Holiday kids

A year ago at Christmas, a few months after Ava was born, several girls from work who had recently had babies all met up at the annual festival of trees. We decided to meet up again with a few more new moms. It is fun to see how our little group of kids is growing so quickly. Some even have another baby on the way already!

Ethan & Ava had a fun time playing with the other children, making crafts, eating tasty treats, and of course visiting with Santa! Ava was one of the few her age who actually enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. Clause. As you can see from the picture above Ava’s cute little beret didn’t last long.

New hats

During our Thanksgiving visit in Utah aunt Jessica gave out her Christmas gift to the cousins. She is the creative, crafty, artistic one in the family and we’re lucky to enjoy her gifts. This year she made these cute little hats for the kids. Ethan wears his all the time and gets lots of comments. I think they all look so cute. I especially like Ava’s style with her hat. Always such a unique little girl that keeps us laughing!

Raking leaves with grandpa

This year we visited Utah for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with family and to attend my brother’s wedding. Ethan, Ava and I flew down early while Jairo finished up some classes. We spent the extra time meeting the soon to be sister-in-law Sarah (who seems totally cool!) and spending time with grandma and grandpa Rubalcava. During our stay in Nephi things can get kind of quiet in the small town so Ethan is always looking for something to do. The weather was actually quite nice, sunny and dry for the most part, so we sent Ethan out to help finish raking the leaves. He’s always up for that chore because he loves the fun part of jumping into the pile. As you can see, from a few years of practice he has learned how to get some air. Aside from the fun of raking, Ethan really does a great job helping too. Ava missed out on the leaf raking since she was napping.

Wedding Fun

Just a few pictures highlights from my brother’s wedding over Thanksgiving … Sarah was a beautiful bride and we’re so excited to have her in our family. We all had a fun time, although all the gatherings eventually took their toll on the kids sleeping and thus ours as well. So, we were all very happy to return home for quiet uninterrupted sleep in our own beds.

My aunt Alice knit this beautiful beret and shawl for Ava and try as we might we could not get her to sit still for nice picture … Hence the view of my aunt’s talent from the rear.

Nearly every picture of Ava during the wedding is while she's on the move or not aware that we were taking pictures. She was not fond of the camera during this visit.

Uncle Roman was a sport to try and get a photo with the niece and nephews. Ethan was a cooperative, smiling champ. Athony and Ava not so much into the photo shoot.Cute little Anthony and Ethan were quite the little buddies. Ethan loved playing with his little cousin and wants to know when he’s going to have a little brother.If you ask Ethan about his favorite part of the wedding he’s sure to mention cupcakes.

Ava pestering her cousin Anthony during the family dinner the night before the wedding. He’s looking like he’s fed up with her.

Ethan hanging out with his cousins Matthew and Joshua.

Family pics

Family pictures are never my favorite things. Pictures in general are not my favorite things. It seems you try to arrange the best time between kids naps, lunch, work, etc and yet there is always some hiccup that throws off the well planned schedule and by the time the photo shoot starts someone is crying, hungry, too cold, too hot, etc. This year I got on the Groupon train and got a deal with a photographer for some family pics since we haven’t had one in 2 years. Of course just before our scheduled pics everyone got a horrible cold and was still not feeling well by the time picture day rolled around. Despite everyone feeling under the weather I was pleasantly surprised at how our pictures turned out. We had an easygoing photographer who did an excellent job. I just wish I paid extra for photo shop editing to clear my eye baggage and age lines to make me look 20!

Cows and Pirate-Knights

Halloween is such a fun time for kids. Ethan is now at the age where he is looking forward to Halloween with all the candy, pumpkin carving, costumes, etc. We started Halloween fun with a visit to the art museum where they were having a special family day to celebrate and teach kids about Dia De Los Muertos. Of course this holiday and some of the art that goes along with it can be a bit frightening for little ones, but they did a great job of keeping things tame.

One of the displays at the museum was this carriage made out of sugar. There was also a chandelier made from the same medium that was quite ornate and interesting as well.

Next on the Halloween fun list was our ward’s Halloween trunk or treat. Thanks to such a fantastically dedicated and fun ward the turnout was great and the kids had a blast. Ethan could not decide on being a pirate or a knight so he chose to combine the costume as a pirate-knight. So he used his old knight costume and added a hook hand, eye patch and any and all household play swords or guns. I think he just wanted all of the artillery really. Ava was a cute little cow or calf as she was referred to all evening. I tried to talk Ethan into being a cowboy to make a theme of the costumes, but he was not into that idea.

Ethan also had a fun preschool Halloween party and then of course trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Since Jairo had class that evening I went out with Ethan and Ava in our neighborhood. I felt bad that no one would be home to pass out candy so I left a bowl of candy at our door. I figured if kids took too much candy no big deal; I would just turn off our lights when we returned home and be done with passing candy. However, I did not consider that my bowl would be taken along with the candy and was really not happy to return home to no candy bowl … especially given that I did not give thought to the bowl I used and had one of my nicer bowls outside.

Overall we had fun making new Halloween décor, trying on costumes and carving pumpkins. Jairo is always in charge of the pumpkin carving and enjoys making fun designs.

I think the scariest pumpkin is the one Jairo and Ethan carved a bit early and had molded by Halloween, but Ethan did not want to get rid of it until afterwards.

Ethan at 4

Riding with no training wheels, more excited to play with friends than hang with mom, a determined sense of his own fashion choices, a brother who likes to pester his little sister, favorite pastimes of playing with legos, cars and riding his bike … this is Ethan at 4. This year I decided to tone things down with regards to a birthday party so instead of a large party Ethan was allowed to invite a few friends to Jump Planet and then we came home for hot dogs, burgers and cupcakes. So much less stress I don’t know why I didn’t do this last year when I was sleep deprived with a 1 month old. Happy birthday to Ethan, who, no matter how big and independent he gets, will always be my little boy and my bud!

Some of Ethan's regular play pals. Ethan looks so thrilled to be getting his picture taken.

Having a blast playing with his friends.

Ava had a blast with jumping, bouncing and sliding around as well. She's quite the daredevil for her age with a no fear tendency. I can already tell we'll need to keep our eyes on her.

New legos ... a treat for Ethan. He loves to build the original designs, with help from mom and dad of course, but then he loves to take them apart and create his own trucks, cars and space ships. Hopefully he got the creative gene that skipped me.

Aunt Stephanie came over for Ethan's party and while Ethan was happy to see her, you can see from the picture what he was most interested in. Where did this kid get his manner from?

Ava's always up for cupcakes!

Ethan's actual birthday fell on a preschool day so we were able to bring the treats to school. Ethan wanted to do something fun so we settle on these spooky Halloween bats thanks to creative folks from Our Best Bites. I'm a great copy cat, not an original. :)

No training wheels

Ethan had been asking me on several occasions to take the training wheels off his bike because none of the big kids on the street had training wheels. Well, there were a couple of reasons I tried to find excuses to keep the training wheels on.

1. Pure selfishness on my part. Ethan loves to ride his bike and usually wants to go riding anytime there is a break in the rain. With the training wheels this is fine because I can put Ava in the carrier or stroller and head out for a little exercise. Taking the training wheels off would require taking the time to teach him to ride which would not allow for the walks for a little while and I would need to find ways to entertain Ava while helping him. 2. Ethan has a distorted concept of age and while he believes he’s at the same age and ability level as the other kids, they are about 3-4 years older.

Since his requests fell on deaf ears with mom Ethan decided to take his idea to Dad who quickly obliged and took off his training wheels. I learned of this when I returned home from work one evening and to be honest I was a bit miffed. However, Jairo assured me that they spent the afternoon practicing and that Ethan had picked it up quite quickly. So, the next morning Ethan was eager to show me his new skill. As you can see from the pictures Ethan did great and had Jairo running after him in no time. Of course he had a few little spills, but took the falls in stride and kept going. It took him a bit more practicing to get starting and stopping on his own down, but he did great and now we're back to going on our runs and walks with him biking alongside without training wheels.

Biker Buddies

As I’ve mentioned before the sun does not shine its warm rays in our area of Washington often, so when it does Ethan has decided that the bright rays require shades. Of course, if Ethan requires sunglasses then so does Ava. The two were playing on our deck on an obviously casual afternoon (i.e. little miss no pants) where we were blessed with sunny warm fall weather.

Ethan showing us his tricycle tricks.