Just because...

These two little girls keep me very entertained during the day. Love my little blue eyed cuties!

Halloween

This year for Halloween we had a "normal" princess according to Ava and a cute little 6 month old Tiger. Ava loved Halloween this year, I think because it's the first year she understood a little better of what was going on. She was so excited to be a princess. If you asked her what she was going to be for Halloween she would tell you a princess. If then asked her what princess? She would say "a normal princess." She is a funny girl.

Conversation between Steven and Ava after she was all dressed up for the first time getting ready to go to our trunk-or-treat.
Steven: What are you?
Ava: I'm a princess and I looove it!
Steven: You love it?
Ava: Yes, I'm just so happy!
She keeps us laughing.

Here is our little Tiger. I think she is the cutest little Tiger I've ever seen! She must have known what she was dressed up as, because she screamed the entire time we were at the trunk-or-treat. Everyone kept commenting about how she was doing her tiger roar.

After we took her hair down, lol. All in all it was a good Halloween, but I'm glad it's over until next year. I'm learning that Halloween is a lot of work and very busy when you have kids.

We are still here!

Yet again, I have been a terrible blogger! I don't know why I have such a hard time keeping this up?? So, I'm not going to say I am going to get myself caught up, I have about a billion new pictures since my last post, I know I'll never get to posting them, so here are a few recent pics and a quick recap of our summer: We've camped twice, went to the San Fran Zoo, spent lots of time with friends, hung out with visiting family, went to Monterey, played at the park, and much more! It's been a great summer we had tons of fun, and have loved getting to know Sage's little personality! But, I am so glad for cooler weather to come and the holiday season!

Ava on the beach in Monterey

Ava: She is officially 2 1/2 today! She loves, playing make-believe with ANYTHING! I can't not believe how creative her little mind is! She is talking so well, full sentences! Learning new things daily, hourly! lol she loves, playing outside, playing with Sage, playing with her friends, calling Steven and I by our given names and not "mommy & daddy", watching Disney movies, reading books, playing with her baby dolls, working outside with Steven, drinking chocolate milk, swimming, blowing bubbles, etc. She is so much fun and loves helping with her sister, but she is a strong willed little girl! And can throw a pretty good fit when she wants. She is really a great little girl who I love spending my days with!

Sage: She is almost 6 months old! I can't even believe my baby is already half way to a year!! The time has gone by so fast! She is soooo big and so cute!! She has the most kissable checks!! She is such a good baby, she rolls over like a champ, can just about sit-up on her own, loves her binkie, loves playing in her walker, she is a talker and a loud talker! She loves to sleep with a blanket on her face (which used to freak me out, but I've finally gotten used to it), she is doing pretty good with eating solids, and recently discovered her feet and loves to eat them! I just love my sweet little chunk! She gives us the biggest smiles and makes me so happy!

Our feet on the beach in Monterey. Steven's foot got cut off, but we couldn't re-do the picture because right after this was taken a huge wave came that we didn't see and soaked Sage up to her belly! She wasn't a very happy baby after that.



Here is a silly picture of Steven and I at a party we had a couple weeks ago at our friends house. They had this couch set up outside with a box full of props for everyone to use for pictures. It was hilarious! Such a fun party!!

Steven and I our doing great, just busy busy all the time. Steven recently started a new job with a company called Veneco. They have about 200 natural gas wells in the Sutter Butes, his job right now is to maintain them. It's a great company with a lot of potential for Steven to grow within the company. We are so thankful for this job, specially with the way the economy is right now, we think this is going to work out great for us and he can still go to school while working there. Someday he WILL finish school! I am still doing daycare, it keeps me VERY busy, but helps us meet our needs at this time, I am thankful I have a few good families who bring their kids to me everyday.

That's about it for now...hopefully I'll be back on here soon, but I make no promises. :)

My girls!

My friend Lacey took these awesome pictures of Sage when she was a new born, and of Ava for her two-year pictures. I love them!! I think she did a great job! It was so hard to narrow it down to a few to put on my blog. I can't wait to take more of Sage when she is a little older, she is such a smiley girl, I know we'll get some great ones! We are also going to have our family pictures done a little later this summer, when Sage is older and I have lost more weight :) I'm excited! Enjoy!

Overwhelmed

So, pretty much I'm a failed blogger. I have so much to blog about and get so behind and then so overwhelmed that I end up just not blogging anything. But, I am going to try and get caught up on a few things. Life is so much crazier now with two kids, I know for those of you with more then two probably think two is easy, but for me I'm still trying to figure out how to balance life with two kids. Here are my future blog posts that I'm going to try to blog about in the next couple of weeks. These are the happenings with our family over the last few months...
1. Steven's b-day
2. Pics of Sage and her crazy growing...she's huge!
3. Ava's two year pics.
4. Camping over memorial day weekend.
5. Potty training
6. Ava's new need to dress herself everyday
7. Sage's new born photo shoot.
8. Oh, yeah, and I'd still like to get Easter on here.

Yeah, I know a lot. But, I'm really going to try to get to it.

Introducing Sage Allison

I know it's been over a week now, but Sage has arrived!! She was born April 13th at 8:45am. She was 8lbs 1oz and 21 inches long! She is the most content little girl, hardly ever cries, as long as I keep her tummy full she is happy! We are all doing well and adjusting to life with two kids. Ava has had some moments, but for the most part she seems happy to have Sage around. She loves to give her kisses and stick her pacifier in her mouth. Hopefully she will continue to love her little sister! So here is the birth story...I'll try to keep it short.
I was due on Thursday April 8th...still had not had her by Monday the 12th, had a Dr. appt. that Monday morning. The Dr. said he would induce me on Wed. if I did not go into labor before that on my own. By that point I had just given up on going into labor and figured I would just have to be induced again. But, the baby had other plans. I started having contractions Monday around 4:30pm, they continued all evening and continued to get more intense as the night went on. We went to the hospital around 11pm I was dilated to a 3. Finally got my epidural around 3am at that point I was a dilated to a 6. So I was able to rest most of the night while my body progressed. I was ready to have her at 8:30 that morning, and little did I know that my epidural had completely worn off from my waste down. So I felt EVERYTHING while I was pushing her out and getting sewn up! I was not expecting that at all, but in the long run it was better because I was able to push her out in 15 min! So all in all, everything went very smoothly and she is healthy and happy. I have healed so much faster this time and feel great!
I am so thankful that the entire process went so much faster then when I had Ava! Here are a few pictures from the hospital and our first few days at home.

Healthy big girl

She was so alert!

A new little girl for Daddy

You can see how happy Ava was when she first meet Sage, lol. I love this pic! She really didn't know what to think.

She is feeling much better about her now.

All ready for her first outing.

Me and my girls

Question?

Why is my blog off center from my background?  It's driving me crazy and I don't know how to fix it?? I'm open to help if anyone knows how to explain this to me?  Thanks!

Update

Okay, so I haven't exactly done a very good job in keeping my blog up to date.  But I'm doing one now!

Ava update:

She will be two on Sunday the 4th!  I can't believe my baby is two!  We had a little party for her last Saturday.  It was a really nice day, we BBQ'd in the backyard at my parents house and had a great time hanging out.  She was very spoiled by everyone!  Here are a just a few pictures from the party.

She is talking like crazy! I can't believe how many things she says now and understands, she amazes me everyday.  She can be very stubborn sometimes and throw quite the screaming fit, but most of the time she really is very easy and listens to me very well.    She loves hanging out with Steven while he is working outside, she will play out there for hours!  She loves to help me around the house, sometimes her helping can really slow me down, haha...but I love that she is so happy to help me, I hope it lasts!  Her new thing is to say "what's this?"  She walks around the house pointing at anything and everything saying "what's this?".  She also loves when there are airplanes flying over the house, she gets so excited and says "air plane mommy, air plane!".  Those are just a few things that I can think of right now that she is doing.  We love this little girl more and more everyday!  I really can't wait to continue to watch her grow up and see how she is as a big sister!  Which leads me to the pregnancy update....

I am one week away from my due date and so done being pregnant!! I want this little girl to come out now!! haha.  This pregnancy has been very physically hard on me, my body is very tired and sore all the time.  I know that it is because I take care of all those daycare kiddos everyday and I probably lift them way too much and should have slowed down a lot sooner then I have, but that's hard to do!  I am 1cm dilated, the Dr. says my cervix is very soft and that the baby is very low, soooo I'm hoping it will be sooner then later.  We shall see...

A little help please

Hello friends and family. This is a quick post for my mother-in-law Tracy Astle. She has just finished writing her first novel and is in the process of trying to get it published. She has spent hours and hours doing research on how to get published and such. One of the things she has found really helps is to create a blog and to have lots of followers. So, I am asking all of you out there who read my blog if you wouldn't mind adding her to the blogs you follow. Even if you never ever read her blog and have no idea who she is, that is okay. It will really help her out if her blog shows she has lots of followers. She is listed on my side bar under my family links...her name obviously is Tracy Astle. She has worked so long and hard at writing this book I would love to see her get published and see what happens! Again, you don't have to read her blog if you don't want if you just add it to your blogs you follow that will help a lot! Thanks!

Parent and Tot Class

Steven's cousin works at Youngsters Inc., it's a gymnastics place for kids here in Yuba City. All the employees get to have one free child enrolled under their name and since his cousin is only 20 and has no kids she enrolled Ava under her name for us! There is only one class she is old enough to attend and that is the Parent and Tot class that Emma (his cousin) teaches on Monday evenings. The class age range is 18months - 3 years. Ava is just 20 months, so she barely makes the cut off, the next youngest in the class is 2 1/2. Needless to say I'm the only parent who really has to participate in the class and help Ava, the rest of the kids are old enough to follow what the teachers do and listen to the instructions on their own. But, Ava loves it, she really doesn't get that she is supposed to be doing certain things at certain times, but she is willing to try everything. Every time we do something she says "ooh" or "wee" or "hooray", it is pretty cute. So I try to keep her following the rest of the class the whole time, it wears me out, but it's fun and she'll eventually get it. Here are a few pictures Steven took of her last night. (please ignore how gross I look)

She does really well on the balance beam, I was surprised at how easily she does it at her age. I hardly have to hold on to her.
Getting ready to do a backwards somersault

Her favorite part, getting a stamp at the end of class

Trying to weasel her way into getting as many stamps as possible.

I just thought this was a cute picture of her. She is getting ready to get her shoes on to go home.