photo shoot :).

Valentine's Day

So, I was really excited for Valentine's Day this year. We started the morning off with some pink heart pancakes. Matthew thinks they are funny but growing up with my mom- I don't remember a Valentine's Day without them so the tradition lives on. In the afternoon I made some sugar cookies that are the best I've ever made. I usually don't really like sugar cookies but these turned out so good. So I was excited to just enjoy a night at home making dinner together and decorating cookies but then, we got a knock on our door. Earlier in the week Matthew had set up an appointment for this guy to come and give us an estimate for new windows. Mostly just to get an idea of how much they'd be. Anyways Matt forgot it was V-day when setting it up. So after over 2 hours of this really nice man getting to know way to much information about our family and blah blah blah, he finally got measurements on our windows. In the meantime, Owen, Ava & I enjoyed some quality tv time while eating a gourmet dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and green beans. Then we decorated cookies, which was a lot of fun. So anyways now that I've grumbled enough about the window man, I did get to enjoy some fun with my kids, just not so much with my hubba. Anyways, I did get a couple of great pictures- would you believe that Owen put the sprinkles on his cookie all by himself?

Nice.

This picture just makes me laugh. There are a couple of funny things about it. First of all, Owen's beads. He has been wearing them almost non-stop for over a week now. He sleeps in them and if and when we ever get out of our house, he has worn them then too. Uncle Dallin Paul comes to our house everyday after school and yesterday he came over during the crazy bad snowstorm. Owen loves his Uncle Dallin so of course for a little boy, some cool glasses and gloves that he wears have to be tried on. Probably the funniest thing to me about this picture is that the ski mask & Power Ranger gloves were worn by Uncle Dallin Paul, age 18, to Sky View High School. Well, I don't know for sure that he wore them much at school but the thought of an adult walking around like it is totally normal to wear super hero gloves and a big ski mask really makes me chuckle. I love my brother Dallin.

Once there was a snowman...

Here's a lucky little boy that got to play in the snow with his Dad.

Quiet Time

So, Owen is in the transition where he never wants to take a nap anymore but sometimes he still needs one and sometimes he doesn't so from the example of my awesome sister-in-law I have started doing what's called quiet time. It's where he spends 1 hour either looking at books, playing, just resting, or sleeping in his bedroom by himself. That way he & I both get some downtime and I don't have to stress about whether he needs a nap. Anyways, I just barely was going down to tell Owen he could come upstairs now and this is what I found.

Snow!

We've been getting lots of snow lately and yesterday Owen & I finally went out to play in it. We went sledding down the little hill by our house and made a snowman.

Baby Ava

Our little Ava is learning so much everyday. She's becoming more & more alert and also started smiling 2 weeks ago. This last picture distorts her face a little bit but there's the beginning of a half smile. It's so fun. It's amazing to think how much she's learned and grown already.

Blessed Youtube.

Here are a couple videos that we just love at our house. The Charly video makes me laugh so hard every time. Just click on these links:
-New Soul
-Charly Bit My Finger Again

Sleep- What a Wonderful Thing!

So I don't know when this will happen again but last night Ava fell asleep around 11 or so and I didn't hear her again until almost 6:00 this morning! Wahoo! That makes for a happy mama.

Uncle Dallin

Owen loves his Uncle Dallin Paul. Here they are both wearing their "Go Aggies" Utah State shirts. They are good pals. It's fun to watch them interact. Dallin doesn't have to do much to get a good gut laugh from Owen. They have a lot of fun together.

Owen- Go Jazz!

Owen has a new favorite place to play that sits in one of our big windows- there's lots of light. So, it's fun to take pictures there. The last picture, Owen is wearing head & wrist bands that they passed out at a Jazz game that Matt & I got to go to. We are surprised at how much Owen likes them. When he puts them on he says "Go running now" or "Go Jazz" and then takes off running with his little arms tucked up tight- cause that's what they do in basketball I guess.

Our Family of Four

Although Owen doesn't look so happy in the picture, he has been a great big brother. It's fun to have our Ava here.