Spring Break 2013

It's been an exciting week for our family.  Gigi and Papi arrived on Sunday to stay with the girls over spring break and our little nephew Eli was born on Monday!  

Gigi and Papi spent the week with the girls playing games, watching movies, doing puzzles etc.  On Thursday they rode in to work with me and took the Metro train from my office to the zoo.  They hit up the zoo, the butterfly museum and Hermann park.  When I got off of work that afternoon I swung by and picked them all up.  The girls had such a great day they were sacked out all the way home.  Papi said he needed a big ole Budweiser as soon as he got home.  LOL!  It is quite a lot of work taking care of these girls all day, especially in a public place!

On Friday evening, Steve and I had a date night.  We stopped by Kristin and Daniel's to meet sweet little Elias and visit for a while.  He slept the entire time but that was fine with me because I got to hold him most of the time :)  He is so cute and Ava can't wait to meet him.  She said "oh did Elias finally come out of Aunt Kristin's tummy, he was in there for a LONG time!"

At the butterfly museum

Napping at the park

Gigi and her girls



Worn out from all the fun

Today we made the mistake of loading up the entire family and going to the rodeo carnival.  What a disaster!  We had to park so far away we may as well have parked in our driveway and walked to Reliant.  Brynn wouldn't stay in her stroller at all so I carried her the entire way and all day at the carnival.  She wouldn't let anyone else hold her.  There were more people there than I have ever seen in one place in my life. Ava didn't get to ride any rides because the lines were so long it wasn't worth it with two little ones.  So all in all, we walked and walked and walked some more and all anyone got out of it was a cute picture of Ava on a horse and probably a rare disease.  Gigi and Papi will think twice about my ideas next time.

In other news Brynn fell off the binky wagon this week.  I'm not being too hard on her though as the little angel has a double ear infection.  If that binky comforts her then so be it! 

Bye bye binky

Ava never took a paci. I tried but I was the only thing she would accept as a paci. Brynn took one every now and then but once I stopped nursing her she wanted the paci. So from then on she was glued to that paci. I'm not one to fret about timelines on pacifiers so I wasn't too worried about breaking her of it.

Selfishly breaking her of the paci and potty training her makes me sad because it solidifies the fact that my last baby isn't a baby anymore!

Last week we took the paci during the day and she only got it at bedtime. Easy and no fuss. Then we just stopped giving them to her during naps. Easy. Then we stopped giving it to her at bedtime and she never even fussed!! She is now paci free and I'm shocked at how easy it was! I will miss it though. She always looked so darn precious with that paci in her mouth.

Latest pictures of my loves

My babies have been quite busy these days. We have had lots of family time together, birthday parties, play dates etc... We are all impatiently awaiting the arrival of our new cousin Eli. He's now 1 week late!

Next week Gigi and Papi are coming in town to spend the week with the girls and watch them over spring break. We are so excited because we just booked our flights to California this summer! We will be visiting Gigi, papi, aunt Stacey and Uncle Sean and going to Disneyland. Ava is beside herself with excitement about her first trip to Disney.

Good News

I decided it was time to sit for my SPHR (senior professional human resources) exam. I took the PHR several years ago pre-kids and passed it but have been putting this off because of babies etc. anyway I was scared because it has a very high fail rate, so I studied my hiney off and passed!!! So I am now an SPHR. Woo hoo!!! Big deal in the HR world and a huge weight off my shoulders.

Rock a baby

Family Time

Ava just said to Steve "I love my family so much, I just love spending time with my family all day"  Such a sweet sweet girl :)

Bath time!

A beautiful day for a picnic- They requested to eat their lunch outside

Brynn the motor mouth

Brynn is talking up a storm now!  She's been putting sentences together for a couple of months now, but she has really taken off in the last couple of weeks.

Some of the things she has been saying:

• I put her in front of a mirror and say who is that and she says "dat Ben" or "dat benny!"
• I asked her where daddy was yesterday and she said "maybe at work"
• when you ask where something is she'll shrug her shoulders, throw her hands up and say " I dunno"
• Steve asked her last week if she had poopoo and she said "no silly, diarrhea"  and she was right!
• When I ask her if her diaper is dirty she says "no poopoo, just tee tee"
• She says "I want... whatever it is she wants at that time.  I want hog gog (hot dog), I want A-meal (oatmeal), I want Caillou etc.
• She also says "I love you"
• When we say Brynny lets go to bed, she says "No I pay" (play) or "no, I go Ava big big girl bed"
• She says "wait a minute Ava!"
• She also knows all of her colors and animal sounds
• Anytime she's not interested or doesn't want something she says "no thank you" and goes about her business

At night she is super sweet.  She tells us "I want book" and she knows the book I love you through and through by heart.  Then when I put her in her bed and say "I love you" she says "okay mommy I love you"

all winter cozy

snuggling with dad watching Caillou

doing a project

She still rubs her belly to do the sign for please and yells "peas" while rubbing her belly.  Her hair is getting so long it's almost longer than Ava's!  She's growing so fast it's almost scary.  She is super cuddly and is pretty much happy all of the time. 

Ava as a red head