Halloween to Thanksgiving

 

I just realized I never posted our Halloween pictures.  This year we went with a zoo theme.  Dave really appreciated me not making him wear something crazy like I have in Halloween's past.  He was our zookeeper, Ella was our "Ella"phant, Ava was a cheetah and I was a zebra.  We were pretty low key this year but the girls had lots of fun and Ella is still asking for "dandy" (candy) and Ava is always asking when we can go "Kunk and Treat" again.  They are crazy and unfortunately love treats like their mom.

We took a few family pictures don't judge them yet because I still need to edit them but thanks Jessica for taking them for us.  Unfortunately there were people behind us that would not move so it got dark.  Oh well at least we all look ok in these and we are all looking at the camera.

Dave has had several interviews for Residency next year (I can't believe we are already at that stage) so Ava wanted to celebrate when he got home from some of them.  We decorated with some streamers and balloons.  Ava was so excited.  She is our animated little girl and easily excitable.  I took her to our local library a few weeks ago where they have a throne you can sit and read on.  Ava sat on it and yelled "Look Mom, I'm a drama queen!!" I have never called her that but realized one of the shows she watches says it in it but she is a little bit of a drama queen.  She is a sweetheart too.  At the mall one time Dave and I stopped at one of those blood pressure machines to take our blood pressure and Ava wanted a turn too.  She hated it and how it squeezed her arm.  The next morning though she walked downstairs and said "Thanks Dad.  Thanks for helping me squish my arm." She is always very thankful even for things she doesn't really like.  I love that about her.  Ella is growing up so fast too and talking so much.  It helps when her sister is a non stop talker and is always saying "Ella, say..." and Ella repeats her.  It is pretty precious.  At dinner one night we were having spaghetti and Ella picks up a noodle and says "snake! SSSSSS." She loves her daddy so much too and is always talking about daddy and asking where he is.  She is such a daddy's girl and I love it.

We are doing great though and loving this time of year from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  There is so much to be grateful for. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Picture Overload

So it's been a crazy few months around here. We spent a month in Austin, TX for a rotation which was a lot of fun and we have been back in AZ for awhile now just surviving Dave's crazy schedule with auditioning for a residency spot. It's crazy to think we are in our last year of med school and starting residency in just a few months. 

These pics didn't load in the right order and I don't really want to redo it so this is just going to be a little scrambled but hey that's how my life is right now too. 

 These girls are so silly. You may wonder why Ella has a white face and hair... That would be because her silly sister decided to pull out my nail polish and paint her.

 They love each other so much :)

 Ava got a little tired watching General Conference and Nana Beep was able to actually get her to sleep in her lap.  I don't know the last time that has happened but for some reason she has napped a lot this week during her quiet time.

 Here is the Texas state capital building. Oh how we love Texas!

 We went on a duck tour around Austin while we were there.  It was a bus that can go into the water so the girls loved that.  They also gave us these little duck whistles that they had so much fun with.

 The whistles even looked like a duck bill and made a duck noise.  Ava fell asleep on the ride there too.  I forgot about that. She wears herself out with her craziness.

 We went to this super yummy restaurant right on Lake Travis while we were there too. It is a beautiful city as you can see.  We really loved it there. Not sure if it is in our permanent future but the city is a lot of fun.

 Here's are little cheeser.

 Dave thinks it's hilarious to feed Ella lemons and watch her reaction.  It is pretty funny.  Poor girl but she kept going back for more so she must of liked it..

 Ava got a little nervous sleeping in the new room by herself.  She has lately become very scared of the dark and has 2 night lights and her door open.  I guess this night that just wasn't enough light so she slept on the hallway floor...

 If you look closely those little fuzzy dots are actually bats.  There in Austin they have a bridge where millions of bats live and at sunset they all come out to eat.  We were a month late to when they actually fly out into the sky instead they just flew around below us which was pretty cool.

 This little girl is growing up too fast.  The other day I was holding onto her and she said "Let go a me!" What??? Since when did she learn how to say that.. I'm in trouble.

 This little girl is growing up too fast too and is really into friends.  We went to the Mayfield Park in Austin where peacocks just walk around.  It was pretty cool but Ava made about 30 friends there because she just kept going up to any little kid about her size and grabbing their hand and saying "Hi friend." I am so glad she can be friends with anyone.  She pulls me out of my comfort zone many times.

 Knock, knock..

 I love these pictures of Dave and the girls.  I think they are so precious and I love Ava's faces.  She has the greatest facial expressions.  I can't capture them all on camera but just talking to her is so fun watching her expressions.  She is such a cutie pie and getting so big.

 Buddies in crime..

 We went to an all you can eat BBQ place there too and it would be an understatement to say that Ella loved it.  Seriously look at that face.  She was even licking the table :)

 Ava loved the bread.. I am pretty sure she has about 5 pieces of bread in her hand.

 We went with our friends Teal and Nick.  They had a baby a few days after we left.  We were so sad we didn't get to meet their little guy.  It was so fun to see them and catch up though.

 We wanted to take a pic of what our girls look like during prayers.  They are so sweet.  Ella just learned how to fold her arms recently and it is so fun watching her.

We had a great time in Austin and are glad to be back too.  It was a great little break and such a beautiful and fun city.  We just hope that AZ cools down a little bit soon.  I am ready for fall weather. 

Comet, California, and Craziness

I'm sorry! I am finally getting around to posting.  It has been a crazy and busy and fun summer.  This is going to be a long post so I understand if you just want to look at the pictures.. So a few weeks ago Ava was in quiet time and I could hear her walking around but didn't really think much of it because quiet time is not always quiet at our house but I went upstairs to find this:

Yes that is a brand new bottle of Comet cleaner poured all over her room.  She had a footprint trail all over upstairs too.  I had put it in my bathroom to clean our shower and forgot all about it.  Apparently Ava hadn't.  Let's just say I wasn't happy.  It had been a rough day prior to this happening but this was the clincher.  It was a nightmare to clean and I'm not even sure it was fully cleaned.  I'm just glad she didn't eat it even though it was all over her and she had white hair.  Oh how I love that girl but some days she is lucky that I do :).
For our vacation this summer we headed over to California.  It was so fun just getting away and spending time together as a family.  It helped that it was 40 degrees cooler there than here - no exaggeration.  We stayed one night at the LA Temple apartments.  It was so amazing to look out our window and see this:

Although you can't tell from the picture this Temple is huge! It is so pretty too.  Definitely the biggest temple I have ever seen.  We went to the visitor center there and Ava loved the Jesus statue and kept wanting to give it a hug:

It's moments like that when I forget all about the comet moments.  She is a sweetheart.  After our morning at the temple we headed down to Rodeo Drive.  It is only about 3 miles from the temple.  We just wanted to check it out.  I'm sure we fit right in driving down it in our minivan.  We headed to Hermosa Beach next.  Dave's old roommate lives there so we got to spend some time with him and his wife which was lots of fun.  It is so pretty there.  Ava and Ella loved being on the beach and playing in the sand.  Ella loved eating the sand too...

We didn't end up getting in the water because it was freezing cold.  Even just sitting on the beach was cold to me hence being wrapped in a towel.  It was so pretty though and tons of fun.  After the beach we headed to Downtown Disney.  We didn't go to Disneyland because it was so expensive and we didn't think our kids were old enough to appreciate it - well Ava would and she would LOVE it but it was a little out of our budget and we decided we would go when Ella gets a little older.  Anyways it was lots of fun to walk around the shops and we even got to see the awesome firework show they put on.  Ella loved it and kept saying "more."  She is so funny and cute.  Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of it but the Lego store was incredible and they had lifesize Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story Characters made out of legos.  It was amazing! Afterwards we decided to go ahead and do the 1 1/2 hour drive down to San Diego so we wouldn't have to worry about traffic the next morning down there.  If you want the full story of what occurred during the next 5 hours of our trip you will have to give me a call because it was quite the adventure and I have been banned from posting all the horrible details but let's just say if you are planning a trip to San Diego be sure to book a hotel in advance and if you don't be sure while you are driving from hotel to hotel telling you they have no vacancies be sure to check your gas light so you don't run out of gas on the one exit with nothing around... Yeah so anyways at 3 am we finally found a place to stay the night 45 min. north of San Diego... That was a rough night! But we survived and it is a good laugh now although not so much in the moment.  The next day we slept in a little and then headed down to the San Diego Zoo.  The girls loved all the animals and had so much fun.  It is such a pretty zoo and one you can actually comfortable walk around at in the middle of August. 

 This is how she napped half way through the adventure.  She was tired :)

The next day we went to SeaWorld.  It was so fun too and so kid friendly.  Ava and Ella both loved the shows and seeing all the animals there too and sat through the shows too.  They are very entertaining though so I understand why they loved it because Dave and I loved it too.

 Before Shamu soaked us

 After Shamu splashed and soaked us... It was a lot of fun sitting in the splash zone there.  Ella didn't love it but the rest of us did.

 We sat in the splash zone for the nightly Shamu show too but thankfully he is nicer at night because I was freezing being dry.

 There he is - Shamu

 And yes Shamu totally rocks :)

We got our girls Shamu stuffed animals and they were so excited.  It was such a fun day and I highly recommend going to Sea World with little kids.

This is what we saw on our drive back to our hotel.  You can't really tell from the picture but I can understand why they have to turn the San Diego Temple lights off at night.  It is an amazing sight to see when you are driving down the freeway.  Very easily distracts drivers.  Ava called it the temple castle.  We loved our vacation and had so much fun!

Now we are back to our crazy and fun lives:

 This is how Ava came out of quiet time the other day.  She had a different outfit on before and I guess decided it wasn't as suitable as Ella's shirt, her underwear and a headband.  She is hilarious.

 We had some dress up wigs we were playing around with.  Ella begs to wear them and I think it is so hilarious.  They are Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.  The white wig is my fairy godmother one from last year.  This is their new favorite thing to do... I love it!

They are so silly and I love them so much!!  We hope everyone else had as fun of a summer as we did!!!