Texas

We went to Texas about a week and a half ago to let Dave study without distraction for his Board exams he will take in a few weeks. We came to stay with my parents which has been fun. My parents love being able to spend time with Ava and Ella as you can tell from the above picture. You may wonder why that little crazy monkey isn't wearing any clothes... Well let me tell you how the first 5 hours of being at "Grangra" and "Grangra"'s (what Ava calls them) house went...

We hadn't even been there for 1 minute before this was broken on the ground. My mom and dad learned quick that anything of any sort of value or breaking ability needed to be out of Ava's reach....
I missed getting a picture of some other things she broke within the first few hours but there were a few other things. Then Ava decided at one point to go down the stairs... She is really good at sitting down and going down the stairs. Well apparently she had just gone to the bathroom and left a little something behind on every step all the way down.

Good thing my parents have a good sense of humor.

We have been doing a lot of this. Ava begs to "splash, splash" everyday.

No Ella didn't go in a bike trailor like this but I thought it was such a cute picture. You can see a few of the bikes in my parents' garage. This is their new found hobby they started a few years ago and have loved it. They own like 7 bikes. Which is fun when we all want to ride. I love how trusting Ella is just laying her head on her sister's shoulder.

I just love these two little ones!!

Caught in the act...

I wish I would have caught the picture a few seconds earlier before she sat down because the toilet paper was stuck to her foot while she was walking around and it was so funny. I swear she normally is dressed :)

Ella is such a sweet and patient little baby. She makes it so easy to chase around her older sister.

Last Sunday we went to the Houston Temple with my parents. My dad is a Sealer there and had a meeting he said would only last an hour. It lasted 2 1/2 which was fine because it is so beautiful to walk around but it was HOT. After an hour of chasing Ava around it I noticed her face was pretty red so we sat in the car in the air conditioning for the last hour and a half trying to keep my crazy child contained.

She is so crazy

Good thing her sister didn't mind doing a lot of this so I could try to keep her sister out of mischief.

Like this....

She is such a funny little girl. On Memorial Day my parents had some friends over for a BBQ and Ava saw some Brownies that were brought and she walked over to me and said, "Mommy,I need a treat!" She is so my daughter and I love her to pieces. Apparently I was pretty ADD like her as a child too. It has been quite the adventure out here, but we miss daddy like crazy and can't wait to see him in a few weeks.

The Month of April

When Ava was born we used to call her bugsy after the little animal from the movie Bedtime Stories with the huge eyes. Ella inherited those big eyes too. She, like Ava, is a very alert little baby and always has those big eyes wide open just figuring out the world.
She is a much calmer baby than Ava was. She is such a sweet little girl and we just love her!

We had lots of Easter egg hunts this month. Ava LOVED collecting all the eggs and eating all the treats.

She is such a sweet and good little girl too. She definitely keeps us on our toes though.

This little girl loves to smile. She is staring at me now just smiling. She loves having people look at her and gives big smiles when they do. I love it.

Dave turned the big 30 this month. I wanted to do something nice for him so I recreated one of his favorite restuarants and designed my own menu and everything. It was fun to do and saved us money from going to the real place which always makes Dave happy. :)

I even had Sports Center on in the background. Another one of Dave's favorite things.

I put Ella in the Bumbo seat for the first time and she loved it. She loves sitting up and watching her sister.

Our cute little girls! Ava loves holding her sister and always tells me "here ya go" meaning she wants to hold Ella.

Ella and Ava both love bath time.

Smiling at Daddy

I love this picture! They look so much alike just bigger and smaller versions of each other.

Ava is always giving loves to her sister. Sometimes they are a little rough but I am glad she loves her so much

Well since I seem to only get around to posting once a month I might as well just give them the title of the month. Sorry I am so slow to getting on here. I always forget about our blog :) So anyways this month has been filled with all kinds of fun things though. I can't believe Ella is almost 3 months old. Time flies by and I just love watching these 2 sweet girls grow. I took them both in for their well checks at the doctor. Ella is in the 38th percentile for both height and weight. We aren't used to such a big baby :) We decided it was survival of the fittest though. Ella knows she needs to put some weight on to keep her safe from her over loving sister. Ava is in the 13th percentile for weight and 40th for height so she is growing too and actually in the double digits. We just love these two!!

Birthdays & Blessings

So this is our crazy little Ava! She started sleeping in her "big girl" toddler bed the day after my last post and she loves it. We couldn't resist taking this picture of her a few nights ago where she insisted that she sleep with this "hat" (bowl) on her head and positioned herself at the end of the bed to keep it on. She is seriously such a funny little girl and has more personality than anything I could have ever dreamed up. I love it! My cute little family! The first night in her new bed! She did awesome in it I was so impressed/grateful :)

See LOTS of personality! This is how she decided to eat her dinner one night... As you can imagine she didn't eat much of it.

So tomorrow (in about an hour) our little princess turns 2

So we had a little princess party for her on Saturday night with some of her little friends

We searched for Princess Jewels (aka easter eggs) and had a cupcake/princess musical wand walk

And ate some delicious princess cake

I can't believe our little girl is 2. I swear we just had her. She is such a fun little girl and we love having her in our home! Dave and I constantly look at her and ask each other when she grew up. It was seriously over night. This morning she woke up asking for "one more present." That is her new favorite phrase. But one more normally means a lot more than one. Good thing we had a family party for her today :)

So this is how the morning started in preparation for Ella's blessing in church :) Thankfully it didn't end that way...

Our beautiful little baby in her blessing dress

She didn't even make a peep during her blessing

What a sweetheart!

Our Wonderful Family that came for the blessing

Birthday Party #2 with all her Ashby cousins

Exhausted from the over stimulated, sugar rush weekend (her mouth was blue from the ring pop she was eating) she fell asleep on our lovesac. It was a crazy and busy weekend, but so much fun and we were glad we were able to spend it with our friends and family!

6 Weeks

One of our good friends took some adorable pictures of Ella for us a few days after she was born. They turned out so cute! Thank you so much Kristi we really appreciate you doing that for us even though Ella wouldn't cooperate and stay asleep :)!
I can't believe that our little Ella turned 6 weeks old on Wednesday. It feels like just yesterday that we were heading to the hospital, yet I can't remember what it was like without her in our family. She is such a sweet and content baby and Ava just loves her too (sometimes a little too much). I think the first 6 weeks are the hardest after having a baby. Just adjusting to no sleep :) and to a new member of the family. The last little bit has been so easy though. I feel like I am getting the hang of having 2 kids and going out is so much easier. I am grateful for that. Ella is sleeping so much better too! The last few nights have been great and hopefully they last.
Ella looks so much like Ava did at her age. It is crazy to look at pictures and see the similarities. Ava will be 2 in a week and a half and I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. It makes me sad but I love seeing the different stages they go through. Ava is my little buddy and has been such a champ through this transition. We bought her a toddler bed yesterday so we'll see how that transition goes :) but she is such a sweet little girl and I love the stage she is in. She is so curious about everything and is constantly talking - which I am pretty sure happened over night. She puts words into sentences and she communicates so well. She is so funny. Some of my favorite Ava quotes are, "I'm gonna get you" as she runs away from us for us to chase her - she especially loves this game with her daddy when he comes home from school. Another one is "It's ok, no wors (worries)" she normally says this after she has loved Ella a little too much and Ella is screaming. It cracks me up! The other day we were on a walk and Ella started crying and Ava said, "It's ok, no wors! Hungry? Yeah!" It was so funny because she was answering for Ella and Ella was hungry. You probably had to be there to hear Ava say it but it was probably one of the funniest things she's said.
Ella rolled over from her stomach to her back a week ago Thursday. I am sure it was a fluke thing but I wouldn't be suprised if she starts doing things early just for protection sake from her big sister. I know Ava can't wait until Ella is big enough to play with her. She is always trying to get Ella to play "zoeys" with her. I don't know where "zoey" came from but that is the name of all her little dolls - and those dolls go with her EVERYWHERE. She loves holding little figures and it is very hard for her to give them up when she finds some at other people's homes.
But all in all these last 6 weeks have been a lot of fun and a lot easier than I thought it would be. I've even run twice since my 6 weeks mark - which was just on Wed. so that is pretty good and I am proud of myself. It is a pretty good workout pushing a double jogger! Life is great though and we are enjoying this stage we are in!