Ava's First Day of Kindergarten

I cannot believe that this day has come. Ava started kindergarten on July 21st 2014. I have dreaded this day since the day she was born. I don't know why it was so hard for me, but it was.
It is an all day kindergarten. They offer 1/2 kindergarten, but it is not recommended.

Anyway, the Friday before school started, we had a meet the teacher day. We headed over to the school and met her teacher, Mrs. Loop and the Assistant teacher, Mrs. King. They had them do a little art project and we got to check out the classroom. We also got to walk around the school to check things out.

I could tell Ava was excited for school, but I also knew she was a little bit nervous. I mean, she is my daughter. I was really anxious about it. I knew she would be fine, but it is just such a big adjustment from Pre-K.

The night before, she picked out her entire outfit.

She picked out all the accessories, socks, headband, etc... She was ready to rock 'n' roll!

School starts at 8:30, but the doors open at 8:20. Since  this is a charter school, there are no buses. Every parent has to bring their child. So we got there early as we knew parking would be a nightmare and it was. The first day, most parents bring their child to their class. We walked her in, got her set and off she went. Boo... cue the tears. I only teared up once while we were just hanging out as long as we could.





Sitting on her name on the mat!

She gets picked up at 2:50. Again, we headed out early because a lot of parents were doing the same. She was such a chatterbox when we went to get her. She had a blast. Phew, what a relief. We celebrated by going to McDonalds. She wanted to go because they have a play area and a toy. This is actually her 2nd time ever eating at McDonald's and Noah's first. Haha. We just don't eat out often. She loved it. She said, "I love this place. You can play, get a toy, get a go-gurt and everything." She made a friend in the play area, her name was also Ava.

By the time we got home and settle, she came into our room and said that her throat hurt. cue the sick days. She had been battling allergies the week before, but I thought we had caught them in time even though her sinuses still looked a bit swollen. She woke up the next morning with a sore throat and sorta wanted to stay home, but I just couldn't let that happen. So we sent her to school anyway. She ended up doing fine and went a third day. When she came home, she was looking a bit worse and her sinuses still looked swollen and she was running a slight fever. I told Mike to take her to Urgent Care just to get it checked out and low and behold, she had an ear infection. Suck! She had to stay home the next day because she was running a temp. She also had to get antibiotics. Getting Ava to take antibiotics is the most painful experience ever. She makes herself sick and she didn't disappoint. She puked up 2 doses and we gave up and put her to bed.  The next day, she was finally able to get down her 1 tsp after an hour and 45 mins, but was already feeling better.

She went to school the next day and finished off her first week of "real" school!

Our Vacation in LA

Fourth of July weekend we decided to take our yearly trip to LA to visit with Mike's family. They all live out there. Mike's sister and her husband, Troy and his daughter were going out that weekend too.

We decided that we would get up early and leave so that maybe the kids would sleep a little bit when they first got in the car. FAIL. We woke them up at 4am and I forgot to factor in that they are a little bit older now and there is an excitement factor that they are well aware of. There was no more sleeping for those little one:)

Here is our 4 am morning selfie!

Mama had to have her coffee! Although it made us stop about every hour:( Sorry mike!


Overall, it was one of the best trips we have taken with the kids. There were absolutely no meltdowns. Each kid slept about 45 mins total at some point during the trip. My mom gave us a big bag of new books to read, so that occupied them for a while. I also bought new coloring books and markers for them. Ava loved that and they each got a new movie. And by movie, I mean a Mickey Mouse DVD with mini Mickey Mouse shows on it. They are still too scared to watch movies, at least Ava is.

Grandma Nini had some toys for the kids to play with and they made a farm!



I don't have any pictures, but she also has 2 black cats, Panther and Fluffy and the kids just wanted to find them the entire trip. They don't take too kindly to strangers, so whenever one would surface, they were all over it. They would frequently check in her bedroom to see if they could find them.

The first night we went out to eat with Mike's sister, Nancy and her husband, David. We went to El Presidente and Ava sat next to Nancy and talked her ear off.  I don't think she got a word in edgewise.LOL!



Noah eating a donut... One of the things that I look forward to most is the Donuts there. I had at least one every day I was there and they were delish!


For the fourth, we went to Mike's dad's house and that side of the family all came over for some yummy BBQ! I think Noah ate watermelon, strawberries and chips, chips and more chips! LOL! The kids eat horribly when we travel. If it isn't the exact food they are used to they won't eat it. Like if it is orange cheese and not yellow cheese, they won't eat it. Plus they are just too busy to care to eat. I usually just let it go on vacation because kids will eat when they are hungry.



We left early enough to head over to my mother in laws house. Since we were in LA it doesn't get dark for a while. So i think around 8:30ish, we headed to the end of her street and watched fire works for a little bit.

The next day, we headed to the beach. Ava loved it, but was scared to go in the water or even have the water come up to her feet and Noah was straight scared of the sound of the waves. Luckily we were only there for a couple of hours before we bolted!





After the beach, we met up with Mike's dad and Ellen for lunch at Versaille, a cuban food restaurant. The kids were pretty tired at this point. We headed home after that and we all napped.

Sleeping on vacation is always fun too. Ava and I slept in a bed and Mike and Noah slept on a blow up mattress right next to us. Because it is lighter later there, the kids were up pretty late every night, but up around 5:30 each morning. So by Saturday, everyone was tired. Plus, Noah would wake up 2-3 times a night and just cry. I know he was confused, but it would take some time to calm him down.

Saturday afternoon, Mike's mom's family came over to visit. We all had a good time and enjoyed some sweets!

Sunday morning we were off! We left at 5 am so that we could beat the heat when we got into AZ. The way home, the kids were a bit more antsy, but that was expected. They were pretty tired from all the events over the past couple of days and just ready to relax, as was I.

Great trip! Looking forward to next year when we can maybe do a little bit more!

June 2015....a little late!

Ok, so June has come and gone and I am not sure if anyone still reads this, but I am going to get caught up today, if I can. Mike took the kids out on an "adventure", so I have the house to myself!!1


So the kids pulled out our 2 games of memory this month and wanted to play. We have tried playing in the past, but they just didn't understand the game. We pulled it out and I thought to myself, well this is going to be easy. I might just give them a couple so that they win. Um,.... yeah... they kicked my ass! Ava and Noah are awesome at it. It took me over a month of playing and actually trying to win. I think we play at least once a day if not a million times:)


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My mom came down for a couple of days each week this month. My sister brought over Sam so my mom could babysit him as they were in transition of a new babysitter. It was definitely eye opening to have a little one in the house again. We called him Sam destruct-o because he made a mess everywhere he went. My house is no longer baby proofed so we had to keep an eye on him. He loves to open and close doors too, so he would go into Noah's room and open and close his door. The kids really enjoyed playing with him. I love that at such a young age, they all have fun together.


One day my mom and the kids made oatmeal raisin/chocolate chip cookies...

I played with Sammy!

Meesha is Noah's favorite. I will find Noah sitting next to Meesha and he will pet her and just hang out together.  This is how he can have his dog fix..

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Me and Noah playing in the sand box!

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Grandma Nini came for a visit. She and the kids picked a bunch of stuff from the garden and we all just hung out for the weekend.  This was probably the last big lot of veggies we got from the garden because it started to heat up after that.




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The kids got pretty sick at the beginning of the month. After a day of over 103 fevers, we took them to a pediatic urgent care and they were diagnosed with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. It is pretty nasty stuff. They had blisters on their throats and were miserable. They didn't get any rashes until a week later. Apparently, it is very uncommon for adults to get it because we were exposed to it a million times as kids, but low and behold, Mike got it. I got lucky and did not. It was a rough 3-4 days with temps high and not a lot of sleep.



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We enjoyed a low key Father's Day. We BBQ'd and just hung out. We went for a walk in the morning because the weather was still nice out to do so.


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Ava started swim lesson in May and finished up in June. She really loved them. I am not sure she really learned how to swim after all was said and done, but she is able to do a little on her own. I really just wanted her to be comfortable in the water and she can roll on her back if she is ever in trouble. Unless we decided to keep her in lessons, we will probably go back again next year and hopefully she will advance much faster this next time.

That was our June. Nothing too exciting. It went really fast.